The gamers who stare at goats.

After watching Grant Heslov’s comedy title ‘The Men Who Stare at Goats’ I realised how narrow the game industry is in comparison to film. The major blockbusters and high budget games which get released follow very similar genres and take very little risks. Gaming is an interactive genre, but most of the major titles follow the same formulae, they involve violence and brutality, alongside very generic, unoriginal plotlines. Not very often do we get to see quirky, innovative, and purely interesting ideas developed into major titles. In recent times, small arcade games such as ‘Wallace and Gromit’ have made an appearance on the gaming scene, but have made little impact due to the relatively small development input in comparison to a major title such as ‘Modern Warfare 2.’ Although it is clearly a successful genre, just look at titles such as ‘Brutal Legend’ which harnesses the madness of metal culture and creates an exciting, very quirky and humorous game which has made it into the mainstream gaming audience. Publishers need to take more risks that do not particularly follow the normal, successful conventions of a video game and broaden the industries horizons, see what the developers are capable of. Who says cloud-bursting can’t be fun?