I think we might see more RP games, especially using AR technology. Pokemon Go might be conserved an aberration at the moment but I suspect it was just an early form of what it around the corner. I think the rise of smart glasses (that we are seeing today finally) is going to play a role, indicating who are players, etc.

Why was Pokémon Go so addicting / successful?

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Well, it was an extremely popular IP, was simple to play on almost all smart-phones, and you could pick up and put down any time (an underrated aspect of games). Your casual, "non-gamer" user and hard-core gamer could enjoy it with different levels of effort.

Solid point. A big limitation of some games (imho) is indeed that barrier to entry that you described. Tbh I bought a Quest two years ago and barely use it because whenever I think to use it, it’s not charged

A game will make sense in any context where the form factor supports its current mechanics or alter them in meaningful, satisfying (fun) ways.

I think bags & beer pong will stay popular for a while because neither need a screen and bags is good for an outdoor game.

this is often thought of as why super mario 4 was the most innovative game at the time of release. up to that point mario while super addicting and approachable was often difficult for non gamers and new players. creating a rift between gamers and non gamers until mario world came out.

instead of starting levels over from the beginning you could instead save checkpoints and save power ups to use later in levels. checkpoints would also fully heal you to a big mario. this along with a link to the past making zelda more approachable for a bigger audience grabbed the entire world by storm in the 90s.

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just some shinfo.

I think VR showed a lot of promise, but it's ultimately too uncomfortable for extended use. Stuff like Beat Saber and Half-Life Alyx is pretty much peak VR still, so it's not making a ton of leaps forward right now.

I've honestly just seen such a resurgence of old as much as people try to push new. Pixel art and retro games are arguably as strong as they've ever been with classic libraries existing on the Switch and indies being very affordable and on all platforms.

I've also seen a big uptick in table top gaming. Deck building games, Dungeons & Dragons and more are all on the rise.

I think playing games will always be a part of how humanity has fun. I think the question may be less about the format of the games themselves, and more about how humans choose to stay connected.

VR implies disconnecting personally in the same room, and being more online. And the way people are moving in online connectivity, it isn't VR. It's streaming, Discord servers, live chats, Twitch, messengers, etc. It seems a lot of people don't want to be so immersed into a game world they lose a lot of communication and interaction with other humans in the process.

I think gaming will move in all directions. So many niche markets and Kickstarters of all kinds are making it because people want a little bit of every thing. There won't be some homogenous push in one direction. Nintendo proved it by going back handheld when others were focused on graphics. How we play is often more important than what we play.

Just my two cents.

Some ancient games will likely persist. I expect Go to make it (AI has made it more interesting, not less), Chess might make it (AI was rough here, but variants are fairly popular).

Board games as a concept will continue. There's a lot of exciting work in that space, combining digital and physical, or porting concepts from one realm to another. They are also great for human interaction, and a lot of emerging tech is about enabling human interaction via new mechanisms

Sports are always going to exist in the physical realm. They will continue to evolve though; in two hundred years, I doubt we will recognize them. I think the big question here is what role will people play in the VR and digital equivalents - Will we be players, or take the role of Coach/Team Leader?

It is difficult to predict the exact future of games, as it is influenced by a wide range of factors, including technological advancements, cultural trends, and individual preferences. However, it is likely that games will continue to evolve and become more immersive and interactive.

One trend that has already begun to emerge is the increasing use of virtual and augmented reality technology in games. This allows players to experience games in a more realistic and immersive way, as if they are actually present in the game world. It is possible that this trend will continue to grow in the coming years, leading to more sophisticated and realistic virtual and augmented reality experiences.

Another trend that may continue to shape the future of games is the increasing use of artificial intelligence and machine learning. These technologies can be used to create more realistic and dynamic in-game environments, as well as to provide players with personalized experiences based on their playstyle and preferences.

It is also likely that games will continue to be played on a variety of platforms, including personal computers, consoles, and mobile devices. With the rise of cloud gaming, it is possible that players will have the ability to access games on demand and play them on any device with an internet connection.

Overall, the future of games is likely to be marked by increasing immersion, interactivity, and personalization, as well as the continued growth and evolution of new technologies.

I don't know how sports are supposed to be a thing in a future full of transhumanist body modification and designer babies. I barely know how they're supposed to make people who are good at throwing a ball into a hole or slap a puck into a net with a stick into multimillionaires who will be more comfortable than a teacher or someone meaningfully improving the world. Anyway, society's values that I do understand aside, I don't know why rich parents would bother to try to design the best football player or whatever since that player would then have to pay income taxes. Unless they've gotten the legislators they donate to to create tax breaks for income from sports under the guise of helping poor people. Alternatively, we'll all be getting UBI and rich people will be a thing of the past because it's harder to argue that trust fund babies and people who get lucky, or just genuinely talented and hard-working people, deserve crazy amounts more wealth than everyone else when transhumanist body modification has made everyone smarter.

Video games seem more obviously something that will exist in the future, though probably eventually not played with a keyboard and mouse or a handheld controller. In the VR game worlds of the future, we will probably be met with a 3d Clippy asking us if we want to play chess or our favorite version of the Doom MMO, or through some Lord of the Rings fan fiction that an AI wrote and asked another AI to design a world and game for.

So interesting. For a brief moment in the early stages of the pandemic, I was super bullish on VR as a way to connect since in-person was considered unsafe. However, I think one of the biggest feelings of loss (besides lives) from the pandemic was that in-person connectivity. So given the option to socialize in-person, I agree that VR loses its footing a bit.

After pandemic tabletop hit golden age. Hobby got way more popular and there are tons of new games released we honestly already had hit a point where it's no longer possible to play every good board game out there. It actually slowed down currently as it became harder and more expensive to release new stuff.

But doubt it will be replaced any time soon. Often the charm of board games is getting together with some friends, probably nerds and having an activity with limited social interaction. We already can simulate board games in pc or vr, but none of these feel close to real thing.

I really enjoy VR, and I personally don’t find it too uncomfortable. I think one of the main cons is the price to get into it, especially if you don’t know anyone who can let you test their VR headset out.

Another factor is a lot of people play games to relax, but VR really pushes being more active while playing. The wii really tried to do this too, but most people ended up just sitting on the couch casually flicking their wrist instead of being fully engaged like the commercial made it seem.

If you have a VR set and have tried it yet, Boneworks is also another top tier VR game. It’s extremely impressive, especially since it came out before half life alyx

Combining board games with digital is somewhat iffy. Sure there are games that did that great, but it can be risky. For example if game uses app and it goes down under the game might become unplayable. Some people want to get away from screens while playing and some people fear aggressive monetization that could be introduced into essential board game app. So there is some pushback against digital elements.

Although complimentary implementations were wildly successful. Narrator apps for campaign games are great, helper apps, that reduce set up time and speed up gameplay are wildly popular.

Games and sports will not exist in the future. People will still work out, lift, and go jogging. Athletics will exist, but competitions will slowly fade away.

Every game is a proxy for war. Hopefully, we'll understand the futility of armed conflict. We'll finally achieve peace. Games and sports will be looked upon as relics of a barbaric past.

My VR headset has been collecting dust only because every time I think about using it, I remember the intense fatigue and intentional effort that comes along with having to prepare the headset and use it. It gets fogged up if I sweat even lightly, I have to arrange the cord using this ceiling rig I bought and installed to keep it out of my cats reach so they don’t chew through yet another cable and render my headset useless until I order a replacement

I think about how awkward it feels to play some normal pc games in VR which I could save a lot of time and fatigue by just playing on PC normally, and usually within 20-30 min of booting it all up I just realize I don’t enjoy standing to play games or exerting energy to do so either. The game section is so limited and not all that exciting to replay the games I already played in VR (namely HL:A, beat Sabre, and pop1 is too full of sweats and bad matchmaking to enjoy anymore - and that kind of ends my list of interesting games to venture into with my headset anyway).

It’s just a cumbersome and annoying medium to use. Not to mention the constant fogging of the lenses from any physical activity, the heavy equipment on my head and frequent double checking my cat isn’t chewing on the cable again. The constant rearranging so I don’t get tangled up in it, the awkward control schemes setting me back considerably trying to play normal PC games with a VR component - I just find myself shrugging and avoiding pulling out the headset anytime I remotely consider playing something in the VR space. That and the industry is so limited - I haven’t heard of any remarkable VR games since pop1 or HL:A and thus I see no reason to pull it out and plug it in again.

It sucks because the tech is cool as shit but I just can’t bring myself to go through the effort involved to plug into that world

Anything that requires moving as part of the gameplay is probably not going to survive any better than the Wii did. The reality is people are lazy and don't want to exert themselves as a general rule, think about how many people sign up for the gym in January vs actually showing up.

As you mention using VR to socialize. I can say that yes it can fill that role. I can also say that for me I fill that same role with discord. But because of my personal understanding of the importance of socialization vs the lack of communication during covid the question exists "How common is this" also "Does it even matter how common it is so long as you can find a public group to chat with to fill the need?"

You can fix the fogging by warming the headset up. Which is yet another prep step so it’s annoying but still.

I take a hair dryer and just blow warm air on it for a minute or so. Once it’s warm it doesn’t really fog up anymore.

OpenAI will just create a neural network that displays pixels on a screen and waveforms from your speakers that will keep you pushing the "interact" button, forever. When you stop interacting with the "game" the neural network is punished, multiplied across all the users who stop interacting in the active player population.

It will tell you a story, show you your hearts desire, say to you whatever you need to hear, so your subscriptions pay for its continued existence.

In this way the singularity comes, and mankind dies with a smile on his face.

I would say that games are an exercise in player patience interacting with a dynamic storytelling structure and friendly system. Why a player chooses to perform an action/interaction has to be as accessible as possible and can only be made accessible through the game ruleset and mechanics. Why and how the future continues to unpack the value of sharing an experience through imaginative worlds, relatable characters, all through the mechanics of accessibility, experimentation, and exploration, rather depends on our ability to be patient with each other as people first.

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A game is, at heart, purely an intelligent mind that has identified rules that enable a positive experience for a given region/event/scenario/narrative. How effectively those rules are communicated and how 'fun' playing by those rules are, is the exercise for the content creators.

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How one promotes worthy game content and worthy gaming experiences before weaving all those components together... kind of becomes a marketing/advertising concern. Ultimately though as long as humans continue to be positive experience enablers then the future is bright af.

Games and sports are about entertainment. War and conflicts are relatable to explain and inspire but not a necessity. Even winning and losing as the main concepts can be replaced by success and failure which are not exclusive to war. You can program and describe chess (a literal war game) as just with logic, the war lingo is just to make it relatable and attractive. If war and conflicts disappear (that’s not gonna happen soon) other forms of games and sports will appear with more relatable aspects.

You don't reinvent the wheel. New technology will bring new options to the table. Some of the old stuff will get ported and may even have limited success, but it's likely that the most successful games will be the one taking advantage of the new possibilities of the new mediums. People will continue playing chess the way they have for centuries band playing ball and enjoying 2d platformers and first person shooters and playing bridge and whatnot, but there will also be new option and new games.

> VR implies disconnecting personally in the same room, and being more online. And the way people are moving in online connectivity, it isn't VR. It's streaming, Discord servers, live chats, Twitch, messengers, etc. It seems a lot of people don't want to be so immersed into a game world they lose a lot of communication and interaction with other humans in the process.

This actually shows just how well-suited VR is.

Streaming, discord servers, live chats, twitch, messengers - how can all of this be improved? What is the ideal interface for all this social stuff? Meta has it right; it's VR where you go beyond chatting on a 2D screen and actually get to feel like you are face to face with other people.

> However, I think one of the biggest feelings of loss (besides lives) from the pandemic was that in-person connectivity. So given the option to socialize in-person, I agree that VR loses its footing a bit.

If we take a scale of 1-10, then letters would be a 1, texting would be a 2, phonecalls a 3, and videocalls a 4.

Everything before 5 would feel very much like a screen-based experience, devoid of the main social expectations of real life. Anything above 5 would feel very much like a real world experience.

If reality is a 10, then VR when it has matured 10-15 years from now will be a 9, which is close enough to make it invaluable.

And VR being “active” is not a necessity… when they are smaller and lighter it could become just a cheapish 200” tv. I have watched plenty of hours of Netflix on my quest. If it was a little lighter with a better battery I would do it more.

The biggest thing stopping me is that I forget to charge it… then when I want to use it, it’s like 10% battery.

The future of games:

15 minute guaranteed single player campaign.

20 DLCs composed of all cosmetics which will be required for multi-player.

All produced by Microsoft-EA-Taco Bell/Yum Brands.

I guess it depends on what you’re into. I don’t have much reason to use it as a TV, and I have a PCVR so I haven’t had experience with battery powered VR’s

Thing about video games is that since we invented them, we cant go back.

Given man-kinds persistence on moving forward we can only imagine the ways we will use future technology to make newer and more sophisticated games. We may see robot fighting rise up, virtual reality could make all kinds of new competitive games arise, we are already seeing primitive versions of how that could be. There might even be something we cant even conceptualize now.

I think we do video games a disservice as to lump them all together, as technology develops further, the line between digital and physical will continue to blur.

I doubt rich parents are going to try and engineer sports stars as much as sports teams will just hire geneticists to make babies in artificial wombs to play for sports teams. Why risk having real humans play the sport when you can hibernate the pod baby between games.

The future of video games is as follows:

1. as publishers merge, main stream AAA games become more homogeneous, laden with predatory "not gambling" mechanics designed to get the player to spend more and more while the cost of purchasing games goes up. Meanwhile, the Indie market releases more of the same.

2. All AAA games go always online. Indie market remain the same.

3. AAA game market gets regulated in Europe over gambling mechanics, remains untouched in America. Indies market remains the same.

4. Pushed by falling stock prices post regulation and user fatigue, the remaining AAA market crashes. Indies... you know the drill.

5. Indie games fill the void left behind in the crash. The new seeds of AAA are sown. The cycle repeats.

Probably worth of value to ask some side questions:

What is the future of writing?

What is the future of art?

What is the future of pictures, videos, etc?

That said, I think the key thing for games is that it is a way for humans to connect with other humans. Imagine a world with teleporters. Would you ever want to play chess with someone else over VR when you could just play chess with that person in real life? The other thing is that different media formats allow for different experiences which are fun in and off themselves. A lot of the best video gaming is only possible through different technologies rather than just copying stuff that was great in other formats.

Will this work on my minivan windshield?

You are still very limited to how you communicate in VR. It's basically microphone chat with an avatar version of yourself.

Chatrooms and other online hangouts give you access to a lot more information to send back and forth, be it photos, hyperlinks, videos, gifs, memes, audio files, etc.

There's a lot more than just text that is being sent back and forth between people now, and it is a huge pain to send anything text related in. VR from aiming and shooting with motion controls on a virtual keyboard vs. just using mobile phone or keyboard/mouse.

The problem with Meta is ultimately it is some corporate controlled play space, and they will strip the type of content you can share, so kids or people will move somewhere else if it feels like there's too much censorship.

Not to mention Facebook/Meta shadowbans people from having very little customer support and leaves almost every account ban up to algorithms with no great way to recover your account or access to your own VR device without looping in some local state attorney general. Current FB/Meta is already kind of dystopic Black Mirror.

I enjoy it. The price was really cheap before they changed the name from Oculus Quest 2 to Meta Quest 2. Was only like $200 for the full set. Don't think the price will be a heavy barrier of entry for VR for long considering what the PS5 sits around.

I mostly play games to be single player experiences more than multiplayer. So I do actually really appreciate the immersion level of VR, counter to me knocking it pretty hard in my initial post. I do think the tech is awesome, 3D immersive sound and motion controls is all deeply fun.

As far as interacting with others, I just find it limited. I think microphone chat in a virtual space with an avatar that you wave your hands is kind of where it tapers off. A lot of people like to share more than just speech or text with each other.

Also, you can't really drink or eat while playing VR while you can playing games at the desktop, table or couch, so there's that as far as talking about social aspects of gaming.

Turn the VR defroster on, heat up, AC on with air to max, air recirculation mode off.

Actually it's pretty easy to make the argument that VR stands to be the highest bandwidth of communication information across all mediums, including real life.

Well, touch and smell and taste are technically a part of communication, so real life has VR beat there, but as far as our vision and hearing, VR can over time replicate every detail of real world communication - all our microexpressions - put that onto a perfectly realistic avatar of ourselves, or go Disney/anime style and have overly expressive avatars instead, which have an extra layer of communication that real life can't provide.

If you've watched VTubers or even just seen Disney movies, you know that there are things that can only be conveyed by such abstractions.

So VR will have as much visual/auditory expressability as the real world when going for full simulation of our real selves, or can offer extra expressability. And all other mediums exist in VR. I've shared photos, hyperlinks, videos, gifs, memes, and audio files in VR social spaces. You can also dial this up further and become the meme. I could have an avatar of the kool aid man.

out of so many amazing games, he chooses a fcking fortnite

I'm not even the biggest tabletop gamer, but am playing more strategy tabletop games and D&D with friends than the pre-Covid years. Nice to just be able to sit at a table with friends, have a drink or two and order a pizza or something and play a game.

The biggest problem is the learning curve is typically much higher with board games than most video games because it takes about 30 minutes to explain the rules to a first time player of a lot of these games. Once a game is in more common rotation, it goes much smoother, but can't tell you how many game nights we start so late because it takes us forever to decide on what to play and then cover the rules on top of that.

Something like Mario Kart or Super Smash Bros, you just turn the TV on, hand the controllers out and you're rolling almost instantly

Video games went from a dark room w your boys to sports arenas w full marketing, broadcasting, and actual money on the line.

It already has mate...

Even look at sports; the athletes today would shit on those 30 years ago. Messi would dominate even more so, Lebron would average a triple double, and Ovechkin would've been a 80 goal scorer every year.

The science alone behind sports has taken off so much.

Until we go Black Mirror and can divide consciousness full VR will never happen; gravity is still telling your body you're a human on earth.

It's a wonderful medium but has it's downsides. Learning curve is there because people are not that familiar with board game mechanics, personally I have bunch of experience in video games and board games and whenever I play some new board game it's just familiar mechanics but arranged differently and thus it's easy to pick it up.

But every person is different and often learning a new board game is like learning entirely new medium. Also 30 minutes to explain rules is on the light side, some games require an hour and some playthrough. Also people often lack the patience to learn. Last board game I got had bunch of different elements, like deck building, area control, worker placement, set collection, and probably something else I forgot. Essentially you have loads of options and need to find most optimal way to get points. Mid rule explanation others decided they want to learn it on the go, did not fully grasp game mechanics and complained that they do not get it.

Getting a group together can also be quite difficult, specific groups need specific games and as someone who likes heavy games face more difficulties there. Oh and set up can be a torture. But once in a while it's possible to overcome every hurdle and have an amazing experience that overshadows everything else.

VR/AR will undoubtedly be the future of video games. We’ll probably see the beginning stages of mass adoption but the VR “revolution” likely won’t happen in our lifetime (think of cellphones in the late 80’s vs where they’re at now).

This technology is going to take over a lot of industries beyond consumer entertainment.

I think they will be like those Black Mirror episodes: Gay Street Fighter and Star Trek.

I do agree there's a lot of potential. I just become a bit pessimistic seeing how platforms instantly take people down for copyrighted content detection through algorithmic scanning of audio or visual content.

I think stuff like VR Chat scrapes by through 'Fair Use' practices because it's a free application, but the second you try and broadcast what you're doing elsewhere to like Facebook or Twitch or YouTube, you can get struck down in seconds, especially if you are playing music owned by someone like Disney.

It's a rough thing to navigate when it comes to intellectual properties all being used and abused on someone's platform.

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I think chess will likely withstand the test of time. We've had a huge resurgance in the popularity of the sport over the last couple years, despite the fact that computers have been completely dominant for about 2 decades

Games and play in general teach us time management, planning, pattern recognition, friend/foe identification, cooperation toward a common goal under pressure and more - all skills that helped our hunter-gatherer ancestors survive.

The desire to hone those skills in a low stakes environment where our lives are not on the line is one theory as to why games and play are so important to humans.

I think that the games we play will always reflect the skills and mindsets that are most evolutionarily important for the species. I don’t know what those skills might be in the future or if they will ever truly change but I’d bet that our games will always mirror them.

Yeah, that’s what the defrost setting does

I’m well aware of the defrost setting that comes standard on almost every vehicle. I’m referring to when random pockets of moisture just appear despite using defrost

R/anarchychess is the future of chess in every way.

I figure it will be something like racing cars. There will be a certain limits on a bodies spec in a given division, but other than that the engineering is part of the sport.

This is just the actual engineering part of it, I'm equally clueless on the long term socio-economic implications.

I feel like most people don’t use VR quite so much because we haven’t achieved the Sci fi style quite yet. If you could plug and play like SAO you bet there would be millions of players. As it is now, it kind of feels like a gimmick with a clunky headset.

I think VR rocket league would be pretty incredible. Possibly vomit inducing but that to me would be a very cool futuristic e-sport

I think symbolically the older ones will prevail, but only because they are so simple in concept compared to newer versions. They are also more popular. But that’s just for non-video games. Tetris had the most copies sold for about 34 years, and then Minecraft comes along and dunks on that with its massive amount of copies sold. For a 34 year old game that has variants on every console known to man, it failed against the survival freeform game on Java. Only three platforms supported at the time. And it’s still trucking.

But yea, chess will be eternal. Sports will be eternal. Video games will be temporary, but eventually forgotten. Chess in particular will live on forever because of variants like Chess Evolved Online, which just makes chess absolutely insane. I counter your Queen++ with my Dragon+! Problem? NO! NOT THE WISPS!

As for VR inclusion, video games get a slight boost here. Sports get a slight nerf. And board games are unchanged. It has to do with the amount of effort needed to convert it into a VR experience. Video games are a step away. Board games are so simple that it’s painfully easy to make Virtual. Sports are a bit complicated and finicky when regarding physics and body movements, so that’s the biggest hurdle for them.

I feel VR would be interesting for travelogues. Like if the “game” was choosing a city like Venice or Berlin and being able to walk around it, seeing a realistic depiction of its buildings via google earth and with local sounds. Might help you decide on destinations to visit for real.

Theres little to suggest we are becoming less barbaric as a species though

I think there's always going to be a demand for physical board games that you can sit and play with a group of people all in the same room. It's just a different experience from playing with a group of people online.

Video games will continue to evolve, but the type of people who want to get together and play Clue or Carcassonne or Secret Hitler will always exist, and I imagine tabletop RPGs will continue to exist as well because ultimately people want to hang out with each other in person and have a good time. Technology may eventually have an impact on how some of these games look in physical form, but they'll still exist.

There are already millions of VR players.

> I don’t have much reason to use it as a TV

The tech is just way too early. If it was just a pair of glasses today, your TV is still leagues better in resolution and clarity.

There will be a day where VR reaches parity with TVs and allows you to have any size you want in any space/position you want, complete with lighting control and the ability to share the screen with anyone across the planet as if they are sitting next to you - in a small form factor.

When that day comes, the reasons become a lot clearer. Though I think AR/VR will share this virtual display category as there are reasons why having a view of the real world is important at times.

VR is still in its toddling stages: we know what it’s supposed to do, but it’s clunky and cumbersome. These aren’t fundamental limits. The first cell phones were clunky and cumbersome, too, but now they’re an omnipresent extension of most humans.

Media will continue to get more immersive; the question is of whether it’s headset-based VR, or if that technology gets leapfrogged by something like direct nerve stimulation.

I’m waiting for someone to create a game that subconsciously helps create or improve social skills since gamers tend to be antisocial when not active gaming and only social to other gamers. I often think about how I’d do it.. maybe a VR version of strip poker with social tasks? Or possibly social skills being imbedded into other games to unlock codes and features? I’m not sure of much, but I’m sure that this will become something epic like “the game of life” has been when the right social skills game is created. The need increases every year.

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I agree and disagree with some of what you said all I can say is I have a VR headset that gets hooked up to my gaming PC and the resolution is out of this world. I play a game called Pavlov that’s like COD and it’s so lifelike, I literally play for hours sometimes doesn’t make me sick or anything playing four a long time

Do you do the hop teleport travel or smooth analog stick movement to control feet? I hate teleport movement, but they say it's less nauseous to do it that way.

It’s more like a trackpad. I have the HTC Vive check their controllers out I think they’re extremely comfortable and well thought out.

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