This is what innovation looks like in big-budget video games

Indie games don’t sell as many copies as big-budget titles, although not necessarily because they’re lower-quality. In general, indie game development starts with a handicap: a limited market. They are, mostly, experiences made for niche audiences. AAA games -- think Call of Duty, Halo, Battlefield, Destiny -- are made for everyone, an audience that’s been intensely researched over decades of action-movie box-office sales and Black Friday marketing campaigns. AAA consultants know exactly which games sell the best, where they sell the most, how much the mainstream audience wants to think and what their boundaries are. This approach to creation contributes to the flood of sequels and first-person shooters in our game libraries, now and into the foreseeable future. Sony’s and Microsoft’s showcases at E3 2015 were soaked in sequels and remakes, leading some fans to question the creative status of the industry as a whole. But, the AAA industry does innovate -- in its own, small way.