My first gamesas game was Evolva. I was exposed to hi-res 3-D gaming for the first time with this game (recall the days of Duke Nukem 3D at 320 pixels, or so...) I've always found every gamesas release enjoyable. My most favorite is Messiah.

But, that's the problem. You guys are too clever and innovative, but you DON'T SELL. You guys are the ones who come up with jazzy ideas first. I often liken you to the Opera web browser, the originator of tab surfing, etc., and now the Speed Dials, which Google Chrome so ripped off from. But sadly, Opera's market share in the web browser industry is miniscule.

Therein lies your financial problem. You guys need to start ripping off other people's idea. Look at Blizzard, for instance. They ripped off a lot of your Sacrifice characters in WarCraft III/W.o.W. In fact, it would seem that Blizzard also ripped off the Zerg Queen with the four arms from the Mortal Kombat Goro character. You guys need to take a look at what's already successful out there, in terms of selling, rip them off, and ONLY THEN, add a touch of your own creativity, which I'm sure won't disappoint.

Also, you guys need to know your gaming market. 3rd person shooters are a smash hit in Japan! Not so much in the rest of the world!

My 2 cents.

I don't see the idea of going all out mainstream a particulary good one. Why?

Say if you started developing this 3rd person shooter of yours filled with obvious steals. Say you would decide to start doing the initial research today and excpect release in late 2012. Then, in 2012 you would sit there with your "2 and a quarter-life" who would have been a smash hit in Japan in 2009, and someone else, maybe gamesas, came up with this crazy idea of developing something radically new, never seen before game concept back in 2008. And their innovative attempt would be praised for bringing some much needed change into the gaming world. And also, if you go mainstream, the chances are your game would be just "another brick in the wall" to quote Pink Floyd. It's the pioneers of their genres who stick out, those who dared and won instead of going the "safe" way.

Gaming trends are just like any other trends, they change, and sometimes quite rapidly, why? Because someone has come up with the next big "thing". When you sit down today to start development of a game, you'd have to come up with a concept that would sell when it's released, you can't base it on the present facts. No, you have to be a visionary or psycic of some sort to see what the future of games will look like and what will sell. This is where the tricky part of doing business comes up. Gambling. You dream up this great vision of a game to be released in a pretty uncertain future, generally speaking.

As far from originality = no sales, I beg to differ. Let me just pull out one prime example of quite the opposite. Just recent years one specific game, it's sequel and numerous expansions tried something like nothing seen since it's text-based predecessors 20 or so years ago. This series has sold incredible amounts of copies and anyone who's gotten past free-cell in computer gaming, are extremely likely to have tried this game. What game could this be? First one to figure it out gets a complimentary Vault-Tec approved thumbs up from me.

So what you need to do is, ask yourself one question:
"What kind of games do I/the world want to play in the future?" Renesco the rocketman

Fallout 1 was successful despite bucking every trend in computer gaming at the time of it's release. They could have easily made a post-apoc Diablo for a safe-money approach but they decided to go with something original and it paid off.

Originality is a good thing, and it's desperately needed in pc gaming today, especially in the mmo field.

Fallout 1 and 2 are still selling, 10 years after their release. Hell, I heard they go for 100+ USD on ebay in an original unopened box. In another decade will the same be true for any of the 10/10 games released this year? Somehow I doubt it.

But that was back when you could do that. Video games were just mainstream and popular enough to attract good crowds and make good money, but not like it is now where every kid has an Xbox and is busy guzzling down their Halo and GTA clones.

Yeh but with an MMO they only have to target PC gamers. There are plenty of pc rpgers who won't touch an MMO with a 10 foot pole, so with a new take on the genre maybe they can attract those people, plus if it's a fun game it'll attract anyone who already enjoys mmos.

Look at the upcoming Mirror's Edge, for instance. It's still mainstream (first-person shooter) with innovation. Had Mirror's Edge chosen to adopt 3rd person gameplay, the game would have flopped big time. Too much innovation is bad. People don't like too much of a new thing all at once.

Wouldn't say that's entirely true. In fact, I think keeping it as a FPS was more innovative than changing it to 3rd person. A massive thank you to EA for:
- Producing great quality games time and time again
- Providing excellent technical support
- Never destroying any highly acclaimed studios for profit
- Never ripping people off
- Never wasting people's time

Well, you act like FPS's are a monopolized feature anyway. You can have unique RPG's, FPS's, or whatever.