this isn't exactly an uncommon topic - i've seen it thrown around here a few times - what is going to happen to computer games once we hit that level of technology, and computer games really do have life-like visuals? sure, it may be 30 or 50 or 100 years off, and we may all be flying around in hover cars and space pigeons might invade the moon, but it is going to happen
and usually the replies are half life with realistic graphics, farcry with realistc graphics - ad ifinitum.. but often people will say, there will be a greater focus on storytelling, on ai - on substance... and i agree
but recently, i was thkinking - not what will happen to computer games once we have lifelike visuals - but what will happen to television and film, and how computer games will play off of them?
once we really do have full blown photorealism - and that may not come in our lifetimes - and the accompanying advancements in AI that, while much slower, will eventually come as well - will television and film, as we know it, continue to exist as we know it? in a world where film and television makers can make their documentary on tombs in egypt, or genocide in rwanda, or the filmmaker can make that epic war movie with hundreds of thousands of soldiers without leaving their offices - will they go to the effort of using livee-action sets and even - even actors? if a director can - literally - tailor the precise expressions and emotion from an artificial - yet utterly real - character, why bother with actors at all? - CG images are already used a great deal in films - is the next step abandoning people entirely?
will the human element continue to exist in the future of entertainment? will you want it to? - do you want it to? and how will it affect computer games? do you think computer games will continue to exist? - consider the potential advancements in AI, imagine if futiristic computer game-movies are scripted in the sense of a television show, but there's an underlying AI engine driving it all forward, and you can step in at any time and take over your - whatever - your favourite tv show in some way - is that possible? would you want it to be possible?
it would only take pretty advanced ai (or just a ton of scenario running for scripted reactions, even) and perhaps some advancement in voice synthesisers and you could more or less play your favourite tv show - imagine taking over an episode of house or 24 and seeing what you come up with? the potential for storytelling - interactive storytelling - is... amazing
i find myself increasingly feeling that the days of television are very numbered as an entertainment medium - computer games as well, and not that they will end, but change and merge and somehow become the same thing - in a world where developers aren't bogged down with graphics (because there will presumably come a point where making better looking games is pointless, even though in terms of raw numbers, it will always be possible) - they will be so free to look at the substance of the game - ever play any old text adventures? real old ones - they weren't bogged down with visuals - literally - and they spent all their time working on the subtsance of the game, and i remember some had hundreds of ways they could end - usuaully it was your untimely death because you told the rat to f**k off, or because you wanted to see what happened when you jumped from the balcony - but imagine if that essence was translated to modern computer games
but, would you want it to? does the idea appeal to you? would you rather sit with your keyboard and mouse and keep getting those headshots, or grinding out a new level? it is surely still decades away - but would you rather see a merging of the major forms of entertainment as we know them, into something straight out of star trek, or do you just want more of the same, only with better graphics?
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