Where will games be in 25 years?

Tom Phillips of Eurogamer's interview with 27 prominent video game designers or industry figures in the world

Where will the world of video games be in another 25 years? This is a subject that seems intrinsically linked to where the world will be in 25 years. The spread of artificial intelligence, the growth of cloud systems, and the continued improvement in AR and VR technology all seem vast in their own dimensions, but the real positive growth concerns the future of our favorite medium (games), which continues to grow and mature.

 

Jake Solomon, XCOM designer

I'll be 70? Oh Jesus Christ. I think there will still be single-player games then (like role-playing games). There will also be social experiences, but any type of predatory or opportunistic monetization never works in the long term. In the future you will still see the games we also love to play now; story-based single-player games. I guess games 25 years from now will not be that different.

There will probably be new types of games in the future. The population of gamers is expanding internationally to serve markets they do not support. The cost of games is expensive for many international markets, and this issue must change. Because of the cost of premium games, free-to-play games are very popular in non-Western markets. Of course, when the cost of games is achievable and reasonable, free-to-play games do not win against premium games. Overall I feel good about the progress of the game industry.

 

Goichi Suda, design legend, head of Grasshopper

At that time, we will be at PlayStation 30 or more, which instead of having an actual console will be somehow like a digital parasite that you insert into your body. These consoles will be organic, the size of a baseball with some kind of tentacles coming out, and you use them to place the console in your neck.

PlayStation and Xbox will be like parts of Cronenberg's film Existenz; but Nintendo will still be making awesome consoles and controllers and setting the standards for video games.

Hannah Nicklin, narrative designer, former studio lead of Die Gute Fabrik

After the collapse of Thwaite Glacier in 2032 and the wet-bulb heat emergencies in northern China, South Asia, and the Persian Gulf, a large part of the world will be in a state of crisis. A several-meter rise in sea levels overnight will destroy many. Given the international quality of the industry and the economy, game-making will not particularly be on people's list of priorities.

In 25 years communities have fallen apart, millions of refugees have sought places to flee and retreat, infrastructure building and decarbonization have become a priority. The wealthy have fled to their yachts, private jets, and islands, but after a number of fatal incidents, an active activist plot to eliminate all billionaires has been revealed. Smart people have donated huge sums for reconstruction and have been returned to their country, because large parts of countries' economies have been nationalized. I have been lucky enough to live in a country that took a decade for us to catch our breath.

Although in the 40s we did not spend much time developing games, I never stopped designing them; but they were more like the games you played as a child, not digital games. Games like counting crows, or not stepping on pavement cracks, and betting to save your loved ones from disease, or the miracle game of a missing person's photo on a board.

 

Gareth Damian Martin, writer and designer of Citizen Sleeper

It's really hard to know where AAA [triple-A or top-tier games] is going to go. We have to know that some people are proposing something more than mere games. This is the Netflix model; everyone wanted to become Netflix for a while, but then Netflix no longer works. Everything has to change. This scares me, but I think we will not be far from where we are now.

You look at what others are making. For example, with games like Indika, extraordinary things are happening. 11 Bit's game and other games like The Thaumaturge are doing extraordinary things to sell. They actually succeed in creating a small audience group around themselves. This game is really interesting, because it seems to be an AAA game. Because of the current Unreal Engine feature and MetaHuman capability, you can have a 20-person team along with real people in your game. It is an interesting space and, in a fun way, it destroys the AAA playing field and overcomes them.

Jenova Chen, designer and co-founder of the company Thatgame

In 25 years video games will advance by more than 80 years, just as cinema had such progress in the mid-twentieth century. Before cinema reached that turning point, it had been accepted as an artistic medium and had become the dominant form of entertainment. I believe video games are on a similar path.

By then games will be recognized not only as games but as a powerful form of storytelling that shapes and reflects culture at a global level. How interactive content is experienced may evolve dramatically, but the emotional depth and the ability to convey meaningful messages will have only ordinary growth. Just as cinema became a mirror of society, video games will continue to expand their role as a rich, immersive medium that profoundly affects our lives.

 

John Epler, veteran of BioWare and creative director of Dragon Age

There is always the temptation to say this will be a technological change, but at a certain point we reach a place where we cannot make graphics better than before. Ultimately, this progress in the coming years will be about finding a balance between players' freedom and the writer's content, which for me is the most interesting challenge.

I hope that 25 years later, technology resources will make it easier to create content in a way that allows for classification, but you will still have that feeling of the hand's touch when reaching methodical content.

 

Meghna Jayanth, writer and narrative designer

In the shadow of ruthless, continuous, and endless layoffs, platformization, and increasing injustice that plague game design, it is hard to be hopeful and imagine where video games will arrive in 25 years. It is hard to be hopeful about the state of the world, but we must be hopeful, and in order to be able to build the continuation of this path, we must imagine the future in a form other than this.

My hope for the future of video games is that we operate sustainably, democratically, with a free imagination, and with genuine valuing of our players as human beings and not consumers. I hope that the gun has lost its priority in the model by which mainstream games conceptualize interaction. I hope we move away from ballooning budgets and timelines and that there is a wider space for more people to make weird, small, experimental, and challenging work. More than anything I hope that we are all making and playing in a better world, not creating distraction and separation from a world that is collapsing around us.

 

Asa Bredin, head of the studio Mojang

This summer, I spent some time with my son playing Arcade Retro games. As someone who had worked 15 years in the game industry, this was a complete moment for me, meaning connecting with the games I grew up with. The characters, worlds, and art form beyond generations made me think about how video games can create these deep connections and create joy for players of every age and in every corner of the world.

I hope that in 25 years, games help even more than before to build a better world. Video games today can be a force for good and be regarded as a way for people to express creativity and a way to create community. As technology advances, building games and sharing art becomes easier for people, and since more people are making games, I am excited to see the unique stories that are made.

Jon Ingold, co-founder of Inkle

In 25 years, Disney's lawyers will have found a way to copyright the concept of storytelling, so making any kind of narrative content will become illegal. Games will become completely abstract and non-digital to avoid legal and judicial problems; multidimensional chess sets, playing cards with 9 or 10 different designs, darts along with customized dartboards with pictures of your favorite characters' buttocks, will have a major comeback in the game industry.

Streaming will still exist, but it will require developers to pay a monthly subscription and be able to host their game for free on the relevant platform. Disney's cultural wing will give children grants to draw new characters and then depict them and own them. Poetry will be the language of this revolution, but understanding it will become very hard, and only the poor will pay taxes.

The Olympic Games will be held in virtual reality, and the winner of most events will be a shy man from China who has a server farm in the basement or warehouse of his house. Healthcare except for plastic surgery will be done by lottery. The Mars colony project is supposed to launch next year, but investors will continue to pile up money every year. The game Star Citizen has still not come out, and Peter Molyneux will be working on a new game.

Bananas will taste different and bees will be robotic. COVID is still around, but everyone pretends it is not. Role-playing games will seem very complicated to kids who prefer to read books. The game Sky will be purple and the game Hawaii will become completely mythical. Destiny 2 will also become a subject of academic theological research, and a robot named Geoff will announce new games endlessly and forever.

 

Naoki Yoshida, legend of Square Enix and head of FF14

More than 90 percent of what we call game consoles will disappear; but there is a possibility that Nintendo will still have a platform. Games should be possible on all devices, and almost 100 percent of games will be in the cloud, so there will definitely be no need to have machine power on the players' side. This model will be similar to the method of Netflix and Amazon Prime and based on the subscription method.

As long as you pay the subscription, you can play 24 hours a day and 365 days a year. Regarding which company will probably be superior in terms of the commercial battle, I cannot say anything. To tell you the truth, I have my own personal prediction, but if I say something here, it will probably get me into trouble. Let's say that I have not been asked about this.

 

Yuji Horii, creator of Dragon Quest

I really cannot imagine how games will be in 25 years, but maybe games will come out of the monitor. Whatever they are, they will be more real.

 

Charles Cecil, creator of Broken Sword

In 25 years adventures and adventuring will be much more than games, because they are interactive narratives and entertainment. Game is in many ways a derogatory term; so as we go forward, story and innovation in control systems and the way we appeal to communities will have a greater place in hearts.

Think of the way that many people thought virtual reality was going to dominate them; but why should it dominate them? People play with their children, their parents, and with their loved ones. So why would you do that in a virtual reality environment? Why not share your experiences? I want to say all these things remain, and I do not know why we should have a paradigm shift in the way people play.

Christine Love, writer and designer

In 2049 we will look at the past and see this era as much older than looking at 1999. This means the same great homogenizing movement that is currently underway across the world. AAA games will all be the same open-world games, in the form of scoring points and upgrading skills with micro-events and loot and season by season. Indie games will all be in the form of remaking one of one's favorite childhood games. Mobile games too must be in the form of a paid casino to unlock the image of girls. We will probably forget that thousands of innovative games are lost in that conservative mix, because everything is controlled by a small number of platforms that are contracting, and a current that will move only toward a small number of games with the greatest appeal.

We will soon get tired of this and will see a shift toward games that make more ambitious changes to be different. We will learn many things from our present moment, what things do not work and how to make matters accessible. Increasingly we see that games create these lessons for ideas that are different. As an independent developer, I think instead of trying to win the lottery on the Steam top sellers page, we should focus more on our unique audiences. Saying the sentence "I play that game because it is on the Game Pass service" will be as strange and ridiculous as the sentence "I watched that movie because it was broadcast on television."

We will realize that the best way to stand out from this huge crowd is through content; for example games that answer new questions, questions you never thought a game would make you think about; games that intensely engage emotions; games that are not meaningful for all people, but instead are deeply meaningful for some; and games that will serve particular viewpoints. In fact, this is something we all already know we need within ourselves. I hope to see an era in which games are defined this way.

 

Craig Duncan, head of the studio Rare

I will be 72 in another 25 years and I like to think of it this way: sitting with a few gray gamers who still play together, on a television image larger than a small projector, and smiling and laughing with shared experiences. I would like to have access to all my favorite games everywhere and be able to take many trips down memory lane and do the experiences I enjoyed throughout my gaming life, and tell others why this game matters and what feeling it creates in me.

I hope there are games I can play with friends and family without needing a device, and I can share my experiences with them synchronously and asynchronously, in a space where there is a dynamic list of our friends and finding friends to share experiences is easy. I like the idea of social games more, in which players leave real traces and experiences for each other; that a world has really changed because of other players' performance, not just in a destructive way.

Are there ways that players can create joy and wonder for other players who enjoy a world they have had a role in shaping? Predicting even 10 years ahead is hard, and change in games will be very fruitful. Defining the future belongs to us, but I think it is based on how we play and how related communities in game worlds add to the experiences of this field, and also how extraordinary internet speed facilitates faster access to all the things you love.

Shinji Mikami, former legend of Capcom and Tango Gameworks

In 25 years artificial intelligence is going to become much bigger and a much more prominent element in game development and game making. You can put artificial intelligence in a game and it itself decides how a character should behave and how to react in a situation?

Regarding background, not much can be changed, but animations and things like this can in 25 years be completely generated with artificial intelligence; so given the importance of creating background and real animations, I feel that in the future there will be a much larger gap than now. This is one of the things that is a bit daunting.

 

Michel Koch, creative director of the studio Don't Nod Montreal

There is a terrible answer and a hopeful answer. From my own point of view it is like this: whenever we have a new display or technology, I hope I can still play a game without the absolute need for a VR headset. I am not sure I want a chip in my head, but maybe it would be better than wearing such a heavy thing.

Tanya X. Short, co-founder of Kitfox Games

I want to be optimistic. Let's say that by 2050, every game console and electronic device is made from sustainable and/or recycled materials instead of newly extracted rare metals. Controllers retain the same basic shape of past generations; but adjusting their size, texture, and configuration for your personal comfort is simple. With the new generation of gamers more aware of working conditions and the realities related to development, more developers feel bold enough to show themselves and their true interests through their work and public presence, and as a result a stunning diversity of content and innovative games is created.

The gap between small teams and giant productions narrows as publicly available technologies become stronger, and naturally encourages most larger game teams to use small teams. Micro-AAA games in 2050 typically offer extremely wide cross-platform multiplayer experiences that, with the breadth of content and systems that 25 years ago existed seamlessly (and unevenly) through interconnected artificially intelligent game engines, had been impossible. Meanwhile, Kitfox continues to hire very small teams and offers experiences deeper and richer than ever, although I rarely participate in this work, because I have officially retired to play with my cats full-time.

 

Jesper Kyd, composer of Assassin's Creed

I would like to be able to put on glasses in my house and be in a place like the Starship Enterprise, and every window, wall, and handle of the house is rendered in the game; so you can completely transform the space you sit in, but everything is still the same and remains unchanged. You do not bump into anything and your brain is not confused, and later you also add your friends to that world.

Then you can spend time there; for example I who live in Los Angeles with my parents who are in Denmark. The path of this type of thing is currently very uneven and we only have prototypes that can lead to these things, but when the path is smoothed we cannot even imagine how great it can be.

 

Hannah Flynn, communications director of Failbetter Games

This morning my seven-year-old child and I were busy playing Cat Quest 2 on the sofa, we were cheering and laughing and generally going along together. In another 25 years, I will be 65 and my children will be 29 and 32; oh Jesus Christ! I hope in the future I still enjoy playing with my children. I hope the game industry as a whole has taken a close look at the waste we have been responsible for and we have focused on other, more sustainable goals.

Maybe if my daughter is smart enough, in the future she will have acquired skills in maintaining and repairing old controllers, and at Christmas we will unpack rock-band peripherals refurbished by ourselves to play with the family. I hope it is so.

Sam Barlow, writer and director of the film Immortality

25 years seems like a long time, but when I think about the past, seeing the little progress games have made is a bit devastating. Maybe after the next remake, there will be some kind of rebirth like a phoenix. Games are now grappling with kinds of freedom and liberation, and my hope is that we understand how much more authored experiences can be.

The point of players' freedom may not be withdrawal from authorship, but bringing players closer to the author's creative work and allowing them to swim together in the waters around creation; what a future!

 

Lucy Kyriakidou, art director of Disney Illusion Island

With the industry growing more in the next 25 years, we will see that stories become more diverse and more personal and cover subjects that are not only more fantastical but also more human. When it comes to my field, I am excited to see the innovations that will arise in art styles. With the effort for realism now in a closed space, exploration of other sources of inspiration will replace current sources.

Indie games are at the forefront of this evolution and are taking the boldest steps both in the stories they tell and in the art styles they experiment with, and they ensure the medium's popularity across all different populations. This is what I believe will continue to happen, because different audiences request more of these personal experiences and developers themselves also seek more control over their careers. I cannot wait!

 

Peter Molyneux, founder of 22cans

In my view, there are three things that we will see happen in 25 years. I think Hollywood will still be fascinated by games and will look for more game stories and narratives. The success of Fallout and to some extent Witcher and the deal between Remedy and Annapurna to bring Control and Alan Wake to the big screen shows that games have diverse worlds that Hollywood can really get stuck in.

Artificial intelligence will be a real game changer. A time will come when artificial intelligence is used to create large parts of a game; such as AI-generated characters, animations, dialogues, VO, and many other things that artificial intelligence will be able to tackle.

Finally, I think artificial intelligence opens the doors to everyone and allows anyone to make a game. For example you can make a game from a single prompt; like making a battle royale set on a pirate ship. Artificial intelligence will do this for you.

Nina Freeman, designer of Tacoma

When I think about how the games industry will be in 25 years, the first thing that comes to mind is that I will be 59 years old. This age is not far from the average retirement age in the United States! So what fascinates me more than anything is who will be making games in 25 years. Over the 12 years or more that I have been in this profession, I have seen many people come and go. To my surprise, many of the people who started working at the same time as me in a similar space are still making independent games. We all know that audience interests change year to year and quickly, but what about the developers themselves? I think their interests also change, of course at a different speed.

Some developers dedicate their careers to a particular genre, while others jump from one branch to another and work on many different games. I am excited to follow the work of many developers I admire, and especially those who started working at almost the same time as me. Seeing what inspires new developers to enter the industry will also be wonderful. There will be particular things in watching the evolution of this profession's generation over a long period of time.

 

Ed Beach, creative director of the Civilization franchise

In 25 years, the integration of games into all aspects of our lives will be almost complete. Games will become a standard component of educational systems and will be our complete companions while we consume entertainment and seamlessly available to us wherever we travel. I also hope that games help us create a bridge between cultures and more firmly link various global communities; but regarding success on this front, one cannot speak with certainty.

 

Derek Yu, designer of Spelunky

Video games are always an art that advances hand in hand with technology, so we are inevitably taking more steps toward full sensory immersion. What excites me is the possibility of more interaction; that unique element of video games. In 25 years I imagine open worlds that may be smaller than what we have now, but are so interactive and interconnected that they seem larger than ever.

With increased interaction, I can see people specializing more and more in specific roles related to these games and shaping the experience for themselves and other players. We already know how much people enjoy creating their own role in games, and this type of games is becoming more popular. I imagine that game-making in the future will become a widespread hobby like writing or cooking; a form of expression and communication that can be done very casually or seriously.

Marc Merrill and Dylan Jadeja, production director and CEO of Riot Games

Merrill: Technology will advance to enable custom and dynamic content at a personalized level that today is unimaginable given the enormous volume of individual data. The fidelity and realism of VR/AR experiences delivered to you through cybernetic implants is among the other cases, such as future versions of Neuralink and other incredible technologies that seamlessly combine reality with the virtual, and players can control their experiences through next-generation interfaces; for example through thought.

Jadeja: We are sure that the golden age of games is still on the way; a future in which games have moved powerfully toward the center of culture and have gone beyond traditional entertainment. This is not only about games participating in the media space, but about directing and leading this industry. By combining television, film, music, and competitive arenas in game worlds, games will be a primary medium for people to communicate, express their issues, and build lasting memories. As our industry drives this change over 25 years, games become not only part of the cultural fabric, but a connecting and engaging element that defines it.

 

Paul Bellezza, executive producer of League of Legends

Today many grandparents are not gamers, but by 2049, this situation will change; so, in a world where every person on Earth has been exposed to games, how does play look in the coming years? I see a world in which grandparents, parents, and their children can play together, and these games will not only be in the form of a simple party. I imagine it is Sunday and I am with my wife, children, close friends and their families, we are making barbecue and we are all together building, crafting, and raiding one another, and all of this happens in a game.

Namafar invites you to read the article The world's largest game development companies.

Translator: Mohammad Ali Zakeri