Ars Asks: What video games will still be widely played in 100 years?

Do any of today's titles have the staying power of Chess... or even Monopoly?

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[Red Zero]

Are we talking about the enduring property of a game genre or of a game intellectual property? A game like chess isn't owned as an I.P., but it's rules are played to a formalized competitive standard. It is simply the game that is at the top of its genre. Where as a game like Monopoly is an owned I.P. and strictly controlled by it's owning company.

While I am sure many video game genres will be around in 100 years, I would have strong questions on whether the I.P. of any particular game would endure. The more complex a video game is, the less static it remains over time. A game like Tetris is a good example of a simple game and it captures it's essence in a nice small box. Final Fantasy, on the other hand, is a good example of a game with a very long I.P. history, that has dramatically changed from it's start. It is only one example of an extensive array of RPG games. Will say, Baldur's Gate still be played 100 years from now as say a classic novel is read a hundred years after its original printing?

And I am sure many Ars readers will recall games and articles about game I.P.s that were dramatically mishandled into non-existance and eventual death (Duke Nukem anyone?) Where as other are retooled, lovingly polished, and represented for another generation, like Star Craft.

Also, the continuing evolution of video games is what has continued to make them fun (42 years of gaming here), so I would hope to see even the same game I.P. under go some change in 100 years than to be entirely static.

 

[JEDIDIAH]

psd[/url]":2lqk66o6]After your first rule/assumption, the question is pointless. It is exactly because of hardware obsolesce that "e-sports" won't have lasting appeal. After all, why play an old game on an 2-d screen when all the kids are having fun with latest holodeck mano-e-mano shoot-em up.

The kids already go bonkers for old arcade games despite having access to much better tech.

Availability will probably drive this more than anything else. If you can take today's top 40 hits and run them in emulators in 30 years time, they might have some relevance. Otherwise they will just fade into DRM enforced obscurity.

 

[pluckedkiwi]

Sobieck00[/url]":3h3kc4wi]Dwarf Fortress will always be amazing even if only a handful of people are playing it. I'm sure I will pick it up once a year and waste a few days even when I'm 90.

In 100 years Dwarf Fortress will finally get graphics!

Video games and board games are not at all comparable simply because the technology is changing too much. Once we have very mature tech, such that there will not be any significant changes to user interface, graphics, speed, etc, then you can start the clock on game longevity. Until that point, you could only really judge types of games, to include such upgrades to tech while the core concept remains (with add-ons which were not technically feasible in earlier iterations).

 

[PtRWhatever]

I'm not so sure about a specific 'game' but a piece of a game. Speficially, the MUSIC.

In 100 years, I'd venture to say that many people will still recignize the overworld music to Zelda or the opening sequence to the Final Fantasy series. I'd even venture to say that Duck Tales, "The Moon" music might still catch a few ears.

Music sticks with us. Example, Gershwin's Rap in Blue, Marches by John Philip Sousa. or Tchaikovsky swan lake. All exceed 100 years and we've heard of them.

I think video game's music.. well be here for years to come.

 

[tiggers]

genres will remain. RTS, shoot em ups/combat, MMOs, etc. Beyond that, its a question of the latest skin and graphics. i see plenty of chess sets, but the tried and true black/white is more popular than the donkey kong version.

 

[caseyjohnston]

Kyle Orland[/url]":1334g55i]

shavera[/url]":1334g55i]If you wrapped up every different chess set with different pieces and called it a different game, would that count against chess? Is simpsons chess different from game of thrones chess? So considering FPSs are all pretty much the same game with different wrapping, I'd say that *game* will be an enduring game.

All those chess sets play the exact same chess game, though. First person shooters are widely similar, but they differ in much more than just the wrapping. Speed, weapon selection, game modes, maps, loadout items, etc. etc. etc., all of which affect the actual game, not just the look.

Chess sets, on the other hand, literally affect only the way the pieces look. It's not a fair comparison.

What about chess variants?

 

[StealthFocus]

taraba[/url]":3qw0ag71]I think old 80s video games will come back in style when a billionaire creator of an MMO dies and leaves an egg hunt to choose who inherits his fortune. But other than that event no one will play old games because they will be remade better.

BEST BOOK EVER!

 

[carbonsx]

Red Zero[/url]":2lotkc67]Will say, Baldur's Gate still be played 100 years from now as say a classic novel is read a hundred years after its original printing?

Now that is a great question. There are a lot of RPGs, even FF games that were loved for the story above the game play. Will someone want to play Mass Effect to experience the story for themselves? Or perhaps play Half-Life 2... not for the run and gun but to involve themselves in the story for the same reasons you sit and watch an old obscure movie that someone posted on YouTube... heck people will sit and watch play-through movies of FFX for the story.

 

[ChaoticUnreal]

Boskone[/url]":1vcjut3j]I don't think boards games to computer games are a fair comparison. As touched on above, FPSes are still in their infancy, really: the reason people flock from game to game is because the differences in play from year to year are enourmous. We're also contending with things like ballistics versus hitscans, a relatively slow transaction speed (comparing a near-real-time FPS to turn-based strategy like chess), dramatic changes in display technologies, etc.

In 100 years, no computer games from today will be in common play. 100 years after that, though, I wouldn't be surprised to see games in play for that long with essentially insignificant changes. I anticipate high-fidelity VT being readily available, and much of the world having high-speed, high-bandwidth connections. Computers are still improving pretty rapidly, but the effective benefits to a gamer will plateau at some point. Persistent worlds will, I think, be more common with player-driven story.

So, instead of the current "change the world every few months" model of most MMOs, we'll see more persistance, and more PC-world-driving. Kind of the EvE model, at least in general. (I haven't played EvE, so take that with some salt; I'm going by what I've heard of it.) Games will be created with a model of the world, and basically left running. I wouldn't be surprised to see a mixing of genres; RTS and FPS, for instance. Some players run the game as an RTS and act as commanders; other players run as an FPS and take missions given by organizationally higher-level players.

http://www.naturalselection2.com/ started as a mod for HL2 one player gets to be the commander the rest are the grunts.

 

[Major_Kusanagi]

The People's Mario:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aeAarX-Q24

 

[Mitlov]

My bet is on Starcraft. Maybe not any of the current iterations, but the overall franchise. I'm expecting refinement of the concept going forward, but no "back to the drawing board" moments like C&C 4 was for the C&C franchise. Heck, even Starcraft: Brood War was the dominant real-time-strategy e-sport for more than decade, which is extremely long-lasting compared to other video games.

 

[Dez1013]

I think we have to talk more about genres than individual games. Too many games now are reliant on an online component that when unsupported will rule them out. The only games I know that will be playable 100 years from now will be everything before the 360/PS3 era.

 

[tetsulo]

Just reading the headline and Tetris popped into my head as game that could withstand 100 years of time and still be played/playable by the masses. Most other genre's will be dated by their contextual and technological environment and hence the recognizability or entertainment value of them will be meaningless in that future world. A quick example would be when fossil fuels are phased out for at least common public use Monster Trucks events and Drag Racing will lose a ton of their appeal which is driven by noise, smell, potential for catastrophic failure (the spectacle is the entertainment) - which at least to me means that the analogues in gaming pertaining to them will go away.

I'm sure that the racing genre will never go away though - unless all vehicles are simply computer controlled - in which case the relevance and even the mechanism by which to race (manual controls) will have been removed from both public access and public psyche.

 

[Mikempty]

I agree with some that say types of games will be around more than games per se.

Platformers I think will always be around. The graphics may change and be updated and all flashy but the basic premise is what'll keep the genre around.

 

[MHStrawn]

"For reference, think about what kinds of movies, books, songs, and even games were wildly popular in the early 1900s."

Well, I think a LOT of games and books from that era are now "popular" if not "wildly" popular. Like you mentioned, many boardgames have endured not just from the early-90's but from long before then. Books, also, have withstood the test of time. From Shakespeare to Little Women and hundreds of others there's an entire genre of book "classics" that are likely to be read for hundreds of years into the future.

The other two media you mention, movies and (recorded) songs, were in the infant stages of development. It's no wonder movies and songs from that era aren't popular now; they're simply not in the same realm as modern movies / songs. On the flipside, classic movies made in the 40's, 50's and 60's are still popular today. As is music created in the 60's, 70's, etc. Both movies and music have shown they can produce classics that stand up 50+ years. My guess is Gone With The Wind, The Wizard of Oz, Led Zeppelin and U2 will be enjoyed by many well into the 22nd century.

And that may be the real question here. Is the current video game medium more like early 20th-century movies...or more like 1950's-era movies? My guess would be more like early 20th century movies. I'm guessing that 100 years from now we won't be sitting on a couch with a controller in our hand...but with something plugged directly into our brain, with an effect akin to the Star Trek's holodeck.

The difference between that experience and today's gaming experience is akin to the difference between a silent, black and white movie and today's 3D blockbusters. Therefore, I doubt today's iterations of any games will be popular in 2114. Although, as others have mentioned, a holodeck 1st-person space marine shooter is about as inevitable as a 2015 edition of Call of Duty.

 

[xneutrino]

More linear, story-based games will have a harder time standing the test of time, but there's an outside chance that early titles in the Final Fantasy or Legend of Zelda series will be remembered similarly to great, early 20th-century children's literature in 100 years' time.

Wow, this kind of blows my mind. It makes complete sense from a historical perspective though. I've had the opportunity to work on a number of games over the years and the idea that in 100 years people might be playing them is wild.

Tetris will definitely stand the test of time. It's almost the simplest "complete" video game and has almost perfect design.

There will be a lot of evolution in what games are over the next century. We are just on the brink of mass market VR gaming. There may come a time when pre-VR gaming is quaint and looked at kind of how we look at silent movies now.

The game industry moves incredibly fast so 100 years from now is a long time in terms of the evolution of gaming. I'm looking forward to seeing where gaming goes and as a lifer in the industry helping to put my stamp on that future.

 

[TheMerricat]

JEDIDIAH[/url]":c61nqq89]

psd[/url]":c61nqq89]After your first rule/assumption, the question is pointless. It is exactly because of hardware obsolesce that "e-sports" won't have lasting appeal. After all, why play an old game on an 2-d screen when all the kids are having fun with latest holodeck mano-e-mano shoot-em up.

The kids already go bonkers for old arcade games despite having access to much better tech.

Availability will probably drive this more than anything else. If you can take today's top 40 hits and run them in emulators in 30 years time, they might have some relevance. Otherwise they will just fade into DRM enforced obscurity.

Makes that whole scene in Back to the Future II with Elijah Wood seem silly these days, doesn't it?

 

[ackmondual]

I'd reckon Angry Birds will still be around 100 years from now. Its combined playtime exceeds the combined viewing time of prime time TV. And in case that ever changes, there are plenty of products like Angry Birds gummy snacks (BTW, the snacks in Angry Birds vs. Angry Birds: Space are identical) and Angry Birds hand sanitizer to remind us that it'll be around for a long time to come.


I am a bit concerned about the longevity of certain iOS games though as I already have one that's no longer going to be supported. The thing is... newer devices will support only the newer versions of ios. You can't really downgrade to older versions. An unsupported app won't be updated to support the latest ios, so unless you kept older devices, you'll likely be SoL.

 

[psd]

Thinking ahead 100 years is too hard. Perhaps a more interesting question would be "what games will you introduce to your grandchild?" since that is the only way a game will have a snowballs chance of being remembered for at least one generation (aside from museum type of folks).

For me, that would be "California Games". And yes, I do have the C64 boxed up with desiccant in a cool, dry place

 

[appleseed]

Counter Strike is the obvious answer. The dedicated players who play competitively distain attempts to improve the graphics. They say it always interferes with the responsiveness of the game.

My vote would be for pong. Pong will never be replaced as it is part of the concept that we assign when we talk about computer games.

 

[james314]

My brother and I have just spent the afternoon playing The Settlers by Blue Byte in its awesome co-op mode using the netplay feature of FS-UAE and two PCs. It is a 20yo game (published 1993) and, once you readjust to the lo-res graphics is incredibly fun and more engaging than most modern games. Looking forward to another game tomorrow!

 

[chipmonkey75]

I think a better benchmark for how to compare if a game now is the same in the future would be to say, given a person that had a certain skill level with the "old" version of the game, and a short but reasonable amount of time (a day or two) to get used to the "new" version of the game, would their skills reasonably translate?

Also, a good benchmark for if a game is still widely played may be if there are any organized, paid events to support it?

This works for chess. If you changed a couple of rules like knights jumping, or castling, or how a piece or two moved, a reasonably good player with a bit of practice could probably still be a reasonably good player. This works for pool as well... a great eight ball player can transition to 9-ball and due to their raw game mechanics skills should still be a pretty good 9-ball player, once they work out a few little strategy changes.

I'd say that applies well to single screen games like Tetris and PacMan, but this is one of the things that makes large complex video games less comparable. Take super mario brothers... does a person that was great at SMB have transferrable skills to all other 2d platformers? I would say yes, but to a much lesser extent. I was decent at SMB, but bad at Sonic, for example. There are two components to this... first drifting gameplay mechanics (sonic's speed ultimately got me), and second the specific changes to the game layout... I was good at mario because I could play for 15 minutes blindfolded (well... you know), and I never put in the time with other 2d games.

The second part is really hard to translate. What makes players good across all shooters is reaction time and familiarity with the controls. What makes them great at any particular game is familiarity with the maps. In a board game or game like pool, or sports like football and soccer, the map changes are minimal and immediately discernable, while the mechanics (chess pieces, stick and ball, running with a ball, kicking a ball) are self-similar.

For those reasons I would say that, no, Call of Duty: Ghosts and Call of Duty 2114 would not be the same, nor would a precise 3d VR gun-in-hand holodeck style port of Ghosts be the same game, although a much more realistic port that is basically a massive-HD upgrade with the same game mechanics and controls and same level layout could be the "same".

Coming back to the paid organized game part, Chess still reigns supreme, and I say no video game will come close to matching Chess for this in the future. Even Tetris, Space Invaders, and Pac Man in all their varieties aren't played by that many people today, compared to their golden years, and while there still seem to be donkey kong and pac man competitions, the real paid pros have left those pretty far behind already. I predict a lot of throwbacks, and thousands of ports that would qualify as the "same" game, but ultimately only scattered actual use, and nothing widespread.

But I could be wrong... if I'm around to find out (I will be over 130 years old), I promise to try and hold a pac man tournament to prove myself wrong.

 

[Tension]

Comparing a genre like FPS to Chess is not a good example because it's too broad. As an example, FPS can have different themes (eg. capture the flag). The closest analogy I could think is that FPS is like "board games". It's like comparing chess to checkers or monopoly because they use boards and pieces - it's far to broad.

A few people have said it, the games that tend to stand the test of time are the most simplistic - most probably because it's easy for the rules to be standardised over time. Chess and variants were mentioned, but 99% of people (a made up figure) will play chess, not a variant - so discussing chess variants isn't exactly a strong example either.

You could classify Doom as a foundation for future games, in a similar way that you label chess, but patents would almost certainly cloud this issue. Something that was "too close" to Doom would have lawyers all over it.

I think you'll struggle to have anything other than a real-world conversion (mine sweeper, solitaire, mah-jong) that will hold the 100 year rule.

 

[Schizoid]

It's impossible to know. Look at this list of songs published in 1913 -- how many of them do you recognize?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1913_in_music

The only one that sticks out for me is Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring", which is ironic given that the premiere was a fiasco.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rite_of_Spring#Premiere

 

[MHStrawn]

xneutrino[/url]":1dj8imkt]

There will be a lot of evolution in what games are over the next century. We are just on the brink of mass market VR gaming. There may come a time when pre-VR gaming is quaint and looked at kind of how we look at silent movies now.

The game industry moves incredibly fast so 100 years from now is a long time in terms of the evolution of gaming. I'm looking forward to seeing where gaming goes and as a lifer in the industry helping to put my stamp on that future.

Agreed. The technical advances the future promises simply make today's games but storyboards for the future.

 

[ChrisSD]

For an idea of what games may stand the test of time, it's worth looking at what old games sell well today.

Look at the best selling games on GOG at the moment.

1. Planescape: Torment
2. Baldur's Gate 2 Complete
3. Neverwinter Nights: Diamond Edition

The list is slightly skewed due to the sales but the fact these over ten year old games are still selling well suggests that it's more than just nostalgia driving sales.

 

[Voldenuit]

Spelunky.

 

[jeromeyers2]

Boskone[/url]":evtea0mx]I don't think boards games to computer games are a fair comparison. As touched on above, FPSes are still in their infancy, really: the reason people flock from game to game is because the differences in play from year to year are enourmous. We're also contending with things like ballistics versus hitscans, a relatively slow transaction speed (comparing a near-real-time FPS to turn-based strategy like chess), dramatic changes in display technologies, etc.

In 100 years, no computer games from today will be in common play. 100 years after that, though, I wouldn't be surprised to see games in play for that long with essentially insignificant changes. I anticipate high-fidelity VT being readily available, and much of the world having high-speed, high-bandwidth connections. Computers are still improving pretty rapidly, but the effective benefits to a gamer will plateau at some point. Persistent worlds will, I think, be more common with player-driven story.

So, instead of the current "change the world every few months" model of most MMOs, we'll see more persistance, and more PC-world-driving. Kind of the EvE model, at least in general. (I haven't played EvE, so take that with some salt; I'm going by what I've heard of it.) Games will be created with a model of the world, and basically left running. I wouldn't be surprised to see a mixing of genres; RTS and FPS, for instance. Some players run the game as an RTS and act as commanders; other players run as an FPS and take missions given by organizationally higher-level players.

I think you're underestimating the "telescoping nature of time". You're going to make predictions about things 200 years from now? I cry foul.

 

[potato44819]

In 100 years, if someone mentions Deus Ex, people will still be compelled to re-install it.

 

[killing_time]

a genre may have staying power but no actual game without a lot of reinvention.

and with so much reinvention the question becomes what brand has staying power.

 

[ackmondual]

Oh, as for the boardgaming side of things, I'm also willing to bet that Settlers Of Catan, Ticket To Ride, and Dominion will still be around 100 years later.

 

[Kyle Orland]

ChrisSD[/url]":11wn7htw]For an idea of what games may stand the test of time, it's worth looking at what old games sell well today.

Look at the best selling games on GOG at the moment.

1. Planescape: Torment
2. Baldur's Gate 2 Complete
3. Neverwinter Nights: Diamond Edition

The list is slightly skewed due to the sales but the fact these over ten year old games are still selling well suggests that it's more than just nostalgia driving sales.

To be fair, a game being popular after 10 years is not the same as being popular after 100 years. It's an entire order of magnitude difference, and a generational one too. It's hard to project out based on limited history, which is what makes this such a fun question.

 

[jeromeyers2]

ackmondual[/url]":3rmyo1y5]Oh, as for the boardgaming side of things, I'm also willing to bet that Settlers Of Catan, Ticket To Ride, and Dominion will still be around 100 years later.

Maybe even Axis and Allies? What about Rails?

 

[siliconaddict]

Duke Nukem Forever of course. Toxic waste has a half life that will outlive us all.

 

[xen2xen1]

If you include all the games my family owns on phones and consoles and computers, we probably have 500 easily. I can probably fit 500 on my tablet if I try. Was that even possible 100 years ago? Imagine 500 board games in a house! Think of the size and cost. Part of why it's hard to say is because our options have exploded. 100 years ago a chess set was an investment. Now I download games on my phone and don't even play it because I forget.

 

[Mitlov]

ChrisSD[/url]":1vfn90ed]For an idea of what games may stand the test of time, it's worth looking at what old games sell well today.

Look at the best selling games on GOG at the moment.

1. Planescape: Torment
2. Baldur's Gate 2 Complete
3. Neverwinter Nights: Diamond Edition

The list is slightly skewed due to the sales but the fact these over ten year old games are still selling well suggests that it's more than just nostalgia driving sales.

All Dungeons-and-Dragons-based RPGs. The computer games might only be a decade old but the rule-set and principles upon which they're based is nearly four decades old.

 

[SkepticalOptimist]

I don't think specific titles will survive 100-year accumulation of backward incompatibilites, but a few genres show promise of outliving computing/gaming platforms.

4X GAMES: explore, expand, exploit, and exterminate. Perhaps not the same titles (space or land-based) as we have today, but updated future versions. 4x gameplay does not dependent on the speed or graphics quality of the computer, since it is all about making decisions based on incomplete information available to the player. We've had ups and downs in the popularity of this genre, but there seems to be always new people discovering it. They seem to make migration from platform to platform. One could argue that chess is an ancient implementation of the 4x genre (ok, perhaps 3x, since there is no exploration).

ROLE-PLAYING GAMES. Again, details will be different, but the player will play through the familiar phases of innocence, exploration/discovery, learning the truth, and triumph. In a way, role-playing games are the novels of the new digital media. There will be role-playing games for holo-deck (if we invent it).

 

[samwyse]

Adventure and Zork. Oh, and Nethack.

 

[Marcos2247]

Chess had very little competition for a couple of centuries, so it could ingrain itself deeply into our culture. (and get this overrated, mythical status)

If Tetris was the only game around until the year 3013, it would probably ingrain itself similarly.

 

[SingingBoatsAllDay]

Minecraft? It's the only game I've been playing the past three years, and the first game I've played since 1998's Ocarina of Time.