作者：Danc

当类型区分慢慢消失之后，文化便会向内发展，开始挖掘一些更深层次的内容了。在世纪之交的那个时候，我们曾见证了最热爱的游戏产业掉进了“固守陈旧”的深渊中。那段时间对游戏发行商和平台拥有者真是个黑暗时期，他们反对冒险，制作类似作品。而独立开发者数量锐减。扼杀此少数群体的残酷之举反倒被认为是游戏产业中的“创新”体现。

幸运的是，早前的游戏产业中出现了新的类型，它们开始涌向更有潜力的市场，力图将所有的游戏推向全世界。手机和社交游戏领域可以说是这次游戏进化（游戏邦注：即将游戏推向社会中的每一个缝隙中）的一小部分。瞧瞧吧，探索和创造精神再次复苏了，而且比起游戏史上的任何一次发展都更加剧烈更加明显更加强大。

为了庆祝即将到来的2011年，我们将在此罗列出游戏设计的类型清单。虽然这个清单并不完整，但是却对于今后更广阔的游戏设计空间大有帮助。如果你遇到有人说游戏设计空间已经被挖掘殆尽了或者游戏设计不存在任何问题，那么你就把这个清单找出来给他瞧瞧吧！停止他们对于过去游戏的过分渲染，而将目光朝前看，制作出一些更棒的新游戏去改变世界吧！

miners from lostgarden.com

什么是类型？

关于定义游戏设计的类型我有一套经验法则：

* 你能否轻松地创造出一种新的游戏类型？就像《航空指挥官》这种基于手机设备的游戏便被定义为手机游戏。而这也是众多游戏设计者多年来一直在探索的更深层次的新领域。

* 你能否用旧的游戏类型去吸引新玩家的注意？使用20年前深受14岁男孩们喜欢的BBS门户游戏系统去制作社交游戏并不碍事，只要你能够重新调整这些系统让它同样能够得到45岁家庭主妇的喜欢便可。

游戏机制中的类型

游戏机制是游戏的核心系统。它们是一些规则，反馈以及界面的综合体，能够帮助玩家们获得更深层次的游戏技巧。在所有的界限中，新的游戏机制能创造出最大胆且最广泛的机遇。

社交游戏：这类型的游戏扎根于社交网络中，以改善玩家间的关系并帮助开发者发行游戏为目的。显然，Facebook在此已经有了一席之地了，但是电子邮件，手机以及Twitter也扮演着极其重要的角色。任何你可以与他人进行异步交流的系统都可以被称为社交游戏设置。但是不要将《FarmVille》的功劳夸张化了，因为一棵树是不可能造就一片森林。

棋盘游戏和纸牌游戏：来自于德国的一些新设计仍然在按照一种新方式进行传播和组合。新的游戏机制总会定期出现在我们面前，而且一些新的游戏类型（如《Dominion》游戏造就了桥牌游戏的普及）也会不时地跳出来与我们见面。棋盘游戏是一种很古老的游戏设计，但是在历经几千年之后，我们却可以赋予这种游戏新鲜元素并期望它能在将来带给我们更多不一样的乐趣。

基于触屏的游戏：所有的游戏都是基于基本的交互式动作而形成的。好几年前，最基本的动作便是“按按钮”。而现在我们多了一些新鲜的描绘词，那就是扫射和滑过。如果一款游戏的乐趣便是使用按钮而获得的那种乐趣，那么要是游戏被换成触屏界面，结果又会怎样？

动作类游戏：几乎所有的触屏游戏以及多人游戏都属于动作类游戏。使用人体去控制游戏可以避免玩家对于机器的困惑。同样的，我们的身体与我们的情感和体验有着正面的联系。我们可以在游戏中添加一些更深层次的技巧以及新的应用心理学内容。

故事类游戏：这是早前的角色扮演游戏脱掉厚厚几层游戏机制外衣，即缩减了游戏中的战斗元素并增加了以玩家为主的故事情节的游戏。

艺术游戏：系统是如何传达信息？Jason Rohrer的游戏既传达了美学也凸显了游戏设计发展的魅力。

表演游戏：游戏不再局限于玩家的起居室了。表演游戏需要一群人聚集在一起玩一款新游戏。他们可以在街道上玩《吃豆豆》游戏，或者用杂货店里的购物车进行多人游戏《Asteroids》。

音乐游戏：游戏如《Rock Band 3》能够为玩家呈现出几个世纪的音乐和文化精髓。游戏可以作为一种依赖于内在动机的训练系统，并以最少的增量成本去获得最大的效益。从根本上来看，这种游戏并不亚于花钱去学习音乐，虽然需要花点钱，但是却能减少人们的心理障碍。

运动游戏：如果运动具有社交性和多样性且既便宜又有趣，而不再只是一种需要花钱但却只停留在反复动作的行为，那么会是怎样的一种情况？新一代的游戏玩家将变成运动员，而不再是那些电视迷了。今后五年的游戏将会加强玩家的运动锻炼，增强他们的身体素质，从而提高人类的寿命。

游戏化：如今的游戏是一种应用心理学，可以用来完善人们的每一个生活过程，包括写博客，进行客户关系管理甚至是使用微软文字处理软件。游戏是现代用户体验以及使用设计的下一步进化。游戏不再只是回答如何快速有效地完成任务，而是回答“如何将这种任务转变成乐趣了？”游戏可以将人道主义转变为现代世界中的机械过程。

定位游戏：随着越来越多具备GPS功能的手机的出现，我们可以追踪游戏潜在玩家在现实世界中的位置。这种类型的游戏要如何凸显定位机制？

多媒体游戏：事实上，游戏总是在各种网站，社交网络，电视广告，聊天平台，玩具以及出版物中编织着各种故事与社区。我们应该如何做才能让游戏不再局限于我们的世界，而是在多个平台中交织作用，并能够同时适用于多种现代媒体中？所以不要再将自己局限于单一的屏幕中了。

扩充的真实游戏：图像处理器让我们能够将一些虚拟的目标安置在图形或视频中，让你每天都能在游戏中感受到真实体验。

创造性游戏：当你意识到游戏是一种受作家操纵的行为时，你将会发现你的游戏行为也是一种创造行为。我们需激励玩家的冲动而不是限制他们的行为。《Minecraft》或者《Spore》等用户可以独立创造内容的游戏能够创造出更多创造性个体的社区。而我们所创造的游戏世界可以推动这些社区中的艺术作品的发展。如果设计者放弃了直接创作掌控权而让众多玩家去自己勾画乌托邦情况又是怎样？

会议游戏：不管在哪里都有一些富有思想的人，你可以创造出一款具有深层次理念的游戏。很多协商游戏中都带有一些小册子以及商业名片，所以能够将平常那些不靠谱的交流过程转变成更有结构性且更加有趣的探索过程。你是否能够让那些忙着生意的商业人士也投入到游戏中来？

教育游戏：虽然过程缓慢，但是终究，教育社区开始重视教育游戏的价值了。因为游戏能帮助玩家更好地理解一些复杂模式，所以在此玩家无需死记硬背便能够学习到一些有用知识。游戏确实很擅长于做教育，但前提是你需要制作出一款非常优秀的游戏。有许多游戏开发者努力做出了这种优秀的教育游戏，如《CellCraft》等。

高度同步的游戏：什么样的游戏能让1万名玩家同时游戏？刚开始可以试试以一敌百的游戏模式，或者在体育场、电影院、快闪族，当然还包括网络中寻找机会。当然了，玩家的规模，玩家的心理变化以及整体的游戏设计都应该得到合理的布局。但是如此做的回报却是显著的，如果10万个人能够花15分钟的时间去完成一些有意义的任务，那么他们能够因此创造出什么？

高留存率游戏：随着参数的出现，我们能够意识到有多少人只是在我们的游戏中做短暂停留而已。结合互式设计的参数让我们能够更好地挑战游戏，并让游戏能够朝着我们所期待形式而发展。通过新参数，我们能够更加了解玩家的内在动机。即是什么促使他们进行此选择？是什么让他们感到开心？是什么改善了他们的生活？利用这种方法，我们能够制作出更优秀的游戏。你不应该再继续不懂装懂了，而是用一些更有意义的论断去证实你的成功。如果你的游戏不好，玩家便会离开游戏。你是否能够制作出一些经过经验认证的好游戏，向那些愿意长期玩游戏的玩家传递一些更有意义和价值的信息。

商业模式中类型

创造新的游戏类型的另外一种方法便是创造一款能够适应新的商业模式的游戏。但是这种方法将会给你带来一些新的限制因素，而你也必须开辟一些新的方法去更好地思考游戏设计。

游戏作为一种服务：在过去20年里，游戏一直被当成消费媒介：你玩一款游戏，赢得游戏后便会转移到另外一款游戏中。但是当游戏被当成一种服务形式时，我们将能够尝试无数的游戏了，因为这些游戏将与我们的社区共同发展。很多游戏是天生存在于玩家理念中的，就像经济，政府或者俱乐部这些元素。所以这类型的游戏便不再是媒介了。它们是一种全新的文化，有一些游戏甚至会比它们的创造者“活”得更长久。

免费游戏：游戏终于摆脱了单一的定价模式。如今玩家可以先尝试游戏，以判断自己是否喜欢它并愿意付点钱去体验更多的乐趣。这种免费的游戏模式为玩家争取到了更多的玩家，而它所提供的这种乐趣在早前如果不花个60美元是不可能体验到的。

可下载的掌机游戏：为了以更少的下载预算去争取长期有效的竞争力，一些较大的游戏开发者被迫放弃他们早前使用的3A级开发方法，并寻找一些更有效益的方法。尽管很多平台和发行商都竭尽全力去维护他们对游戏的控制并影响着与之合作的开发商们，但是市场的压力却推动着掌机平台在多年来第一次爆发出创新的火花。所以让我们尽情地享受掌机游戏的魅力吧！

可下载的电脑游戏：独立游戏开发商与一些相关的经销伙伴，如Steam（游戏邦注：这是一个整合平台，由Counter-Strike的开发公司Valve聘请出的BT软件编写者Bram.Cohen亲自开发创建的）合作，而后者会提供给前者盈利的机会并帮助他们创造出更多新类型的游戏。在线社区能够推动游戏的市场影响，而且近年来一些热门的下载游戏，如《Minecraft》也都是出现在电脑上而非掌机上。

赞助游戏：传统的游戏公司意识到了一个事实，即如今有无数的人在玩游戏，而这些公司都希望自己有能力去吸引这些潜在的玩家或者将他们的游戏与产品真正结合在一起。

病毒式传播系统：传统意义上，开发者总是处在一个极其尴尬的位置，因为中间商会牢牢控制着他们游戏的盈利和发行。而在病毒式销售系统中，那些有悟性的开发商便会利用玩家去帮助他们发行游戏，削弱中间商的势力，同时还能够带动开发者与玩家间的关系发展。

在游戏付款和所呈现内容方面：很多付费系统都能让开发者从中盈利-而这是很多销售渠道不可能做到的——帮助开发者从与发行商以及零售商之间的分成模式中解放出来。在Facebook和苹果所垄断的新兴支付系统中仍存在着很多不足。所以从根本上来看，游戏设计的价值是根据玩家的购买行为而体现出来的。牢牢把握这一点，那些聪明的开发者便会去开拓新的利基市场，在此虽然他们的游戏价值以及盈利收入的体现都较为缓慢，但是可以保证的是，他们同样所投入的成本也会大大降低的。

公共资助游戏：除了美国（在这里我们仍然将游戏当成一种进化模式），游戏都被当成是一种有意义的艺术形式，并能够影响一个国家的经济与文化。包括在加拿大，澳大利亚以及新加坡等国家都只提供给游戏开发团队较低的资金支持。所以对于绝大多数开发团队来说，传统的发行商资助还是很有必要的。

平台类型

浏览器游戏：拥有5亿甚至更多用户的浏览器可以说是现今地球上最大的游戏平台之一。小游戏是现在浏览器游戏的大势，而3D游戏则仍只是一种个体形式。但是对于浏览器游戏来说，最重要的还是覆盖范围。

手机游戏：我们开始随身携带游戏了。如今有好几十亿的潜在玩家每天潜伏在网络上，追踪着全球定位系统，使用着通讯录，在游戏内部进行付费，并随时随刻携带着沟通网络与现实世界的手机设备，面对此情形你应该如何做？

平板电脑游戏：平板电脑游戏即意味着新的用户界面以及新的多人游戏模式（就像让不同人汇聚到同一个桌子周围一样）。平板电脑游戏，智能手机游戏以及桌面游戏的相互融合将会创造出一种不一样的游戏经典。

屏幕多元化：电子阅读器真的只是众多屏幕中的冰山一角。如今我的电动牙刷上也有一个屏幕，而我可以每天晚上刷牙时顺便玩玩游戏了。只要有屏幕我们便能玩游戏。而不一定需要快速连接的屏幕或者大屏幕。好的游戏必须能够留在玩家的脑海中。所以作为游戏设计者，我们需要的是一些基本的反馈系统以及输入方法，拥有了这些，我们便能够让游戏无处不在了。

丧失机会的游戏类型

我只想到三种丧失机会的游戏类型。

零售游戏：长期以来，零售市场可谓是聚集了各种腐败的销售模式，不成文的盈利实例，把握着掌控权的中间商，以及各种受压迫的游戏开发者。当然了，我们也能够再次赋予这个市场新的活力，但是你所面临的各种机遇将会因为堆积在开发者头上的各种限制因素而被一层层剥夺掉。

休闲游戏：至少有3或4种停滞不前的游戏类型阻碍着休闲游戏市场的发展（隐藏的目标/冒险，时间管理，不规则游戏）。随着着许多门户网站，如Big Fish等的衰败，游戏的价格迅速下降，开发者的议价能力几乎趋于零。如今在这个领域里，我们几乎看不到任何创新原素，而更多的开发者只是一味地投入更多的开发预算，倾其所有去开发更多的游戏。一些生产价值日益膨胀的游戏，如《Drawn》让我感到非常失望。随着游戏的发展，我们看到了更多好看的图像。如此看来冒险游戏是否已经逐渐衰败了？这到底是为什么？

大型多人在线游戏和虚拟世界：伴随着游戏产业的发展，大型多人在线游戏也逐渐力不从心了。早前的游戏机制变成了一种宗教戒律，玩家不再想要尝试这种游戏，甚至连游戏中的创造性也停滞不前了。越来越多所谓3A级游戏的泛滥只会加速这个领域的溃败，甚至对游戏市场的内部体系造成致命的冲击。虽然F2P角色扮演游戏以及儿童大型多人在线游戏给这个市场带来了希望，但是这些游戏的寿命也都不长。这类型游戏中的乐趣都被大大压缩成为一种简单的规则，而因此推动着很多社交游戏的发展。但是我仍抱着一丝希望。即无需发行商或者经营者的帮助，许多独立开发商可以进入这个市场并创造出新游戏，以彻底改变原来的游戏格局。也许来自于社交游戏领域或者浏览器游戏领域的开发小组最适合这项工作了。他们能够创造出不一样的大型多人在线游戏，再次带动这个市场的活力。

结论

在过去几年里，我们曾看到两个价值数十亿美元市场的出现，分别是社交游戏和手机游戏。而这仅仅只是个开始。我们可以期待，在未来的5年里能再次出现一个新的高价值市场，今后的十年里至少能够出现3个新的高价值市场。

发现这些机会的人士绝不会满足于传统游戏公司的固定薪水，这些公司妄自尊大。而那些积极面对各种类型的设计者将脱颖而出。赶紧来探索一个未知的危险领域吧，为未来10年的游戏展示全新面貌。

游戏邦注：原文发表于2010年12月31日，文章所涉及的事件和数据均以当时为准。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Happy 2011: Celebrating frontiers in Game Design

By Danc

When the frontiers go away, culture turns inward and begins eating itself.  For a brief period of time at the turn of the century, we saw our beloved game industry fall into the trap of thinking ‘there is nothing new under the sun.’ It was a dark time where risk adverse publishers and platform owners made bigger bets on more-of-the-same.  Independent developers were dropping like flies.  Bloodier methods of shooting demonized minorities in the head were considered to be “innovation”.

Thankfully, new frontiers emerged as the old inward looking industry has shattered into multiple billion dollar markets seeking to bring gaming to the rest of the world. Mobile and Social games are just the tip of the iceberg of the evolutionary explosion that is pushing games into every crevice of society. Look around! The grand spirit of exploration and innovation is once again thriving like almost no other time in gaming history.

To ring in 2011, here is a list of frontiers in game design.  This list is not complete, but it gives some hint at the vast breadth of games still left to be designed.  If you come across someone who claims that all games have already been designed or that game design is a solved problem, show them this list.  And then challenge them to stop fiddling about with over-exploited games from decades past and make something new and wonderful that will change the world.  Go west, young man.

What is a frontier?

My rules of thumb for defining a game design frontier:

Can you easily create a new genre of game?  A game like Flight Control defines the line drawing genre on mobile devices.  This is an entirely new and deep placespace that designers will be exploring for years to come.

Can you use an old genre to reach a new audience?  It doesn’t matter that social games use systems beloved by 14-year old boys playing BBS door games 20-years ago.  The frontier arises from adapting those systems into a game enjoyed by 45-year old moms.

Frontiers in Game mechanics

Game mechanics are the systems that beat at the heart of the game.  They are unique combinations of rules, feedback and interfaces that create a playspace within which the player gains deep skills.  Of all the frontiers, new game mechanics creates the boldest and most wide ranging opportunities.

Social games:  Games that tap the social networks in order to improve relationships and facilitate developer controlled distribution.  Facebook has staked out an obvious stand, but email, mobile phones and Twitter all have roles to play.  Any system where you can communicate asynchronously with other people enables social gameplay. Think big and don’t be blinded by erudite fear mongers braying about Farmville.  One lone tree does not define the forest of opportunity.

Board and card games:  The wave of new design that came out of Germany is still spreading and recombining in new ways. New mechanics appear on a regular basis and new genres (such as the deck building game popularized by Dominion) keep popping up.  Board games are the ancient soul of game design and the fact that innovation is still possible after thousands of years gives me immense hope for the future of games.

Touch-based game:  All games are built of a foundation their most fundamental interactive verbs.  For years, the most basic verb has been ‘push the button’.  Now we have a radical new vocabulary of swiping, flicking and pinching.  If a platform game is about the joy of movement using buttons what foundational new genres will emerge from touch interfaces?

Motion-based games:  Take all the possibilities of touch-based gaming and multiply the design challenges by 10x.  Using the human body as a controller rips asunder our most basic assumption of how to interact with a machine. Also our bodies are intimately tied to how we feel emotion and experience the world. There are deep skills and new pathways of applied psychology just waiting to be turned into games.

Story games:  The old genre of roleplaying games has spawned a new set of stripped down mechanics that minimize combat and maximize player generated stories.

Art games:  How can systems convey messages?  Jason Rohrer’s work exemplifies both the aesthetics and the power of this game design movement.

Performance games:  Game no longer need to exist in the living room.  Performance games involve groups of people coming together to play new games.  They turn streets into a Pacman games or Grocery carts into a multi-player game of Asteroids.

Music games: A product such as Rock Band 3 hints at what can happen when games help unlock mastery of centuries of music and culture.  Games can act as training systems that rely on intrinsic motivation and are scalable to millions at minimal incremental cost.  At stake is nothing less than the radical commoditization of learning to play music by reducing both monetary and psychological entry barriers.

Exercise games:  What if exercise was social, inexpensive, varied and fun instead of a repetitive, expensive chore?  The new generation of gamers will be athletes, not couch potatoes.  The next 5-year increase in human life span will come from gamers living healthy lives reinforced by the games they play.

Gamification:  Games are applied psychology and can used to improve the experience of almost any process in the world today, from blogging to CRM to using Microsoft Word.  Games are the next evolution of modern user experience and usability design. Instead of merely asking how to make a task possible or efficient, games ask “How do we transform a task into a delight?”  Games can return humanity to the mechanical processes of the modern world.

Location games:  As mobile phones with GPS proliferate, we can track our position in the physical world across huge populations of potential players.  What are game designs that make location and a sense of place matter?

Pan-media games: Alternate reality games weave stories and community driven puzzles across websites, social networks, TV ads, chat, toys and print.  How do we make powerful games that layer an alternate world over the top of our world and enable communities to interact with our evolving dance of creation using all the modern media available?  Why limit yourself to a single screen?

Augmented reality games:  Image processing lets us place virtual objects in images and video, annotating and transforming the everyday into reality plus.

Creativity games:  When you ditch the idea that games are acts of absolutely authorial control, you realize that the act of playing is an act of creation. Let’s multiply this player impulse, not constrain it.  User generated content games like Minecraft or Spore hint at the creation of of dozens of future communities of creative individuals.  Inside these community are artistic works enabled and facilitated by the game worlds we create.  What happens when designers give up direct authorial control and empower millions of players to build a utopia?

Conference games: Anywhere there is a concentration of like minded people, you can build a game that creates deeper connections.  A slew of conference games, played with pamphlets and business cards transform the often unreliable networking process into a joyful act of structured exploration.  Can you help connect the minds of the professionals who are busy pushing forward business, research and more?

Education games:  At the pace of a tortoise moving towards a treat spotted many hours ago, the educational community has started making educational games worth a damn.  Since games enable players to gain an experiential understanding of complex models, they are one of the few ways of teaching wisdom instead of rote book learning. The tricky bit? Games are great at teaching, but you need to make great games first and foremost.  The influx of real game developers driving the efforts has produced wonderfully playable titles like CellCraft and there are dozens of similar projects occurring throughout the world.

Massively concurrent games:  What games can you build with 10,000 people playing at once?  1 vs 100 was a start, but there are opportunities in stadiums, movie theaters, flash mobs and of course online. As populations of players scale, the psychology of player inactions shifts and entirely new designs need to be deployed.  Yet the payoff is impressive; if 100,000 people spent fifteen minutes doing something meaningful, what could they accomplish?

High retention games: With the advent of metrics, we are finally realizing how few people play our games for any length of time. The last third of your game?  Sorry, didn’t play it.  Metric combined with iterative design finally give us the power to tune our games so they actually work as we think they should work.  With the next generation of metrics, we are gaining new insights into intrinsic motivation.  What makes people tick?  What makes them happy?  What improves their lives? As a result, we have the tools to make better games. You can no longer fake it and try to claim success with handwaving comments about art and meaning.  If your game sucks, people leave. Can you make empirically validated games that deliver enough meaning and value that smart, informed people want to play for long periods of time?
Frontiers in Business models

The other way to create new genres is to create games that fit new business models.  These impose new constraints and open up new ways of thinking about play.

Games as services: For much of the past two decades, games have been treated as consumable media: you play a game, beat it and move on to the next tasty treat. When a game is run as a service, we are running an endless game that grows and evolves with the community.   Most are inherently multi-player and can just as easily be described as economies, governments or clubs as they can a game.  Such games are not media.  They are entirely new cultures, some of which will outlive their founders.

Free-to-play games:  Games have finally broken free of the shackles of a single fixed price model.  Now players can try a game, see if they like it and pay a little or a lot in order to experience more. This single development opens games to massive audiences that never before would have paid 60 bucks for a new experience they may not enjoy.

Downloadable console games:  With smaller download budgets and long tail competition, larger developers are forced to give up many of their wasteful AAA ways and find the fun in small packages.  Though platforms and publishers are desperate to maintain their demeaning practices of control and leverage over contractually enslaved developers, market pressures have so far enabled small bursts of innovation to flourish on consoles for the first time in many years.  Enjoy the now fading days of summer while it lasts.

Downloadable PC games:  The indie movement combined with relatively hands off distribution partners like Steam offer both a means of making money and freedom to create new types of games.  Online communities help drive marketing and it is telling that the downloadable smash hit of the year, Minecraft, came out on PC, not the console.

Sponsored games: Traditional companies have awoken to the fact that hundreds of millions of people play games and they want to either own this ability (Disney) or to have the experiences that games create associated with their products.

Viral distribution systems: Developers are traditionally screwed because middle men control monetization and distribution.  Viral distribution systems lets savvy developers empower players to distribute their game, reducing the power of the middle men and freeing developers from entangling relationships.

In game payments and offers: The vast array of payment system puts monetization in the hands of the developer, not the distribution channels, creating a new path for developers to gain independence from the sharecropping models practiced by publishers and retail channels.  There are rotten spots growing in the form of Facebook and Apple’s emerging payment monopolies.  Ultimately, the value driven by the game design is what player are buying.  With this in mind, smart developers should carve out niches where they keep the majority of the value and payment providers are slowly but surely forced to become low cost providers of baseline services.

Publicly funded games: Outside of the United States (where we are still arguing about evolution), games are considered a meaningful art that contributes to the economy and culture of a country.  Canada, Australia, Singapore and many others offer low cost grants for teams that want to make games.  Most new teams need traditional publisher funding like a slave needs an owner.

Frontiers in platforms

Browser games:  At 500 million and growing, games played in browsers represent one of the largest gaming platforms on the planet.  Flash is the current mainstay and 3D is barely present in the form of Unity.  But the important thing about browser games is the reach.

Mobile games:  We are starting to carry games with us wherever we go.  What will you do with a billion potential players, always on internet, GPS, address books, in-game payments, augmented reality and a device that is within reach every waking second of the day?

Tablet games:  Games for tablets mean new UI conventions and new multiplayer models (gather everyone around the table)  The cross pollination between tablet games, smartphone games and board games is going to create some inevitable classics.

The plethora of screens:  eReaders are really just the tip of the iceberg.  My electric toothbrush has a screen now and I play a game on it every night. Anything with a screen can play games.  They don’t need to be fast screens.  They don’t need to be big screens.  Great games happen in the player’s head.  All we need as game designers is some basic feedback systems and an input method.  With that, we can put games anywhere.

Fading opportunities

There are really only three fading opportunities that come to mind.

Retail games:  The retail market has long been a cesspool of corrupt distribution practices, crippled monetization, entrenched middlemen and oppressed developers meekly serving the Man.  It is still possible to innovate here, but your chances are reduced by an order of magnitude for every layer of management piled atop the line developers.

Casual games:  There are three, maybe four stagnant genres left powering (Hidden object/Adventure, Time management, Match Three) the casual games market.  With the deadly drop in prices during the recession and the enormous power of portals like Big Fish, developers have retained almost zero bargaining power.  Innovation rarely flourishes and the death crawl towards bigger budgets and winner-takes-all releases is in full swing.  Games with bloated production values like Drawn just make me sad.  We’ve been there.  We went down the path of prettier graphics.  Notice that the adventure genre has died before?  Ever wonder why?

MMOs and virtual worlds: Somewhere along the line, the MMO genres calcified. Old mechanics turned into religious commandments, bright experiments floundered and innovation stopped. Instead of building better games, we got prettier graphics and more baroque consumable content. The next deluge of overstuffed AAA games just hasten the genre decline with their expensive and inevitable implosions. There was a brief ray of hope with F2P RPGs and kids MMOs, but this spurt appears short lived.  The interesting lessons of these games have been stripped out and rendered down into the overly simple rules that drive many social games.   I have some hope.  It is still possible for independent companies to enter the market without the help of publishers/operators and create a new game that turns genre conventions upside down.  If anything, it will be a team from the social games space or the browser space.  Such a team could create an accidental variant of an MMO that ends up reigniting the market.  Fingers crossed.

Conclusion

In the past few years, we’ve seen the emergence of two multi-billion dollar markets in the form of social and mobile games.  This is only the beginning.  Expect another billion dollar market to emerge in the next 5 years and at least three new billion dollar markets to pop up over the next ten years.  The game industry is dead.  Long live the game industries.

The people who tap these opportunities will not be those that stayed at home sucking down a steady paycheck from an aging company mired in incestuous politics and egotistical dreams.  It will be the designers who strike out and tackle the frontiers head on.  Be the settler of a dangerous new land.  Define the new face of games for the coming decades.（source:lostgarden）