Guess how cranky this video made me.

If you guessed ‘pretty damn cranky’, then gold star for you. I can get into some of the other reasons in the future, but here’s one I’d like to center on:

“If games don’t tackle bigger issues or begin thinking about different ways for the player to interact other than killing things or level up – that’s what games are always going to be.”

Oh noes! The games industry is making nothing but murder simulators and men in tights MMOs! We’re all doomed to total irrelevance! Don’t you believe it for a second.

Let’s take a look at some of the top-selling franchises over the last few years: SimCity, Civilization, Ace Phoenix, Diner Dash, Spore, SingStar, Barbie Fashion Designer, Nancy Drew, Little Big Planet, WiiFit, WiiPlay, Nintendogs, Air Traffic Controller, Rock Band and Guitar Hero. And, of course, the Sims, which has consistently dominated the PC charts for a decade.

There is one ‘hardcore death-murder-kill game’ in the top 20 selling console games of all time (San Andreas). The top three franchises are Mario, Madden and Guitar Hero – not Halo, Quake, and Call of Duty, as some might have you believe. And this isn’t even counting the millions of players who play Solitaire, Slingo and the Zynga games like Pirates and Mafia Wars. Anybody who thinks that we only make games about killing things, at this point, is being myopic. We’re making the games. And the public is buying them.