THE GAME INDUSTRY – SERIOUS BUISINESS!

I think that currently, the game industry is a very interesting place to be. With the market expanding to people you never thought would or could play games thanks to Nintendo’s Wii and DS consoles, games are more popular than ever before and will hopefully soon get the cultural recognition they deserve and be accepted as serious art/entertainment forms. After all, there’s a lot of money in this industry which definitely makes it serious business. *serious face* *_*

Now, the thing which bothers me about the current state of the industry is the apparent lack of creativity and originality. When I’m browsing through shelf after shelf of games at my local game-purchasing-place, barely anything pops out and everything blends into a generic mush of shooters and sports games… now in a way this is probably a good thing since it makes me appreciate those rare gems all the more, and also means that I still have money to live on. But it shouldn’t be this way, we should be spoilt for choice and every game should be worthy of playing.

In the end, this is an industry and it’s all about the money these days as is everything. It really saddens me that truly creative and interesting games are dominated in sales by titles with the biggest publisher name, and a recent example of squandered potential would be the termination of Capcom’s Clover Studio, the team who brought you Viewtiful Joe and Okami (of which I am desperate to play). This really upset me and I cried and cried until I had no tears left, then I muttered a solitary “HENSHIN-A-GO-GO BABY!” before popping Viewtiful Joe into the ol’ GameCube for a wistful replaythrough.

<- The epitome of cool.

I think that the biggest challenge facing the industry is overcoming this lack of creativity, the fact that things seem to be going stale. Hopefully it won’t all be doom and gloom, already developers seem to be tapping into the technical potential of the new consoles and I’m sure we’re going to see some very impressive games, both technically, visually, and gameplay…ally. With all the money available, all those hundreds of people making each game, I hope to see some truly astonishing revelations and changes in the industry that really make the most of the hardware and the creative minds behind the games.