Tried and True

I have been looking at this program called Scratch lately, thinking that maybe it is the future of internet based gaming. Games created by users for users. Sounds nice, right? Perhaps this will open gaming in new directions with truly original and fun games that business insiders haven't thought of yet. Does it? No, unfortunately not.

It's made for kids to program with, but the "non programming language savvy" user can find it a lot of fun too. The problem is that the games people are creating are nothing new. Users are copying formats of games they already know. There are many versions of Pong, Brickles, and Mazes instead of fresh ideas. Perhaps the ability to copy and tweak other members projects leads to this, but I must say I'm disappointed. Now, the graphics are limited and the majority of the users are still quite young, but I was hoping for some new ideas in gaming. Where are they?

I might be wrong. There are 7736 projects and I haven't checked them all. Someone show me the way. User generated content is limited to the creativity of the users... what does this say about the future of gaming? Oh well, I guess it only takes a few visionaries to change everything.