[Gadwen]

Originally Posted by August [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

The problem with the gaming industry is the same that plagues the movie industry: money.

See, back in the day, when gaming was a new thing and movies weren't so expensive, studios would produce lots of games/movies on original content. They'd get a hit out of every 1/10 or so, and thus a gaming franchise would be born.

Nowadays, a shitton of money goes into games/movies as they are huge business. So, instead of a studio funding 10 low-budget games/movies, they're now only funding 1 10x the cost game/movie. And they NEED it to be a success.

So what do they do? They ply back to the days of yore. That's why there's 10+ Zelda adventures, 10+ FF adventures, 30 million mario worlds, and iron man has been coming back to the silver screen every year since robert downey jr. ate a whataburger and quit his addiction to smack.

indie games, should you choose to go there, is where the innovation is happening because once again we're in a medium of 'low budget' games where there can be a ton of crapshoots and we elect to pluck one delicate flower (minecraft, anyone?) from the refuge and give it a nice pat on the back to the tune of millions of dollars.

Of course, now a minecraft clone, Minecraft 2, could come out, and it starts the process.

To keep gaming current and modern and not a reduction on past premise we have to encourage the fledgling independent game and/or film industry so that more people will take risks on original content. Until then, enjoy Spiderman 7.

tomtee

I definitely agree about indie games being where its at right now. This is the great thing about digital distribution that often gets ignored when the subject is brought up. Platforms like Steam, or even Xbox Live have allowed the indie game developer to bring his product to the masses without being tied up with some publishing deal, and without investing millions of dollars to distribute their games. Now I really can't speak to how fair these platforms are in terms of profit for the indie devs, but at least they are able to get their games out there and be taken seriously.