I believe that the Technological Singularity is not near.  Moore’s law has a plateau point and I believe that we are fast approaching it.  It doesn’t matter if we can create computers with more processing power than all the brains on the planet if no one has any use for such a computer.  The stopping point of Moore’s law is that if there is a market that needs that kind of power that can exceed the cost of creating the next generation.

Even now, the CEO of Ubisoft recently said that the next generation of game titles will cost and average of $60 million to make (and this is an estimate before hyper-inflation starts to hit the U.S. Economy.)  Just how many people would have to purchase the game for over $60 for the producers to cover production cost, much less the cost of marketing and distribution?

One such way to cut down on costs is to outsource.  However, outsourcing has serious issues and among them is that you cannot keep the price of talent down because of the demand.  For instance, in the Philippines, one of the largest places for outsourcing talent, you are hard-pressed to finding a software architect or product manager with 10 years of experience.  Why?  Because they have moved out of the country.  In fact, it is an initiative for the Philippines to create incentives to keeping talent within the country or to return to the country rather than have all of its talent move away for greener pastures.

What I had conjectured in a previous post is a solid fact of many third world countries.  Talent simply leaves to go where they are paid more and live a better standard of living.  Those who seek a “better standard of living” generally aim for living an average life in first-world neighborhoods than seeking a life as a king in a third-world neighborhood.  This creates a “brain drain” effect where talent simply flees a developing country.

To the indie, this means an opportunity.  There is going to be a substantial market gap in the next few years for inexpensive, innovative and outrageous games that only indies can provide.

Miyamoto motioning for "Force Feedback"

Or maybe we just had the same thoughts on Microsoft’s Project Natal:

I don’t think as a creator that I could create an experience that truly feels interactive if you don’t have something to hold in your hand, if you don’t have something like force feedback that you can feel from the controller. That’s why I think the Wii remote, particularly with Wii MotionPlus, makes for such a strong experience.

I think that some of their designers are going to be faced with that question going forward, and they’ll have to find solutions to that, and perhaps that’s why you see for one of the devices that it’s not simply a camera, but that you’re holding some kind of wand with lights that change colors. I think those are interesting ideas, and there are interesting ways that that could be developed, but those are challenges that they’re still facing and trying to learn to overcome.

Humans can go without sight or sound - but not without touch

One of the things that make games fun is feedback.  In my post about gameplay and fun, seeing the feedback from various interactions is fun.  What is underestimated is how much a small interaction makes a difference.

For instance, when you depress the mouse button, you can feel it “click.”  What if you pressed on a mouse and you couldn’t hear or feel it click?  The small “click” makes a difference in feedback.  On a keyboard, I can type up to 110 words per minute.  But if you put me on a touchscreen where I cannot physically feel the keys depress, I will suddenly drop in speed.  Little tangibles make a difference in gameplay experience.

One of my favorite games to play in the arcade was the original Time Crisis.  It had a gun that when it fired, the breach would fire back like a real semi-automatic pistol.  I didn’t notice how much this little feature made a difference in the experience of the game until the home version of Time Crisis came to the Playstation One which came with a light gun.  After feeling the vibration from the arcade version of the game, the boring light gun just didn’t give quite the same experience.

When the PS3 came out and the first generation of Dual Shock 3 controllers came out without a rumble pack, there was a serious uproar.  The vibration features of a game made a serious difference in how people played because you could “feel” the game and removing the rumble feature was like removing one of your senses – specifically touch.  There was a huge relief to gamers that Sony quickly returned to putting rumble back into their controllers.

In fact, one of the major complaints of the iPhone in competing against the Nintendo DS and Sony’s PSPs is that there are no tangible buttons.

The big news from this year’s E3 is Microsoft’s “Natal” – a sensor that allows you to play a game with no controller – or rather as your whole body as a controller.  What I love about this is that Microsoft and Sony have taken a cue from Nintendo and started focusing less on pushing polygons and more on enhancing the gameplay experience.  Natal is an impressive piece of technology, and I am in awe that we are in an age of science fiction gone reality.

But where I think Natal goes wrong is because there is no controller – there is nothing tangible to hold, manipulate or use.  Imagine a driving game where you have to pretend that you are using a steering wheel.  Wouldn’t your arms tire out without holding onto a real steering wheel?  And even with game systems that have steering wheels to use with their controllers, isn’t the element of feeling the road and feedback missing?  The draw of arcade games is that those bulky machines can give you those sensations.

A Place to Make-Believe

In my rush to recreate one of my favorite arcade games “Afterburner”, I forgot that one of the major elements of fun for that game is the fact that I got to sit in a seat that looked like a fighter plane cockpit with a flight stick.  The cockpit would elevate according to the way I pushed the flight stick and it allowed me to feel like a fighter pilot.  When I tried to translate the same tangibles to keyboard and mouse, I quickly realized that I had made a mistake, but forced myself to finish Strike Eagle.

Where the Wii-mote has advantages is the fact that it is a controller – something you can touch.  You can swing it like a tennis racket.  When you strike the ball, it can vibrate and make a noise.  With Natal, without some sort of prop, you’re just swinging wildly.  Even when my son likes to pretend he is swinging a sword, holding a stick or a spatula makes a big difference thank swinging with nothing but air.

It’s these tangibles that make a big difference.