The article seems like a fluff piece to me. When people are making such broad generalizations, yes, there's some universal and timeless truth to it, but there also isn't much of a point being made. He wasn't making some observation that was novel to 2005 or even to the video game industry. Virtually every entertainment medium, be it video games, TV, movies, books, music, etc., can be boiled down to a handful of very broad genres or themes. And when you look at it in such broad terms, you miss the forest for the trees. I mean, metal is a sub-genre of rock, but does Elvis Presley have much in common with Metallica? So what the author was saying applied to the entire history of video gaming, and still does now, but with that kind of perspective, I doubt he'd notice or care about the tremendous change that has taken place, both from the start of the industry to 2005 and from 2005 to the present. I don't think anyone in 2005 could have accurately predicted the state of the industry now. The scope of it has really expanded, such that what existed in 2005, and the trends back then, are only one part of the picture now. The distribution models of 2005 limited what was financially viable to create, so a lot of developers would play it safe, as has always been the case, but there are a lot more options now. Even if they're overshadowed and outsold by the AAA mainstream stuff, indies and niche games are flourishing, and there is more variety in what's available than ever. Sure, people can argue if the games are as good as what was coming out in the past, but to me, that's comparing apples and oranges when most of the modern games I've been playing in the last several years are types of games that just plain didn't exist in 2005 (or they did in minuscule quantities and/or only in Japanese). But would the author of that article notice or care about the existence of the ultra-niche otome visual novels I've been playing? Probably not, and he could just as well brush them off as yet another form of the adventure game. But the experience I get from those games is a heck of a lot different than from, say, a Zelda game. My husband, whose tastes in modern games skew a lot more mainstream than mine, has also been playing stuff totally unlike what he was playing in 2005 or even what existed in 2005. He's been playing a lot of open-world/sandbox games, walking simulators (for lack of a better way to describe them), and unusual indies like Return of the Obra Dinn and Untitled Goose Game, whereas, in 2005, he was playing stuff like Metal Gear Solid 3 and Resident Evil 4. Heck, even looking at those old, established franchises, we've been offered drastically different takes on them. My husband really enjoyed Metal Gear Solid 5 and Resident Evil 7. So I think there has always been a satisfactory amount of innovation within gaming, in spite of all the cookie-cutter games that have always been present as well. You just have to have your eyes open and look for it.