Reggie Fils-Aimé is never afraid to make bold bets on the future of video games.
The former president of Nintendo of America’s 15-year tenure with the company has been marked by stratospheric hits (The Wii! The DS! The Switch!)
Though he retired in 2019, he’s as optimistic about the industry’s future as ever — and still convinced that video games can make the world a better place.
That’s especially true when it comes to an oft-discussed, little-understood concept that’s likely to spark a weary look from gamers and industry observers alike. Yes, Reggie Fils-Aimé wants you to give the metaverse a shot.
“I believe the true metaverse will have a common currency and a common development infrastructure. It will be very social in a digital way, but also allow you to interact with your real friends and real life experiences,” says Fils-Aimé. Inverse. “That’s the way I define the metaverse, and I believe in that view.”
But Fils-Aimé’s take on the metaverse isn’t the bleak sea of VR Zoom meetings touted by Mark Zuckerberg. It is an extrapolation and extension of the types of virtual worlds that are already very well known to millions of gamers around the world – experiences such as Roblox and Fortnite, which have steadily evolved into a hybrid of both game and social platform, blurring the lines between real life and digital events. Still, he acknowledges that many companies have gotten a little quick and loose with the term in their eagerness to jump on the bandwagon of the next big trend in gaming and technology.
“The term is – I would say – overused,” says Fils-Aimé. “Metaverse is a label that is thrown at all kinds of different initiatives. I’m old enough to remember that 20 years ago if you said it had anything to do with “the Internet”, companies’ valuations would suddenly skyrocket, even if they really had nothing to do with what’s going on with the Internet. hand wash.”
“Any company that doesn’t experiment with these technologies and approaches will… abandoned.”
In 2022 everyone will understand what the internet is, but that was certainly not the case in the mid to late 1990s. Popular culture was filled with concern about the unfathomable potential of a global, interconnected information network (see: The net, or even The Matrix). That limbo state is essentially where we are now with the metaverse.
Reggie Fils-Aimé retired and left Nintendo in February 2019.
While his former employer (Nintendo) has said it currently has no plans to venture into the metaverse, Fils-Aimé says it’s vital for game developers and console makers to explore and be receptive to new technologies. , even in the face of criticism from critics.
“It is the duty of leadership within all gaming companies to be open-minded to these technologies, to experiment with these technologies and find out how they can be used in ways that benefit the player, create unique and differentiated experiences. can deliver to your customers,” he says Inverse.
Fils-Aimé’s vigilant optimism extends to another controversial emerging technology: blockchain and NFTs. Amid the extraordinary volatility in the cryptocurrency market over the past year, executives at game companies around the world have been forced to take a firm stance on integrating the technology into their upcoming releases. It is an enticing new income stream for shareholders. For gamers, it’s another form of predatory revenue with potentially serious environmental consequences.
Fils-Aimé falls somewhere in the middle.
“I believe in blockchain technology and what it can potentially unlock in terms of keeping your content tied to you rather than the software or platform,” he says. “As a way of having content that I own, that represents some sort of badge value, I think NFTs could be really interesting.”
However, he claims that these experiences should be baked into the game design, not at the end: “It should be part of the experience from the start.”
“I don’t believe it’s something that is addressed with” passion and power across the industry.”
In recent decades, the gaming industry has largely centered around two poles: Japan and the West. Particularly in terms of the metaverse and social integration in gaming, Fils-Aimé says he doesn’t expect the future of gaming to snag the patterns of the past, in part because established regions have been slow to adapt to emerging innovation.
“A number of China-based companies have frankly pushed the boundaries in this space. Fifteen years ago, Japan was a center of influence for the video game industry. The centers of expertise are much more diverse today,” says Fils-Aimé. experimenting with these technologies and approaches will be left behind.”
But innovation in gaming isn’t just about emerging technologies. It’s also about proactively recalibrating the companies that make games from the inside out to serve a diverse audience of players. According to Fils-Aimé, most game companies have not gone far enough to address the lack of representation at all levels of their organizations.
“There are companies that are working hard on it. I still have a good relationship with Phil Spencer at Microsoft – I know this is important to him. But I don’t believe it’s something that is being tackled with passion and vigor across the industry,” he says.
Still, Fils-Aimé points out that cultivating more diverse creative and executive leadership in gaming must begin before potential candidates enter the job market.
“It really starts with an educational issue, exposing a diverse audience to STEM-focused skills and training as much as possible,” says Fils-Aimé. “In Washington State, basic training in STEM education is not as robust as it should be. The jobs created by Amazon, Nintendo and Microsoft are larger than the candidate pool.”
Fils-Aimé also hopes that the industry will make further technological advances in accessibility in the coming years, especially on the hardware side. (Accessibility refers to design choices or options that allow players with motor, cognitive, or sensory differences to enjoy games more.) While Nintendo is widely regarded as making games and peripherals accessible to different ages and skill levels, the company has lagged behind. direct competitors Microsoft and Sony in the eyes of accessibility advocacy groups such as AbleGamers.
As Fils-Aimé prepared to retire in 2019, he says Nintendo was part of an industry-wide initiative that saw the Xbox Adaptive Controller “as a starting point to create something that would be cross-platform and customizable for every consumer.”
“Imagine an adaptive controller that you could play with your latest Xbox, PlayStation or Nintendo platform. We were working on that three years ago,” he explains.
He’s not sure if the project is still in development.
“I hope the effort has continued. I’m not sure if it has or not,” says Fils-Aimé. “But I also hope that the controller — and the ability for that controller to connect to all the different systems — launched and shared with consumers as soon as possible.”
“Mine heap is that the effort has continued.”
He continues: “I really believe that the best solution is an industrial solution that can work for all dedicated gaming platforms and for PC, and can really be customized to the player depending on their physical capabilities and what they can do.”
Fils-Aimé’s vision of a platform-agnostic future may not be as far off as it seems. With recent innovations like Valve’s Steam Deck, the Xbox app for smart TVs, and the as-yet-unnamed Logitech cloud gaming handheld, those trusty gaming boxes under your television may become antique sooner than you think.
Inverse Fixtures profiles the most innovative and exciting people in and around the game industry for their insights into the future of the medium.
0 Comments