The Future of Fun

The Future of Gaming

Want to see the future of gaming? Look in your pocket. Like entertainment in general, gaming will become increasingly mobile, social, and connected, says Michael Cai, director of broadband and gaming for research firm Parks Associates.

"Handheld devices like the Nintendo DS or [Sony] PSP that directly download games over the air will change the way we look at multiplayer online games," he says. With embedded long-range wireless connectivity, gamers can access their favorite virtual online world and play against their friends wherever they (or the friends) may be. Game publishers and service providers can also send content over the air to portable game players.

Using devices with built-in support for Wi-Fi, wider-reaching WiMax (which can cover an entire city), or next-generation 4G cellular broadband, players--regardless of location--will be able to engage in massively multiplayer online games like RuneScape, or connect with like-minded others on gaming sites such as ClubPogo.com.

Even the games themselves will change as software empowers gamers to become developers. Inhabitants of online worlds such as Second Life already create their own territories, characters, and plot lines. User modifications turned the popular game Half-Life into the even more popular game Counter-Strike, and Microsoft recently made its Xbox development kit widely available in the hope that Xboxers will create new libraries of games.

The next big step in user-generated gaming may come next summer, when Will Wright's eagerly awaited Spore arrives. The creator of The Sims has spent $30 million developing a world where players design their own organisms, which will come to life on screen and quickly evolve into new beings. Darwin would be pleased.

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Contributing Editor Dan Tynan writes PC World's Gadget Freak column. He is also author of Computer Privacy Annoyances (O'Reilly Media, 2005).