Monthly Musings: Untapped Potential

12:40 PM on 06.08.2009   |   Anthony Burch

16 comments

If you're not too busy lapping up all the news coming from E3, why not write an article on June's Monthly Musing theme? If your article is good enough, or inspires good discussion, you may have a chance to get it featured on the front page.

With every passing year, we see more and more what games are capable of. We've seen games evolve as an artistic, technological, and narrative medium thanks to benchmark games like Passage, Portal, or Metal Gear Solid.

But for every moment that makes us gasp, or cheer, or shout "f*ck yeah" at the top of our lungs, there must be other things that inspire the opposite reaction. Things about videogames that piss us off, or disappoint us, or make us yearn for something more. That's the main idea behind this month's Musing theme, "Untapped Potential."

What should games be doing, but aren't? What trends in current game design irritate you? What is holding games back from what they could eventually become -- and for that matter, what could they eventually become?

Hit the jump for a further explanation of the theme, and instructions on how your writing can be featured on the Dtoid front page.

First, the technical instructions: get a Dtoid account, write a community blog titled "Untapped Potential: blah blah blah," and make sure to choose the Monthly Theme tag.

In regards to the theme: I'd typically worry that the theme is so vague that it might just turn into a formless excuse for angry ranting, but you folks have never devolved into that before -- no reason you would now. 

June's theme is designed for general discussion of where games currently are as a medium, and where they could be. Does it irritate you that 90% of mainstream games revolve around shooting things? Do you think players aren't being presented with enough freedom, even in games that claim to espouse some sort of moral choice? Are there too many goddamn MMOs and casual games, and not enough of (insert your favorite genre here)? Write about it.