Over on Gamasutra they have an interesting article about the creative power of the indie games industry over the mainstream industry. In a response to a follow-up question to Chris Hecker’s keynote address at the Montreal International Game Summit, Chris lays out that the mainstream industry must not rely on the indie developers to be the driving creative force within the industry.

It’s a good read and one that makes a lot of sense. After all, when you have a game like Modern Warfare 2 that sells 5 million copies in a single day your bound to get a much higher penetration rate within society. That game, in effect, is dictating the creative force of video gaming culture. While indie games like World of Goo — truly a creative powerhouse and a game that almost every single man, woman, and child in the gaming community can get behind — will probably never, in it’s entire lifetime, reach even a million people. Therefor the media, and society in general, will look at games like Call of Duty and use that as it’s base for creativity and cultural relavence.

This may not sound like a huge issue to some people, but if you look at all the negative spin on video games over the last few years, I can assure you that it’s something we should all be worried about. With the latest controversy involving Modern Ware 2 (I haven’t actually played it, but apparently there’s a terrorist scene where you can shoot innocent civilians) and the media picking up on it like rabid wolves to a downed elk, it is, effectively, becoming the creative vice for the entire industry.

Anyways, the article is a fascinating read and I won’t reiterate everything here so feel free to make the jump!

[via Gamasutra]