^ I agree with most of what you said. There is still "soul" left in video games due to the fact that all of the the console companies aren't just subsidiaries of huge conglomerations and that there are people like those you mentioned.
But you can already now see that the industry is becoming more ... well soulless. Just look at Blizzard. They rewrote the original Starcraft from the ground up just because fans complained about it. Now they laugh at those same fans when they complain about LAN being removed from SC2.
Another way you can notice it is with all this DLC stuff, or with companies trying ridiculous DRM stuff like in Spore. Big companies are good at marketing stuff for the mainstream, but they are also good at milking consoumers.
So although there is still plenty of "soul" left, it is dissapearing, at least as it looks now. I still have hope that the trend will change towards gaming being more "soulful" again though.
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