And this is why it's hard to take you seriously. What kind of deep understanding does someone possess about video games when they snidely and blithely dismiss a large segment of the industry? Do you think many people play and enjoy those games because they're not as bright or refined as you?
This is what I learned about art and appreciation a few years ago, something a lot of people don't seem to realize until they get a little older (and some never seem to realize it):
The things I don't appreciate are usually things I have made no effort to appreciate. It's very comforting to oneself to dismiss large sections of various forms of entertainment as mindless or stupid, in fact it's as built in psychological crutch. "Everyone seems to be talking about these reality shows lately but they don't really appeal to me, therefore I dismiss them as stupid and not worthy of my understanding. There, now I feel better for not knowing what's going on."
This concept was also driven home to me by a weekly column ex-Angry Samoan Mike Saunders used to write in The Village Voice about
teen pop music and
Disney radio (click links for many fascinating articles). I thought like I'm sure many people thought - he's gotta be pulling my leg with this shit. Former uber-sarcastic punk rocker waxing poetically about Britney Spears and Mandy Moore? It's all a tongue-in-cheek or ironic thing, it's gotta be. But it wasn't, and week after week he explained why he liked this stuff, and it made sense! Blew my mind just a bit. I didn't rush out and buy any Britney or Back Street Boys albums, but when they come on the radio or TV now I don't just snort and dismiss them, either.
This is not saying people need to be a fan of everything. Who has the time? And some things will always appeal to a person more than others. But here's the point I made the first time, and now I'm making again: You are not doing video games any favor by saying it needs more of "this" and less of "this." You don't appear to have any great understanding of the form when you dismiss a very popular segment of the industry as "derivitive" and "braindead." If you don't like action/FPS type games, hey, swell. You don't have to. But then don't come around touting yourself as some game guru and deep thinker when you just stepped into the same pile that most self-appointed smarty pants do: "What the industry needs is more of the type of games I think it needs, more of the type of games I think are art, and less of that poopy stuff I don't like." Bull. Video games, like every media form, just need more outstanding works. If Half-Life 2 outsells Ico 50:1, that's just the way it goes. That's not the problem, since they're both top notch games. If someone can't appreciate an inspired game just because it has space marines or androgynous, spikey haired, angsty kids in it, that's the user's problem, not the industry's.
This all gets tied into one of the reasons why video games do not have a mass acceptance, because it's still a boys club where people spend a lot of their time arguing why X console or genre is better than Y console or genre. This kind of simpleton shit does not go on in most movie or music circles. Everyone has their favorites, but people don't spend most of their "air time" talking about why what they like is better than what you like. In those areas, people tend to enjoy the highlights more wherever they come from. Video games needs this.