The next dominant genre in gaming.
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I think the 3rd person action/adventure is going to have a strong showing this year (don't know about being dominant). Especially now they are getting given a more sandbox-esque makeover. Off the top of my head I can think of Alone In The Dark, Alan Wake, Splinter Cell - Conviction, Prototype, etc.
I don't think MMORPG's are going to get any bigger than they have already been over the last 5 years.
WOW
Everyquest 1/II
Guild Wars
COH/COV
EVE Online
Thinking about those titles you can see that genre is no longer thriving.
To take a better guess at what genre could rise up over the next 2 years (giving a timeline because a genre's lifespan is normally 3-6 years at most), you have to look to the past. See what games gave the genres a boost and how it was done.
It can be argued that FPS's have always been strong in the market. And that is mostly because of it's strong foundations. But I think the most recent swell was within the HD Console revolution and to a degree, the increase in hi-tech PC's becomming more affordable.
I think it was, ironically, DOOM III that gave the FPS genre a good kick in terms of the swell of games it has now.
3rd-person shooters I'm not so sure what did it. Obviously Gears of War was massive. But so was GRAW. Before that... I can't remember...tribes? HA!
Anyway, what I'm saying is by reviewing what has happened in the past you might be better guess what's to come (duuuuh hahaha)
(not proof-read, at work)
WOW
Everyquest 1/II
Guild Wars
COH/COV
EVE Online
Thinking about those titles you can see that genre is no longer thriving.
To take a better guess at what genre could rise up over the next 2 years (giving a timeline because a genre's lifespan is normally 3-6 years at most), you have to look to the past. See what games gave the genres a boost and how it was done.
It can be argued that FPS's have always been strong in the market. And that is mostly because of it's strong foundations. But I think the most recent swell was within the HD Console revolution and to a degree, the increase in hi-tech PC's becomming more affordable.
I think it was, ironically, DOOM III that gave the FPS genre a good kick in terms of the swell of games it has now.
3rd-person shooters I'm not so sure what did it. Obviously Gears of War was massive. But so was GRAW. Before that... I can't remember...tribes? HA!
Anyway, what I'm saying is by reviewing what has happened in the past you might be better guess what's to come (duuuuh hahaha)
(not proof-read, at work)
MMO's.
People want to play togheter in a persistant ever-developing world.
Unfortunatly those who create MMO's kinda loose track about ever-developing and think "Hey, let's create a few instances they can run into" - eg. How Yathzee describes Sim City Societies to avoid the citizens to realize that they live in a bubble society.
People want to play togheter in a persistant ever-developing world.
Unfortunatly those who create MMO's kinda loose track about ever-developing and think "Hey, let's create a few instances they can run into" - eg. How Yathzee describes Sim City Societies to avoid the citizens to realize that they live in a bubble society.
No way. The recent surge in FPS is due to the fact that despite being a relatively old genre, it's still pretty 'new' to consoles. FPS didn't really take off on consoles until Halo and the subsequent Halo clones. Once Halo showed that FPS games could be played on consoles with just a regular controller, it took off.doubleDizz said:
Anyways, I think it's pretty easy to see that the next dominate genre for video games will be casual games.
Open world games are booming right now. MMOs are likely to be around for a while. If RTSs can be perfected on a console then I think they might have a strong future. The way people have less and less time it seems to me that casual games and things like Portal and Echochrome have a good chance of being the games of choice for those above the age of 25.
I played Guild Wars for ~5 months until I was old enough to work. It was ok I guess but idk nothing gets me like a console based rpg that is NOT a Fetch Quest(BOO JADE EMPIRE!)
i believe that MMO's will(unfortunatly) conquer the minds of most gamers, but most likley not for lomg. eventually people will stop buying them because they did it in 152 other games. and with the mindset of todays gamers(guns+online=fun), i wouldn't be surprised if we all become under the rule of MMOFPS's
I don't think we are going to necessarily see genre decay, but we may see stagnation.
MMOs, at least in their current form, appeal to a certain percentage of any market that is aware of them. While WoW is very succesful, and is in many ways an improvement from previous MMOs, there is nothing greatly revolutionary there to my mind- it still uses the same language and ideas that everquest did. However, WoW managed to basically make more people aware of the genre, thanks mostly to Blizzard's brilliance at refinining genres into gold, basically taking the best ideas for MMOs at the time and making them shine.
I do not imagine that people are going to stop playing WoW anytime soon, but unless someone comes up with a very new idea for MMO, I don't see there being a massive new market left for it. A casual MMO, I suppose, might work, but then I might argue that thats a brand new genre.
I don't see why FPS's would die out. Yes, out of 20 releases only 3 were good, but the point surely is that there were 20 releases! Clearly this a genre in which money is to be made, and theres no radical new option to take people who like FPS away from FPS.
The reason adventure games died is because there was a revolution in what games could do, and a lot of people were more interested in these other games. I'm not sure, but I'm guessing that if you look at the figures adventure games never sold more than the first fps', even at the height of their success, so this is why companies weren't interested in making them so much anymore- not as many people are ultimately interested in buying them! FPS's are hugely succesful still, and, as mentioned, have been popularised on the console thanks to Halo.
MMOs, at least in their current form, appeal to a certain percentage of any market that is aware of them. While WoW is very succesful, and is in many ways an improvement from previous MMOs, there is nothing greatly revolutionary there to my mind- it still uses the same language and ideas that everquest did. However, WoW managed to basically make more people aware of the genre, thanks mostly to Blizzard's brilliance at refinining genres into gold, basically taking the best ideas for MMOs at the time and making them shine.
I do not imagine that people are going to stop playing WoW anytime soon, but unless someone comes up with a very new idea for MMO, I don't see there being a massive new market left for it. A casual MMO, I suppose, might work, but then I might argue that thats a brand new genre.
I don't see why FPS's would die out. Yes, out of 20 releases only 3 were good, but the point surely is that there were 20 releases! Clearly this a genre in which money is to be made, and theres no radical new option to take people who like FPS away from FPS.
The reason adventure games died is because there was a revolution in what games could do, and a lot of people were more interested in these other games. I'm not sure, but I'm guessing that if you look at the figures adventure games never sold more than the first fps', even at the height of their success, so this is why companies weren't interested in making them so much anymore- not as many people are ultimately interested in buying them! FPS's are hugely succesful still, and, as mentioned, have been popularised on the console thanks to Halo.
I want to put my money on Open World RPGs like Morrowind and Oblivion. I think all games have the potential for greatness if they have the open world thing going for them. Like the new Battlefield game that's going to be out this summer for PS3.
Oblivion has had staggering success on the market, GTA is enjoying alot of hype and Battlefield Bad Company is also on my "Must-Buy" list. The only thing all these games have in common is that they are open world games... And I'm going to buy them...
Oblivion has had staggering success on the market, GTA is enjoying alot of hype and Battlefield Bad Company is also on my "Must-Buy" list. The only thing all these games have in common is that they are open world games... And I'm going to buy them...
I'd just like to put this out there (oh, and sorry if someone's already said this):
When Halo:Combat Evolved came out for the Xbox, it pretty much gave life to console FPSs. This, coupled with the rise in console ownership (compared to both gaming PC ownership, and past generations), led to more and more attempts at tapping into the Halo gold vein, resulting in the current oversaturisation of the FPS market.
Basically, whichever genre dominates the consoles (yes, MMOs contradict this, but I believe they're the only gaming genre that can't be done well in consoles), become the next dominant genre. Oh, and I'm not ruling out MMOs.
Just my 2 cents.
When Halo:Combat Evolved came out for the Xbox, it pretty much gave life to console FPSs. This, coupled with the rise in console ownership (compared to both gaming PC ownership, and past generations), led to more and more attempts at tapping into the Halo gold vein, resulting in the current oversaturisation of the FPS market.
Basically, whichever genre dominates the consoles (yes, MMOs contradict this, but I believe they're the only gaming genre that can't be done well in consoles), become the next dominant genre. Oh, and I'm not ruling out MMOs.
Just my 2 cents.