- Game genres need to change and expand to succeed in the long run.
- Change is risky.
- People in charge don’t like risk.
- Our core audience (the “hardcore”) generally don’t reward risk, either.
Evolution and niches. Psychochild looks it over. Is super-nichifacation of games a symptom or a reaction to a stagnant mainstream? Do niches mean further focus on the hardcore rather than causal players? (Ex: several first-person shooters.) Or are they a means of reaching out to them? (Counter-ex: Puzzle Pirates?)
Those of us playing/making pen and paper games are lucky, because the cost barrier is much lower, whereas that is becoming the limiting factor in video games. (On the flipside, the profit margin is also much lower.)