Starr Long, executive producer for Shroud of the Avatar, delivered a talk at GDC Next recently, in which he shared his thoughts on nine trends that he feels will shape gaming in the decade to come.

The nine trends themselves, as summarized by Gamasutra, are:

• Mashups/crossover: Digital + Physical + UGC + Makers + Brands
• Interface/display/wearable: Proliferation and evolution
• Deeper Immersion and Lighter Games
• Play Anywhere: Any Device, Any Location
• Developer Democratization
• Gamification Proliferation
• Monetization Models and Price Erosion
• New Cognition
• Digital Societies and Multiple Meaningful Identities

And here’s a closer look at one trend, Play Anywhere: Any Device, Any Location:

Being able to play, interact or interface with a game won’t be limited to one device or location, said Long. We’re starting to see this with PlayStation Network’s Cross-Buy and Apple’s Universal apps, for example.

“This idea that I can play anywhere or any time, you’re not going to be able to get away with not supporting it, pretty soon,” Long said. “People are going to expect it.”

I’ve spoken with Sergorn Dragon about this at some length over the last year or two, so it’s nice to see that an industry veteran like Long also thinks it’s where gaming is headed.

The logical ultimate of the idea, of course, is to be able to play the same game on both fixed and mobile devices, resuming gameplay from the last point at which you played thanks to cloud-based saves. Engines like Unity, of course, certainly enable the creation of these kinds of gaming experiences, with their support for easy cross-platform publishing, although I’m not aware of any developers who have tried (yet) to release a game on both desktop and mobile that allowed players to pick up and resume on one where they left off in the other.

Anyhow…click on through and see what else he had to say about these concepts.