The genre box exists, and anyone who has played games for the last decade or so knows what I'm talking about. Modern games are trying way too hard to categorize themselves by adding the same types of game play over and over. That would be fine...if they hadn't worn out their welcome. We now have a bazillion shooters, and any developers working on more this year need to have their heads examined.  I'm sick of them: shooters and strategy games have almost totally overrun the PC market, squeezing out even other genres. Look at what's happened to the adventure genre for crying out loud; they're story based puzzle games now, Myst X10000.This has to stop.

I'm tired of what's been churned out non-stop for the last decade. Ignore the marketing bone-heads who want you to follow formulas, because we're sick of genre cloning games. HaloX1000 is not fun. We already have Halo. Half-Life X1000 doesn't work any better. If you don't have some creativity and try to do something significantly different, why should I buy it? No better graphics is not a sufficient reason to buy your game, sorry EA. Neither is rearranging your menus or adding tacked on insignificant game play changes. It's time to get out the box and do something different.

A helpful suggestion here is to go examine a good story that's been around for decades. Then try to imagine it as a game. Don't put it in a genre box and say, "Oh, it's a shooter", really look at the way the story is told and what would be logical game play that would add to the story or make it more immersive.

And while we're talking about stories, please, let's get the RPGs away from farm boys, shining white knights and stereotypes. Most gamers are in their 30s and 40s and would really appreciate more sophisticated stories now (kudos to the Witcher here).