Monthly Musings: The Future

Every month, the Destructoid Monthly Musing topic gives community members the ability to have their work posted on the Dtoid front page.

It took all my strength not to title this month’s theme “future events such as these will affect you in the future.”

Another month — heck, another year — has come and gone, which means it’s time for another monthly c-blog topic. Seeing as it’s the beginning of a new year and all, why not look to the future? So many of these Musings themes have been backward-looking; why not start predicting the immediate future of games, both as an industry and as a medium?

Where do you see games going as a form? As a storytelling medium? As a business? What do you find most interesting about the potential future of games? For that matter, what do you find most terrifying or disappointing? When you think about the next decade and the path games are on, are you happy about the future you see? Or are we hurtling toward mediocrity?

Will motion-control be the next big thing? Will family-friendly games overtake the marketplace? Your guess is as good as ours.

Hit the jump for a further explanation of the theme and how to post it.

Go to our c-blogs, get an account, and when you write your post, make sure to title it “The Future: blah blah blah” and choose the “monthly assignment” post tag.

I won’t pretend that this month’s theme isn’t one of the most unrepentantly vague topics ever. You can write predictions about the future of motion controllers (are people desperate for more waggling, or did the Wii already singlehandedly flood the market?).

You can talk about the increase in narrative-driven games, and what designers are learning about telling interactive stories, and whether such a direction is a fruitful one to explore. You can talk about games that could have maybe changed the direction of the industry, but, due to shoddy design or bad marketing or whatever, simply failed to.

Which genres are dying, and which are coming into prominence? Which old definitions are quickly becoming obsolete? What trends in game design do you see becoming more or less ubiquitous, and is that a good or bad thing?

I’m basically asking you to act like a slightly more respectable version of Miss Cleo this month, but hey — you’re on the same playing field as everyone else.