The "social gaming" phenomenon

As a follow-on to my last post, I thought I would point everyone to a Gamasutra article published yesterday that predicts the next big thing in gaming (now that music games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band are a "phenomenon").

The analysts polled in the article all seem to agree that the future of video games (the short-term future anyway) is going to revolve around "social gaming," games designed to be played with multiple people present in the room.

A couple of the analysts make a nice (if a bit obvious) comparison between such social video games and the classical board games of a generation (or two) ago. The current crop of games happens to be focused on music, but music isn't the root of the phenomenon, according to these folks. I never much cared for traditional board games, but I do agree with them -- we're just witnessing the next incarnation of group entertainment.

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On an unrelated note, here's a quick hint about the subject of my casual side project...