Mainstream Games are so bad nowadays

[Xanatos]

2007 was a great year for gaming, so many great titles came out that year: Assassin's Creed, Call of Duty 4, Bioshock, Penumbra, Devil May Cry 4, Kane & Lynch: Dead Men, Portal/The Orange Box, just to name but a few. Since then however the industry has sat at about the same level, with each respective series going downhill (with the exception of Portal and FG's titles, from two of the few developers that still care about gaming beyond their pay cheques). The 'early days' were all about experimentation - gaming was a new artform that companies were playing around with and trying to find out what could be done with it. Some developers pushed immersion & creativity to the max (Looking Glass Studios' Thief games a shining example) and others were busy coming up with equally creative ways to kill lots of time in a fun way. It was a period of innovation and freedom. Although now that the larger companies have taken over (Ubisoft, Square Enix, etc) they're more concerned about netting large profits and reaching a large target audience, so they can't afford to experiment as much as in the old days. Thankfully smaller companies like FG and a few dedicated developers such as Valve are still willing to push the envelope and they need all the support they can get.