Magical Wasteland has a succinct, but brilliant post on Five Short Videogame Industry Keynotes. They are pithy and to the point, so I'm afraid I'm not really adding much, but I think we need more of this honest and confrontational style of writing about games industry laziness.
Man, am I ever tardy to the party on this one, but it seemed worthwhile to thank you here, given that this entry first drew my attention to your blog. The first two of these are especially relevant to me, both as one of those kids who grew up with his brain melting into the internet and as someone who comes from a school where iteration (well, playtesting, really) is stressed as high (if not the highest) priority in development.
All of these lazy speeches stem from a general lack of rigor in the industry, so thanks for calling bullshit on them. No seriously, it's a breath of fresh air to have someone call the emperor out on just how naked he actually is. The first few conferences I've attended have all been marked by a great disappointment at just how little is actually being done (I'm unconsciously using the passive there: perhaps I should blame myself or point a finger at someone) to seriously address the topics each of these "keynotes" glosses over.
1) Perhaps those of us who grew up on computers are different. That may be so, but social networking, music, what not, are all things that have been around in one form or another, offline, since we were scarcely different from chimps. The tech makes it easier, but it also makes it easier for lazy marketeers to reach into a big grab bag of demographics and fake an answer. Oh no, my kids use the google, they may have scary brains.
2) Iteration is great, when it's coupled with playtests. It forces a little rigor into the development process. I can't really complain about that sort of iteration. But ungrounded iteration tends to spiral into perfectionism. Likewise, there is never a blanket time on when to start iterating: yes, the sooner the better, but time is money. How does iteration hold up against polish in the grand scheme of things? That may be a poor case, but at some point, hard choices have to be made an opportunity cost incurred.
3) Scrum may or may not be hype, but it definitely isn't panacea. It is, however, a good litmus test for how up to date the higher ups are on different schools of development. I suppose something else will adopt this function in time.
4) Pure blather. Infomercials are the biggest waste of everyone's time. No one seems to talk about doing something interesting with their work.
5) Doomsaying will never grow old. It's good for people to have a fire under their asses, but lazy prognostications (The PC is dead! No wait, it's still dying! It will never die! It's dead again!) are irksome whether they are pessimistic or optimistic. Why is it so hard to concentrate on the now or the immediate future? Why does no one bother to put their ass on the line by saying "this is the next big problem we're facing, and this is how we're starting to deal with it." I've seen people talk again and again about how F2P/P4S or Microtransactions will kill retail, but no hard thinking on how hurry up and do it. Meanwhile, it's already here, and there's no active design around the economic model-- the same two or three economies happen recur again and again because no one is willing to gamble and build something new.
Anyways, there's a useless fluff comment, but thanks again for calling out these smug regurgitations.