The article has either a gappy research background (what's VERY unlikely, as 1. I'm reading EDGE, 2. most predictions are okay), or has a shocking revelation: Germany's RPG market will pretty soon collapse, just like its RTS market did in 2006.

The forecast that Sacred 2 will sell "a hundred thousand, maybe two" is challenging the fact that this product was primarily developed for the German market. A market which should swallow this amount alone, in a worst case scenario.

As there's no Xbox 360 version in Japan (clever - it would just confuse customers), there's no wait there... and as historically we are used to wait 7-10 months for the Western translation/release of the Final Fantasy games, they will presumably not "hold back" the PS3 version here either - they will simply fiddle with the localization process while the port is done. The time frame is well enough, as they use a PC development environment (12 months are enough to port games from Xbox 360 to PS3 - see Bioshock); and if not, Tose is always there to "jump in." ;)

Hello Peter,

I'm afraid you're not going to convince the people who say there is no innovation in this industry with your example of graphics quality. My experience is that they obviously do not understand the term (innovation = the act of introducing something new), and would argue that it's only evolution what you're talking about. Harry Potter is not an innovation for the disgruntled - they demand something as groundbreaking, as the very first uchronia or the very first steampunk was in literature.

The example of the GUI evolution is even worse - I'm able to show you 25-year old games with minimalist, but perfect readouts, and "contemporary" productions with a terrible interface. Scary, but unfortunately a lot of game developers are still educated by the Technical Requirements Checklists on this subject.

However, beyond your arguments, I agree with you - innovation is and was always present in the industry, from Space Invaders through Populous, Katamari Damashii to Braid.

Another common complaint is, that innovation is less and less advertised - as the industry is more mature, the real innovation is forced into the back/underground, to the indie scene.

I do not think so. The discontented should buy some hardware from Nintendo.

Best regards,

- Theo

Kate,

Thanks for clearing up the headline subject. Still, I'm not able to find solace, as this kind of treacherous scam was never associated with EDGE in my head.

On the other hand, your intelligent response suddenly made your book interesting. :)

Best regards,

- Theo

Hello Kate,

Please do not flag this comment as offensive, but I'm a bit disappointed. Your keynote has nothing to do with its headline. I was expecting to read about "How to Pick the Best Games Ever," but got something completely different - not a word on the method of the selection.

"Edge was to my knowledge the first magazine to treat games as cool." - you wrote on your blog. To my knowledge, EDGE was the first magazine to treat games as a media form; games were cool enough in the earlier publications.
Well, as illustrated, human perception is very subjective - so please forget my grumbling. :)

Thanks for writing a book on this subject!

Kind regards,

- Theo