The future of gaming, according to Andrew Wilson, EA Games CEO

[jeffnz 23]

Here's the part that was featured on slashdot:

 

The biggest shift I think we'll see is games moving from being a discrete experience to an indiscrete experience. When I was 15 years old, if I wanted to listen to music, I had a couple of choices. I could sit up all night and hope they'd play what I liked on the radio, or I could go down to the record store. [...] Today, by virtue of the fact that almost every device I own plays me music, and services like Spotify curate and cultivate and personalize that music for me, music permeates almost every aspect of my life. It's moved from being something I have to make a conscious decision to engage with, to something that really surrounds every aspect of my life from the minute I get up in the morning to the minute I go to bed at night. When we think about games today -- already we've got more people playing more games on more platforms in more geographies around the world than ever before. It's not just a console business, or a PC business, or even a mobile business. We've now got virtual reality and augmented reality and streaming, too. Now fast-forward that to the future, and you think about what the world looks like with a 5G network streaming latency-free gaming to every device you own. It's really easy to imagine that games would permeate our lives much the way digital music does today. From the minute I get up in the morning, everything I do has an impact on my gaming life, both discrete and indiscrete. The amount of eggs I have in my internet-enabled fridge might mean my Sims are better off in my game. That length of distance I drive in my Tesla on the way to work might mean that I get more juice in Need for Speed. If I go to soccer practice in the afternoon, by virtue of internet-enabled soccer boots, that might give me juice or new cards in my FIFA product. This world where games and life start to blend I think really comes into play in the not-too-distant future, and almost certainly by 2021.

 

Full article below on the verge

 

http://www.theverge.com/a/verge-2021/ea-ceo-andrew-wilson-interview-virtual-video-games

 

My response to this is that I'm thoroughly disgusted. Gaming has become so bland and boring, to appreciate it, you must be playing games every day for several hours otherwise you'll feel like an outsider. When I owned a PS4 I enjoyed playing Wolfenstein at 2am in the morning after a shift at work but I never enjoyed the "social" aspect of gaming. At the time I had a Vodafone cable broadband connection and the latency was terrible, owing to New Zealand's stupid location on the map. I played Driveclub online one or two times and there was an idiot who kept on saying "I no speak English" while in the lobby, no-one else was talking. I kept crashing partly because of lag and partly because of the Wombat Typhoon physics. The other game I played in Driveclub was really cool, it only lagged a little bit, and I managed to beat another player who sucked just as much as me. I plugged in my USB keyboard and sent a message to the player to tell him/her that they should have beaten me, because I only over-took them at the end after a frantic race of me and the other noob trying to beat each other, while other players were miles ahead.

 

Minecraft was a pretty boring experience for multiplayer. Unless you're unemployed and your parents pay for your PSN subscription, there's really no point in playing Minecraft on PSN. I wasn't aware of how the map co-ordinates worked in Minecraft. I falsely believed that 'z' was your character's elevation ... Whoops! Some players were nice enough to tell me, but their game world was so large, even with the correct navigation knowledge I never found the time to find where these 2 guys had actually built their city or mansion.

 

In conclusion, the social aspect of gaming is crap. PS4 has so many features that require you to be permanently connected and I don't care about any of them. I understood from my newsfeed that FIFA and Rocket League were a big deal to some people on my friends list, but that knowledge isn't worth having a news feed for. If I had real life friends on PSN it would have been different but all my real life friends work for busy companies. You can make the argument that I could get more friends but that is BS. The only thing happening in Christchurch is millennials going to university and going to bars in the evenings. I want to believe that a social aspect of gaming can be a good thing, but I can't. Nearly everyone I meet is a waste of time. Once I heard a drummer playing in my neighbourhood so I put on a decent coat, grabbed my guitar bag and walked over. I had a chat with the guy and we swapped numbers and email addresses but every time I sent him a text he would either never respond or say he was busy. It's just boring when people are too busy to do anything. I have the same frustration when I enquired about letting a room the other day: I'd call the owner of the house and leave a message. Then I'd end the call and see that I'd received a new message "sorry busy call back later". After a couple more attempts I have given up on this guy, even though he is friends with a good friend of mine. How can someone be "busy" but still be next to their phone, and able to spare 30 seconds to send a text message? If you were truly busy as this guy was, working in sales, then there's no way you'd waste time sending a message - you'd have your mind on something else.

 

The solution

 

Gaming shouldn't be "social" in the sense that it currently is. Video games should be something you offer at a birthday party, otherwise gaming should **** off and instead be about getting away from people. I like the latter option and I'm increasingly interested in making my own games for the purpose of helping folks kill time - those moments when you get a call from a friend saying that they have changed plans and you can't come around, but maybe there's something else on in the afternoon. When my plans are cancelled I want a game that's easy enough to save and quit, something that won't consume the rest of my day. Mobile games don't suit in my opinion, because swiping and tapping on a screen just feels weird. If I had money then I'd probably buy a dedicated gaming thing from Nintendo or Sony, one that has proper buttons and arrows and stuff. When I worked on the local elections there was a guy who played on a Sony gadget. He managed to pass every break just because of this gadget, he never got bored!

 

Tropico 6

 

If the Tropico team make a Tropico 6 with cross-platform support and improved multiplayer then I'm definitely going to buy it. It's a bigger game than 8 Bit Armies and it fulfils my interest in strategy games.

 

Political correctness in video games

 

I'm all for having TRUTH in video games, but I'm not in favour of changing the order of things to appease an "oppressed class". People ask: "why can't we have a playable female character in Grand Theft Auto". We can't, because the next step will be that the female character is too violent, or she dates the wrong men. Franklin was a boring character who could have been replaced with a white character. I'll give one example of a black character in a game who made sense, from Wolfenstein:

 

 

There are two aspects of political correctness in games that I disagree with. First, the risk of it being contrived and stupid. Second, the corporate policy of "diversity" - the absurd idea that corporations can somehow be moral or truthful. Before someone pre-empts me and asks me to explain why I think we should have proper Chinese/Russian accents in games, it's simple: China and Russia are powerful nations that are just as advanced as the Western countries in many ways. They have culture, technology, engineering, and they both have kick-ass armies. China and Russia are major geo-political players that can successfully subvert Western goals, we should respect them as equals. That is in contrast to respecting feminists and black lives matter activists. If Rockstar refuses to transform GTA into a sit-com for women, then what are feminists going to do ... get their candidate elected? LOL NOPE ... maybe they'll pass legislation? LOL NOPE. The only way we can add a balance to games is through honesty and integrity. Note that Andrew Wilson says they have had a few major projects which were managed by one woman each. Those women can use their own personal ideas in the creation of the game, but that's different from the Marxist idea that women (plural) are a collective, and that ALL WOMEN should share the most extreme Marxist ideas. Even if a woman manages a project, that doesn't mean that she has (or should have) a political agenda.

 

In my opinion the only balancing in games should be to do with historic facts surrounding certain nations or organisations. Nothing should be too one-sided that it denigrates a person, country or organisation, without also paying respect in some way. In Wolfenstein: The Old Blood, there are always evil bad-guy characters but that isn't universal, they also humanise the German soldiers and portray their personal lives through the placement of letters that the soldiers are writing to their families. In GTA they generally mock third wave feminists but they did have that Tanisha character (if I remember) who is seen twice in person, and heard once via phone. That is pretty generous considering that nearly 100% of GTA players are male. Compare that with EA's attempt to "diversify" CnC3 with a female character who sulks and has feelings LOL, great intro for Kilean, but everything else about her was a disaster. Gotta love Ajay with his riff-raff style of crass language and unacceptable long hair, ha-ha! I didn't know that the brotherhood had such loose regulations and expectations for its highest ranking people

[PurpleGaga27 39]

To this day, EA is still on the wrong track and will never recover to what they were before since the years of the golden age of gaming back then. After all, we all know EA destroyed C&C, but not completely since Tiberium Alliances is still in life support.

Edited November 17, 2016 by PurpleGaga27

[Nmenth 290]

Here's the tl;dr version:

 

He starts off with a quote predicting the increased interactivity between gaming and everyday life that appears to have absolutely nothing to do with the rest of his post.

 

Then he rants over the social aspect of gaming, but then basically makes an argument to end all social gaming; just because he doesn't like it, nobody should have it.

 

Finally, he ends off on a convoluted rant where he somehow tries to connect companies not willing to expend the time and resources (although under the impression it's a hidden agenda) to hire the highest quality voice actors with political correctness - which devolves into some odd spiel concerning Marxism, third-wave feminism, and Black Lives Matter.

[jeffnz 23]

I know this is a gaming forum but can we keep it constructive?

 

"Social" gaming is BS and I'm not saying end it for everyone: I want alternatives. If someone could tell me about these Nintendo/Sony mobile gaming platforms that would be helpful. I remember PSP in high school and now it's PS Vita. Is PS Vita worth it? They have PS4 integration features, which would be pointless for me now. If it's worth having PS Vita without an internet connection then I'm going to look into it.

[Plok 321]

 

"Social" gaming is BS and I'm not saying end it for everyone: I want alternatives.

You have alternatives. In local multiplayer.

[TaxOwlbear 20]

More platforms? Did he miss the 80s and 90s where we had I don't know how many competing computers and operating systems and like five different consoles per company?

 

Gaming has become so bland and boring, to appreciate it, you must be playing games every day for several hours otherwise you'll feel like an outsider.

 

If that's the case, I'd argue that it's an issue with your social environment, not with the games themselves.

[Doctor Destiny 41]

Here's the part that was featured on slashdot:

 

 

Full article below on the verge

 

http://www.theverge.com/a/verge-2021/ea-ceo-andrew-wilson-interview-virtual-video-games

 

My response to this is that I'm thoroughly disgusted. Gaming has become so bland and boring, to appreciate it, you must be playing games every day for several hours otherwise you'll feel like an outsider. When I owned a PS4 I enjoyed playing Wolfenstein at 2am in the morning after a shift at work but I never enjoyed the "social" aspect of gaming. At the time I had a Vodafone cable broadband connection and the latency was terrible, owing to New Zealand's stupid location on the map. I played Driveclub online one or two times and there was an idiot who kept on saying "I no speak English" while in the lobby, no-one else was talking. I kept crashing partly because of lag and partly because of the Wombat Typhoon physics. The other game I played in Driveclub was really cool, it only lagged a little bit, and I managed to beat another player who sucked just as much as me. I plugged in my USB keyboard and sent a message to the player to tell him/her that they should have beaten me, because I only over-took them at the end after a frantic race of me and the other noob trying to beat each other, while other players were miles ahead.

 

Minecraft was a pretty boring experience for multiplayer. Unless you're unemployed and your parents pay for your PSN subscription, there's really no point in playing Minecraft on PSN. I wasn't aware of how the map co-ordinates worked in Minecraft. I falsely believed that 'z' was your character's elevation ... Whoops! Some players were nice enough to tell me, but their game world was so large, even with the correct navigation knowledge I never found the time to find where these 2 guys had actually built their city or mansion.

 

In conclusion, the social aspect of gaming is crap. PS4 has so many features that require you to be permanently connected and I don't care about any of them. I understood from my newsfeed that FIFA and Rocket League were a big deal to some people on my friends list, but that knowledge isn't worth having a news feed for. If I had real life friends on PSN it would have been different but all my real life friends work for busy companies. You can make the argument that I could get more friends but that is BS. The only thing happening in Christchurch is millennials going to university and going to bars in the evenings. I want to believe that a social aspect of gaming can be a good thing, but I can't. Nearly everyone I meet is a waste of time. Once I heard a drummer playing in my neighbourhood so I put on a decent coat, grabbed my guitar bag and walked over. I had a chat with the guy and we swapped numbers and email addresses but every time I sent him a text he would either never respond or say he was busy. It's just boring when people are too busy to do anything. I have the same frustration when I enquired about letting a room the other day: I'd call the owner of the house and leave a message. Then I'd end the call and see that I'd received a new message "sorry busy call back later". After a couple more attempts I have given up on this guy, even though he is friends with a good friend of mine. How can someone be "busy" but still be next to their phone, and able to spare 30 seconds to send a text message? If you were truly busy as this guy was, working in sales, then there's no way you'd waste time sending a message - you'd have your mind on something else.

 

The solution

 

Gaming shouldn't be "social" in the sense that it currently is. Video games should be something you offer at a birthday party, otherwise gaming should **** off and instead be about getting away from people. I like the latter option and I'm increasingly interested in making my own games for the purpose of helping folks kill time - those moments when you get a call from a friend saying that they have changed plans and you can't come around, but maybe there's something else on in the afternoon. When my plans are cancelled I want a game that's easy enough to save and quit, something that won't consume the rest of my day. Mobile games don't suit in my opinion, because swiping and tapping on a screen just feels weird. If I had money then I'd probably buy a dedicated gaming thing from Nintendo or Sony, one that has proper buttons and arrows and stuff. When I worked on the local elections there was a guy who played on a Sony gadget. He managed to pass every break just because of this gadget, he never got bored!

 

Tropico 6

 

If the Tropico team make a Tropico 6 with cross-platform support and improved multiplayer then I'm definitely going to buy it. It's a bigger game than 8 Bit Armies and it fulfils my interest in strategy games.

 

Political correctness in video games

 

I'm all for having TRUTH in video games, but I'm not in favour of changing the order of things to appease an "oppressed class". People ask: "why can't we have a playable female character in Grand Theft Auto". We can't, because the next step will be that the female character is too violent, or she dates the wrong men. Franklin was a boring character who could have been replaced with a white character. I'll give one example of a black character in a game who made sense, from Wolfenstein:

 

 

There are two aspects of political correctness in games that I disagree with. First, the risk of it being contrived and stupid. Second, the corporate policy of "diversity" - the absurd idea that corporations can somehow be moral or truthful. Before someone pre-empts me and asks me to explain why I think we should have proper Chinese/Russian accents in games, it's simple: China and Russia are powerful nations that are just as advanced as the Western countries in many ways. They have culture, technology, engineering, and they both have kick-ass armies. China and Russia are major geo-political players that can successfully subvert Western goals, we should respect them as equals. That is in contrast to respecting feminists and black lives matter activists. If Rockstar refuses to transform GTA into a sit-com for women, then what are feminists going to do ... get their candidate elected? LOL NOPE ... maybe they'll pass legislation? LOL NOPE. The only way we can add a balance to games is through honesty and integrity. Note that Andrew Wilson says they have had a few major projects which were managed by one woman each. Those women can use their own personal ideas in the creation of the game, but that's different from the Marxist idea that women (plural) are a collective, and that ALL WOMEN should share the most extreme Marxist ideas. Even if a woman manages a project, that doesn't mean that she has (or should have) a political agenda.

 

In my opinion the only balancing in games should be to do with historic facts surrounding certain nations or organisations. Nothing should be too one-sided that it denigrates a person, country or organisation, without also paying respect in some way. In Wolfenstein: The Old Blood, there are always evil bad-guy characters but that isn't universal, they also humanise the German soldiers and portray their personal lives through the placement of letters that the soldiers are writing to their families. In GTA they generally mock third wave feminists but they did have that Tanisha character (if I remember) who is seen twice in person, and heard once via phone. That is pretty generous considering that nearly 100% of GTA players are male. Compare that with EA's attempt to "diversify" CnC3 with a female character who sulks and has feelings LOL, great intro for Kilean, but everything else about her was a disaster. Gotta love Ajay with his riff-raff style of crass language and unacceptable long hair, ha-ha! I didn't know that the brotherhood had such loose regulations and expectations for its highest ranking people

Are you an idiot or do you just feel the need to complain about everything? Gaming is still as engaging as ever and nothing has really changed as far as that goes. Yes, it's become more social but that's how the landscape has evolved outside of the gaming world and trying to "stick with the past" is a quick way to die a painful death. There's really not an issue with the social aspect. If you don't like it, you can... get this... ignore it. I turn off tons of notifications because they get in the way. I don't make a fuss over nothing. If things this minor really bother you that much, you're in for an even worse time. It also sounds like you're bitching about multiplayer because you're a complete scrub. As they say in Call of Duty, "git gud, skrub."

 

Man, your solution isn't even a solution. It's complete horse****. There's no solution needed. You can be connected all the time or not be. Don't want to connect all the time? Then don't. Stay back in the Stone Age if you want, but whining about it really won't make a difference. It makes you look like an incorrigible dip****. Given the other schlock you've spewed, this isn't too far off. Regardless, video gaming is about a social experience and it always has been. I've been gaming for nearly 30 years and it was always a great bonding experience between my friends and I or my brother and I. I've also played my share of solo games and that has never changed. Plenty of single player games get released every year. If you don't want to look for them or don't want to play them, that's not a problem with the current era. That's all your problem. Nobody has to cater to your archaic demands.

 

I can't tell if you're for or against diverse characters in games. You're unbelievably convoluted and can't maintain a coherent train of thought. What are you even talking about? Do you even know? How can someone write that much but say so little? Good lord. **** off and play a video game or something.

 

To this day, EA is still on the wrong track and will never recover to what they were before since the years of the golden age of gaming back then. After all, we all know EA destroyed C&C, but not completely since Tiberium Alliances is still in life support.

You're implying gaming is worse now than it was in the past. It's not. Take off your nostalgia goggles. Just as it is now, the past ages of gaming are marred with truckloads of exceedingly awful games. Not every game was a gem in your vaunted "golden age."

 

I know this is a gaming forum but can we keep it constructive?

 

"Social" gaming is BS and I'm not saying end it for everyone: I want alternatives. If someone could tell me about these Nintendo/Sony mobile gaming platforms that would be helpful. I remember PSP in high school and now it's PS Vita. Is PS Vita worth it? They have PS4 integration features, which would be pointless for me now. If it's worth having PS Vita without an internet connection then I'm going to look into it.

Alternatives already exist. You're too lazy to look for them. I have a DS and 3DS. While Internet connected, I very rarely put them on WiFi and simply play games with them. The Vita doesn't need Internet connectivity either, but it's a piece of ****. Get a 3DS instead. Either way, your "non-social" gaming exists and it's in great supply...

 

You have alternatives. In local multiplayer.

Local multiplayer is gone. Most games don't support it anymore. Not really an alternative when it's gone.

 

More platforms? Did he miss the 80s and 90s where we had I don't know how many competing computers and operating systems and like five different consoles per company?

 

 

If that's the case, I'd argue that it's an issue with your social environment, not with the games themselves.

Man, I remember the 16-bit era. So many game consoles. It made your head spin. I tried out some TG16 games. Man, that was an underrated classic. I need to get one of those.

[jeffnz 23]

In the future I'm going to move to PC gaming. Most of the titles on PS4 are multiplayer focussed. Except for Wolfenstein, Driveclub and Witcher 3. Drive Club is meant to be social but it can be played in single player. I killed many hours with Drive Club. Drive Club's online integration has little challenges to corner accurately, or pass a certain length of track faster than another player - the challenge pops up and resets its score every so-many hours. You have to beat another player's record. The sad thing was, these challenge start-points would just say "loading" and I would've gone past them before they could load, and supposedly cable broadband is really fast lol nope.

 

I'm going to buy a Nintendo 2DS/3DS at some point, maybe in a few years. I wonder if I could make games for it one day *dreams*. I didn't know about it because no-one that I know has one.

[Traymen 6]

In the future I'm going to move to PC gaming. Most of the titles on PS4 are multiplayer focussed. Except for Wolfenstein, Driveclub and Witcher 3. Drive Club is meant to be social but it can be played in single player. I killed many hours with Drive Club. Drive Club's online integration has little challenges to corner accurately, or pass a certain length of track faster than another player - the challenge pops up and resets its score every so-many hours. You have to beat another player's record. The sad thing was, these challenge start-points would just say "loading" and I would've gone past them before they could load, and supposedly cable broadband is really fast lol nope.

 

I'm going to buy a Nintendo 2DS/3DS at some point, maybe in a few years. I wonder if I could make games for it one day *dreams*. I didn't know about it because no-one that I know has one.

 

 

 

 

Like anyone would like to listen my rant about Nintendo NES Classic, which i wanted to buy few days ago, but i don't see any bigger reason to spend 50 Euro for few games from before 90's.

Edited November 23, 2016 by Traymen

[Doctor Destiny 41]

In the future I'm going to move to PC gaming. Most of the titles on PS4 are multiplayer focussed. Except for Wolfenstein, Driveclub and Witcher 3. Drive Club is meant to be social but it can be played in single player. I killed many hours with Drive Club. Drive Club's online integration has little challenges to corner accurately, or pass a certain length of track faster than another player - the challenge pops up and resets its score every so-many hours. You have to beat another player's record. The sad thing was, these challenge start-points would just say "loading" and I would've gone past them before they could load, and supposedly cable broadband is really fast lol nope.

 

I'm going to buy a Nintendo 2DS/3DS at some point, maybe in a few years. I wonder if I could make games for it one day *dreams*. I didn't know about it because no-one that I know has one.

PC gaming is still very multiplayer centric. You're not going to get away from multiplayer. The biggest games on PC... yeah, they're not SP games. They're games like CSGO, TF2, Battlefield.... very much MP focused.