Will Gaming Become More Open in 2023? (venturebeat.com) 42
VentureBeat's lead gaming writer made 10 predictions for 2023. Prediction #8? "Gaming will become more open in 2023."
There are many forces at play that will make gaming more open. The web browser is poised for a comeback. Companies are working on ways to get around the restrictions of the app stores by turning to the open web. In the past, this meant bad graphics and limited interactivity. But new standards like glTF and proprietary technologies could enable speedier delivery.
The open web could be succeeded one day by the open metaverse. That won't happen real soon, but enough people are talking about this that the conversation is top of mind at some of the biggest and most important companies in the industry....
Gatekeepers who create platforms still take a 30% cut of royalties. Matthew Ball, author of the bestselling book The Metaverse, has argued that this stands in the way of progress as it weakens the developers who are in the best position to push forward ideas like the metaverse. While the industry isn't going to change overnight, the added awareness to the costs of closed platforms is a catalyst for change.
Epic isn't fighting for this all by itself. The Open Metaverse Standards group has formed to push for better open standards, and USD is making progress as an interoperable 3D file format. Forte and Lamina1 have raised a lot of money and they believe that blockchain technology infrastructure can also improve the openness of sectors such as gaming, enabling players to finally own their stuff.
Overall, more business models and technologies — like Web3 or cloud gaming or subscriptions — will yield more choice for both developers and consumers.
The open web could be succeeded one day by the open metaverse. That won't happen real soon, but enough people are talking about this that the conversation is top of mind at some of the biggest and most important companies in the industry....
Gatekeepers who create platforms still take a 30% cut of royalties. Matthew Ball, author of the bestselling book The Metaverse, has argued that this stands in the way of progress as it weakens the developers who are in the best position to push forward ideas like the metaverse. While the industry isn't going to change overnight, the added awareness to the costs of closed platforms is a catalyst for change.
Epic isn't fighting for this all by itself. The Open Metaverse Standards group has formed to push for better open standards, and USD is making progress as an interoperable 3D file format. Forte and Lamina1 have raised a lot of money and they believe that blockchain technology infrastructure can also improve the openness of sectors such as gaming, enabling players to finally own their stuff.
Overall, more business models and technologies — like Web3 or cloud gaming or subscriptions — will yield more choice for both developers and consumers.
I know (Score:3)
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Everyone except the Debby Downers knows that the next silver bullet will be perfect.
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Then why are interactive cartoons dead? Since Flash died, art communities have gone back to animated GIFs, for crying out loud.
People have been saying for 20 years that browsers can do everything Flash could. That's a lie. Online games and animation literally died the second the Flash killswitch kicked in.
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Here we go with the Web3 shite again... (Score:3)
Re:Here we go with the Web3 shite again... (Score:5, Insightful)
TFA is even worse, dedicating point 7 entirely to "Web3 gaming’s comeback chance".
First of all, "comeback" suggests that it was a success in the past. There have been very few success stories and even the most prominent one, Axie Infinity, was more failure than success, with its unsustainable economy and security breach. The part where people in the Philippenes got income through it wasn't very glamorous under scrutiny: it was better than being unemployed during COVID, but it's ultimately a low-paying and unfulfilling job.
The author's argument that lots of money invested equals good games coming out is questionable. Just look at how much money Amazon invested in gaming and how little they have to show for it. And just producing a good game is too low of a bar: they'll also have to demonstrate that adding a blockchain somehow improves the game.
Then there is that term "crypto winter" again, suggesting that the current slump is just a seasonal effect rather than the aftermath of a bubble that burst. It's possible crypto will make a comeback some day, but if it wants to do so, it needs to reinvent itself and come up with actual compelling use cases. Just waiting for investors to return isn't going to work.
No, it couldn't (Score:1)
The open web could be succeeded one day by the open metaverse.
Absolutely not. Some information is fundamentally best presented on a flat page, so the likeliest scenario is that one day we have both things, and moreover you will be able to access either from the other.
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The metaverse will be useful as a babysitter for a captive chunk of humanity that would otherwise stand in the way of other humans trying to improve things.
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Alcohol already fills that role pretty well.
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Well, that is a best-case scenario. I would not be opposed at all though.
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The web is a particular set of technologies, most notably HTTP. It mostly superceded some technologies like FTP and Gopher. In the future, a new technology stack could easily take over the web. And it's not inconceivable that this technology stack is purpose built for the metaverse, but then has a module that supports all use cases you describe.
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"Easily"... You say the word, but I do not think you known what it means.
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"The future" is a very long time. I would be surprised if humans 1,000 years from now are relying on HTTP for their interplanetary communications network.
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Indeed. Otherwise libraries, newspapers and regular web-pages mostly presenting text would have gone entirely out of fashion and we would all be watching videos all the time. That has not happened and will not happen. Personally, I find videos for news so annoying I skip them entirely and videos that explain something I watch only if there is real benefit from the format. Which there usually is not.
Un, what? (Score:3)
Is this article written by AI?
Or is someone confusing April Fool's and New Year's?
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Exactly what I came here to write, on both counts, bravo!
Obligatory XKCD (Score:2)
Companies are working on ways to get around the restrictions of the app stores by turning to the open web. In the past, this meant bad graphics and limited interactivity. But new standards like glTF and proprietary technologies could enable speedier delivery.
Remember this? https://xkcd.com/1367/ [xkcd.com] "Why not skip [installing apps] entirely and make a phone that has every app *installed* already and just downloads and runs them on the fly?"
Because in real life, the vast majority of apps suck & you're far better off going to the website if you can: https://xkcd.com/1174/ [xkcd.com]
By now, we all know the real reasons why Apple & then Google decided to hobble web browsers on their phone operating systems & it's got nothing to do with our benefit.
Re: Obligatory XKCD (Score:2)
Epic's motives (Score:5, Insightful)
Epic isn't fighting for this all by itself.
Not by itself, but probably for itself. Epic likes to position themselves as the player's hero, but I think they're mostly interested in cutting out the gatekeepers so they can keep a larger portion of the pie for themselves. Understandable, as a 30% cut does seem pretty high to me, but it haven't seen any evidence that their commitment to openness extends beyond their bottom line.
The Epic Game Store doesn't support open source operating systems like Linux. While their store doesn't have built-in DRM, they do sell games with third-party DRM. They promoted their store by buying timed exclusive game licenses, which is the opposite of open. And as far as I know Fortnite is not an open platform.
Epic is not worse than most of the game industry, but their PR spin just rubs me the wrong way and I think it's poor journalism to repeat it unchallenged.
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Epic isn't fighting for this all by itself.
Not by itself, but probably for itself. Epic likes to position themselves as the player's hero, but I think they're mostly interested in cutting out the gatekeepers so they can keep a larger portion of the pie for themselves. Understandable, as a 30% cut does seem pretty high to me, but it haven't seen any evidence that their commitment to openness extends beyond their bottom line.
Exactly, it’s about the money. Epic wants as much as possible for itself, while also having unfettered access to the user base. 30% isn’t unreasonable, considering what it used to cost to get a product to market, where a developer getting 30% and having a lot of upfront and recurring distribution expenses.
The Epic Game Store doesn't support open source operating systems like Linux. While their store doesn't have built-in DRM, they do sell games with third-party DRM. They promoted their store by buying timed exclusive game licenses, which is the opposite of open. And as far as I know Fortnite is not an open platform.
Epic is not worse than most of the game industry, but their PR spin just rubs me the wrong way and I think it's poor journalism to repeat it unchallenged.
Open, by Epic’s definition, means “I have access to your store and user base but don’t have to pay you for it.” I have no doubt Apple will find other was to monetize
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Epic is not worse than most of the game industry
Happily disagree and rattle of the reasons:
- They engage in predatory behaviour to promote the Unreal engine with discounts. If they were the size of Steam this would be an antitrust case.
- They throw around Chinese money to buy 3rd party exclusives on the PC platform to try and bring in players, the one place which literally prided itself on not having that console level bullshit.
- They see popular franchises and buy them outright to try and bring in players, in some cases e.g. RocketLeage they did so by g
Define "open" ? (Score:3)
"Gaming will be more open" thanks to "proprietary technologies" !?
Define "open" again?
Also, if it's in a browser, we had an open standard, VRML, decades ago.
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But that open standard was eventually superceded by X3D, which - in an attempt to get parity with Direct3D - began integrating proprietary extensions. Sometime after that, the project appears to have died. There have been no updates in 7 years. Meanwhile, things like ray-tracing are now de rigueur for modern GPUs, and X3D - as far as I can tell - is stuck using retained mode graphics which aren't relevant to the kinds of interactive play expected from something like a shared multiverse where assets are b
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Yep, I was wondering the same thing. Kind of like a complete nil-wit threw some terminology at the question without understanding the words.
Yes, but not like this (Score:3)
Gaming is more open than ever. It can be done on more devices, there are more independant developers than ever and getting into development is easier than ever. However you feel about Epic, and their criticisisms are certainly fair, fact is anyone today can learn and access the top tier gaming dev engine for free, something unthinkable 20 years ago, not to mention Godot, Unity and the other options. Develops have plenty of options to avoid the large stores like Steam and Epic and go it alone and they have more promotional avenues than ever as well.
If by "open" they mean "open source" and "free" then no, gaming is the definition of a luxury good and will always be commodified in our near future and based on this article and where it comes from this reads like a VC person trying to hype their own investments for the new year. Good luck buddy.
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If by "open" they mean "open source" and "free" then no, gaming is the definition of a luxury good and will always be commodified in our near future
Before the "open source" craze, "Open" in computing meant "documented and interoperable". While the term "open source" does date back to the eighties [reddit.com], we all know it didn't really take off until later... but "Open Systems" and "Open Standards" entered widespread usage much sooner.
With that said, Gaming is becoming more and more Free and Open Source over time. OSS game engines are becoming more popular, more and more game assets are becoming freely available over time, etc. So while you're almost certainly c
Stop peddling the metaverse bullshit already (Score:4, Interesting)
First, no one can even define what [wired.com] exactly the Metaverse is.
Second, it has already been done. We've had UGC (User Generated Content) systems for almost two decades. VR has been failing since 1968. These were never popular.
Third, game developers/publishers are no way in hell going to open their platforms to be interoperable, let alone open, when they can sell proprietary skins. We already see this with map editors and player owned servers no longer being offered. GaaS (Games-as-a-Service) has already infected the gaming industry and it isn't going away because gamers,sadly, aren't smart enough to stop buying dumb shit.
Fourth, there is no killer app, re-enforcing the chicken-and-egg problem.
Fifth, no one wants shitty [thegamer.com] Mii [wikipedia.org] characters/content. This means high end GPU to support good VR and High Resolution assets. The problem is good GPUs are still WAY too damn expensive. Supply is going to continue to be extremely short which means prices will remain high.
Sixth, content creation is not standardized. Look at textures for PBR (Physical Based Rendering). Is AO (Ambient Occlusion) supported? What precision are Normal maps? 8-bit/channel? 16-bit/channel? What mesh format? FBX? glTF?
Anyone peddling the metaverse is almost completely clueless. Stop with these shitty articles already.
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I see one use-case for VR and exactly one (outside of some professional use for example in engineering): Full sensory immersion interactive porn. Other uses (MMORPGs, for example) could then use the tech as well, no argument. But the tech for full sensory immersion will not be available for decades, if ever and before that VR is just a gimmick that takes far too much effort and money to get working and delivers far too little for that effort.
Something smells (Score:2)
It could be this load of horse shit I just read.
glTF (Score:2)
But new standards like glTF and proprietary technologies could enable speedier delivery.
Unity, Godot and others can build project for HTLM5. You want your game engine exports to web not a file format. I remember Epic Citadel in the browser years ago, there is nothing new...
Blockchain, of course (Score:2)
It wouldn't be complete without mentioning blockchain, for reasons.
Lost me at web 3.0 (Score:2)
I don't see involvement of anything to do with blockchain and web 3.0 as being "more open".
Instead, I just see extreme monetisation and greed.
Driven by proof of stake, which isn't real decentralisation - have a look at the second biggest cryptocurrency, Ethereum, now using proof of stake - 5 entities control 64% of the total stake.
And in terms of being able to scale in order to deliver the power required - the hosting of "nodes" - well, surely that'll be just 2 or 3 big players - e.g. Amazon.
There's not goi
As Betteridge would say, "No." (Score:2)
Or as I would say, "Hahahaha no."