Heroes are ideals we all hold dear in our hearts, when someone stands on their soapbox and says what they're going to do and do it well and hopefully with style. I know the feeling, from the video games industry, to politics, to journalism, to anyone who has the heart to go and do what I wish I could, I want those people to run gaming and even the world. We need to have heroes, it gives us hope that our lives, or at the very least, the things we love aren't going to descend into mediocrity.
The problem with it is that it is an ideal, we want our heroes to be perfect, but of course, no human has proven to be thus far, at least not when you take a good look. We only ever get small glimpses of perfection. The other problem is the fact that in a focused sense, game development is an industry, a business. Sure I would assume that most people do it for the very reason stated in the article "We're an association of electronic artists who share a common goal," "We want to fulfill the potential of personal computer."
However, these people were not born millionaires and cannot simply run off and do what they like. For every man with a vision, there are at a thousand other who share the vision, but there's likely only one person lucky enough to see their vision come true. Thus, game development is a business, as in the most basic sense, games take a lot of money to make, and most people don't really believe in charity, especially where videogames are concerned. So they have to be designed to make money more than fit a good vision, often that means recycling what people know, sells.
Not that I'm talking about anything most people aren't aware of, but it's hard to have hope that true heroes exist in the gaming industry, given that for it to grow and succeed it's got to have more capital. Heroes will get overlooked everyday, whilst opportunities happen everyday that are wasted and our shelves get filled with games made by hacks, people just in it for the money, and make things with no artistic merit. So some cynicism is granted on this. But we've got to have hope, specifically because, and at least in my case, just when I'm about to give up on gaming, wishes do come true in the form of Valves portal most recently, but way back when I first started playing games, Westwood stepping forward to create and make the Real Time Strategy game what it is. Blizzard coming on to take that and perfect it.
I know now there's always a reason to look forward, as the thing I love about video games IS it's artistic merit, and although that isn't true of everyone, I know there are visionaries who will always give me a reason to play, and others to give others a reason. I suppose my worry isn't that there are no heroes, but that one day, there they'll be enough money involved for there to really be no more heroes.
Sorry I post long, but I like to make sure that I've tried to validate my opinion.
