Scrying orb, don't fail me now!
Games are a medium of constant iteration upon perpetual reiteration, but that doesn't mean they're beyond the ol' preceptive glare. In that, were I a cocky man I'd even go so far as to say that the whims of the industry are really rather predictable when you break them down, compare and contrast with the past and draw a set of simple rules with which to extrapolate. So I say: let us do exactly that! Draw boxes and fill them in to tell us just exactly how our favourite little hobby is likely to expand in the coming years, let us get ready for the tribulations of the future industry and maybe snatch a healthy chunk of 'I told you so' to throw in the faces of everyone else. Hmm? I'm the only one petty enough to lord something like this over anyone else? Well, I'm also the only one who reads these blogs, so I can say with accuracy that 100% of the people reading these words are exactly vindictive enough to gloat!
When we look at the trends of the industry leaders that rule the majority of modern game design today, it's really no great revelation to point out that their history stands glaringly bright in past industry successes. And on an anecdotal level as well as an analytical one, we can track a lot of trends to their genesis rather nicely. Monetisation, and the way in which the industry flaunts it today, is something of a hotbutton issue, and I think if we can track this particular brand, the microtransaction flood and beyond, we'll have a winning formula for predicting what comes next. So with that supposition to guide us, where do you think the idea of microtransactions originated? Well, first we'd have to define what we mean by microtransactions. Rather distinct from DLC, microtransactions are defined by being small snippets of game items that don't typically offer whole new experiences themselves, but rather small advantages and cosmetics that are inexpensive in the grand scheme of things, and totally supplementary. No stand alone experiences are typically listed under this heading.
Go to Google and you'll be told that Oblivion and it's horse armour are the first microtransactions, but honestly this practice dates back to the Arcade days, as most video game trends do. The American version of 'Double Dragon 3: The Rosetta Stone' featured an ingame store which sold in game items you could buy for credits, pushing the envelope of monetisation all the way back in 1990. But what about microtransactions as we see them in online games today? Where cosmetics and simple reskins are are about $15 a pop and listed in the thousands? Anecdotally, this was a trend I started to see and hear grumblings about around the time of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. Back in 2011, that was a game absolutely rife with camo skins for every gun lining up in the dozens, and though anyone could see how far out of hand the sheer number of 'DLC' this game toted (due to the way this content was all listed on the 'available DLC' tab of most console stores. Before devs learnt to hide these lists through ingame only stores.) the popularity of COD and the novelty of the apparent endless customisation led to a huge financial success for Activision.
Season passes are another big trend, although one that is actually seeing mass phasing out in recent years. This one actually started in sports games, hence the name which actually makes sense in that context because of the already established IRL vernacular defining a year of play as a season. (Particularly in Football.) This of course just swept up the dollars as it spawned from the ultra successful FIFA brand and those games could sell the smoking remains of their recently slain fans and still make a buck off the deal. (I'm not saying FIFA fans are mindless automatrons who'll waste their money on anything but... wait, no that's exactly what I'm saying.) This success made the concept irresistible to others in the industry, and thus they lifted it into their games no matter if the concept translated effectively.
We can see the pattern which might seem like an obvious assumption, but the scientific method demands evidence and so here it is. Despite being an industry ostensibly defined by the fickle whims of artistic desire, a lot of the big game-forming decisions are informed by what has already worked for someone else and simply absconding with that idea, sometimes without the effort of even adapting the name. ('Season Passes' should never have kept their moniker, that was stupid.) Which is the same reason why new genres become popular. The easiest path to success is to witness what everyone else is doing and just copy that. Of course, some studios like Ubisoft take that concept little too literally, but by and large even the big studios who still have something resembling pride in their brand are still engaged in an industry wide game of musical chairs; only with game features.
As such, we can probably make pretty accurate guesses about what mechanics are going to bleed into becoming the next big trend by observing what the successes of today are doing and following the predictable trail of envy. Success as defined by distinction and critical recognition in a more muted sense, and commercial sales and monetary incentives in a much more real sense. It's hard to pretend that series' which are constantly racking up poor review scores, like low-effort sports titles, aren't still unfairly influential in the industry. Heck, they forced Season Passes and Lootboxes on the rest of us, when that latter deadly sin had been exclusive to the mobile realm of gaming for years beforehand. Sports games are the Pandora's box through which an inordinate amount of the industries woes originate. Which is why it always pays to watch what the Fifa's and 2k Sports' are doing with their games; their influence is wide.
That's why I can say with confidence that contrary to Ubisoft's head of innovation's assertations; NFTs are not the future. They aren't received well, and more importantly they haven't made a legitimate buck since Bored Ape Yatch Club. And now the US government is cracking down on their antics, they're just going to shrink into obscurity. So what is making money and headlines? Simple: Elden Ring. A usually niche title from a niche developer has ruled every gaming headline, every guide article, every gaming meme. No maidens? Well at least you've got FromSoftware's latest banger to keep you company! And traditional developers, those who've made games exactly like they were taught to by their predecessors under the perception that there is no better way, are shook. We've seen it from the public reactions that have be mocked, but the heart runs deeper than that. And you can bet, just as in the wake of GTA III, and Fortnite, and every industry changer, copycats are a'coming.
But what are they going to copy? Exploration based world design, intentionally sparse UI elements, the building blocks of what made the experience of Elden Ring different to theirs. Maybe some of the really ambitious developers out there will nick those cryptic dialogue directions too, though I expect the majority find that so deeply repulsive to their sensibilities that they wouldn't dare. We can expect this shift to further push us towards the sorts of open worlds that Breath of the Wild exposits, where exploration for secrets is placed naturally in the way of the player and not pushed upon us with icons, and the tutorial wheels will be taken off the industry in general. And in a much more speculative guess, based more on what isn't working rather than what is; I'm noticing that subscription based games are becoming more of a trend, so I foresee member+ subscription models becoming steadily more prevalent. Those are my predictions, let's reconvene in a year and see where it lands us.
No comments:
Post a Comment