Well, Is it? Taking a look at the past hits, I would think that it is very much dead. Mega-hits like the Final Fantasy series, the Quakes, the C&C's. They're all pretty much the same thing arn't they? When u read interviews with game companies, the question "how will u make (insert game title here) different?". The usual answer is simply a genre/genre answer. All the big-company games these days are either the same old genre formula with new weapons, characters, spells, utilities etc... or a lame genre mix.

However, I recently also took a look at the amature games that were out there. These games like Gigantic Gear, Magical Broom, Natomi Bottle Rockets(this ones a short mini game), were all incredibly original. So what happened to these creative minds when try to make a 'real' game? I have no clue. I'm sure many amature game makers get accepted into large companies after displaying some impressive stuff. But its like their brains gets drained of ideas when they enter the 'real' market.

Some people also argue "Do we need originality?" Well, I dont have anything to argue against this point, and I cant really make a decent judgement on it, but taking a look at the top 10 sales charts of the games industry, I'd say no. All the same-old same-old Final Fantasies, and C&C's are up there. Maybe these large companies simply dont care anymore because their audiences dont care anymore, because the sales certainly look that way. And companies obviously look only at sales .

So is originality dead? Maybe the Amateur's (us) can make a difference.