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Ancel: The future of gaming is socially connected persistent worlds, playing together

N

Nirolak

Mrgrgr
TL;DR:
-Not everything in the tl;dr is quoted below. Check out the link for more direct quotes.
-Ancel wants to make emotional games, but where emotion is derived through interacting with other players either socially or directly instead of the plotline. Think more Journey/Battlefield and less TLOU/Quantic Dream.
-Ancel feels persistence (like MMOs or RPGs) and social connections are really important so that players feel they're making an investment with their time instead of wasting it.
-Ancel feels that highly scripted linear games are going to have trouble in the future because players will feel like they're constantly playing the same pre-scripted experienced instead of something that actually responds to what they're doing.
-Ancel feels that online will be critical and nigh mandatory to having a great experience while gaming, but that this feeling should be evoked by how much better everything is while you're online instead of a DRM mechanism forcing you to be online.

GamesIndustry.biz said:
When Ancel talks about "emotion" it is in a very different context to that employed by studios like Quantic Dream, Bioware and Naughty Dog. Ancel doesn't mention any game or studio specifically, but it's clear that what he wants to accomplish has little to do with the cinematic trappings evident in so many games with a transparently "emotional" agenda. It is the difference between the experience of a game like Journey and a game like The Last Of Us - one spontaneous, the other prescribed.

"When you're making a game, it could be compared to a guy organising a party," Ancel says when we meet after his talk. "You don't want them to be exactly the way you tell them to behave. You want them to be in a contextual environment where they can enjoy themselves, and [enjoy] being with each other.
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"Don't talk about AI and things like that," Ancel advises. The variety and dynamism required to create a broader and more meaningful palette of interactions already exists in the connected audience. This generation has illustrated how powerful an effect real people communicating and cooperating can have on the experience of playing a game - an obvious example is Minecraft, but even action titles like Left 4 Dead and Battlefield 3 were immeasurably enriched by the interplay between friends and the focus on group-play - but for Ancel the industry has only dabbled in the ocean of potential opportunity the connected world offers.

"Through the game design, you can create communication and the necessity to co-operate," he says. "And I think that can be extended to games that you don't just play for 10 minutes or 15 minutes, but much longer experiences, where you really have a strategy together. You're not always in the same place, and you need to co-ordinate with the other people. It's what you see in MMOs. Things are moving in that direction, and it's getting more and more interesting."

That broad push towards more connected play experiences was certainly evident at E3, where a number of the most celebrated games were based around group-play in persistent, dynamic environments: Bungie's Destiny is an obvious example, but The Crew and Tom Clancy's The Division - both from Ubisoft, Ancel's employer - are also being built around these values. In terms of game design and the user experience, Ancel believes the proliferation of persistent worlds will be a huge benefit of the new consoles.

"When you play a game you spend your time in it. If there's some persistence, some socialising, you're investing your time in the game," he says. "Persistence and social are there to make sure the player is investing their time, and making their knowledge about the game more valuable... It is interesting to not just reboot everything as the way it was before. Connecting things gives players a more important world."
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Source: http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2013-07-17-michel-ancel-connect-share-create
 
Developers are constantly telling us what the "future of gaming" is. I think they're all full of shit. Especially ones that work at a place like fucking Ubisoft.
 
granabanana said:
RIP gamers with lame connections or even worse no internet connection.
Click to expand...

Not exactly what Ancel is saying here.

Anyhow, I do think that cloud-enhanced gameplay elements are rather overrated by some industry figures. I like practical applications of the cloud (game saves, for example), but I find actual cloud-based gameplay mechanics to be a bit hit and miss.
 
I don't really enjoy MP, and have a bad connection at times, Guess I may need to quit gaming eventually, this makes me sad
 
That is one branch of the future of gaming sure....

but there will always be a place for solitary experiences too, geez.
 
InsaneZero said:
Not exactly what Ancel is saying here.

Anyhow, I do think that cloud-enhanced gameplay elements are rather overrated by some industry figures. I like practical applications of the cloud (game saves, for example), but I find actual cloud-based gameplay mechanics to be a bit hit and miss.
Click to expand...

Basically ubisoft is going the way of always online. They are doing this already with the division and the crew. Those with no connections are going to miss out.
 
Glix said:
That is one branch of the future of gaming sure....

but there will always be a place for solitary experiences too, geez.
Click to expand...

Totally agree. I would hate for every single game to be online only. What if a server is down or the company in question closes it down for good? Game will be useless
 
Glix said:
That is one branch of the future of gaming sure....

but there will always be a place for solitary experiences too, geez.
Click to expand...

You can have experiences that largely solitary but have connected and multiplayer elements, like the Souls series.
 
Nirolak said:
-Ancel feels that highly scripted linear games are going to have trouble in the future because players will feel like they're constantly playing the same pre-scripted experienced instead of something that actually responds to what they're doing.
Click to expand...

I don't know about that. I'm all about persistent open worlds, but I need a good, structured, scripted story every now and then. I must have replayed the Uncharted 2 campaign no less than 6 times, and I personally find single player games to be the most replayable.
 
...Persistence and social are there to make sure the player is investing their time, and making their knowledge about the game more valuable...
Click to expand...
At least he speaks the truth.
It's not about making an enjoyable game anymore, it's creating a machine that makes sure by all means necessary. So they purchase your subscription and expansion and not someone elses.

Good bye, Ubi. You already made Anno 2070 hugely persistent, you only have ONE profile and can't erase a good part of your save data. Because it's persistently stored online. In Anno.
 
If thats the case, them I'm out. Time to focus on a different hobby I guess.

Luckily, we all know it's not going to happen. SP games will always be there.
 
There seems to be a trend for game designers who have been around a while and/or are getting older to push social gaming and multiplayer for everything. This is often expressed in terms that evoke a fear of "wasting time" and "we need something more than mere games".

Personally, I would suspect it's a symptom of industry burnout in at least some cases. If you've been at something for a long time, it may be hard to not feel it's not meaningful or you're wasting time on things that don't matter anymore. Social gaming seems like an easy band-aid for these feelings. Just replace meaningful game experiences with social interaction. The novelty of cooperating with other people in a video game can bringing a sense of freshness.

Nothing wrong with that, but traditional game concepts still have value and there are plenty of people who aren't tired of them.
 
He actually makes a phenomenal point regarding the potential in gameplay of social interaction and connected persistent worlds, there's so many potential applications and developers have really limited themselves in how they've utilized that potential so far.

It's amazing that a concept as relatively simple as the online community features of Demon or Dark Souls wasn't more heavily investigated much earlier, for example.
 
Between Minecraft, Journey, DayZ, Planetside and Project Reality, I've had more fun in gaming than I've ever had before. The experiences of playing with a small group of friends in a large, open, dynamic and emergent multiplayer world easily beats the traditional 10-20 hour singleplayer campaign. While I'll always love a good singleplayer story like in Walking Dead or Last of Us, or pure mechanical fun like Super Hexagon or Mark of the Ninja or DOTA or whatever, I've found that this personal dynamic of interacting with other players, the uncertainty of events, is just such a fulfilling way to spend leisure time.

So I'm happy for this trend to grow. More big open persistent worlds affected by change and agency of players. More human interaction that's thematically appropriate for the world. More awesome games.
 
I thought the future was f2p games?
Before that I thought the future was facebook games?
Before that I thought the future was 3d games?
Before that I thought the future was motion controls?

And fuck you ancel I like singleplayer games, they can be designed to be FUN without having to worry about shit like balance.
 
Quit trying to tie everything into online so you can monitor every flick of my analog stick and give me AI that isn't dumb as rocks. I'm looking at you Human Revolution.
 
This industry needs more visionaries and less businessmen. It doesn't even matter that Xbone DRM was thrown out or Sony won, I'm still going to need to pay online fees for my $60 games and once those servers get closed it doesn't matter if I own the game or not. Hooray for consumer rights I at least still own a plastic coaster unlike those digital suckers.
 
I do want to see more games like that. Games like DayZ and Demon's Souls. But not BG&E2. BG&E2 should remain a story driven single-player game.
 
Urgh, I really hope this doesn't come true.
The preservation of games for the future is looking very grim if this comes to pass. Good luck playing The Division in 15 years time.
 
If this was an ounce of real, he would be playing EVE+Dust514.

Before you foster player interaction, remember throughly the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory.
 
It always bothers me when someone says that there is one singular future of game design.

Personally though, I enjoy single player games the most, and while I absolutely loved Journey, the joy that game gave me didn't come from the multiplayer aspect (and I really did appreciate how non-invasive it was).
 
I wouldn't call multiplayer, social driven games, persistent worlds/accounts the future.

It's very much the present.

That said, tackling online worlds/battlefields with friends is fantastic and new concepts in that direction very welcome.
 
Never underestimate the power of people to get sick of dealing with each other. There will always be a market for legitimate single player.
 
Persistent worlds are become more and more prevalent so I definitely see those types of experiences becoming the forefront of gaming.
 
You know what? Fine with me.

My backlog is so massive I could use a break from recent releases anyway. There's enough classic games I've yet to play till the future games industry either collapses and restructures or fixes it's shit.
 
Nirolak said:
Ancel feels persistence (like MMOs or RPGs) and social connections are really important so that players feel they're making an investment with their time instead of wasting it.
Click to expand...

Ironically, reading this I had the opposite reaction: if a game feels like an "investment," I feel like there's actually a chance I'd be less likely to play it. I can only speak for myself, but when games downright require I spend dozens of hours with them before I'm competent enough to have fun, I lose almost all interest immediately.

In other words: what if I play games precisely to waste time?

Ancel feels that highly scripted linear games are going to have trouble in the future because players will feel like they're constantly playing the same pre-scripted experienced instead of something that actually responds to what they're doing.
Click to expand...

So, in other words, he has no hope for the future of dynamic, adaptive, intelligent AI. Well that's ... disappointing.
 
I feel like Ancel is being driven mad by Ubisoft dangling the BG&E carrot in front of him for so long. I'd love to see what he'd do on his own with a small team.
 
I agree. I believe the ultimate endgame of video games is a highly persistent and reactive world where every action has a reaction and believable consequences. Like a virtual reality similar to .hack.
Though we're a long long ways from that.
 
but where emotion is derived through interacting with other players either socially or directly instead of the plotline.
Click to expand...

A thousands of years old concept, now explored by the gaming industry. Can´t wait.

SneakyStephan said:
I thought the future was f2p games?
Before that I thought the future was facebook games?
Before that I thought the future was 3d games?
Before that I thought the future was motion controls?

And fuck you ancel I like singleplayer games, they can be designed to be FUN without having to worry about shit like balance.
Click to expand...

The future is less control to you, first and foremost.
 
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