The future of gaming

So what kind of things are you hoping for, or think is gonna happen in the near future of the gaming industry?

I hope they make better VR Headsets, with better (more immersive and better quality VR games), and at a cheaper price, for example $400 is a lot for a VR Headset when the system it's for costs the same or less (PS4 Pro retailing at $400 and the regular PS4 not too far behind in price).

And the games seem to be mostly of unknown quality (most of it being titles or studios you probably have never heard of); if they ever made a really good Sword Art Online VR game it would sell very well, so far the studio making the SAO games is making them mediocre at best with "repeat to win" gameplay (at the bosses anyways)

And I've heard they are going to be pushing for all games to be digital only, so there won't be any more buying/selling physical copies and with digital only you will be at the mercy of the Video Game System you stick with and the studios releasing the games; which I feel will result in much higher average prices because you wouldnt be able to buy used games instead.

Idk about you guys, but I like having physical copies of things I own, especially if theres any possibility I would sell it later (which I often do with video games if I get done and the game is still at a fair sell value)

I'm personally more worried about the implementation of manipulative monetization schemes, like what star wars: battlefront 2 tried to do. It's ridiculous that they make the opening of loot boxes look, feel, and sound similar to a real casino, yet they feel they should be exempt from gambling laws. Now, this is quite a controversial topic so I'll leave it at that.

I agree that VR should be cheaper to get into, as well as better VR games. However being that it is still quite new technology, it will probably be a while before the prices start to come down for the VR headsets. I wouldn't worry so much about games becoming digital only though, as they've been saying it would happen for years now. (IIRC, the xbox one was originally rumored to ship without a disc drive) My :twocents: says physical copies are going anywhere anytime soon, because as you said people like to resell their games or even borrow it to their friends. And unless Xbox or playstation comes up with a family sharing system like Steam has, I feel people won't take it well if either system decides to ditch the disc drive in favor of digital downloads.

Ruling that loot boxes are actual gambling has some tricky legal implications, mostly related to the "real value" aspects of the laws. For instance, if I get a rare item from a loot box but now the company decides to shutter the servers, are they obligated to pay me fair market value before depriving me of my property? Can I force them to keep the servers running even if they're losing money on them? How do I realize my legal right to sell this item?

Digital only distribution is only going to increase going forward. Among other things it's one of the more effective methods of countering piracy around, not to mention it also helps reduce overhead all around (no physical stock to manage, move, create, etc).

The problem with game prices is the cost to make the game has gone up but the price gamers are willing to pay to purchase those games hasn't. I agree that manipulative micro-transaction schemes are bad for the community overall. Devs and publishers still need to be able to make an actual profit off the games, otherwise they can't make the next one.

Implementation of VR is going to be tricky, I suspect the prices are going to stay relatively high for some time as the hardware continues to edge towards a practical level of immersion. Also, the control schemes and UI for VR are going to continue to need work. As it is those interfaces remain pretty clunky. The ultimate goal is something like OASIS or NerveGear, but the processing requirements remain prohibitive. I'd guess some time in the next 10 years, some one will have a Eureka moment and find a practicable interface at which point everything will really start taking off.

Well, with how many games are out there, we can't all pay full retail ($60+ tax on most games, $40 plus tax on some games (seems to be pretty much only remasters or 3ds games)) all the time.

I'm lucky if I can afford full retail on 2 games a year, especially at $60 + tax.

If more games could be made to sell at a lower price point, they could sell more at a time and sell extra content for the $20 difference later if people liked the game enough and the content would be worth the price.

Speaking of piracy, apparently people rent games from redbox, scan and print the cover of the game, and put that back in the redbox case and return it, so essentially they steal a $60 game for a $3 rental fee.

I hate people that think underhanded stealing is somehow not stealing, its stealing regardless of who it's from or if they found a loophole to exploit in an eBay policy.

BabyTyrant said:

Well, with how many games are out there, we can't all pay full retail ($60+ tax on most games, $40 plus tax on some games (seems to be pretty much only remasters or 3ds games)) all the time.

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Which in no way addresses the fact that, to make a profit from most game releases, the game would have to retail around $80.

BabyTyrant said:

If more games could be made to sell at a lower price point, they could sell more at a time and sell extra content for the $20 difference later if people liked the game enough and the content would be worth the price.

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You really need to study up on Game Design and how the industry works. That $20 worth of extras you're talking about? Currently, that's all the DLC that's being released, so really your plan would change nothing. Further, so much of the dev budget has to be spent on things that really don't change regardless of the scale of the game. It costs just about much to make, say, a fighting game with 3 stages and 5 fighters as it does to make one with 20 stages and 30 fighters.

BabyTyrant said:

Speaking of piracy, apparently people rent games from redbox, scan and print the cover of the game, and put that back in the redbox case and return it, so essentially they steal a $60 game for a $3 rental fee.

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And if Redbox can ID them, not hard what with the need to use an account, the terms of service allows Redbox to charge them, without notice, for more than the price of the game.

Sure if you don't sell many copies, you might need to charge $80 each copy to make any profit.

A popular game series selling millions of copies per title is making a lot of profit at $60 plus tax.

Not every game relies on DLC, I know a lot do, but if you could charge a lower price for a shorter game (since not all games are like Fighting games where content doesn't really equal work out in) you could sell what would have been inclusive content as DLC .

Take a look at MHW, it has a lot of inclusive DLC for no extra charge and they have sold somewhere over 7.5 million copies, imagine how much of that is profit.

Hopefully these people that think they are "smarter" thieves get tracked and arrested for theft or at least hit for way above the game cost to teach them a lesson.

And I think those people probably have at least 2 bank accounts, 1 for main purposes; and the other to run scams and abandon before it gets back to them so they don't get charged for the game they stole from redbox after the initial $3 fee.

Or worse yet, a preloaded debit card they can just throw away after using it.

I just want games to go back to the way they used to be. You buy a game, that was it, it was complete, and it worked. And DLC felt like PC-style expansion packs and cheat codes didn't consist of your credit card number. I also want it to go back to the days when B, A, and AA games were the bread and butter of the industry as recently as the PS2 days, and AAA games were a rare, yet high quality treat. I would like to see built in accurate translation for virtual console/emulators so I can play and understand all the awesome Japanese games that never officially reached Western audiences over the years.

Speaking of Japanese games, they are a very good reason to get systems from Sony or Nintendo, both get the vast majority of Japanese games a short while later with different languages for different regions.

That's not to say that they get all Japanese games, but they get the vast majority, especially if it's a major title from a major game maker.

Most of the games that have a built-in Western market, sure, those get localized and exported. Most Japanese game releases, though? No export for you.
Localizing a game, especially current games, is a difficult task at best. It's not just translating, it's checking that symbolic indicators still make sense in the new culture, figuring out how to change idiomatic or culturally loaded expressions and contexts retain the intended meanings, and more.

"All your base are belong to us". Sorry, couldn't help it.

Well, I would assume if a game released in the Japanese Market was any good and it was something an Executive of a Japanese Game Making Company were aware of, and thought they could make a profit on releasing internationally; then they would surely make their company do the work to release it for those markets.

That being said, maybe they are just unsure on if that endeavor would actually generate profits and don't want to risk it.

There could be many reasons why those games succeed in Japan, and maybe would not in other countries.

While variety is a great thing I can also understand why they might be apprehensive to releasing those game in other countries.

Which is why accurate built in translation tech in emulators can't come soon enough. waiting years for completed fan translations will be a thing of the past.