The Sandbox

Games will, in the future, be cultures. Games currently have subcultures, where things like "pwn", "l2p", and "Assume the party escort submission position" have meaning. Games also have persistent worlds, with real-money economies that rival real-world national GDPs. It's not hard to imagine a world where a game is so large, with so many players, and so many options of expression within the game, that it becomes the main focus of interaction for a great many people.

Now, if the question is really, "Will there be a 'Moby Dick' of games, that everyone can recognize?" then no, probably not. Playing a game is a collaboration between developer and player, and no two collaborations will be the same, or result in the same observations on the human condition. Because they are not passively consumed, the player brings far more of him- or herself to the game, with the result that the experience is radically different. With extreme differences in experience, it would be very hard for the game to become a conduit for intense shared experience, as with a novel or a movie. For games structured enough to result in similar player experiences, they're probably using the tools of film to achieve that, and are unlikely to surpass the medium that can use those tools to full effect.

But relevance? If that really is the question, then undoubtedly, games will achieve strong relevance to our culture, and sooner than 50 years from now. In fifty years, I will be an immortal head in a jar, and everyone alive will have grown up with Playstations and XBoxes or whatever it is that comes along and replaces them. They will have been part of the upbringing of every person in the industrial world. We'll be a very different people then, and I think we'll regard games a bit more charitably.