Hi, Bill. Thanks for the post and links to that interesting rolcats site. :)

I disagree about the future of FMV. I am almost certain that it will not only make a comeback, but will eventually be the standard for many types of games. I think it is only dumb prejudice that keeps it out of the mainstream now.

Consider how far the technology has come since the days of 7th Guest and Sewer Shark. Now we have much higher resolutions, exponentially more storage space, and, perhaps most importantly, high-speed internet. I think these factors could be combined to make, say, a first-person shooter that was just like playing a televisions how. All of the footage would be FMV, though fully interactive. It seems unthinkable today, but it's now possible to, say, record over ten thousand hours of combat in full motion video and have them available in a game. I don't know how many hours of dialog you could record. The only real barrier that I can see is the expense of filming so much footage, but I'm sure it will be done.

I see the current state of graphics as the transition between prints (woodcuts, engravings, etc.) and photography that took place last century. The only reason woodcuts and the like were so popular for so long is economic and technological. Once it became relatively inexpensive to put real photographs in books, there was no longer any need to "synthesize" images with drawings--unless, of course, the book in question called for it. Why settle for a drawing of a person, no matter how detailed, when a photograph is much closer to reality?