1. Episodic Goes Primetime
Episodic games are nothing new, but they’ll represent a much bigger opportunity for developers and players who perhaps feel a little exhausted by the rather in-your-face nature of common freemium monetisation strategies. Already moving into 2014 games like Kickstarter lovechild Rèpublique and season two of Telltale’s The Walking Dead are leading the charge, offering high end games at a price which will make core gamers feel right at home.
There’s a good sense of balance that can be achieved if episodic games are released correctly. Developers can spend the time the need making each section of the larger story work as planned, while reducing the risk that’s involved with shipping it all in one package. Titles can benefit from sustained press coverage over the year as new episodes roll out, and gamers who are perhaps a little harder to turn into committed fans feel less pressured when it comes down to taking the plunge.
Freemium isn’t going anywhere; but as mobile gamers become more demanding of the experiences they play on their shiny new tablets and smartphones, Colin Anderson’s idea of the “Post Core” gamer is a reality that might be worth warming up to.
2. An “Arty” Game Could Beat A Triple-A Title On Launch Week Sales
My money’s on the next Mike Bithell game personally. Charlie McDonnell’s narrating it, which means lots of teenage girls and Doctor Who fans are already interested regardless of what they know about Thomas Was Alone. Triple-A games will try to fight back, Call of Duty might experiment with a gay romance scene inside an alternate reality 1980’s laser tank to attract a fresher fan base, much to the horror of the existing fan base who are still wondering whether the chick who just fragged them really does see their mother at pilates…
3. Video Games Will Achieve Knowledge Graph Recognition
You might not know what ‘Knowedge Graph’ is exactly. In short, it’s a semantics-driven database of how Google understands the world. Google a famous person, artwork, city or company and you’ll be presented with not just a list of relevant search results, but also rich snippet summaries of the subject in question. Currently Google has not extended this recognition to Video Games, partly because as a medium we’re really bad at making our key info machine readable. If you want to rectify this, make sure you mark up your site with schema.org properties, and get your Wikipedia entry in order — you have my permission. I’ll be writing more about how to do this, and why it’s important, in the new year.
4. We’ll Start Seeing How Smart Our TV’s Can Really Be
Change always happens from the bottom up. It’ll start when Tesco start building a Blinkbox user interface into their televisions. The successor to that will be a custom Android interface, not that different from what OUYA is already running with. This will be a huge leap in terms of the user-experience low end TVs have to offer — Panasonic and Samsung will wet themselves — but also an explosion in the number of competing ecosystems.
5. Games Will Transcend into Malleable Ecosystems
This is something which Steam employees have been speaking publicly about over the past year, but we haven’t really seen that come into full phase. More games will offer rewards over typical achievements, rewards that are only redeemable in other titles. This presents a big opportunity for large publishers with multiple franchises releasing at the same time, but it’s also an opportunity for indies to band together and make things more interesting. Imagine a DLC pack that isn’t unlocked by just buying it, no, you need to earn it in a completely different (but slightly related) game!
Not appealing? Then imagine a weapon skin that’s not just playable in DOTA 2, but also as a melee weapon in Sir, You Are Being Hunted. Or as a tattoo for your player character in APB? That’s something that could really happen. It’s possible that it could happen today actually, but it’s really going to happen tomorrow. Just you watch.
6. RSS Rises from the Dead
Why the hell is this relevant to game developers? Because the way people are finding out about your stuff is changing. Both developers and the games media alike will have to react to this, making their sites look good not just on Chrome, but on Feedly, Instapaper and Pocket. I’ve already taken steps to make sure my blog works good with these services, but then, I’m like that.
Make your blog readable, and make sure there’s stuff worth reading on it. It will pay dividends in 6 months or less.
Again, I’ll be writing more about this sort of stuff in the new year.
7. Mainstream Media Will Realise Games Are Cool
More of a dream than a prediction, I wish some day that the Guardian Games blog won’t have to pitch itself against the inexperienced columnist, looking to take a cheap, and reliable, shot at a medium they regularly don’t understand. The BBC News website will choose write about a game in it’s Entertainment section rather than tech, and more mainstream newspapers will wake up to the readership potential, and advertising potential that could come with having serious, hard working games writers in a dark corner of the office.
Fox News will continue to drum up local news scandal as a parent discovers their child has been walking around with not one, but two Disney Infinity toys in their large intestine since Christmas, and ESPN will start streaming online coverage of eSport tournaments to the US, putting an end to scenes like this.
8. Cross Platform Will Become A Base Expectation
I’ve all but gone off the Mac App Store entirely because of SteamPlay. What’s the point in buying a game that’s Mac only when I know I can find it on Valve’s marketplace at the same price (or better) and play it when I’m running Boot Camp as well?
A really wild guess would be the possibility that Apple extend the reach of Universal Apps from not just iPad and iPhone, to the Mac (and Apple TV?) platforms; saving players from buying multiple versions of the same game and juggling different levels of game completion.
New storefronts like Humble Bundle have championed cross platform from existence, and with the Steam Box raising gamers interests in Linux and micro consoles, the diversification of platforms could peak new heights in the coming year.
9. We’re All Going To Need to Learn Data Analysis
This kind of circles back to how were all going to get good at publishing things. Being able to collect and listen to the right signals is an important skill in any business, and hiring a full time Data Analyst solidifies an intent on understanding your audience, or potential audience even better.
Of course, many studios have been doing this for years — decades even. But with the tools and techniques being passed down and made more readily available to everyone, you’ll start finding it’s not just the thirty-man development team plotting pivot graphs and pie charts, but the kid in his bedroom as well…
The Future is What We Do With It
This is all blue sky thinking. I’ve heard people love to do this. 2014 will mean something completely different for all of us, but I hope you have a good one, and if you are doing any of that silly resolution nonsense, if you forget just one day, don’t worry, just keep going. Don’t tell anyone…
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