Editor's Note: Feeling a little jaded? Nick Dee shows why he's hopeful for the future. -Shoe

So I recently posted an article about the failure of the videogame medium to address certain key aspects of the human experience with an emphasis on its general denial that homosexuality exists in unstereotypical forms.

In response, fellow Bitmobber Brett Bates brought up this point: “With the explosion of more personal and boundary-pushing indie and downloadable games, I'm surprised we haven't seen more gay characters.”

And I could not agree more, but I’d like to take that idea a step further and hypothesize that the next generation of gaming is going to come from a boom of new innovation from independent developers.

We’ve got more and more kids heading to college thinking: I want to learn how to make games. I have no idea about what sort of statistics could go along with this argument, but certainly the amount of people wanting to get into the games industry is rising. (Portal began as a final project by college students and became hugely successful.) Not all these people will get jobs with EA or Capcom or whatever. So I suspect that within the next decade we’ll see more independent studios open up.

These people will be developing games that are maximized for low investment and high return. Whereas AAA titles may cost 3 or 4 million dollars, we’ll start to see more games like Braid, a comparatively low-cost game with fascinating, thought-provoking story elements and high-quality gameplay to back it up. Shorter in length, but richer in experience.

Or even consider Danny Ledonne’s Super Columbine Massacre RPG!. Way below average in terms of gameplay, but something that was totally new in terms of content, it is essentially an interactive documentary, and you come away having learned a lot about Harris and Klebold. With the artistic freedom of developing independently comes innovation.

So as development tools become more available to more people, the result will be more games. We’ve got countless Flash games online that are generally terrible. But I expect we’ll see a sort of bourgeoisie game development system begin to occur, if we aren’t witnessing it already: a middle ground between a free five-minute Flash game and a $60, 40-hour JRPG. Games like Braid that are personal and intelligent and unique.

The next generation of gaming is still a long way off. But it won’t be heralded by better graphics or motion control. You don’t need the highest quality 3D graphics to make a high-quality game (see: http://www.bitmob.com/index.php/mobfeed/Why-I-still-love-2-D-gaming.html).

It’s going to be about increased thoughtfulness regarding content -- games that are developed without million-dollar investments but that still provide high-quality entertainment. Smaller teams without corporate overlords are going to provide fresher, more innovative experiences.