Interview GamerHub.TV Brian Fargo Interview Part Three: Thoughts about the future

[Infinitron]

Tags: Brian Fargo; InXile Entertainment

The third and final part of GamerHub.TV's interview with Brian Fargo is up. In this segment, Brian shares his thoughts about the future of gaming. He describes his hopes for more open platforms that would give greater power to the smaller developers, and gives his predictions for the future of PC, console, tablet and cloud-based gaming. Thoroughly inspiring stuff!

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I love his reaction to the question about consoles.

 

[FeelTheRads]

Supporting cloud gaming...

 

[Infinitron]

Supporting cloud gaming...

Supporting? He obviously harbors doubts whether it'll ever really work.

 

[mindx2]

Supporting cloud gaming...

Supporting? He obviously harbors doubts whether it'll ever really work.

Yeah, I got the same vibe from his answer as well. Fargo doesn't see cloud gaming working, at least not in the near future.

 

[Brother None]

But after the near future (and I agree with him it doesn't seem too feasible right now), it's not even about support or not. It's kind of inevitably (part of) the future.

 

[Shannow]

Well, I despise the very concept of Cloud because it takes control away from me. But I can see cloud gaming working with TB games. Only I doubt the industry gives two shits about TB games and as long as browsers are enough for farmville I simply don't see cloud gaming as taking off. Certainly not with the shooter crowd.
But maybe Xi would like to tell us how successful OnLive has been since it was launched. I'm not really in the loop, but it should have a huge market share by now...

 

[mindx2]

But after the near future (and I agree with him it doesn't seem too feasible right now), it's not even about support or not. It's kind of inevitably (part of) the future.

I'm no tech guru but isn't bandwidth a problem and if they want everybody "on the cloud" it's going to cause problems, right? People complain about certain hours on cable modems when too many are on at once causing slowdowns. The infrastructure isn't there and I don't see it coming anytime soon.

 

[tuluse]

But after the near future (and I agree with him it doesn't seem too feasible right now), it's not even about support or not. It's kind of inevitably (part of) the future.

I'm not sure this is true. We have 3 decades of it being cheaper to have computing hardware at the location instead of mainframes. No one has ever given me a good explanation of what technology has come along to change this.

 

[scrambles]

I find the very concept of "Cloud gaming" terrible, it takes control of the product away from the gamer and into the hands of an online DRM system. It's stuff like that GOG and other services exist to prevent.

 

[Brother None]

I'm not sure this is true. We have 3 decades of it being cheaper to have computing hardware at the location instead of mainframes. No one has ever given me a good explanation of what technology has come along to change this.

Yeah, but it is a balance of consumer convenience and producer control. Gaming is watching jealously as music, films, TV all move into more controllable environments. Nothing's changed yet, and cloud-based gaming isn't feasible yet, but when it is even remotely doable (and I'm not exactly offering tech solutions here but we've seen too many innovations come and go to just say "it's not doable") they'll jump all over it, with or without Fargo's approval.

 

[General Maxson]

The future that awaits us is idiocracy, whether we want it or not.

 

[Dexter]

The "cloud" as these marketing assholes call it nowadays was very much a thing of the past with dumb terminals that were connected to a mainframe: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_terminal

Since then, technology, CPUs and similar have only gotten smaller, faster and better, leading to them being integrated in things like mobile phones, your microwaves and so on. Moving back to that time is retarded from a technological standpoint in more than one way and the only reason to do it is the hard-on the publishing industry and platform owners have in regards to control. As long as alternatives exist I will always support them (similar to how I can't be arsed to get a closed-off console platform to do my gaming there and have always remained on PC) and if there is a time that there is no other possibility then I guess that will be the time I will have to say goodbye to gaming.

I ranted off a bit somewhat on length about this over here a few months ago: http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/07/16/w...ll-off-gaming-pcs-we-ask-gaikais-david-perry/ xD

 

[curry]

the future is full of science and cyber technology.. uncertainty awaits

 

[Infinitron]

Let me remind you that the interviewer mentioned cloud based gaming specifically in the context of tablets, which are not powerful enough to run high fidelity games on their own.

 

[Dexter]

Let me remind you that the interviewer mentioned cloud based gaming specifically in the context of tablets, which are not powerful enough to run high fidelity games on their own.

Upcoming Tegra4-based tablets will be just about on the same level as the last generation of consoles, that's what NVIDIA is building their "Project Shield" upon: http://techland.time.com/2013/01/11/nvidias-project-shield-can-succeed-even-if-it-fails/

Tegra3 was already running a few rather impressive looking games, including some using the Unreal3 Engine and similar: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBl-goBrWno&hd=1
Technology is only going to get better and cheaper over time, there's no need for imposed Always Online requirements, Latency and shitty compression artifacts.

 

[Infinitron]

Let me remind you that the interviewer mentioned cloud based gaming specifically in the context of tablets, which are not powerful enough to run high fidelity games on their own.

Upcoming Tegra4-based tablets will be just about on the same level as the last generation of consoles, that's what NVIDIA is building their "Project Shield" upon: http://techland.time.com/2013/01/11/nvidias-project-shield-can-succeed-even-if-it-fails/

Tegra3 was already running a few rather impressive looking games, including some using the Unreal3 Engine and similar: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBl-goBrWno&hd=1
Technology is only going to get better and cheaper over time, there's no need for imposed Always Online requirements, Latency and shitty compression artifacts.

Yes, but how hot are those tablets going to get while running this stuff? Remember, this is something people are holding in the palms of their hands.

 

[Brother None]

Technology is only going to get better and cheaper over time, there's no need for imposed Always Online requirements, Latency and shitty compression artifacts.

No need from the consumer side or from the producer side?

 

[A user named cat]

Yes, but how hot are those tablets going to get while running this stuff? Remember, this is something people are holding in the palms of their hands.

Oven Mitts: Gamer Edition™

 

[Xi]

Well, I despise the very concept of Cloud because it takes control away from me. But I can see cloud gaming working with TB games. Only I doubt the industry gives two shits about TB games and as long as browsers are enough for farmville I simply don't see cloud gaming as taking off. Certainly not with the shooter crowd.
But maybe Xi would like to tell us how successful OnLive has been since it was launched. I'm not really in the loop, but it should have a huge market share by now...

I agree with all of your points, but I still believe that we will move to a cloud-gaming system as technology develops. Onlive has already been sold off to another company. However, it still functions. ;P

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/...is-nvidias-new-cloud-gaming-server-explained/

Here's some newer cloud gaming tech from Nvidia. Interesting read.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

He's an interesting individual, very intelligent.

 

[Apexeon]

More power to the small teams of 1-6 people.
More power to people who "love" making games.

**** these teams of 50-200 movie making flops.

The more I see big games going flop the better.
Take Max Fail 3 they flog 1 million copies and its a flop.
To much time is spent on making games look like a stupid movie with a
bunch of quick time events.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/7.381462-Max-Payne-3-Studio-Closing-Its-Doors

Rockstar Toronto is absorbing Rockstar Vancouver.
Things are looking tough for the AAA gaming industry. Shipping over a million copies of a title no longer necessarily means a studio's continued success - Kaos Studios closed back in 2011 despite the fact that a sequel to its game Homefront was greenlit later that year, and there was that whole thing with 38 Studios. Joining the unfortunate list of closed studios is Max Payne 3 developer Rockstar Vancouver, which Rockstar Games is shuttering despite its last game's success.

 

[Kosmonaut]

Well, I despise the very concept of Cloud because it takes control away from me. But I can see cloud gaming working with TB games. Only I doubt the industry gives two shits about TB games and as long as browsers are enough for farmville I simply don't see cloud gaming as taking off. Certainly not with the shooter crowd.
But maybe Xi would like to tell us how successful OnLive has been since it was launched. I'm not really in the loop, but it should have a huge market share by now...

I agree with all of your points, but I still believe that we will move to a cloud-gaming system as technology develops. Onlive has already been sold off to another company. However, it still functions. ;P

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2013/...is-nvidias-new-cloud-gaming-server-explained/

Here's some newer cloud gaming tech from Nvidia. Interesting read.

As interesting as OnLive, right?

 

[fizzelopeguss]

How's the US's fibre optic network, these cloud gaming services are a non starter without it.

 

[Moribund]

I don't think it's possible to do cloud computing. Like electricity itself, fiber optic isn't instantaneous. Every repeater slows it down. You need it to be instant or it won't work, end of line. It's also always going to be way more inefficient. No one is going to settle for ten times worse graphics just to be a part of a deranged DRM experiment.

 

[Infinitron]

If anybody is interested, there's this interview here which is actually a word-for-word transcript of parts of this video series: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2025...-wasteland-2-and-the-future-of-pc-gaming.html o_O

 

[Ninja Destroyer]

The future that awaits us is idiocracy, whether we want it or not.