[extropy-chat] Gaming: ? re 2010 - 2030 "GameChangers"

[Mike Dougherty]

Focusing on the consumer entertainment for a moment:

Why go to the overpriced movies with the unruly neighbors, and
uncomfortable seating when it is so easy to create a home theater
stocked with your favorite snacks?  I believe the near future will see
an increase in stay-at-home consumption of content as bandwidth
increases and 'deals' allow us direct access to larger libraries .
Eventually we will grow tired of the solitary and unchanging nature of
even our 'favorite' linear content.

Consider that today's game consoles have the rendering power to
animate a movie like Toy Story in real time (1)  So why aren't movie
producers designing constraints for characters/plots and allowing
their scenarios to 'unfold' in response to audience participation?
(OK yeah, I know why)  If theater seating had inputs which allowed
viewers/participants to choose a direction, and the potentials were
actualized on-screen according to the majority vote (or some other
algorithm) then there would be some unique experience to involvement
with Group A vs Group B.  I think this novelty will become especially
appealing after we have played out all the solitary consumption of
linear content that we can find.

Also, I can imagine hybrid Virtual/Actual Reality games becoming more
popular - like this:  http://www.pacmanhattan.com/about.php

It's probably not even worth discussing the explosive popularity of
massively multi-player/person domains like World of Warcraft, Second
Life or what Nintendo's easily approachable Wii might make available
to 'non-gamers' - but it might be an interesting discussion to imagine
the side effects or currently unseen consequences of even greater
penetration of these virtual worlds on our concept of
time-space/reality.

(1) I thought I read that this was true - if not, it soon will be.

On 2/6/07, nvitamore at austin.rr.com <nvitamore at austin.rr.com> wrote:
> Does anyone have an opinion of what would be the top three "GameChangers"*
> coming from 2010 to 2030 in the area of interactive media and entertainment
> from a consumer point of view?