RIP FPS, RTS, and RPG?

GameSpot has posted some coverage of a seven-person GDC panel that discussed the importance of story in video games and how genres will simply disappear in coming years.

Denis Dyack, president of Too Human developer Silicon Knights, said, “In the future, in five to 10 years from now, there aren’t going to be game genres [like there are today]. Instead there is going to be drama, sci-fi, action…just like you have in books.”

Tim Willits, co-owner of Rage-maker id Software, agreed. He added, “For me, I would like to see RPGs, FPSs, RTSs–I would like to see all these genres just go away.”

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Matthew Karch, co-owner of Saber 3D, believes that the importance of story to a game’s success depended on the genre. For role-playing games, obviously a good story would be vital, but for strategy or shooter games, that was much less the case. “I don’t think anyone gave a whatever about the story in Call of Duty 4,” he said. “It was just great fun to play.”