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[Bad Sector]

...or so says Russell Carroll, from Reflexive backed with data from Reflexive's sales proving that the clones of popular genres (match3, hidden object, click management(?)) create 20 times more sales than games which are not such clones.

[JohnB]

It's the truth. I roll my eyes every time I see another hidden object game, but they sell, so companies keep churning them out. The best chances we have to see some innovation will come from smaller groups releasing games for fun or gigantic companies who can afford to bankroll crazy projects (EA + Spore).

[Alec]

I think with a bit more cooperation / sharing of resources, the indie community could become a more powerful force in the industry and promote more creative games.

Some areas where this would be useful: sharing skills/talents, criticism, retail, cross-promotion.

By sharing skills, I mean how like on these forums people will help each other out with bits of art, code or music - often at no charge, just for the sake of making cool games together!

By criticism I mean the kinda stuff that Guert does. (for free!) He makes it really easy for folks to improve their games, and that lifts everyone up quality wise.

By retail I mean it'd be cool to see an indie publishing company, perhaps publishing a collection of great indie games in a bundle in order to compete with mainstream titles.

By cross promotion I just mean indies recommending other indies. Not affiliate sales, but a nice word of mouth suggestion. "If you liked our game, you may also like ...".

[bigbossSNK]

Cultural products, in which I include games, follow a Gaussian bell dispersion on the "sales to deviancy from cultural norm" graph.
Which, in English, means that the products that conform most to cultural norms get the highest sales, whereas the ones that are either subsets or supersets of the cultural norm are pushed to the lower edges of the sales chart.
Emily Short's recent article on IF hinted at this.
Notable exceptions (like Myst) present a technical leap within the market.

[JohnB]

bigbossSNK speaks truth! For example, you remember that movie where the really tough lead character guy got in trouble with the foreign powers who then killed his wife and he had to hunt them down himself before gaining inner satisfaction at the end? Oh wait, wasn't that half the movies released this year? The general public likes familiarity, maybe it's just more obvious with games?

[bigbossSNK]

Hey, that sounds awfully like "Machette", hehe. If you haven't seen Planet terror, do so. It's a Rodriguez flick.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

That cultural norm thing is true but I don't think that has to do with cloning games. It's possible to make a game which is pretty representative of cultural norms while not being a clone.

[bigbossSNK]

True. But I was referring to games as CULTURAL products, that themselves creative a small bubble of the cultural norm. So the basis of the argument is more about copying game-play structures than depicting religious or sociological structures.