From the Guardian: http://www.theguardian.com/…./the-five-most-disruptive-ideas-in-the-video-game-design
- Procedurality – games could one day create epic and unique stories each time.
- Asymmetry – it’s not about two balanced teams duking it out.
- Seamlessness – old divisions between story mode and multiplayer mode could disappear.
- Performance – Gamers aren’t just players anymore – they share and create.
- Persistance – The idea of cross-platform functionality.
They go into a bit of detail on each but I don’t think they have captured the “most” disruptive.
I think Persistence is right but it’s the idea that things don’t go away. That resources dwindle or buildings that are destroyed, stay destroyed. The idea of a persistent world is enticing in large battleground type games (like Destiny, Halo). It also means it’s on all of the time.
I think another factor is Aggregation – I’m enchanted by the idea that someone will be enjoying building the buildings that others destroy. Or farming the food that others eat. Or even just running the shop that others will virtually purchase virtual goods from.
The last is Fractionial – and this is not a positive thing. It’s almost impossible to get a complete game at a first try these days. Either a game is “complete” but there’s a bucket of downloadable content (DLC) or a game is complete but you have to pay to progress or pay to compete.