2004’s version of the future

I was going through presentations and materials that were destined for this website but never made it up during the two years that it didn’t get updated. One of the things I found was this gem, for Gordon Walton’s panel on “what is the next generation MMO?” that took place at GDC 2004. It was exactly one slide, so there’s not much point in putting it up as a presentation–but it’s still fun to look at, and then ponder in light of where the industry actually went for its next gen games.

Raph’s take on the next generation, March 2004

• Embrace user content–if the law and our own fears let us
• Distributed servers
• Dynamic content in all measures
  • Algorithmic models, textures, worlds
  • Artificial life models for AI
• Stop being called games

Is this still the future? Was it ever? You tell me.