While he made some interesting points, I do think the article is way too long and would have been much more effective if shortened. I do disagree though, until maybe recently with the worldwide recession, the gaming industry has been growing. If an industry is growing then that must mean more people are getting enjoyment out of it. Even if that comes at the expense of a small group of people who have been playing games for a long time, it's not fair to trivialize the current industry that many people benefit from.

Trying to get back to the OP -- the more I think of it, the more I don't feel the poetry argument holds water.

Americans tend to think that what happened in the 1950s and 1960s is the standard for all time. It was not. Plus, was it the publishing industry or something else (television, music, etc.) that killed poetry as a popular form of entertainment. (Or was it really ever that popular a form of entertainment to being with.

My point here is that times change. And there might be a misreading of what is causing that change.

In addition, Malstrom makes it sound as if making money is a bad thing. Seeking profits alone, especially in the short-run, is a self-defeating strategy. But even not-for-profit organizations need to make money to survive. Finding that balance that will allow for a company to make long-term profits and high quality items is quite difficult. And if Malstrom truly knew the secret to that, don't you think that he would be pulling down seven figures as a consultant instead of writing a blog?

Mike from Morgantown

I think the important thing regarding the making money with what he talks about is that we don't owe the gamin industry anything in regards to finance. We pay for the product we want and thats it. But their company doing well is not the gamers responsibility.

The way the gaming industry presents things is the other way around.
Look at things like:
- Focus on preorders and special editions
- Downloadable content already on the disk
- Complaining about second hand sales
- Forcing digital distribution

None of these are beneficial for the consumer only for the companies, so why should we care?

EDIT: As to the making profits, he is not against companies being successful, but instead of trying to milk more money from the existing customers they need to expand their customer base. And they cannot make it the customers responsiblity for them turning a profit.

Alas it's always the same: Malstrom is an arrogant, but clever troll, he always mixes reasonable, even brilliant, things with lunatic rants and/or such an unbearable attitude that very few resist from commenting after reading it...I myself can't help telling when and what I agree with him about and then I feel the urge to justify myself making clear that I don't agree at all with his rants and attitude.      

Seriously? Well, what about Starcraft? Is people still playing it in tournaments because of nostalgia? Is is so that the reason WoW hasn't died yet is because people are already getting nostalgic? That's one of the most ridicoulus things I have ever heard. The 2D Mario games are still played because Mario is still popular among the public. Just look at NSMB DS, Where did all those mario players come from? There is still a huge apetite among the public for 2D Mario, not just retro gamers. What about Mario Kart Wii and Nintendo's other evergreen titles this gen? Why do they have such massive legs? I didn't know there were so many retro gamers!

This is my take on the whole "It's impossible to make classics and the gaming industry would if they could" argument.

Blizzard makes classics over and over, they know how to make classics and no, they don't suffer economically because they take time with their games. Blizzard's games have such good legs that they keep the company afloat during the development of their new games. The games sell because they are of very high quality, they don't have to be innovative to be good. People play these games and enjoy them, and recommend them to others, the games reputations spreads by word of mouth. Eventually people will asociate the Blizzard logo with good games that will entertain them for a long time, and will look for more Blizzard games. Blizzard games do not belong to mass market genres, but they are of so high quality and offer so much lasting appeal, that they eventually become mass market.

Nintendo also focus on the entertainement value and quality of their games, and they make games with huge lasting appeal just like blizzard. Both companies does this all the time, so making games with legs, and games that will become considered classics are obviously not as  impossible as the people trying to excuse game companies not trying to make classics have stated.

Let's look at how other companies do things. They boast about incredible graphics, technology. They pick safe bet genres like FPS and add "unique twists" to distinguish the games from the competition "In this generic FPS, you get to slow down TIME! IT's SO UNIQUE! Or they design games like ICO and SotC that may be good and may be "art", but just doesn't appeal to that many people, they more like "games that the developer would like to play themselves" or like "games for the cultivated elite of gamers". These games pop up in sell charts and sells very well, and then are never heard from again.

So, what business model is the best one? Wich one is more financially viable? If you pick the second you are a moron.

If companies will try to make classics, eventually they will succeed, and then they could become as healthy as Nintnedo and Blizzard. Remember that neither Nintnedo or Blizzard are losing money, while almost every company following the second doctrine I mentioned are losing money.

^Such a bad argument
If everyone goes and tries to make classics, then yes, some will be successful. Others will fail.
In between, there will be a lot of companies who will capitalize on the games that are still great or good but not classics.
People will always make games to make money. It's a good thing that some of the bigger companies do it because:

a) they will have an easier time making cheap games
b) they will be able to actually introduce some good quality into those games
c) they can use the profits to fund potential classics, which can become very expensive.

This is the same reason why neither sony nor MS are going to leave the core market and release a wii next gen, because they will be giving the competition free reign on what is actually a very substantial, lucrative market.

^ Some will fail, but as I said. Since the companies of today are losing money, is there a better alternative?

MS is already leaving the core market to try to get the "casuals" Just look at how they advertise their motion controller. Their new mission is to try and expand gaming, to co-opt Nintendo's disruption.

Actually, If you take into consideration duplicated ownership and population growth the industry hasn't really been growing. This is all reggie talked about a year before the Wii launched. He said that last generation(6th Gen), household penetration was about where it was in the 8-bit years about 31%-32%.

I had made a thread quoting him along with his charts:

http://www.vgchartz.com/forum/thread.php?id=85766

That was a pretty good article and the games industry is indeed more about profits than customers - but what isn't already, or at least heading that way. This is the 21st century and thanks to a little thing called capitalism it is always going to be about profits, not the people - no matter the industry.

whos malstrom??
or what is malstrom??
i m lost