Matthew Sakey has published a new installment in his excellent Culture Clash column, which is one of my favorite monthly reads. Here's an excerpt:
There can be no nation without national identity. In many ways, the same can be said of the games industry: our nobles (developers and publishers), rightly committed to self-preservation and profit, dedicate boundless resources to franchises and “safe bet” titles, minimizing risky innovation. Our clans (gamers), greedily consume excrement like 25 to Life while ignoring their god-given right to play something better. The collective buying power of gamers remains the same whether they're buying creative, original work or regurgitant trash. If the industry would just produce more of the good stuff instead of relying on cowardly me-tooism, rest assured people would consume it.
Thoughtful as always, and you can find it here:
http://www.igda.org/columns/clash/clash_Apr06.php.