"We're not far from a time when a single player game is like an instance," he told us. "BioShock is just a single player instanced dungeon in the Xbox Live MMO."
He points out that the platform, Xbox Live, links all the games together through achievements. Players are essentially "leveling up" their character through a wide range of games. BioShock is just a small part of the leveling.
So why should the AAA game go away and shift to the web? Market size is one reason. Games like Habo Hotel, Runescape and Club Penguin have huge numbers of players far beyond the league of every AAA MMO, save World of Warcraft, and most of them are bigger than WoW.
How'd they get so big? They're easy to get into. Google them. Then play. No trip to the mall, no lengthy install, no pile of CDs. They're also always able to run on just about any computer. A new pixel shader is not in the cards. Many argue these casual games are great, but they don't appeal to the "hardcore gamer". Koster disagrees. He believes that hardcore, console, Halo players also play these casual games. It just doesn't flow in reverse.
So, how did Koster go from a creative head of one of the biggest MMO companies to a proponent of web games? He saw the cost and headache of making games the current way first hand and at the same time, his job took him to conventions full of web people.
The two industries - web and gaming - have a lot to learn from each other, he points out. On one hand, web people need lessons from the gaming people on how to increase the fun factor of their product. On the other, gaming people could learn some production lessons from the web people. It's a two-way street Koster believes is rapidly merging. Many disagree with him, but if he's right, the future of gaming looks a lot different than what many hardcore gamers are used to.
