Gaming is a hobby that seems to constantly be under attack, no matter how mainstream is becomes.
But where should "gamers", or any individual dedicated to protecting our beloved past time, be focusing out attention?

1) Australia is getting crazy with the Censorship, are they robbing people of gaming experiences, or is that just temporary political insanity?

2) Jack Thompson has been struck down, but he had quite the little con going there. There are other old men with law degrees, is the threat over?

3) Fox news described "Mass Effect" as "Luke Skywalker meets Debbie Does Dallas", who the heck pays these guys? Should we talk to the major networks about maybe demanding integrity in their stories or are the people who watch Fox News too far gone?

4) EA has a simple strategy. Wait for a company to put a lot of money in a major release, and then at some point during the process, sweep in, buy everything, and fire everybody non-essential to the game getting on the shelf. No matter how much of the game ends up on the cutting room floor. Free market, or destruction of art for profit?

5) Fanboys are a nightmare to a dedicated gamer. Anyone who buys something "because it's Nintendo" or "to stick it to Microsoft" or "To support Sony", is basically waiving the right for basic product quality. We all suffer because of that, but maybe it balances out?

6) MMO's make money monthly. I know they also cost money to maintain, but if you make a profit every month, you're doing something the average game can't. They're terrible games ,they can't afford any real narrative and art direction always has to take a backseat to the math on the screen and I won't listen to any argument to contrary. But they're also social devices and offer the kind of player who enjoys them real fulfillment. A danger to gaming overall?

What you've got to understand is that gamers helped make Thompson by giving him a platform to speak on. Same goes for that lunatic talking about anal rape in Mass Effect. It's gamer websites and forums that made them famous. We're just as responsible as Fox news.

I think rabbid fanboys are ruining the gaming industry..such as *twitch* myself..*gears of war* *twitch**chainsawwssszaza BLOOD*

Uniformed Journalists because the goverment runs them

It's not going anywhere, but journalists will stifle it.
How are MMO's ever going to ruin the games industry? You say it takes away from making other games, but Square Enix have Final Fantasy XI and do well to make other RPGs. You just don't like them by the look of it and that's fine. But you can't fairly justify what you've been saying as a fact. I play FFXI, I have a level 75 Red Mage, I play the game with my current best friend and then boyfriend who I bought the game with for something to do. I also go out with my friends at weekends, do alright for myself at college and also buy and play various of games from various other genres. Does that mean this MMO is destroying my life or that I'm destroying the games industry?
And you won't listen to arguments to the contrary? How bloody closed minded are you? MMO's are THE most expansive games available and can be very graphically apealling. Moreover, while I can't speak for GuildWars or WoW, FFXI has 7 seperate and well thought out stories. I think elitists such as yourself are a bigger threat to the gaming industry.

Well, everything contributes, but I have to say that uninformed journalists are a major contributor. They color the views of the public that haven't played video games and make them feel that video games are full of horrible, unspeakable things.

IMHO, the only real threat to the gaming industry is the gaming industry itself, because games have been around since time began being recorded, that have survived to this day anyways. I remember reading about a board game like chinese checkers found carved into an Egyptian building stone. Games are not going away. But to have an industry built up around it, it is that industry's responsibility to sustain and protect that market.

With that in mind, the closest thing in the poll to that was voting against the practices of EA.

EA all the way. I heard that they are run by Nazis. And if you believe that, I'll sell you a goat that can fly.

But seriously...EA ruins everything they touch when it's still in development...and everything they touch period.

All of those things are threats, but the most dangerous threat, is the angry mothers.

From the available choices it has to be EA. But...

My personal opinion is that Microsoft is the greatest threat to gaming as a meaningful pursuit. Everything has gone downhill since the release of the original XBox: creativity, quality, innovation, the sense of community etc.

I blame two things: their relentless targeting of the jock market and the emphasis upon manliness/violence/imperialism.

Basically I wish we could back to the days of Sony, Sega & Nintendo.

I put down "rabid fanboys" because they'll be the ones truly frightening away newcomers and making the audience for certain game genres shrink... and they're the ones the irresponsible/lazy journalists seize on. The news is a close second.

EA wouldn't be a threat if people would realise they're paying new prices for retread tires games and stop buying them. If they don't, I'll lump that in with the other "rabid fanboy" problem as it'd be rabid fanboys of whatever franchise EA is exploiting who're rewarding EA's bad habits.

-- Steve

Phoenix Arrow:
It's not going anywhere, but journalists will stifle it.
How are MMO's ever going to ruin the games industry? You say it takes away from making other games, but Square Enix have Final Fantasy XI and do well to make other RPGs. You just don't like them by the look of it and that's fine. But you can't fairly justify what you've been saying as a fact. I play FFXI, I have a level 75 Red Mage, I play the game with my current best friend and then boyfriend who I bought the game with for something to do. I also go out with my friends at weekends, do alright for myself at college and also buy and play various of games from various other genres. Does that mean this MMO is destroying my life or that I'm destroying the games industry?
And you won't listen to arguments to the contrary? How bloody closed minded are you? MMO's are THE most expansive games available and can be very graphically apealling. Moreover, while I can't speak for GuildWars or WoW, FFXI has 7 seperate and well thought out stories. I think elitists such as yourself are a bigger threat to the gaming industry.

I like this argument. I guess you're right, as long as companies continue to produce excellent quality elsewhere, who cares what their bread and butter is. I just get nervous when business plans start elbowing their way into my view of gaming.

I dunno about the somewhat aggressive nature of its' presentation, but the basic point is right on the money, Square Enix is making their money AND making good games

I'd go for the Universal Mother's Against Developer's group as they seem to have a habit of flocking together against games.

The problem is they are ignorant of games so they don't know about age ratings and their relaxed parenting attitude means they can't even control what games their children play. It only takes one horribly misinformed mum to spark a legion of mums across the world and a media frenzy against gaming, this will be the ragnarok of gaming.

(I also think every developer gravitating towards mainstream gaming will also be the death of variety in gaming.)

Crunchy English:
I like this argument. I guess you're right, as long as companies continue to produce excellent quality elsewhere, who cares what their bread and butter is. I just get nervous when business plans start elbowing their way into my view of gaming.

I dunno about the somewhat aggressive nature of its' presentation, but the basic point is right on the money, Square Enix is making their money AND making good games

My aggresive nature? Probably down to you saying that you wouldn't listen to anyone elses opinions on the matter despite the fact that you probably haven't played much of the genre. Jumping to conclusions makes me angry.

The greatest threat to gaming is mentality in and around the industry.
People using the word "Hardcore Gamer" like it's a bad thing and people using the word "Casual" like it's a bad thing.
The wole Hardcore versus Casual thing is a threat.
Developers trying to make casual games is a threat. They don't understand that all they need to do is an Accessible game that can please both expert and beginner players.
A threat is also coming from people accusing games of being sexist, racist, and fascist.
Politically correctness is a threat.
Preconcieved ideas are a threat.
People shouting truths on a biased perspective are a threat.
Assuming most gamers pirate games and adjusting to that "fact" is a threat.
Ignorant people shouting louder than educated people are a threat.

I officially add "Angry Mothers who don't know what they're talking about" to the list. But if they're going to kill it, they'd better hurry. Lots of women who play video games are approaching, or have long since arrived at the age of motherhood. Hopefully this problem will play itself out.

Considering Fox News did a string of stories on 4chan, I highly doubt "integrity and substance" is ANYWHERE on their list of concerns. Thankful Foxxers are kind of like a giant sewing circle in that they mostly just rant at each other and everyone else has enough common sense to let them stew in their own shit.

CanadianWolverine:
IMHO, the only real threat to the gaming industry is the gaming industry itself

Damnit, beat me to it. The industry does a very good job of sabotaging itself on a regular basis. Can't wait for E.T. 2 to hit the market and collapse the whole thing again.

Phoenix Arrow:

Crunchy English:
I like this argument. I guess you're right, as long as companies continue to produce excellent quality elsewhere, who cares what their bread and butter is. I just get nervous when business plans start elbowing their way into my view of gaming.

I dunno about the somewhat aggressive nature of its' presentation, but the basic point is right on the money, Square Enix is making their money AND making good games

My aggresive nature? Probably down to you saying that you wouldn't listen to anyone elses opinions on the matter despite the fact that you probably haven't played much of the genre. Jumping to conclusions makes me angry.

Alright, I'll concede again. I played 30 levels of WoW and wanted to scream and rolled a couple characters on City of Heroes. Combine that with some free to play stuff online and that is the complete extent of my MMO experience. And I did say I wouldn't listen to anyone else, I really wanted to avoid this exact discussion. Obviously though, I'm a wretched failure because here I am discussing it. Yes, ok, there are people that like MMO's and get something very tangible out of it. I said as much in the first post. I don't think there's a big movement toward the idea of MMO's as the big bad anyway.

Now, let's get back on track. Angry Mothers, EA, Fanboys. Do we have solutions? Do they NEED solutions?

Phoenix Arrow:
It's not going anywhere, but journalists will stifle it.
How are MMO's ever going to ruin the games industry? You say it takes away from making other games, but Square Enix have Final Fantasy XI and do well to make other RPGs. You just don't like them by the look of it and that's fine. But you can't fairly justify what you've been saying as a fact. I play FFXI, I have a level 75 Red Mage, I play the game with my current best friend and then boyfriend who I bought the game with for something to do. I also go out with my friends at weekends, do alright for myself at college and also buy and play various of games from various other genres. Does that mean this MMO is destroying my life or that I'm destroying the games industry?
And you won't listen to arguments to the contrary? How bloody closed minded are you? MMO's are THE most expansive games available and can be very graphically apealling. Moreover, while I can't speak for GuildWars or WoW, FFXI has 7 seperate and well thought out stories. I think elitists such as yourself are a bigger threat to the gaming industry.

Yeah, I think you're right everywhere here.
Besides...two very different products cannot compete against each other.
I don't see how MMO's prevent potential buyers from getting offline console games and vice-versa.

I feel that the games industry will not be brought down by external threats such as insane lawyers or idiotic journalists. If gaming is going down it will be from within, with things such as making games all to "mainstream" or too much DRM.

Sorry I brought up the MMO thing, that one is on me. Obviously the fact a particularly genre stands to make substantially larger returns than others, isn't necessarily going to have large companies throwing out more traditional style gaming, or turning gaming into one big "pay a dollar, swing a sword" event completely devoid of artistic vision.

I had a scary thought, I wrote it down, clearly it has been "busted" by the public at large.

Now this "industry from the inside" thing is pretty much what I was worried about and doesn't necessarily attack a particular genre, but I'm thinking DRM doesn't really effect console gaming... right?

Crunchy English:
Now, let's get back on track. Angry Mothers, EA, Fanboys. Do we have solutions? Do they NEED solutions?

Angry mothers shouldn't be buying rated games for thier spoilt kids anyway. Not my or the industries problem if they're too thick to relise this.
EA have been doing the same thing for as long as I can remember and it hasn't killed the games industry yet.
Fanboys can be ignored by closing your browser, muting your mic or with a swift blow to the jaw.
Problems sorted.

I voted EA, but not for the reason you listed; it was just the closest thing to what I see as the real problem, which is publishing concentration.

We have a gaming industry that is driven by the releases of super-mainstream, super-high-budget "blockbuster" games. However, few video games actually turn a profit for their publishers. As the smaller, more game-centered publishers get absorbed by the massive, profit-centered publishers, we end up with an industry that is afraid to innovate. Once in a very rare while, you will get something new and innovative; if it's successful, you will see carbon copies of it for the next several years.

Journalists and mothers are never going to censor games; there's too much money in them. This sort of fear of innovation is what is going to stop new games from being worth playing at all; I would argue that it's already the case, as I haven't purchased a new game since the Orange Box, and frankly I can't name a single game whose release I'm excited for, except for maybe Fallout 3, which I know full well won't run on my computer.

a swift blow to the jaw.

This being the preferable solution naturally.

You have to admit though, they are fun to mess with.

So a lack of innovation gets added to the board. That seems like something we should be able to fight though, doesn't it? We're the ones buying games, and it seems like most gamers really like recommending or suggesting our favourite indy titles. And XBLA and PSN launch kinda crazy independent games like Braid or Puzzle Quest. Didn't Puzzle Quest do like, amazing?

I mean, if we're hungry for something new and innovative, a company that likes money would probably take the occasional low-budget risk wouldn't they?

Either EA or the Unfair Censorship that games get.

I'm gonna go with censorship. It's the bane of media and video games get the worst of it.

Media is the worst. They make up completel lies about games to make them look bad, make them sound as horrible as they can, and jump at any chance to get a story at a game's expense. But most important is how many people trust and listen to them. By defaming video games they are abusing that trust, and they're just sick.

I personally think it's a unhealthy mixture of quite a few of them.

I don't know what the situation is in Australia so I won't comment, on top of that I haven't had much experience with MMO's so I'll leave them unscathed by my verbal abuse as well (wouldn't be fair to have a go at something I know little about).

People like Jack Thompson are always going to be about as long as we have problems in society and people expected to deal with them. Like movies and Rock/Metal, games make a very good scape goat when the proverbial shit hits the fan.

About uninformed journalists...again, they are a natural evil. People make mistakes, last time I checked, journalists are people too. Unfortunatly, when a journalist makes a mistake, the impact or effect of it is useually larger than your average joe/jane.

About EA relaesing sub-standard games.

It sucks, yes.

It shouldn't continue, I agree.

But it's going to continue because it makes money, and in the end thats what any company aims to do (why do you think we call it the games INDUSTRY?).

Onto rabid fanboys, wherever anything is widely liked or has a following you are going to get those who above and beond the call of duty. Whether we like it or not the rest of us are going to have to just try to ignore them and show that we aren't all like that.

It's a difficult choice between MMO and EA. But in the end EA wins because at least Grindy unoriginal MMOs offers a social aspect to gaming, compared to EA who just release [Insert game title] n sequels.

Crunchy English:
So a lack of innovation gets added to the board. That seems like something we should be able to fight though, doesn't it? We're the ones buying games, and it seems like most gamers really like recommending or suggesting our favourite indy titles. And XBLA and PSN launch kinda crazy independent games like Braid or Puzzle Quest. Didn't Puzzle Quest do like, amazing?

I mean, if we're hungry for something new and innovative, a company that likes money would probably take the occasional low-budget risk wouldn't they?

Problem with the Braid and Puzzle Quest kind of games is their visibility. They only have one platform to be seen on and mainly inexistant advertizing campain.
They're very good and innovative, but not seen well enough.
This is a tough one to solve though.

Iron Mal:

About EA relaesing sub-standard games.

It sucks, yes.

It shouldn't continue, I agree.

But it's going to continue because it makes money, and in the end thats what any company aims to do (why do you think we call it the games INDUSTRY?).

Interesting. You're right of course and I've heard the argument Ubi Soft makes the "Petz" games, and in turn uses that money to make Splinter Cell. Money gets the good games made, just as much as the bad ones and you have to make that money first. But it's not really EA releasing bad games that gets me mad. It's EA cutting other people's very promising games to the ground before they're released. That's a bit different, IMHO. It almost seems like it should violate some anti-trust laws or something. Don't improve the product, just buy out the competition, etc. etc.

Am I off tra