The Gaming press has been the keystone of the games market recently. With the sheer number of games and cross-platform products flooding the shelves of retailers, the market has begun turning more and more to the press for guidance on gaming and where to invest those precious monies. However the problem is that whilst the market has evolved to cover a far greater number of genres, cultures and needs; the press is still arguably in the palm of publishers hands.

With magazines often on the payroll of large companies such as Microsoft and Sony, and Internet sites such as Gamespot, IGN and 1up falling pray to internet hype the true value of the gaming press is still looked at as a token gesture by more solicited products such as newspapers and academic journals.

Whilst I do not wish to draw myself into the endless battle of which product is greater, I cannot help but feel that until there are truly independent properties available to critique games in a more general and less "fanboy[esque]" sense gaming will be destined to be filed under more frivolous pursuits. I feel that when the gaming community realises that it can afford to critique without loosing it's key demographic and be likened to the press related to film and literature, it will eventually overshadow both due to the truly unlimited potential for innovation in a platform of entertainment that has the ability to do literally anything it likes.

This leads on the desperate need for key figures in the gaming industry, whilst those inside of it know who the forerunner are, as soon as you set foot outside of the bubble all sense of hierarchy breaks down. There are no 'pinup's' of game development that are see in the mainstream. Until a few developers start really attempting to break into the mainstream and persuade the public that gaming is indeed the future for entertainment then there will be no evolution.

Furthermore gaming academia at the moment is very much aimed at already converted gamers, thus failing to draw in a new generation of creative input, instead keeping a grasp on the programming types of yesteryear.

To put all this into a simple sentence: "Gaming is in need of an open door policy." whereby people not necessarily already into gaming can view the industry as the innovator it truly is and not the domain of the socially doomed or geek culture.