Games... If you are like me, you must play games a lot... Yet, for all the games that we play, there are none that have the virtual commodity that you feel like you own it "for reals". You play a game, get some laughs and enjoy it for the moment, then that's it... If you play "Free" games, you sometimes end up giving up a buck or two for that small "advantage". Do you really feel like you have something special here? If you are like me, you mostly feel good until there is something else to buy, then you suddenly feel used... That's why I want to dedicate my next project to creating this tangible item... Something that I don't have to buy. A gamer's inalienable right.
After speaking with some friends, co-workers, family, etc. I've discovered that there is pretty much nothing that can touch this feeling of ownership. Most people think of gaming as something that just exists in the virtual world, completely separate from the realm of the "real". Shame, that all those technological advances that exist now cannot bring our pretend worlds any closer. Sure there are VR headsets and AR devices, but what about these experiences is any different that what we do now? Will having something look better really provide a different stimulus? We've tried that in gaming for years now, and I can tell you, incredible visuals and great gameplay are far too often a "Rob Peter to pay Paul".
Take, for example, Evolve, a more recent 3d game with great immersive graphics and little in the way of gameplay, and compare it to Terraria, a 2d game with okay graphics but packed full of gameplay. Both games are good in their own right, but I'd wager that an amalgam of the two, Evolarria, would be
AWESOME! Sadly, this would cost a lot of money and time. But what if you could take
AWESOME gameplay of game A, and make it completely modular? Plug gameplay A into graphics powerhouse title B and come up with a new product C. Product C is
AWESOME! Product C goes on to sell multiple millions of copies! Whatever! The idea I've been shopping around is one that gives us an item of tangibility and provides the gameplay opportunities to titles that support it.
As I sat on the porcelain throne one day, I thought, "Wouldn't it be cool if I had an avatar, pet or something on a device, and I could plug that something into a game, and all of a sudden the game is
AWESOME!?" A few companies have done this before of course. There are plenty of games and products like this all over the place. What is so different about this idea than any other? Well... CLOUD! I win! Haha!
In all seriousness though, I feel like the internet-of-things will enable this unlike any other. A holographic/picture pane depicting your avatar all the time. It lives in the device. It is sellable. It is transmitted to your game (wifi to cloud to game or some mix of that). It gains experience with your gameplay. It gathers items from each of your games. When you want to transfer it to another person, you put it into a state of hibernation and turn off the device, sell it to them, then they use it in the same way you did. It is real property, a tangible benefit, something
AWESOME to make your games
AWESOME. You take it in your pocket to work and show it off. You take it to school and get it taken from you, but not before you show it off!
Implementation would be interesting. I had thought of keeping a checksum of all possible variations and combinations of all avatars in a sort of cloud-bank scenario inspired by virtual currency. Whenever a person's avatar gained items or customization, it would be compared to the list of registered customizations provided by partnering games. Unregistered customizations can still be supported, but will only work for certain games or offline versions. In the end though, I wish for both the client and server systems to be open-sourced. If someone wants to make money off this venture, they should work to provide the best service they can, creating custom games supporting their avatar item checksums. Their customizations should also be compatible with other servers and games and they should help to maintain the community of avatars.
When we ultimately make the move to AR-central gaming, this system will be one of the backbones that drives gameplay in the years to come.
Thanks for reading.