CES 2010: A Guide for Tabletop RPG Players
CES happened this week, and tech companies rolled out a bunch of new gear that has major implications for electronic tools in tabletop RPGs, a topic I’ve blogged about here and here. As I cover the tech beat for one of my freelancing clients none of this was too surprising, though I didn’t think there’d be such a strong consensus. That’s a good thing because I think it’s going to nudge people out of complacency. Looking at where hype-driven market leaders are right now and just saying “Me too!” is just going to help hasten tabletop RPGs’ decline.
So what happened?
The Rise of the Practical Tablet Form Factor: Tablets are nothing new but tablets that don’t suck? That’s 2010. Sensitive resistive and inexpensive capacitive touchscreens with multitouch combined with software that works for a change (Windows 7, Android 2.0 to 2.1) made it possible to finally release practical general purpose tablets — previously, this form factor was mostly limited to specialized industries. Virtually every major company presented a tablet. Many were obvious responses to Apple’s rumoured iSlate, but recent patent applications from Apple indicate that the iSlate may end up being released with some dodgy mobile subsidy a la the iPhone, and might feature limitations similar to the ones that prompt people to jailbreak their iPhones. Basically, you want alternatives.
Tablets are important because they let players and GMs use machines at the table without the antisocial barrier of a screen and with natural game table actions such as written notes, page turning and more. Would a pure tablet suit gamers best? I’m not sure about that. HP did showcase an inexpensive convertible capacitive multitouch netbook however, meeting 75% of my requirements for an good next gen tabletop gaming machine.
Lots of E-Readers — Crappy, Crappy E-Readers: It’s easy to look at the abundance of e-readers at CES and conclude that they’ll be the best way for tabletop roleplayers to interact with books. That’s confusing popularity for practicality. CES’ ready for market e-readers don’t suit RPGs graphics-intensive qualities or gamers’ need for supplemental utilities such as character creators and dice rollers. They’ll get better, but will tablets get better first? I think they probably will, and e-readers may end up being an intermediate device.
Pixel Qi (and Maybe Mirasol): As Gizmodo put it: E-ink is dead. I’ve been watching Pixel Qi for a while. The technology lets you switch from a full colour backlit LCD screen to a non-backlit, power saving reader mode just by turning a dial. In reader mode you can still access normal applications and even watch video, though the colour is washed out. Screen response is far faster than e-ink. But the real killer behind the technology is that as a form of mature LCD technology it’s ready for mass production using the current LCD manufacturing infrastructure.
The only thing with a hope in hell of beating Pixel Qi is Qualcomm’s Mirasol display technology. It doesn’t piggyback on standard LCD but it does do colour and video (even 1080p HD) and it’s supposedly going to be installed in next gen Kindles. Basically, if you’re thinking of buying a Kindle for gaming (not standard reading, where the current versions work fine) don’t bother until the model with Mirasol and prepaid 4G shows up. Even then, you’ll want a mature app selection for any such e-reader to match a tablet-form general purpose machine with Pixel Qi installed. Otherwise, you’ll get the books, but not the tools (dice, campaign management) that really make going electronic worthwhile.
Androids in the Cloud: After a few experiments in the Chinese market, Android jumped into netbooks and tablets. This is probably a stopgap, as we all know the Chrome OS is coming (and Google has said it may eventually merge Android and Chrome) but it demonstrates that once again, tech companies want us to try (quasi) thin client computing. Unlike past initiatives, it looks like this will actually work because we can do pretty much anything remotely now. Companies should definitely think about serving tabletop RPGs this way, though it may only be viable for the top of the market.
Slow but Graphical – NVIDIA Tegra and Mobile Flash: One of the most interesting trends to come out of CES is stupid machines — that is, mobile-ish devices that run more slowly than traditional desktops and laptops but work just fine for the Web. The only problems with this approach were that ultramobile devices (smartphones and MIDs) struggled with video and couldn’t read Flash (Youtube on current devices uses an emulation script, not straight Flash video). The NVIDIA Tegra chip is set to augment devices to the point of playing streaming HD video and the Flash problem has been fixed for many devices. That means 2010 is the right to to roll out all of those funky graphical RPG applications like virtual tabletops.
Let Me Tell You What to Do
How should you respond to these developments? Here’s what I think:
Gamers: Buy a capacitive multitouch convertible tablet that uses Pixel Qi display technology. This will give you a flexible device that doesn’t interfere with face to face gaming, allows easy reading and saves power. They aren’t available yet but they should be soon. Find web apps that you can use with a glance and swipe. Unless you have money to spare, don’t buy a dedicated ebook reader for gaming purposes alone. The technology isn’t good enough yet but it’s okay for conventional books.
Game Companies: Develop touch-friendly web applications and get back to graphically ambitious tools such as the virtual tabletop. Look at how magazines are developing new content delivery methods for the iSlate and other tablets. Try developing games in the cloud and get past the idea that a pretended book is the best way to present content electronically.
