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The Next 25 Years of Video Games
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2033:
The Real-Life Matrix, Video Games That Are Way Smarter Than You
According to computer smart guy Raymond Kurzweil, by 2029 the kind of computer power it'll take to equal a human brain will cost about $1. If trends continue as they have been, what we're calling supercomputers could be made as small as a speck of dust. You could paint them on your walls. Take the whole idea of distributed computing we talked about and multiply it several thousand times over. Computers become both ubiquitous and invisible, embedded in almost every surface you touch, with the whole atmosphere full of the data they're shooting back and forth to each other. More information than your parents absorbed in a lifetime could come firing into your brain in the blink of an eye. Combine that with patents Sony already has for ways to fire ultrasound pulses into the brain to create real-life sensory experiences, and you've got everything you need for five-senses virtual reality. And, you don't even need the jacks in the back of your skull.
We're assuming some kind of nuclear fusion or some other kind of vast energy source is out there by this point (all this flying data will require unimaginable amounts of electriciy) and that we're not living in mud huts and fighting radioactive mutants for food. But, if we're not, PS8 Home (or whatever they're calling the digital metaverse at that point) should finally exist as a new-and-improved version of reality you can touch and smell--only noticing the transition by the sudden absence of fat. Imagine it. In your lifetime, a magical world where you can actually meet that Burger King mascot, and smell him and feel his robes. As for the porn, well, is it even porn at that stage? It's pretty much just sex. You have sex with the porn lady and when you roll over, there's the Burger King guy to hand you a Whopper in person.
As for what sort of "games" or other entertainment would be offered there, it's possible that by then the gaming industry would have achieved its final goal: A device that makes you enjoy the experience no matter what they do. It's true that it would require electrodes inserted into the pleasure centers of the brain, but at that stage it would probably be considered cruel to not implant them in every newborn.
Electronic Arts could crank out a Shrek 9 game in a couple of weeks that features nothing more than Shrek standing in your front yard, quietly staring and occasionally farting. The whole time your brain will be telling you it's the most fun you've ever had.
You may be having so much fun in the game realm that you'll never want to leave. And that's OK, because this guy says that just down the road (around 2050) you'll be able to download your mind into the computer. Your body dies, you live on in the virtual world. Forever. Or, you know, as long as somebody is paying the bill.
What Will Suck About It
Or, possibly mankind will only be allowed to survive for the machines' amusement. Perhaps they'll force us to walk through hallways and shoot each other out of a desire for ironic revenge that we will have accidentally programmed into them somehow. It's all speculation at this point. Who can predict what will happen on that day when Spore has, generations later, culminated in systems powerful enough to create entire universes and even simulated minds to populate them. You would reach a point where the population of simulated beings in existence dwarfs the real ones. Even stranger, the simulated people born inside the simulation would have no way of knowing they were in a simulation. You may have heard that guy in The New York Times say that mathematically we are almost certainly living in one of those simulations now. But anyway, Spore looks pretty cool and we're looking forward to it.
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One thing I think you should have mentioned is the username, many already have universal usernames that they can be recognized by. Probably by 2050 or so more people will know you by your username than by your real name.
Have they considered using a hat to hide the electrodes? Not only would it hide the jackassery, but it would come in as many hat-tastic varieties as there are hats. Of course, if ever presented with the national anthem, people would be faced with the paradox of not removing their hat, or being jacked out of the game that's playing it in the first place.
Obviously all of the people researching this s**t have never read the book "Feed"... I'm worried about our future.
This totally makes me think of Deus Ex.
i think that the "Well when that Matrix s**t comes about I'm going to put a gun in my mouth." problem will be fixed flashpenny
someone could start a new gaming revolution where they stop making movie games and the average budget is in hundreds of dollars instead of thosens (or is it millions hmmmmm) they spend on well that usual same-as-3-other-games-that-come out-this-week
and mr. wong did u get ur ideas from "Serial Experiments Lain"? cause really i think all of those were in the first few episodes (besides the last one which was a big chuck of the plot)
Here-we-are-&-ps3-home-is-nowhere-to-be-seen
Does that photo of the kid in the helmet on page 4 remind anyone else of "Akira"?
Someone might have mentioned this before, but I am to lazy to read 113 comments. Ruck Rucker wrote a book called Postsingular about tiny nanomachines that used quantum entanglement to create a worldwide "Orphidnet" (that was the nanomachines were called--Orphids) and they were in everyone, so everyone was connected all the time to the new "internet." and the little Orphids could make AI assistance to help you and make you smarter and stuff. It's pretty good.
Also I get $0.50 everytime one of you reads it, so help keep me and my seven foster children fed. And my camel.
Good God I do not want this s**t to happen! Can't video game makers accept the fact that games are fine the way they are? Or better yet actually go back to the f*****g 90s and realize that games were magnificent back then? No, no they can't. Well when that Matrix s**t comes about I'm going to put a gun in my mouth.
"But anyway, Spore looks pretty cool and we're looking forward to it."
made me lol
This makes me want to cry. I don't want to be alive that long.
Sometimes Cracked has dick jokes, sometimes it has wacky historical factoids, and sometimes it has visions of the future that blow your f*****g mind. Thanks, Cracked. I am scared as s**t of the future.
Also,
"There will be two kinds of people in the next 100 years: Those who trust technology, become transapient and the next step in evolution - And then the people who don't wish to evolve, mistrust technology, and fear change. Guess which one will be around longer, and which one will be wiped off the face of the earth as a matter of eventuality."
Hmm, I'll have to get back to you on that, Magneto.
That'll be so kick-ass. I'd just not get into it and let everyone else sit around in their virtual world. In the real world there would be nobody to stop me from doing whatever I wanted.
"Let's go play with some TNT!"
"I feel like joy riding in a tank today."
"Lets play God and splice the genes of every animal togather."
This is going to be hell on earth. Think about it, no free will, no actual friends, no face time with anybody, NO HUMANS!! I dont know about you, but I think I would rather be dead then not have friends, and lives, and sports, and actual love, and meaning to life. The scariest part about this though is that it would be the most evil time in existence because there would be no religion or the bible to tell people to do good, in fact, jesus would be completely forgotten. No one would go to heaven anymore because (from the christian fate) no one would be able to get saved because they wouldnt be able to hear anything about any of that. So I'm pretty sure god would bring on the apocalypse before any of that could happen, because he wouldn't ever allow that to happen. So that stage in mankind will never happen because mankind wont be in existence.
This is seriously making me want to go live in a hole in Nunavut, living off venison for the rest of my life.
i'm seriously beginning to wish I'd been born 20 years earlier
"There will be two kinds of people in the next 100 years: Those who trust technology, become transapient and the next step in evolution - And then the people who don't wish to evolve, mistrust technology, and fear change. Guess which one will be around longer, and which one will be wiped off the face of the earth as a matter of eventuality."
My guess is the ones who will be around longer are the ones having sex with real people, instead of the ones boinking machines.
the difficulty would have to be so damn high on those games it would make insanity mode look like a walk in the park...
lets hope the future doesnt end up like harvest of stars lol
To add on to the ironic revenge, by then medical technology will have probably advanced far enough for computers to be able to revive us. They could literally make us respawn. We could be trapped in real-life Counter-Strike for eternity.
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great article :)