The following editorial was contributed by buzzcut readerChuck Griffiths . Chuck takes on the issue of innovation in the game business by staring down the barrel of one of the most cliched genres of all, the first person shooter.

Every medium has its burdens: The creations that are made only to sell, and which rust the wheels of progress. Using tried-and-tested formulae they are made, released and once they have been embraced by the public, seem to attract even more imitators. Literature has its science-fiction “airport” novels and its Mills and Boon (Romance novels, ed.). Cinema has its hackneyed plots of loose cannons, loose morals and loose women. It’s Hollywood, it’s mainstream - it’s largely terrible. Not always, of course. But too often.

Videogames are the same, and a particular style seems to stand out. It’s a genre that is bloated, flaccid and contains countless examples of the same ideas, yet also generates huge revenues with almost every child it conceives and ejects into the world. It is the “First Person Shooter”, characterised by the way the player views the action through the eyes of the avatar. As a general rule, the player can see the character’s surroundings and a firearm protruding into the digital space as they move though the game world. Today’s “FPS” collection is where you will typically find the least innovation or unique ideas. So, why is it probably the largest catalogue of games around? .

Recent big-sellers have been Far Cry, Call of Duty and Medal of Honor: Rising Sun. Yet, can any one of those lay claim to a real advance in videogames? Or (to be less demanding) an advance just in the realm of first person shooters? Call of Duty has some excellent audio effects and a great atmosphere. Far Cry has beautiful vistas and an overall freshness to its visual backdrop. They are good games, in mine and many others’ opinions. But in a few years will we look back and remember the way either of those games really impressed us, filled us with a certain emotion, made us think about games as a whole? I just can’t see it happening. There are the attempts at photorealism, the set-pieces, the quick-saving, the easy-to-learn AI routines, the standard control system…I mean, it’s no surprise a large number of them are made from the same core engine - they are practically the same game. Take a big-selling FPS, change the setting, update the graphics and you’re more than halfway to a new hit game.

Too many chart-toppers in recent times have failed to earn a place in our memories. They just don’t deliver that intoxicating joy that only comes from experiencing something truly new.

First person shooters are not always generic clones, of course. Halo provides a wonderfully solid and consistent game world, the player’s enjoyment of which is powered by the organic nature of every combat situation. GoldenEye is still one of the finest first person games in existence, with a superbly intuitive control system that makes gunfights as cerebral as a game of chess and where luck will always be defeated by skill.

So, don’t misunderstand me - I’m not saying first person shooters are the sole perpetrators of unoriginality. A person could attack a lot of different videogames and genres. But there simply exists such an enormous glut of FPSs that display such an obvious lack of inventiveness that they tend to stand out as a leading example of the reasons why videogames need to change.

Over the past few years, websites have appeared across the world dedicated to the serious aspects of games: Their effect on society and the player, their power of influence and their potential uses, for example. What unites the people who create such things though, is that they believe videogames are more than just toys for children. The majority believe videogames are art - a medium that deserves the same respect as literature and film. Yet for all their proper artistic criticism, articles on social trends and essays on content - they still cannot overcome the main obstacle to acceptance as art. Unfortunately it is not a question of misrepresentation or academic neglect, but of content. The blame rests solely with the games themselves. The brutal truth is that games that can stand on their own and be argued convincingly as art are disturbingly few and far between.

Now, it’s been said many times before (as an excuse primarily) that: “Videogames are in their infancy.” It’s true, thirty-odd years is a drop in the ocean. In another thirty, people could get knighthoods for contributions to videogames – who knows? But this excuse cannot be used by those who cross their arms and wait, or indeed by those who believe the current situation is satisfactory, with the attitude that if you’re “hardcore” than you appreciate games as art, and if you’re a “casual” gamer than they are merely entertainment. For the maturity to come, we have to want it to come. The industry will not easily convert to the home of the world’s newest form of artistic expression. Clearly it will take effort. It will grow, no doubt about that, but outwards only - a heaving garbage bag, bursting at the seams, with the corners of Driv3r and Red Faction boxes poking out from the sides.

So, what is the answer? Complex, I suppose. In 1984, Orwell wrote: “If there is hope, it lies in the proles”. I’m treading on thin ice over a pool of snobbery by relating the “casual” gamers to the proles, but hopefully my meaning is clear. The readers of Edge here in the UK, the visitors of Ludology.com or the buyers of 1-Up MegaZine – these people may provoke change in the games industry, but they cannot force it by themselves.

Their game choices are not “better” than those of the casual gamer, just more discerning due to the greater number of games they have played. What is new to someone who buys a game or two each year is most likely going to be old hat to someone who buys more magazines about the topic in just a month. 007 Nightfire may be an incredible experience to a person who has never played a game as James Bond before, but to a gaming veteran it may be a bland, soulless and dull one. The latter has simply seen it all before.

The general gaming public needs to have their eyes opened to some of the more original titles out there or at least be exposed to the cream of the established genres. A person who has played GoldenEye or Halo is probably not going to be overly impressed with Medal of Honor: Frontline. Similarly, anyone who has plumbed the depths of Jolly Roger Bay in Super Mario 64 will not be bowled over by Spyro or Rayman. Enter the Matrix sold in bundles, yet Conker’s Bad Fur Day on the Nintendo 64 successfully stripped bullet-time down to its most playful essence and executed it with more care than Atari ever did – and that was just in one small parody segment at the end. If you have had a go at being a gutter-mouthed squirrel picking off weasels with a sub-machine gun while gracefully arching over a lobby walkway, then stabbing a few buttons and watching a jerky model of Ghost batter an inept guard seems…well, rather flat. This is how it should be. Consumer’s expectations must be higher. Not for more accurate facial models of Hollywood actors and not for more up-to-date sport rosters but for fresh, inventive games that introduce new ways of actually engaging with and enjoying the content.

However, where are these games going to come from? We end up with a “chicken/egg” scenario. Consumers won’t want it if it doesn’t exist, and developers won’t make it if there isn’t a market.

Many think the first step to break out of the cycle falls to the developer. There simply has to be more risk taking. Large companies that are happily making a fortune at the moment won’t be interested, naturally. They have their checklists, they know there are markets, and so they continue to stick to their guns and produce the same material. Why would they want the average gamer to start raising their sights? That could require more talent to satisfy, and the possibility of the old genre-blueprints becoming defunct.

So, unfortunately, it falls to the little guy. But they also have no incentive. They are fully aware that people like what they know, and have patience for little else. Why design a PC controller for games with vastly superior ergonomics than the atrocious keyboard and mouse? PC gamers will reject it quicker than the suggestion that Doom 3 might not actually be any good. Or why make games with low-budget graphics for the sake of concentrating on the content and way the game is actually played? Consumers will scan an eye across it and never look back. Zed Two Studios tried it, and the company is no more. The founders, John and Steven Pickford, have nothing but my respect for trying. Perhaps it was too soon for a company with such an ethos - I can only hope they stick around long enough to see the change many of us hope for in the industry. They are among the many developers who tried to do things differently and were crushed by market forces. Their games appeal to a niche, the commonly-named “hardcore”. Unfortunately, it seems it's just not a big enough group of people to keep a company afloat.

That niche, those people with a taste for something different, needs to be bigger. It needs to be huge. It’s hard to tell what has to come first - the games, or the average gamer’s demand for quality. But it could be what is happening in Japan right now. In that case, it’s the consumers who took the first step. They stopped buying the same old stuff, they just got bored. The industry responded to this by going into recession. Right now, a lot of companies are going back to square one. They know that they need new ideas, fresh games. The message got through by the only lines of communication open to the big game-makers - money. Hopefully, the West will follow soon enough. When the sales of “Generic FPS #402” start to fall, it could be the next Animal Crossing or Rez being lapped up by the general public. Japan’s disillusionment and boredom with being handed the same bland, formulaic produce is justified. The sooner it infects the minds of the rest of the world, the better. Perhaps we’ll even see the letters “FPS” a little less often in the future, and have a few more games that need more than three letters to be classified.

Developers need to be aiming higher than what has worked before, and consumers for something other than a head-shot.