Will only online gaming exist in the future?

L

Lina

Banned
I've read a few people going on about how online gaming is the future, and it got me thinking.

Eventually, all games might be like this. Sooner than later, broadband will be available to everyone. Why should Microsoft bother focusing on the offline aspect of gaming, when it's Live that's bringing in the dough? The game creators probably like this also... as it's less work for them, I'm guessing.

It's already started killing my beloved RPG's. Effectively ending the Phantasy Star series for me.

I HATE online gaming. It's completely pointless. Competitive play online will never be reality because there will always be a way to cheat and/or cheese the game. I hate listening to stupid kids swear just because they can, and hit on me, and talk to me like I'm some piece of garbage.

Please convince me that this is NOT the future.
 
I can see it being a big part of gaming's future, but not everyone wants to play online. Not all genres of gaming work or is enjoyable in multiplayer(such as non-MMO RPGs). I have yet to play my console (PS2) online and the cheating aspect is pushing me away from it.
 
I dont think online gaming is the future. I think the moment mainstream games become heavily reliant on online play and gamers have to start paying fees, there will be a huge backlash at developers. All of the casual gamers that play the maddens and GTA's of the industry. I personally like the FF series, but just dont want to pay a large monthly fee to play the XI and would rather wait for XII and just play offline
 
Well I wouldn't say it's "the future," but I think it will be a large part of it. There will always be a market for a rich, single-player, story-driven game experience, as well as a market for an organic multiplayer experience. I don't think one will ever "replace" the other because they are too different. Right now there's more of an emphasis on the multiplayer online, but I think that's just because it's pretty new and it's like the hot thing right now.

Oh and I hate how Final Fantasy XI is online. It shouldn't be a numbered FF game, it should have just been treated as a side project like Tactics or Crystal Chronicles. Final Fantasy I through X could be picked up by anyone ten years from now, and still be a great experience. But FF XI will be worthless, because it depends on a community of outside players.
 
Don't worry, Lina. The future is so big it's got room for everything.

It's possible that in the future delivery of the games would be online, at least for some platforms (look at cell phones now). But you'll still have your single player games. Some genres (plot-driven RPG, platform, puzzle) don't lend themselves to online play as well as FPS, RTS, fighting and driving.

And there are so many games in so many genres that even if you're only interested in a small part of them you'll still have more choices than you can possibly play.

Besides, there's a backlog of decades of games to go through.

But yes, it would be wonderful to have online games with strict behavior codes (say, swear and you're warned, do it twice and you're banned).
 
Lina,
I know what you mean. I'm 32 and xbox live is rarely a pleasant experience when playing strangers. When I start hearing foul language, I unplug my headset and throw it on the couch. But online gaming is only an aspect of gaming, not the backbone. It is still single player that sells games, and I don't think you'll see that changing. Microsoft is only using online play to distinguish themselves right now. It won't go away. But it will never dominate single play either.
 
Online is the future but its present form is only scratching the surface. The real goal is cutting out retailers and doing delivery online. Broadband speeds are well on their way to being sufficient for real-time delivery of games just as it's doing for video. It's actually easier with games since you don't need a continuous stream. Once a level is loaded the next one can be trickled in the background while the current one is played.

This opens things up for a lot of new business models. All you can eat subscriptions ala HBO or Netflix without the snail mail. Episodic games, where early levels can be played while the later ones are still being produced. That will be especially important on the financial side for letting smaller publishers stay competitive with the EAs of the industry. Right now, if you want to do a mondo deluxe RPG like a Final Fantasy you have to have very deep pockets to keep the lights turned on and personnel's salaries paid, because you won;t see a penny until that game ships. Also, smaller publsihers face great difficulty in deciding how many units of a game to produce. They pay a royalty on each one, so overordering can be expensive while underordering can cause sales to be lost to competing games.

In a lot of ways online is what will save the industry from being reduced to a handful of massive developers with few opportunities for new companies.
 
God I hope not! I don't play online now and don't ever plan to start. I guess if it is the future, I will have time to catch up on all the games I have yet to play.

I could see this happening in the vein that epobirs describes (monthly sub with no max with downloadable games rather than buying x number of $50 games and then going online with them). If this happens though I would probably stick to my trusty current gen systems and be happy. I am HUGE into music with around 3,000 CDs plus LPs to boot and have never once downloaded a song off the internet. It's not that I don't know how, I just like shopping for my music in stores and having the CDs or LPs. Before I had a family I could just sit by myself for hours and listen to music, reading the lyrics and making tapes for friends. I'm not sure if that is a good comparison, but whatever. I have just not embraced the internet like the masses have I guess. I use it mostly for information and to buy stuff I can't get at a B&M store.
 
As much as I like online gaming, I hope not all games are online oriented. Some games are just not suited to an online group player atmosphere. If I had to deal with stupid groups of strangers/kids with mommy and daddy's credit card everytime I played I'd go nuts. (Right now I'm just lucky, I have adult friends to play online games with, so constantly grouping with unknown asshats is not always an issue.)

I wouldn't mind having the option to purchase and download regular games off the internet though, rather than having to buy them in a B & M store. Or having a setup similar to the old Sega Channel that used to be available on the genesis, where I get a monthly subscription fee to play a whole bunch of games.
 
Online games is where the money is at and, yes, I believe that the industry will try to move towards an arcade like pay-per-play system where consoles will be online and you rent games instead of buy them. There won't be anymore hard copies of games, and making a hard copy would be illegal - like drm.

I don't know how well this will fly, but there are suckers who buy into anything so who knows. It may not be successful, but I am sure the industry will try something like this in the future. Of course cheap high speed net that is in almost every home is a necessity, and that isn't going to happen for a very long time.

The quality of games, though, is getting so bad that gaming might not last that far into the future.
 
[quote name='Scrubking']Online games is where the money is at and, yes, I believe that the industry will try to move towards an arcade like pay-per-play system where consoles will be online and you rent games instead of buy them. There won't be anymore hard copies of games, and making a hard copy would be illegal - like drm.

I don't know how well this will fly, but there are suckers who buy into anything so who knows. It may not be successful, but I am sure the industry will try something like this in the future. Of course cheap high speed net that is in almost every home is a necessity, and that isn't going to happen for a very long time.

The quality of games, though, is getting so bad that gaming might not last that far into the future.[/QUOTE]

I think you'll see something much more like the film distribution model we have now. First access comes in transient per use form: theatrical presentation, pay per view TV, then premium cable channel like HBO. This is almost immediately followed by retail availability in hard copy form, in this case DVD.

The game industry doesn't want to adopt new distribution methods at the cost of those customers who cannot participate. Giving first access to those using the most lucrative distribution method, and later offering reasonably priced ownable copies. This would work well with the episodic model in a mode similar to TV season box sets of shows that have their first runs on premium cable channels. Many who don't see fit to have a Showtime subscription are buying the 'Dead Like Me' box set for example. Some find it a better value if they have use for the reast of the channel's offerings (and may not even have any cable or satellite service at all), while others just prefers being able to watch the whole set in a short period of time rather than over several months. Epsiodic games should see a lot of disc collection business after their online run is complete for the same reasons.
 
[quote name='help1']stop your bitching about online play.

As for the future, I think not. Majority dont have online.[/QUOTE]

You don't think that in the future many more people will "have" online?
 
Depends on what you mean by "future". I highly doubt that the PS3/Xbox360 generation will get anywhere near a majority of its users online. But 10 years? 20 years? Who knows. I do agree with the OP's complaints about online gaming, though.
 
I play my dreamcast online still,but its with die hard fans who wont cheat or talk back to you. So ill stay with that and probably never touch ps2/xbox online.
 
[quote name='ElwoodCuse']Depends on what you mean by "future". I highly doubt that the PS3/Xbox360 generation will get anywhere near a majority of its users online. But 10 years? 20 years? Who knows. I do agree with the OP's complaints about online gaming, though.[/QUOTE]

The new subscription rate on broadband services is continuing to grow at a steady pace. A growing portion of the developed world increasingly thinks of it as an essential service, especially as competition and the desire to offer more services are increasing the performance and lowering the price. For instance, since my DSL service was first initiated almost five years ago the monthly price has gone down by 40% and the speed increased by 300%. Within two years I can expect to see another speed increase of 3-6 times over my current rate for about the same price. (I will need a new DSL TA though, since my current one tops out at 8 Mbps download speed. A new router will be needed as well since that has a 10 Mbps limit on the WAN port. Well worth the minor expense.)

I can remember when cable television was a rare thing. The town where I grew up was a very early adopter since RF reception was nearly useless. If there had been personal computers to connect back then the idea of cable modem service would have been ridiculous since so very few places had any cable service at all. Likewise, nobody but farmers and hermits had satellite dishes and those were massive analog units. It would have been difficult to claim back then that 30 years later satellite TV subscribers would number in the millions and cable service subscribers would be in the tens of millions.

These thing happen much more quickly these days. From the time I first saw a VCR for sale to the day when it was regarded as highly unusual for a gainfully employed person to lack one was over ten years. The same transition for DVD players was only about three years.

It won't be the final word in the technology but at the current rate the next generation of consoles should see a critical mass in the portion of its user base that also has broadband service. Which is why Nintendo is finally starting to get serious about online functionality. The numbers are reaching the point where they see a mass market rather than a niche.
 
Online is just an option.. it'll defintely have a bigger impact in the future, but the non-online mode is always here to stay.
 
For some games like Halo 2 and MMOs, online is a requirement to get the most out of the experience. However, there are plenty of games that have a fully fleshed-out single player experience and have no need for online play. I think this will continue in the future since not all games need an online multiplayer component. Things like downloadable content may be able to extend the single player games with new missions or content.

So in short, no not all games will be playable online in the future.
 
In the future games won't be played but rather the memories of the game and beating it will be implanted in your brain (for a nominal fee, of course) so you will be able to play a ton more games and still have a life.
 
[quote name='epobirs']The new subscription rate on broadband services is continuing to grow at a steady pace. A growing portion of the developed world increasingly thinks of it as an essential service, especially as competition and the desire to offer more services are increasing the performance and lowering the price. For instance, since my DSL service was first initiated almost five years ago the monthly price has gone down by 40% and the speed increased by 300%. Within two years I can expect to see another speed increase of 3-6 times over my current rate for about the same price. (I will need a new DSL TA though, since my current one tops out at 8 Mbps download speed. A new router will be needed as well since that has a 10 Mbps limit on the WAN port. Well worth the minor expense.)

I can remember when cable television was a rare thing. The town where I grew up was a very early adopter since RF reception was nearly useless. If there had been personal computers to connect back then the idea of cable modem service would have been ridiculous since so very few places had any cable service at all. Likewise, nobody but farmers and hermits had satellite dishes and those were massive analog units. It would have been difficult to claim back then that 30 years later satellite TV subscribers would number in the millions and cable service subscribers would be in the tens of millions.

These thing happen much more quickly these days. From the time I first saw a VCR for sale to the day when it was regarded as highly unusual for a gainfully employed person to lack one was over ten years. The same transition for DVD players was only about three years.

It won't be the final word in the technology but at the current rate the next generation of consoles should see a critical mass in the portion of its user base that also has broadband service. Which is why Nintendo is finally starting to get serious about online functionality. The numbers are reaching the point where they see a mass market rather than a niche.[/QUOTE]

But look at all the people now that already have broadband and a PS2 and/or XBox and still don't play online. Online players on both consoles are still a distinct minority.
 
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