Check out this article by bit-tech.net called
Dumbing Up Gaming. It details how modern video games have been dumbed down to appeal to a wider audience.
You can take a lot of great game ideas, and then dumb then down to the lowest common denominator and make them boring and dull, that's a given. There are some great game ideas though that you just can't dumb down before they fall apart. Right now that means the game doesn't even get out of the starting gate.
I've heard of games flopping because the marketing sucked, budget problems, piracy and poor design but I haven't heard about any big games failing because they were too highbrow. Yet nobody is even trying to make those games.
This article links to an
another interesting article about a new game involving protein folding that the developers hope will lead to a cure for HIV. It's free and available
here.
-420
