Indie games and the effect on the market.
Remember the Apple II and all it brought to the table? It was what was to be the Hardcore Gamer's first frontier. It helped pave the way for the game industry. Akin to the way the Atari 2600 Introduced to the market a whole new form of in-home entertainment. However at that time damn near everything was indie because there were very few game developers to speak of.
So what the hell are you talking about dude?
What I'm talking about is in the here and now the Big Box games have become more Hollywood. They have started putting less emphasis on story/lore and more on flashy cool guy stuff. The content is lacking as well. More to the point Indie games have made a world of difference in the gaming industry. By adding whole new concepts and sometimes over developed (Eve online) content. This is because if you are a indie developer you have to really make your game prove something. Otherwise people wont like it and it wont be successful.
What's the catch?
The problem is most people are not going to go look for these games. They want it brought to them in a pretty box with a nice flashy plastic cover. Steam is attempting to lead the way in getting Indie titles out to the public. The process is slow however and still not a flashy box at wally world. I know alot of people who don't have steam and some don't even know what it is. People are slow to take on new ideas and move outside their big box developers. Alot of the problem comes from the the console market. That's another issue i have already covered.
What can you do about it?
Everyone has that/those friend(s) that are/is oblivious to the indie world but still game more than the average person. Which by the way we're not talking about the casual couple hours a week game guy. We're talking about the people that spend alot of time on games but are getting bored of what they got. They somehow haven't heard of steam or other methods of game acquisition. They are most likely stuck on a console or are not very computer savoy. Next time you get a chance introduce them to the world of Indie and not so big titles. Again people are slow to change and try new things. If we want the big box game developers to give us something more worth our money we will have to get them to compete with the little guys. The morale of the story is little guys almost always out number the big guys.
