sing it, bruddah

One of the good things about the state of the games industry right now is that it's incredibly easy to be original. I mean, if you released a game these days that didn't have any army guys in it people would freak out. "Omg. Where did they get the idea to not use army guys? Are they taking drugs?" I think game makers underestimate the public when they assume they want to play the same game over and over. But it gives us a really good opportunity to stand out to the audience.
(...)
The problem isn't in listening to trends and biz-dev. It comes from reacting to those things in a simplistic way. Like, "These two games set in the snow sold really well. So we need more snow games. I can't believe we are publishing games that aren't 90 percent snow! I've been yelling that we need to make more snow games for two years!" And so on. People often imitate the superficial aspects of a hit without really understanding why that game really resonated with players. And that's dumb. Those people are dumb, and I don't like them.
--Tim Schaefer