Hottest trends in games 2010

A year ago I suggested that the following five trends will have an impact to the games industry in 2009:

1. Tinkering
2. Networked experience
3. Alternative revenue models
4. Massively competitive co-ops FPSs
5. Networking mini games adding value

The list was relatively accurate. Tinkering definitely was and is an aspect in games. For example XBLA games, Scribblenauts and indie scene all brought up different approaches to tinkering and collaborative experience design. Networked experience most definitely was one key trend, though a bit differently that I anticipated. Nexon's Combat Arms reached 1M players in Europe and plenty of FPS titles were released. Also 2009 was successful year for Facebook games, especially Zynga remained in the news thanks to Mafia Wars, Farmville and others.

For the 2010, I went though my Twitter posts and put together a new list of trends and issues we most likely are about to see in 2010. I continue with the same idea as last year. By looking back you can see the future.

1. Indie
One can say that indie was a hot trend already in 2009. There definitely is an increasing amount of attention and interest towards indie games. Besides the games themselves, I think one especially interesting thing is storage and sharing. Those providing easier access, easier distribution solutions and easier business opportunities for SMEs and other independent developers will make an impact to the industry. I also believe that indie games will have a greater impact to mainstream games by adding richer variations than before. Thanks to new options for self-publishing and business opportunities for indie developers the attitude towards taking risks and opportunities to put out indie games will become easier. The key here is storage and sharing / distribution.

2. 3D gaming
Yes, just when we have get used to HD it is time to step forward. Avatar movie has given new hopes for Hollywood studios regarding 3D technology and when the movie industry is pro-3D, so will be games. Hilarious 3D movies and Virtual boy 3D were niches at their times in the 1990s. Now with bigger muscles (=bigger players) things will start to happen. Amongst others Nvidia is promoting 3D gaming. I think 3D will not add valuable experience for all games but it should be easily foreseen how 3D could add value for example to FPSs or adventure games. Still there are few hardware issues to be enhanced but we are getting there.

3. Persistence in games
Facebook games, casual browser games and virtual world/casual MMO developers seek for the next think to jump into with relative low risk level but clear competitive edge. I believe persistent game play will be one such differentiation factor. Persistence has been a thing under discussion for quite some time already especially in MMOs. When people communicate and entertain themselves with multiple gadgets and gaming devices and their media use is fragmented, persistence can add nice twist to gaming. You don't have to be a hard core gamer or a geek to play games over longer period of time. Persistence will add randomness and variety to the game experiences. The game will continue when you are offline but in a way it does not matter if you are offline for a day or a week.

4. Learning + games
Learning in games or serious games is another things that is far from novelty. Edutainment products appeared already at the end of 1980s as the next semi-big thing. Things holding back edugames has been their vague role in the market (commercial games or education software?), weak or non-existing distribution network and common ways to either do educational material formally or make business out of it. At the moment edugames are not really commercial games but not exactly teaching material either. Obviously there will be both but someone should start inventing and formalizing the picture to make a difference. In 2010 more funding will be directed to learning technologies. I sincerely hope that the development would be more startup than university driven.

5. Touch, Point, Gesture
Nintendo Wii brought point and gesture interface to the common crowd and iPhone successfully introduces touch screen (and gyroscope) for gaming. Project Natal and PS3 Motion Controller add more twist to gesture interfaces. Despite Microsoft's and Sony's efforts I expect to see more innovations in mobile regarding to point, touch and gesture. I also believe that this will be one area where games break out of the "games sector" and introduce playful interaction to other application areas as well. There are several examples already how simple game interactions have been utilized for example in advertising and information sharing. Entertaining and natural interaction is what is needed to navigate through vast amount of data and information.

My top 5 from GDC08

1. Community
In-game and common social interaction and community features were key theme at the GDC08. Microsoft explained how XNA game studio would democratize game development and distribution. I totally agree with Russ Pitts's report at the Escapist: "The silence in the room said more than (Christopher) Satchell could have in twenty more minutes. It was as if every single developer was thinking "if anyone can make games ... what am I going to do?". Despite the fact user generated content and peer-group communities are already here. Also e.g. Spore was much into community and user generated content is coming out in September.

2. Machinima
Several companies were providing tools for machinima developers at the expo floor. For example Korean I-TONIC company had developed a Kloseup.com game community within which players could utilize their favourite game characters to create short movies.

3. Sims success
TheSimsCarnival online community is out on beta. All Sims fans should check it out! EA also announced the Sims to hit a 100 million mark soon.

4. Fable2
Peter Molyneux disclosed Fable 2 to contain dynamic co-op gaming and possibility to get money for doing quests, doing jobs and for gambling. Especially the idea of linking an Xbox live arcade game with Fable 2 was interesting. A player coulg gamble (with fake money) online and transfer that as credits/gold to Fable.

5. Casual games
In his keynote, Playfirst CEO John Welch envisioned an opportunity to elevate video games to become a first-tier form of entertainment, like TV. The goal is reached when 'casual games' goes away as a category, and 'hard-core games' is the niche. I am not that sure about that but nevertheless casual games were everywhere from Facebook gaming to online casual game portals and advergaming.

What will be the Next Big Thing at the digital world?

Teens and youth turned social networking into an international phenomenon. Messenger, YouTube, MySpace and picture galleries (Hi5, IRC-galleria, Kuvake.net) were the last wonders of the Internet. But what will the next Big Thing? How youngsters keep amazing us with new innovations and ways of (mis-)using technologies for their own purposes?

Let's start with randomly picked trends. 1) Urbanisation, 2) Premiumisation, 3) Happiness, 4) Personalisation, 5) Ageing, 6) Anxiety, 7) Globalisation and 8) Ethics. At first the list of megatrends seems rather lame. Wasn't personalisation, globalisation and all that in the headlines already five years ago? But aging is definitely an interesting trend. 'For every 100 persons aged 20-64 in 2050, we can expect 57 persons aged 65 and over.' Conclusion: should we focus on seniors instead of youngsters? Seniors have all the money and time not to mention their health and vividness! Actually VTT has already started "Idea movement for the elderly people" to involve seniors in the innovation processes.

Another trendsniffer Communication Experts Need to Know believes in video, online advertising, online music listening, content aggregation, independent publishing, web conferences, web-based presentation tools, mobile group messaging, P2P casting, visual search engines and web metrics. This is another great list of things -- which already exist! Perhaps Google could reform the online advertising? But I would quess that mobile group messaging is not there yet. There might be some interesting cross media (online+mobile) entertainment (read: games) solutions on their way though. In able to get the general picture of let's say "web2.0" I could use visual search in able to see and understand the relations between social software and RFID tags for example. In general I prefer 'the-faster-the-better' solution plain and simple instead of complex trend-'mindmaps' of anything and everything.

The conclusion? Trend lists are often too general. I quess 'born global' (when talking about the youth), alternative forums, cross-multi-media, 2D bar codes for marking and urban zones will be issues we will see in the near future. Already now youth facilities in Finland have expanded to the online worlds. Maybe the next step is to make another link back to the real world -- to urban zones and areas where youth hang around? Global (online) fingermark seems to be another 'trend'. Youth want to be visible in a broad range of real and virtual forums. They want to build up recognizable online identity and existence. When it comes to actual services or products... hm.. that is a tricky one. I quess voyerism, micromovies, videoblogs and 'espionage' will become more common. Mobile phone (camera) and online video portals will be the technical enablers of that. Also I believe virtual worlds (SecondLife, Habbo, etc.) will be applied more for utility purposes (education, remote work, youth work, cultural activities...). In Finland there already is one signals towards this direction. "Virtual youth facility called Netari" already exists in Habbo Finland. Would it [finally] be the right time for elearning? We'll see! At least various quidance and support services seem to be on the rise.