Who will replace Miyamoto, Kojima, Wright, Pajitinov, Ancel and today's other game design prodigys? To me, EA and Nintendo will be fine. Madden is a cash cow, Pokemon has proven to be far more than a mere fad, and neither of these were created by the star designers at EA and Nintendo...as for other companies...I have more concern. How many up and coming game designers can really compete with these masters? I suppose on some level you could compare this to movies. People compare Miyamoto to Speilberg...but I think his contributions are more analagous to Charlie Chaplin in that he created characters everyone can relate to. In terms of fame, Chaplin and Miyamoto are definitely the most famous directors of their time. Speilberg is more like Kojima to me. Wright is more Kubrick because he does crazy abstract stuff that some people love but a lot of people just don't get. The men and women behind Silent Hill and Resident Evil would certaintly be most similar to Hitchcock. Dennis Dylack has a bit of Orson Wells in him...

I feel there are alot of european 'cult' games that are coming out that are just as good if not better but I just had this convorsation with my dad earlier today. "What makes a game great?" It is the love put in it. If I was a billionaire. I would say. "I just bought the game lisence to 'the dark knight' and I have guarentee sales for the game. I want YOU to make a good game, that will sell well. Try to base it off this, this, this, this, and this. Make it good now. Oh yeah, Enjoy that 5c/hour promotion to now make 100,000$/year." Do you think the guy he is TELLING to make the game like that, for 100,000$/year is gonna do as good a job as... John over at company that created the company, and he wants to build a AMAZING game, and isnt that intrested in makeing instane money. He just wants a GREAT game. That's why I like the european game market so much. THey have alot of small game companies. (egosoft being my favorite) EDIT: I'm doing 8 other things and that is why I'm not correcting grammar.

"What makes a game great?" The answer is experienced developers who are given the time and money to do their job well ... You'll find that across the industry that most game developers have left the industry by the time they're 30, and at the same time the best studios have a disproportionate number of developers with 10 years of experience. Through out the industry the game "Ships or else" whereas in the best studios the game ships when it is done. Finally, in most development studios you'll find developers working 12 to 14 hour days 6 days a week for the entire project while in the best studios people work 8 to 10 hour days for most of the project. Edit: There are process changes on top of that (level prototyping, progressive refinement, early and constant play testing, etc.) but if a company is not willing to pay for another developer to ensure the project "Ships or else" on time they're unlikely going to pay for any of the process changes.