The Rippling Effect of Revolution

History has shown us that revolutions spread. The American Revolution inspired the French Revolution. The communist revolutions of Russia spread to China, Korea, Vietnam, South America, and various other places. What started as a revolution in Tunisia has spread to Egypt, Yemen, Syria, Bahrain, and various other nations in the Middle East. Though a gaming revolution is something very different, and has much less in stake, the effect of a successful one will echo throughout the world of gaming, and lead to some big changes that will effect generations to come.


In gaming, successful revolution brings about new competition. All the ground-breaking things Dust 514 is doing like cross-platform link to another game, first console MMOFPS, and first free to play console games, these things will not stay unique to this game. If this game is successful, then the things that Dust 514 have done will be copied by other game developers in their attempt to better compete, and to get a slice of the progress pie. This could mean more games releasing as free-to-play downloads with micro-transactions, more MMOFPS on consoles trying to mimic Dust 514's success, or developers making their games more interconnected even platforms. There is another revolutionary leading the charge of persistence in shooters and the free-to-play model; Planetside 2, though on PC, its success may yet influence how console games are done.

Even if the success of Dust 514 leads to greater competition from those mimicking aspects of the game, it is still a good thing. Consoles need more persistence  instead of pointless TDM's without tangible rewards. The widespread adoption of free-to-play + microtransaction will make a lot of games more available to everyone on consoles as well.  Competition probably will not stop Dust 514's success if the game is successful enough initially to really spur such a revolution. The vast world of New Eden along with its economic/political brutality, the scale, the level of customization, and the seniority of Dust 514 over any new challengers will help tip the balance in favor of Dust 514's dominance; if something does come along and does manage to knock Dust 514 off the hypothetical throne, maybe the newcomer might really does deserve to be the new king.