Farming sims the future of gaming?
Who Was There: On the third and final day of the 2009 Penny Arcade Expo, Andrew Mayer delivered a talk titled "The Future of Gaming: You Don't Know What You're Going to Get." A game-industry vet in the more casual and social-gaming spaces, Mayer currently serves as a user experience consultant for MediaShifter.

What He Talked About: Mayer's forward-looking session began with a look at the past and present, namely as it pertained to hardware. According to Mayer, hardware has traditionally driven innovation and evolution in the game industry, but it's reached a point where technical capabilities are no longer driving the market.