JAM
I’ve seen the future, and it hurts. Behold: my flawless predictions for the next year of gaming!
January. To celebrate raising over US$200 Million for Star Citizen, Chris Roberts hosts a special twohour long live-stream. At around the one-hour mark the profusely sweating 50-something developer’s toupee comes loose, but none of his demoralised underlings bother to tell him.
February. Responding to Elon Musk’s call out to developers to create games for his electric cars, Bethesda ports Fallout 76 to the Tesla 3 dashboard. Unfortunately, the beta build includes a bug that deletes not only the game but the entire OS, resulting in some truly spectacular freeway accidents.
March. Even though he’s still retired, LawBreakers creator Cliffy B maintains a steady pace of social media output, averaging one major Twitter snafu per month.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb (author of ‘The Black Swan’ and ‘Antifragile’) publishes an 800-page scientific paper that mathematically proves that loot boxes are immoral.
April. The ongoing legal struggle for control of the Star Control IP takes a tragic turn. Stardock founder Brad Wardell and Toys For Bob founders Paul Reiche III and Fred Ford finally agree to a trial date, but Paul and Fred never make it to court; a freak accident in their office leaves them buried under nine tons of unsold Skylanders figurines.
May. Blizzard’s move to axe bonuses for low-ranking employees pays big dividends, as staff abandon any semblance of perfectionism and start grinding out highly derivative games with glum abandon. A Murloc dating sim briefly becomes the darling of the Twitch streaming set, and grosses US$100 million in a month – more than WoW’s subscription fee take for the entire year to date.
June. E3. Tacitly admitting they’re running out of historical eras to set their games in, Ubisoft unveils an
Roberts and Musk then unveil the largest ingame ship to date...
Assassin’s Creed game set in 1970s Paris. The player is tasked with inventing parkour, and must use breakdancing moves to assassinate those who pose the greatest threat to civilisation: post-modern philosophers. Tech upgrades are dispensed by the greatest artistic genius of the era: JeanMichel Jarre.
Pete Hines gives a live demonstration of Starfield. Things seem to be going well, until a space dragon clips into Pete’s space castle and kills 15 plot-essential NPCs.
July. Noting the tremendous volumes of Undertale erotic fan fiction circulating for free on the internet, Toby Fox inks a deal with Mills and Boon to release this smut in paperback form. Mr. Fox also posts an ominous tweet: “Just wait until you see what we’ve got in store for Deltarune. You’ll plotz!”
August. Australian-made space combat game Objects in Space finally leaves early access. The 1.0 release is met with some acclaim.
September. After literally decades of failed attempts to make a ‘ Vitality Sensor,’ Nintendo simply gives up and starts selling vape pens with a big red ‘M’ on them. Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa makes his company’s position clear during a special Nintendo Direct stream: “We’re here for a good time, not a long time.”
October. CitizenCon. Chris Roberts reveals a surprise special guest to help him host the convention: Elon Musk! Relaxing on stage in posh leather chairs, the pair share their thoughts on what life in space will be like, pausing intermittently to inhale from hookah pipes connected to an ‘Aegis Dynamics SpaceBong’.
Roberts and Musk then unveil the largest in-game ship to date, a US$20,000 planet-killer: the RSI Triton. They announce that the Triton will only be available to those who buy a brand new Tesla car before the end of the quarter (3D-printed SpaceBongs sold separately).
November. Blizzcon. The morale of long-suffering fans reaches new lows, as Blizzard executives reveal a string of re-skinned Chinese mobile phone games based on their beloved IPs. As the keynote presentation draws to a close senior designer Wyatt Cheng raises his hand to silence the crowd before saying: “Oh, and one more thing...”
The tension is indescribable. What could he be announcing? StarCraft 3? WarCraft 4? Did they finally finish that Orc point-and-click game? After an agonising pause, Cheng continues: “... We’re proud to announce that we’re bringing Lost Vikings skins to PUBG!”
This time there are no smart alec questions. No booing, no jeers. The Blizzard fans simply file quietly out of the convention centre, wondering if there might be something more to life than the endless pursuit of dopamine.
December. The details of the secret deal between the Victorian Govt. and Red China leak, revealing their plan to turn all of Southbank into a special economic zone for the creation of the most effective form of electronic social control ever devised: gatcha games!
An utterly pacified electorate greets this news with blithe indifference...