I had no idea until I joined the games industry and met some of the power players, particularly those running large public companies, that much of this world is run by complete clowns.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
We are at the point where game designers have become celebrities due to the size of the market they serve.
I've been a gamer all my life.
We are at a point in the video game industry that the industry is hollowed out. It is out of touch with the zeitgeist, creating sequels and formulaic games over and over again. The energy comes from the indies.
This is the entertainment industry, so game designers have to have a creative mind and also have to be able to stand up against the marketing people at their company - otherwise they cannot be creative. There are not that many people who fit that description.
I'm not sure how a world leader reacts to the work of a clown.
The time for invisible boundaries that guard the 'purity' of gaming as a niche subculture is over. The violent macho power fantasy will no longer define what gaming is all about.
Games are work. There are economies popping up in games now because people value them.
Only in about 2007 or so did it become clear to me that games could stand proudly beside other storytelling mediums, and that's when I became more, shall we say, evangelistic in my position. Prior to that, I don't know how enthusiastically I would have admitted that I game.
It's a rough and tumble game whenever power is involved - people's ambitions, their desires, their competitive spirit will often push them to play outside the rules. It's dramatic, it's interesting, and I think it's something we can all identify with to a degree.
The gaming world is a complete mystery to me! Well, I did play Pac Man and Frogger using big machines at an arcade back in the '80s.