In the case of video games, this is harder to identify, because they have on the whole not really changed much in the last few decades. If you think E.T. for the Atari is any different from Overwatch, you're the wrongest wronger who ever wronged. If you haven't been keeping up, just imagine that every big band is Guns N' Roses and every big album coming out is a single of "November Rain." You can only shoot a guy in the face so many times, in so many countries, in so many time periods, and in so many dimensions while Slash plays a wicked guitar solo before shooting one guy in the face is just like shooting every other guy in the face.

Continue Reading Below Advertisement

Look at the video game titles that make the most money and what's in them, and the correct framing of the video game industry isn't that it's forgotten to change -- it's that it doesn't want to. The video game industry is the South, sitting on the porch with a Confederate flag, sippin' sweet tea and not giving a good goddamn. And if you grew up playing video games, cursing out titles like Battletoads for being dirty, cheating pieces of garbage, and wonder why in hindsight nothing seems to interest you anymore, there are plenty of good reasons that isn't at all your fault -- and a few that are.

Before reading on and concluding that I'm just some guy from the internet weighing in with a bunch of half-formed opinions formulated over a bottle of gin and hard boiled eggs for one in a dingy studio apartment: I'm an entertainment journalist who has spent countless hours over the last year and a half essentially giving the game industry therapy, having about 200 conversations so far on how and why video games are losing and frustrating people. These aren't only my opinions. They're also yours. I'm like the Lorax; I speak for the trees ... if the trees had spent the last few years honing their GTA skills.

Continue Reading Below Advertisement