That's because suits run this industry (any industry, really) and the indie scene still hasn't found its voice and the ways to communicate with people. Not hardcore gamers, but ordinary people. Games are marketed towards the wrong demographic group. I mean, they're too focused on this tiny fragment of population, boys in their teens and early 20s. Even the best game stories I've experienced are like highschool poetry compared to what's being done in other media.
With games becoming this huge, it's just like Brenda Laurel said in her rant, we are now a big part of popular culture, we have the social responsibility. Yet there's very little culture in games. That's why it's so refreshing to see people like those on
Tale of Tales forums being so full of contempt for today's gameplay centered games. Even if I don't share their views (I love toys, I love to play, and as George Bernard Shaw said - boy do I love to quote that one - "We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing"), but it's nice to see this different way of thinking. Are we really paying too much attention to mechanics instead of content? Emotional depth? Yes, you can live out the stories in games, as opposed to being a passive observer in books or movies, and therefore you should become more emotionally attached to their stories and characters. Then why is that not so? I've never been touched by a game as I've been by even a mediorce book, comic book or film.
Gameplay is what differentiates games from other forms of art/entertainment and so that's what games should be about. Why? Are movies about moving pictures or are they about stories? And what's with that common notion that games
must be fun to play? It's like claiming movies
must be fun to watch. Has anyone even tried to challenge this axiom? It may prove to be true in the end, but why not experiment? I love being entertained, but sometimes I'm craving for something richer, something much deeper. And I can't find that in today's games.
