More about those EA screenshots that I pointed out earlier – how much harder is it going to become to create content on the next generation of boxes? Can our industry survive going to the next level?

I remember at a game conference 4 years ago listening to someone from 3D Realms (it may have been Scott Miller) mention that it took a day to make a Wolf 3D level, a week to make a Duke Nukem 3D or Doom level, and at the time it took a month to make a Next Gen title like Duke Nukem Forever (which may explain why its not still out). This may also explain why many games went from being 40 hours long 5 years ago to being about 10 hours long nowadays.

The current rush towards Normal Mapping (the technology championed by Doom 3 that makes the current generation of games looks so good) looks amazing, but also creates additional complexity for programmers to deal with, and lengthens the time it makes for an artist to make an art asset.

As the ability for technology to show detail increases, the price tag to draw all that detail also increases. The problem is that we aren’t selling more games to compensate for these rising costs, and we aren’t earning more for box. This could end up creating a real gulf between AAA studios shipping games with 100 man teams, and garage shops having to do more with a lot less. I predict that stylistic art will become en vogue, as people realize that Ultima Online, Mario, Warcraft 3 and the Sims seem to be doing okay without being photorealistic.

The optimist in me hopes that people are forced to start betting on gameplay instead of graphics. This would require quite a pendulum swing though, as before this, the need to be realistic has shrunken game designs., not grown them.