Well there's more to life than FPS's my friend. There's certainly a lot more noise generated about the shooter of the month, but that's again because they sell well (thus they get more advertising to sell better). I'm not a huge console gamer because I cba to move from my computer desk to play a game when I have so many on the PC, but even I can tell there are other fun games that are being developed that aren't bland copies like you are implying the shooters are.

While this is a few years old, the Cooking Mama series is a personal favorite of mine, and got a few installments that improved on the mechanics every iteration. More recently, Ace Combat has gotten a reboot, scrapping some of the trends they were relying on, and it's always been a mainstay of awesome flight combat. Final Fantasy seems to be running out of steam and making way for other RPGs, though I'm sure Squenix will do their best to make FF fun again (and hopefully less stereotypical). And the list goes on (and would go on if I had the titles to list, console gamers you should probably expand this list).

All I'm saying is, you may be right about the shooter genre getting a little stale, but that's not all there is to gaming.

I have to say that I've seen some pretty unique console exclusives in the past, such as Metal Gear, inFamous, Uncharted, MotorStorm, Heavy Rain, LittleBigPlanet, God Of War, and so on and so forth to name some recent ones, and going back to last gen, we had beauties like Ace Combat (as Duh mentioned), Shadow Of The Colossus, Kingdom Hearts, Katamari, Jak & Daxter, Ratchet & Clank, et al. These are only games that I've personally played and loved which are all, I think, relatively popular, but I'm sure there are some more obscure unique gems out there. To see more indies in the current gen, all you have to do is go to the PS store or XBLA, and there are dozens of small creative titles available for a few bucks.

Just because Call of Dootie and its clones are popular doesn't mean they're all there is to console "mainstream" gaming.

So both of you said the same thing and it's totally valid. Shooters don't represent all of gaming. Huzzah. I did say 'case and point: FPS games', however, not 'looking at all the games ever made'. (For those not clear, case and point means "here is an example that demonstrates my point")

...It'd be great to get away from the thread title and have this discussion progress past "hey no you can't say that I love zelda/ff/metalgear/kh/crash/r+c/shadowofthecollosus/harvestmoon and they were made by mainstream companies and published with money" because that's great, and I love those games too because they're damned good games. That doesn't mean FF13 was good, or the wrath of cortex was good, or that harvest moon game for ps2 that just didn't have the same charm was good, or oh god you get it. The majority of those excellent games are years old now as well (even cooking mama, and especially ff/crash bandicoot/zelda/harvestmoon). As an aside, MGS4 was ♥♥♥♥ awesome.

I'm going to bed now but it'd be nice if we could move past the initial hyperbole of "all mainstream games are bad" and the implied slurs towards console gamers. My bad. We can change the thread topic to something less inflammatory if you like (though the why we can't have nice things seems to have been right on the money) but I think as a forum we know how to keep a conversation moving and that the OP isn't the be all end all of a thread.

If someone can come up with a suitable OP title that'd be swell.

But uh, what would the topic be? I thought that was the topic, an argument that indie and mainstream are different in the quality of what they produce?

You want great, innovative, modern shooters? Well Red Faction: Guerrilla was a TPS, but still, the destruction added a LOT to the gameplay. And, it was fun as hell.

Then you have Crysis - it may not be a console FPS, but it's an AAA FPS made by a big developer (CryTek). I don't care what others say, this game wasn't just another cookie-cutter shooter used to show off CryEngine 2. The many ways you could tackle a situation because of the nanosuit, enabling you to do all sorts of crazy ♥♥♥♥.

Team Fortress 2 may not be super innovative, but I think it's fair to say that they redefined class-based gameplay. Again, a really fun game. L4D, too, was great. Both made by a 'mainstream' game company, Valve.

Red Steel 2, just about the only game I play on my mom's Wii, is really fun and there's nothing else like it out there. Just being able to cut people up like a bad-ass was new and innovative, plus for once, I actually liked the motion controls for shootin' stuff.

Bioshock gave you all these powers and abilities, and told you to tackle the situations however you wanted. I had tons of fun playing that game, trying to use exclusively telekinesis - when I'd fight Big Daddies, I'd have to stockpile heavy objects and explosive barrels so I could kill one real quick before I was horribly murdered.

Mirror's Edge, there's literally no other game like it. Sure, it had its problems, but it was really fun. The unique free-running gameplay was unheard of, and it was just satisfying making it through an entire level linking all your moves with perfect flow.

Or are none of these innovative?

Valve I wouldn't really count as mainstream.
Valve is to EA what helping an old lady across the road is to pimping her out and stealing her pension.

Just because they aren't ♥♥♥holes doesn't mean they aren't a mainstream developer.

"I don't really count valve as mainstream because things that are mainstream are usually trash and I like valve's games wah wah"

Please shut up.


'Mainstream gaming' = Triple A games.

Valve is completely and totally mainstream. There's literally no argument against that, sorry.

Again proof that mainstream =/= ♥♥♥♥.

Honestly anyone who believes this is a hipster piece of trash and should be burnt on a stake.
But that's just my opinion.

Oh sorry I must have missed that post on the bottom of that page. Ok, so lets sum up what we have here in the current state of arguments (I am getting somewhat confused)

Indie Guys:
-There is a distinction between cloning and refining and cloning is uncreative and bad
-There is a lack of creativity and innovation in mainstream games and this lack is increasing with time
-There are a significant number of clones in mainstream games, particularly in the large FPS genre.
-These clones are not good games, especially in comparison to former reincarnations
-These clones are not good games, on the merit of them being clones
-Indie is better than mainstream for the freedom which allows innovation

-"there's merit in the idea of cutting publishers out of the picture"

Agree zone:
-Refining is good
-There are good games in both area

Mainstream:
-There are a number of great modern mainstream games, even in comparison to former reincarnations
-Indies produce just as much uncreative material as mainstreams (just more obscure)
-Clones can be and often are fun

Is that correct?

Also, I see you kind of backing out and compromising for the sake of preserving peace, and I wish you wouldn't. Compromising like this isn't saying what you really want to say and is therefore deceitful. I'd really like to come to a common understanding here, Geti.

The reason I'm back pedalling is that "indie" and "mainstream" aren't mutually exclusive and therefore the argument is flawed by definition.
Indie developer = No publisher.
Mainstream = ~Everyone knows about it (less well defined)

-> There's fairly significant overlap. Valve self publishes, Mojang are download-only, etc.
-> Argument is redundant as we've been displaying a hell of a lot of logical disconnect.
-> Argument needs to be redefined.

My argument is more or less "developers do more interesting things when they don't have to make back the multimilliondollar budget they've been given, or in the few rare cases where the publisher throws money at them and says "YOU GUYS DO GOOD WORK KEEP IT UP CREDIT TO TEAM" (see DICE)". I realise that that's been pretty patchily presented but whatever.

That seems a nonargument to me. A company is designed to make money, thus they tell their developers: "Make a game that will sell."

Yeah but in cases that desire for money gets in the way of good games.

Several of us (including yourself, Geti) have presented big budget mainstream, publisher backed, capitalist pigdog games that are both good and original. Are you seriously arguing that having a publisher completely prohibits creativity/good games?

If its an issue of ratio of good to bad or anything like that I think that the average publisher backed game will be miles better in every way than the average unbacked, indie game.