I'm currently at GDC 2010 and realising that things have changed exactly as they should have done, given what I knew 6 years ago (when I was last actively developing a game).
It is at least 10x more:
– server based
– communal
– social
– varied
Than it was then.
Far too much has not changed though, and it needs to. The industry still appears to be largely:
– driven by male nerds
– concentrating power in a few hands
– not properly rewarding the creators of content (compared to distribution channels)
– self-referential
Why this is not changing, and what else I have learned, will appear here soon. If I can find time to think it through, I'll also explain the biological analogies (which are about ecosystem evolution, 'top predator' theory and 'scavenging')
Well, I was not going to be quiet about it, was I?