A lack of imagination

I know I’m not the first one to say this, but you would think that massive gaming companies would take the time and trouble to recruit people with a decent imagination. Every other game that comes out is a mediocre FPS, almost always containing one inventive and good idea, and the rest being the usual FPS generic formula. A good example of this is every Call of Duty ever, and that’s not to say it’s a bad game. Call of Duty has pretty much single-handedly caused an entire generation to turn to video games, even if some of less mature taint the image of the community, and with all this new attention, investors are pouring insane amounts of money into game development, and even if it’s not into innovative idea, it is money going into the industry. Small time indie developers can start to get more funding for their ideas, which run off practically nothing compared to the larger game companies, and maybe one day, they can get commissioned for a big budget game with all the ideas they wanted to get out before, but couldn’t due to money issues. Incidentally, this is pretty much how Nintendo’s going to get their next god load of money. Thanks to the app store Wii store, small time gaming companies can get a space on a major gaming platform, which is far more than they could ever dreamed of 5 or 10 years ago. In short, a lack of imagination may be saturating the market with games like Timeshift, Medal of Honour and Halo, but with that much money floating around, maybe someone will create the next ultima online, or the next final fantasy.