'Next-gen' isn't just a new console: Emerging trends from E3 2013

While everyone else was focused on the Microsoft-Sony horse race, editor Patrick Miller was paying attention to the Oculus Rift, eSports, and a collection of creator-driven games as the real next gen. Microsoft and Sony may have dominated the E3 2013 airwaves with their look-at-my-new-toy console announcements, but I don't think the new consoles are actually going to define the next generation of games the same way that the current generation. Think of it this way -- the Nintendo Wii gave us motion controls, and the Xbox 360 and PS3 brought online multiplayer to the masses. When we look at these so-called "next-gen" consoles, though, we mostly see more of the same. Which means, I think, that the themes, trends, and experiences that define the next generation of video games aren't going to be seen in the Microsoft-Sony horse race.

Oculus Rift and hardware dev

For all its cutting-edge tech, the Oculus Rift seems almost like a throwback to those heady '90s, when head-mounted displays showed up in the pages of GamePro and "virtual reality" was a buzzword that people actually took seriously. Well, the Oculus Rift is bringing VR back, and it looks good. By now, I've seen the headset evolve from a relatively slapdash duct-tape prototype showing Doom 3 at GDC Online last year to its current dev-kit incarnation running Hawken at GDC 2013, but at E3, founder Palmer Luckey was showing off a prototype that brought twin 1080p displays to bear upon Epic Games's Unreal Engine 4 demo from last year's E3 ("Elemental"). Luckey attributes its development to a combination of maturing 3D printing technology allowing them to slash internal iteration time, and the continued pace of smartphone hardware advances that force OEMs to develop sharper and speedier screens. Luckey also pointed out that in the current consumer tech landscape, small teams like Oculus VR have access to the same hardware that Apple and Sony do. To me, this indicates that we may start to see more game devs getting their feet wet with custom hardware manufacturing as an additional creative axis; I could easily imagine a studio like Double Fine or Capy crowdfunding a game with a unique physical device for a highly niche audience. (Who knows? Maybe in the next five years we'll see indies bring back the dedicated single-game handheld a la Tiger Electronics handhelds.)

But perhaps more impressive than the progress of the Rift headset itself is the enthusiasm with which devs are playing with it. EVE Online dev CCP Games was showing off a neat spaceship-dogfighting prototype using Oculus Rift that started as a nights-and-weekends passion project by an internal team; they had a six-player setup running in a dimly-lit upstairs meeting room with blacklights and neon that made the entire experience look ripped from a '90s vision of what Games In The Future Will Look Like. (Amusingly enough, CCP managed to get room 514, which is either a clever or serendipitous nod to their recently-launched free-to-play shooter Dust 514.) Oculus VR was also showing a neat third-party demo which placed the player in a movie theater; I watched the trailer for The Hangover 3, and it was, surprisingly, a non-game application for the Rift that I could see myself actually using to watch Netflix with friends across the country. This, right here, is what I think of when I think of the next generation of games, and I'm inclined to think that there are a whole bunch of game (and hardware) devs out there who agree.

Horizon, and the return of fun

New to this year's E3 conference lineup was Horizon, an indie counter-press-conference of sorts spearheaded by IGF chairman Brandon Boyer and self-described "nerd artist" Cory Schmitz. Horizon came at the end of E3, rather than the beginning; it was set in a quiet, intimate auditorium in downtown LA's Museum of Contemporary Art; it featured game creators from across platform lines who stood and spoke simply about their enthusiasm for the games they were making. In short, Horizon was everything the major press conferences were not. To be sure, indies were everywhere at E3, not just at Horizon. I was struck by how many developers were readily found hosting their own games the show floor (particularly in the Sony booth) as I've grown accustomed to wading through PR folks and general booth attendants. But I found Horizon to be a welcome breath of fresh air. Without the glitz and glamor of a packed stadium and flashing lights, or the spectacle of the console wars, all we had left to pay attention to was the games themselves and the people who made them, and I found that I did indeed pay much more attention to them. And they looked pretty neat. So when it comes to next-generation trends, I think the lesson we ought to take from Horizon is this: Context matters. In a marketplace where open publishing platforms make it hard for your game to get noticed among the other hundreds launched that day, smaller devs are going to have to work on intelligently controlling the context in which their games appear. For some people, this will mean more visibly attaching your games to your personality (so that you are forever known as "the person who made ", or perhaps this means working more visibly with your peers and colleagues in the industry. Maybe it means you start your own counter-show, full of only the work you want to curate and be associated with. You simply can't count on anyone but yourself to make your game "discoverable."

eSports continues to grow

The rise of organized professional games (loosely referred to as "eSports") has continued its slow bleed into the E3 show floor. From Twitch.TV and GameSpot to Mad Catz and Turtle Beach, it seemed like you couldn't walk fifty feet without running into a competitive player or personality running a beat-the-pro competition or taking an interview onstage. It certainly seems like this most recent eSports boom (largely categorized by the ascent of League of Legends, Starcraft II, and the competitive fighting game community, among others) has gotten the rest of the industry to take notice, even if it simply means that they're making their games more stream-friendly and showing off top players here and there. The takeaway: Half-baked multiplayer has been a recurring complaint in the current console generation. Publishers, the story goes, pressure devs to include an online multiplayer component to their game because a compelling multiplayer game can act as a viable viral sales vector (as players get their friends to buy copies so they can play together) while simultaneously functioning as DRM (because players must own a legitimate copy of the game to play online). A good multiplayer mode ought to reduce the resale market by compelling players to hang onto a game after they're done with the single-player campaign. But what we're learning with the rise of eSports and organized game competition is that just a "good" multiplayer mode won't cut it for much longer. The indies get it; no one expects a quality single-player experience out of J.S. Joust any more than one would expect a good book to also make for a good sport. (The last time I saw a book try to include both narrative and sport was Quidditch in Harry Potter, and I'm guessing most Gamasutra readers were probably baffled by the design purpose of the Golden Snitch.) The games that succeed as eSports are the games that were designed from the ground up to withstand cumulative years of professional exploitation while still remaining accessible enough for a newbie to jump in and get started. So, if you're going to do next-gen multiplayer, prepare yourself to go all-in on competitive multiplayer from the very beginning, or spend some time finding and iterating on creative ways to weave other people into the core fabric of your game. (When I saw Bungie's Destiny demo, I thought that someone probably pitched "Journey, with guns" at a design meeting, and it stuck.) Do it right, and your game could become the start of your empire (see League of Legends); do it less-than-right, and you might just be wasting your time.

Looking forward to next-gen

By the time the dust from the major press conferences had settled, it seemed as though the main thing people were excited about was Sony's decision to maintain the status quo in regards to used games and DRM while launching at a lower-than-expected price. I don't know about you, Gamasutra readers, but I think the next generation of video games looks much, much brighter than that -- but perhaps only after we look away from the console manufacturers for a minute or two. --Patrick Miller