The Big Glass Wall

The time is coming. Sooner and sooner. With each game produced (ignoring those one step forward, two step back games that we call movie tie-ins and 3-second knock-offs) we get closer to it. The Big Glass Wall.

This is, of course, a metaphorical wall - it is not the screen in front of us, it is not the keyboards we play with. It is something more profound.

Soon enough, games will be near identical to real life. Graphics, at first - what began as Pong is now as detailed as Far Cry 2. If you have a look at some of the images produced by computerisation, only trained eyes may discern between real and unreal - breathing, and digital. Before long, games will be like that too, and may take the form of looking like videos taken from real life.

When that comes, graphics will hit the Big Glass Wall.

After that, people will undoubtedly create huge worlds in their games just like ours - where you can take plane journeys all around the world, never finding an edge you cannot fall off, a wall you cannot climb.

When that comes, gameplay will hit the Big Glass Wall.

The Big Glass Wall is, in fact, the point beyond which games cannot go. When the graphics cannot improve beyond looking like real life, when the gameplay is such that anything you can physically do your character can do. Probably more. When the motion sensors and VR helmets are so advanced, that but for memory and large objects in the way of your blind punches in the real world (a situation that largely leads to damage to both you, the object, and the contents of your wallet), you would believe you were in the game.

In a word - or rather, two words - complete immersion. When we have complete immersion, which I have described before as the gamer's holy grail, games will be unable to become better. Think about it - to my knowledge, we cannot create any new colours, so the graphics will stick at real. Beyond flying, breathing fire, and other unrealistic abilities that we all long for, we cannot come up with something that will redefine how we think about games beyond the point of reality.

Reality is complete immersion. When we are hurt, we know we're hurt - we feel it. When we look around, we see reality.

So it seems that when games look, feel, taste, smell, and sound like reality, there'll be no where else to go.

We'll hit the Big Glass Wall.

There'll be no more exciting games.

Damn.

Maybe there is hope, however. Maybe we can tap into the brain's electric signals, modify reality to create a new colour. Maybe scientists will invent some way to keep games exciting even when we reach the Big Glass Wall.

We live in hope.