Role of Interactivity

Professor Brackin (one of my two game design profs) showed us Jesse Schell's presentation at this years DICE Conference entitled "Design Outside the Box" a couple weeks ago, and I cannot stop thinking about it. If games are going to continue this pervasive trend, if they keep expanding into every little nook and cranny of our society, what the HELL will I be doing to keep my family fed and happy ten years from now? Designing interactive stairs or trashcans? I'm not even sure what work I will be doing when I graduate next May; 10 years from now is impossible to scry.

At my sister's wedding one of my ...cousins?... from the side of my family I only see/talk to/hear from at events just like a sister's wedding asked me where I think the games industry is going. I didn't really know, so I just spewed forth a cacophony of "Facebook...dwindling hardcore demographic...cheaper hardware equates to smaller development teams and stronger indie presence....Facebook.....my generation will age and we will still want our video games..." blah blah blah. Since, I've really been thinking about it...

Where the hell are games going?

I will tell you, exactly:
1.) Video games will become recognized as an art form. They will follow the path of movies; there will be a "sundance festival" for video games, you will find them in museums, people will buy them for gratuitous sums at the bewilderment of everyone outside the bleeding edge art-game community (who will all have Tier 1 beards, wear ironic shirts, and smoke imported tobacco through crazy LED rainbow, jew-hunter-guy-from-Inglorious-Bastards-sized, pipes).

Think about it.

When I am 45 years old (and retired, spending my days launching flaming pianos out of a trebuchet I built on my land) I will want to buy old games I loved playing when I was much younger. Playing through MGS 1 even NOW (at the ripe old age of 22) reminds me of simpler times, easier times. These games will be in museums; indie developers will remake them in crazy, abstract, thought-provoking ways.
Now, when I say museum, I do not mean like you will one day walk into the Louvre and see a giant Mirror's Edge cabinet (although that would rock). More realistically there will be cloud-museums on the internet that users can access which will stream all sorts of retired gems straight to their brains (which will be how we play games in the FUTURE).
The other big factor is this: movies did not become an art form until it became affordable to make decent quality movies. When technology springs up, it is reworked, and redesigned, and remade a thousand gagillion times, until eventually it is nigh-perfected. I can make games in Flash CS5 that would have blown the minds of everyone back in 1992, for basically nothing. To keep with my movie parallel, my phone can record better quality movies than the tech. they had back in 1940-whenever. Eventually there will be a point where making games of the same graphical quality of, say, Gears of War will be as affordable and easy as making a Flash game. Instead of Flash game websites like Kongregate, Casual Collective, Omgpop, etc., we will see sites hosting games on the caliber of Halo, in full 3D with beautiful textures, sounds, etc. Just look at Minecraft and Dead Frontier; both in full 3D, both high quality, both launched from your browser.

The important question to ask yourself in this future scenario is:
2.) If such high-quality content will be as accessible as Flash games are now, what "real" AAA titles will be playing? Engines will just keep getting more powerful and more accessible (Unity 3, CRYEngine 3); and over time, less expensive...and require less PC power on the user side to operate. So what will be "the next big thing?" Let's look at trends:

-Success of the Wii = Sony and Microsoft create the Move and Kinect, respectively. The biggest problem facing the games industry is how to expand the consumer base. Heavy hitters like Blizzard have to continually develop content for the same (plus or minus) base of consumers to keep their subscriptions coming in. The Wii was VERY successful in expanding the consumer base. For the first time your parents, grandparents, girlfriends, etc. are playing console games. Why is that? I will tell you: the controller. The biggest bar of entry to games in the interface by which players use to interact. It is completely unnatural to hit buttons on a pad. It takes a long process of learning to get used to it. The Wii (and subsequently the Move and Kinect) bridge this gap a little bit more; not completely, but a giant step in the right direction. Why was guitar hero so successful? Same reason, the controller. Also, the games for the Wii (and Guitar Hero) were geared for a more family audience.

3.) Everyone will play games. Games are much more prevalent in my generation, and they are only becoming more normal. It is no longer nerdy to play games, although still entirely possible (as exemplified by various 500+ day gametime WoW logs). When my wife and I are old, it will be just as normal to sit down and play games just as my parents go out and see movies (or talkies, as they call them). My kids will play games with us (until they are angsty teenagers); it will be a normal family activity, just like seeing movies together.

4.) The study of Game Design/Ludology will broaden into the Study of Interactivity Colleges across the world have already created Game Design programs due to the increase in demand from students; this is just going to grow and grow, much like it did with movies (see the parallels here?). Getting a degree based on movie production back in 1930 was considered absurd (if even possible), much like how it is absurd to get a Game Design degree now. As our world becomes more interactive, the study of interactivity will increase and become more useful (and profitable) to know. In this future "Game Designers" will be called "Interactivity Grand-Wizards" (and long purple robes will be in style), and their knowledge will be useful EVERYWHERE, not just in the games industry. Interactivity simply makes everything more engaging, makes it better.

School subjects are mastered faster when the students have to engage; I learned more about Italian city-states (and the sexual orientation of Leonardo) from Assassin's Creed 2 than I did in any of my world history classes; and had more fun doing it. I relish the day when instead of tests, we will play games. Tests ARE very game-like already, just as is the whole grading system. The difference is that they are not engaging. Knowing the exact location of Paris and it's geographical nuances is much more useful when you have to send your virtual army to conquer it versus having to display said knowledge in an essay or as an answer to question 39.

Eventually everything I have learned about what makes games GOOD versus what makes games BAD will be relevant to every aspect of  my daily life. I think this is the big point Schell was driving home here; eventually being a "game designer" will mean so much more than that, and that is the horizon I keep my focus on.

The Dream Job: Finding the How

All my life I have had one encompassing goal: to inspire others to greatness. The problem, however, has always been how.

Through public school the how was Art; people have been moving others through various classic mediums for centuries. I would then go off to college and study as the old masters did, creating revolutionary masterpieces in such a way never before seen. But "college" quickly became "community college", and "study as the old masters did" became "study as everyone else did", what with their expensive supply lists and special erasers. Maybe art is not the how I have been looking for.

Then I actually started (community) college. The how quickly became Writing; entire religions and belief systems are based off of the written word for it's unbeatable ability to hammer out the nuances of expression. I said, "Yes! Philosophy! Fiction! This, this is how I will inspire others out of the mundane and the flash frozen. This is how I will change peoples lives! I will be the next Socrates, living off of the generosity of others as I tear their wit to pieces with my all encompassing ...right-ness! And they will put up with me, and give me shelter and food because they love being told that they're wrong all of the time, about everything, but deep down they know I make them better people." Yet, that soon fell through, but I had already devoted my educational resources to this path. Soon I was saying dejectedly, "Well...I will write some books, or something."

Then I fell in love, and my life changed forever. First, and most importantly to the context of this post, it was my priorities in life that changed. My number one went from, "CHANGE THE WORLD", to "Settle down, raise beautiful children, and spend every second possible with this woman." But since "CHANGE THE WORLD" is definitely a close second, my ever fleeting how has transformed: How will I inspire others...while building a sound foundation to raise children and provide for a family? ...Crap.

So there I was, about to start at The University of Texas at Dallas to finish my degree, and I had a big problem: I had no how. So I said, "Will, what has inspired YOU to greatness?" And, I'm not joking, it was actually video games. Yes...flippin' video games.
See, in the background through all my artistic endeavors, I also played games at least 6 hours a day. I just never thought a career in games was the right how, until I had this realization that games are the highest form of art ever created; sculpture, acting, writing, drawing...all in one sweet little package that the (here's the kicker) user/reader/viewer can CHANGE at his/her own will.
Specifically it was Metal Gear Solid for the Playstation. That was the first of many games I encountered that made me think of games as something higher than a mere distraction/toy.
I enrolled in the Arts & Technology program at UTD, with a focus on game design, and have yet to look back. It is now two years later, and I have one giant year ahead of me before graduation. This is the crunch year, and I would like to document it for all the other would-be "inspiritors" out there.

My name is Will Burgess, I am a senior student game designer at UTD, and I have found my how.