Jason Love wrote:

And this is what makes me think I've got it backwards: you all are the idealistic ones, whereas I'm the one who's cynically chosen to accept the status quo. (Well, except for my delusions of grandeur--that in just a few years I'll be ready to enter the industry and magically make all the problems disappear. Right.)

The problem is, idealism always has a cost. Holding out for better games means missing out on games that may not be great but might at least be enjoyable.

For example: it's well-documented that Xenosaga (and to a much greater extent, Xenogears) heave around religious symbology and terminology without any bearing to their original significance. Hearing Albedo shout "I am the Alpha and Omega of all consciousness!" is just utterly silly. However, I can easily shrug it off as a sort of placeholder culture. Just like you'll almost always encounter people in fictional settings speaking English because the "realism" of having a setting-relevent language comes at the cost of playability, Xenosaga's religious name-dropping can almost be justified as a short-hand for the fictional cultural and religious background. Is it a stretch? Absolutely. But exactly that reasoning, and more like it veiling Xenosaga's other shortcomings, allowed me to spend 65 hours enjoying it. Even despite this review and accompanying discussion, I will probably continue to enjoy it, because I can.

It's better than the alternative.

Look at the music industry. Despite the fairly commonly-held belief that pop is nothing more than a wretched attempt to get more cash, it continues to be ubiquitous. Most people can't stand it, yet it continues to persist. What if the same thing happens for gaming? If, at the end of the day, all you've managed to do is sour your opinion of the majority of the games out there, then have you really accomplished anything?

I don't know. I've been up too long trying to write this post, and I think I lost my point somewhere along the way. I just feel like you guys are fighting the good fight but that it's ultimately going to be a losing battle, and that it might be more productive to simply make the best of things.