Eight Predictions for '08

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A lot can happen in twelve months, especially when you've got a controller in your hands. Here are four more events that seem destined to make video game news in 2008.

5. EA will buy or merge with (INSERT NAME OF SLIGHTLY SMALLER COMPANY)

Valve? Epic? Hershey's, maybe? No company is safe with this leviathan lurking below the surface, waiting to gobble up studios curious enough to set foot in the waters of "partnership" negotiation. Last year saw the mighty Bioware (Mass Effect, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic) and the only slightly less mighty Pandemic (Full Spectrum Warrior, Mercenaries) wander into the gaping maw of the mega-publisher; past acquisitions include Criterion (Burnout series), Digital Illusions (Battlefield) and Mythic (Dark Age of Camelot).

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So what's next on the menu? Hard to say, but we wouldn't be surprised if they targeted an ailing publisher like Eidos or a successful smaller player like Bethesda. Heck, this time next year you might be reading EA Yahoo.

6. You will play (and enjoy) more casual games than ever before.

That's not a threat so much as a fact. What used to be a bad word among the more hardcore gamers has become the natural evolution of an industry whose users face ever-dwindling amounts of free time. According to a 2007 report by the Casual Games Association, over 200 million people enjoyed online casual gaming every month of last year.

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And unlike the predominantly male hardcore gaming crowd, the casual gaming scene is almost evenly split down gender lines. It's not just a PC phenomenon, either, as the crossover success of the family-friendly Wii has game publishers scrambling to offer more casual fare for the home consoles. Some of the biggest titles to grace Xbox Live fall under the 'casual' label, including the first XBLA game to pass one million downloads, Uno. Leading third-party publisher EA even created EA Casual Games, a division so devoted to casual gaming it's being led by industry heavyweight Kathy Vrabeck, formerly the president of Activision. So don't feel weird when you discover the joys of Diner Dash or the addictive pinging of Peggle - everybody else is doing it, too.

7. Studies will indicate that violent video games encourage violent behavior, while other studies will indicate that that's a load of rubbish.

We've been playing violent video games since we lobbed our first salvo in Atari Combat and have yet to do anything more violent than trim our hangnails, but apparently this is still a hot-button issue. Back and forth they go, the scientists, with their fancy charts, white lab coats and odd testing practices, but we still have no definitive answer to the eternally debated question: "Are these games making us criminally insane, or what?"

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Last year saw hordes of studies deliver conflicting results, and there's no reason to think this abuse of the scientific method will hit the brakes in '08. Despite what you heard about Manhunt 2's ailing sales figures, plenty of violent games are already lined up to shed some virtual blood throughout the year, and should anyone so much as jaywalk during their launch windows, you can bet your memory cards that violent game studies will be touted all over the place. Can't we all just get along?

8. Duke Nukem Forever will still not come out.

Ten years and counting!

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