The State of Video Gaming (And The Future)

I thought I'd start off this brand new blog with something on a lot of people's minds right now, the lack of a true original spirit left in videogaming. The truth is, E3 this year was just an assortment of gimmicks and modern warfare first person shooters. So what's left for gamers, and what does the future hold?

A lot of people forget the game industry nearly died before. This isn't the first time people have been questioning the content or originality of gaming. Console gaming's first years were met with multiple failures and a seemingly inevitable collapse of the market. The technology was too limited to do anything new or exciting and the fans craved more. However, as the technology expanded, so did gaming, to go on into the 80s being a quite profitable entertainment medium.

So have we reached a stalemate in technology? The thing that troubles me the most is no, we haven't. In fact, we're coming out with TOO MUCH new innovations. Sure, the Wii is fun as hell, but it's not gaming in a true sense to many folks out there. It's too filled with kiddie games and work out simulators to be called a "gaming console." It's mostly a gimmick, that, in my eyes at least, is strangling originality in true gaming. Xbox's Kinect is no better. Do you remember Eyetoy? Do you remember how every game released for the Playstation 2 in those few years had a mandatory "Eyetoy Addon" whether it was taking pictures of you or using your movement to do trivial actions ingame? Do you remember how stupid it was? The new gimmicks of today are going to suffer the same fate.

On another end of the spectrum, in "traditional gaming," ideas seem trite as well. This year or two around six almost identical FPS' are set to be released (Modern Warfare 2, Medal of Honor, Battlefield, just to name a few.) So is the console gaming market dying? Short answer? No. Long answer? Noooooo.

Gaming is just milking a cash cow in two ways (peripherals and modern FPS') This is no way means the game industry is dying, nor does it implicate a sad future for gaming. This has happened before. How many GTA clones were there? Gaming's still alive after that, right? I rest my case.

Originality still lives, by the way! The Bioshock series is certainly interesting, and Fez on the Arcade. But we might have to wait a year or two before something mind blowing comes out.