Have you seen my Kotaku feature this month? It's a bit dear to my heart. You may have noticed a trend in my writing lately -- I asked you how many of you have hobbies and interests outside of games (only 12 percent of you said you have "many"!), and I've been interested in diversity in general -- how imaginitive we are, how well games support imagination, and how valuable the work of non-traditional developers is.
Essentially, I've been frustrated with the narrowness of our culture and the way we repeat the same conversations over and over; the way we point vigorously to the same handful of titles to prove we're making progress, the sameness of blockbuster games -- and most frustrating of all, the virulent unwillingness so much of the core gaming audience seems to possess toward change.
I've been frustrated with developers and publishers, too -- I have had enough Tolkien, Star Wars and comic book derivatives to last me my whole life. I see us living in an echo chamber, creating both products and a culture around those products that are of interest only to us, and that stand no chance of breaking out of the feedback loop of insularity that prevents games from getting the respect they deserve alongside other media. We're supposed to inherit the future, not remain a niche.
We need a freakin' life, guys. Sorry.
Anyway, this month I talked to some influential folks about what inspires their work -- the question at the core of the piece is whether creativity in games is dead or constrained beyond hope. If you missed it when it went up a couple days ago, check it out!
Then have at it, commenters -- I know there are some of you already itching to point out to me once again the breadth and richness of comic books. While you're at it, you could also make a long, long list of games that defy paradigms to show me how wrong I am. You could even get really righteous and defensive, if you want; this is an open forum, after all.
You could, but then you'd be missing the point.
But if you like the feature, gimme some Digg love, would you? I mean, it has Tim-freakin'-Schafer in it, and I want people to read what he had to say!
