The Generation Gap

The MMO Guy

So far CCP has managed to avoid a lot of the issues that would concern a traditional developer, by developing and publishing its own MMO, EVE: Online. But it's currently working on Dust 514, a game designed for PlayStation 3 that will connect with the EVE universe. Is this what Capps meant about omnipresent gaming?

"I think you're already seeing that a lot of games are platform agnostic," offers Nikola Cavic, senior sales manager.

It's going to be about one IP spanning different platforms, there very well might be an extension to web, or with applications for mobile

Nikola Cavic, CCP

"Like EVE Online, Dust, it's going to be about one IP spanning different platforms, there very well might be an extension to web, like we have with EVE Gate, or later on with applications for mobile. So I think that's definitely where we're heading. With more accessibility and the popularity of cloud gaming and services it's going to be really interesting to see how that comes into play. It definitely looks exciting. More connectivity for sure."

It's a view backed up by other conversations GamesIndustry.biz has had with publishers like Ubisoft, who now create a multi-platform blueprint for all their big IPs. Got an idea for a great console action game? Then you'd better have ideas for iOS, Facebook and handheld devices too.

So more digital content, IPs that people can access regardless of their device, better cloth textures... But what about the guys that are already one step ahead of that? Who are creating the next step in free-to-play titles, that have made the break from the big studios and the consoles to create games in a new way?

The Social Gaming Guy

Greg Borrud is one of those guys. If his name is familiar it's because he was one of the founders of Pandemic Studios, and a VP and COO at Electronic Arts. More recently he's left all that behind to launch Seismic Games, "a games studio dedicated to developing high quality next-generation social game franchises for digital platforms."

He thinks the next generation will see high end machines and their owners and casual games existing together, and evolving together.

"I don't see all the Call Of Duty guys switching over, dropping all that and all playing games on Facebook," he admits.

"I think what you've seen is now new platforms open up, new audiences open up and I think this is now the new normal for games, which is gamers everywhere playing on all different platforms and all moving forward. So I think there's all these different threads rather than it just being 'social games are now what games are.'"

When we used to talk about games it was a very clear, niche audience, and I think that's what's exciting about it for us, games are now ubiquitous

Greg Borrud, Seismic Games

"I think everyone tries to say that we've got one gaming audience, and we move that entire audience from one thing to the next. But I think what we've actually seen in the last couple of years is just the growth of this audience with multiple different platforms. When we used to talk about games it was a very clear, niche audience, and I think that's what's exciting about it for us, games are now ubiquitous."

And that's the problem with getting anyone to talk about the next generation, beyond nervous PRs waving NDAs in the background or rumours swirling across the internet like excitable fog. The next generation is already happening, but it's happening without a launch party and a queue for first retail units. Mobile and social and tablets are as much a part of the next generation as whatever Sony and Microsoft choose to show at the next big trade show, and they're evolving day by day. If anything, the hardware boys have got some catching up to do.