I Don't Want to Live in The Real World

It's strange to me how there are a ton of niche markets for video and computer games from interactive fiction to roguelike rpgs to baseball stat sims to modern adventure games that are expanding gradually. However, it feels like many of the mainstream game making companies are making the same game over and over again with slight tweaks. I think many gamers are thirsty for innovation and diversification, yet the gaming companies are too afraid to stray far from the norm because they are afraid it will hurt their bottom line. Gamers are more sophisticated that the companies are currently giving them credit for and this great article provides an example of one game that has bucked the system (at least graphically) and succeeded on a fairly large scale.