You can already see the emergence of Genre Kings on mobile and facebook; Angry Birds is a genre king. The Room is a genre King. Farmville is a genre king. Rayman Jungle Run is a genre king.Clash of Clans is a genre king. Jetpack Joyride is a genre king. I'm sure there are others I cannot think of at this moment.
None of these titles presented anything mechanically new that had not been seen before, but presented a polished experience targetted explicitly at the audience that would enjoy them and have reaped the same success as, say, an EA funded contemporary military online multiplayer FPS would to a traditional console audience.
Indies are consistently a breath of fresh air into the industry, but indies by their very nature exist outside of the traditional industry models and should never be part of the conversation about traditional publishers or platform holders, because that discussion doesn't concern them.
Indies in gaming aren't even supported as well as they are in the Music or Film businesses; sure, Sony, Ms and Nintendo are more than happy to take a 30% cut of every indie game sold on their platform, and they're even happy to loan them the sub-$1000 fee to give them a 'free' copy of Unity Pro to help obfuscate that threadbare release list, but you don't see an indie with a proven track record being given a studio to head up on the platform holders dime, do you?
To directly answer your questions - and really, the conversation about the state of the industry isn't about my preferences; in fact, that is exactly the attitude I have a problem with when people make statements like "casual gamers don't matter" - I play all sorts of games which is why the stratification of gaming into fewer and fewer genres is a bad thing to me.
I also like cheeseburgers and ice cream, but I don't want a world where the only food available is cheeseburgers and ice cream because sometimes you want something with a little more substance to it.
Evolve is probably the most recent traditional (non-Indie) game I have enjoyed that has done something new and exciting.
I hear you on the indie scene. But to counter that, I would also argue because of Indie games publisher's are now making smaller games that have indie style budgets, but the quality of a AAA published game.
Bastion, Transistor, Far Cry 3:Blood Dragon, Gunslinger, Child of Light, Valiant Hearts, Wild, Shadow Complex, ALan Wake's New Nightmare.
There are more that escape me, but it's nice to know that big publisher's are starting to get it.
During the PS2, Xbox era we had budget 19.99-29.99 games that were pretty good, like Alien Hominid by Big Behemoth.
Those have morphed into Indie games, and that model of making smaller games with great production values with small teams has started to come out more.
We have games like BROTHERS, that has a nice look to it, and a great story. But is 19.99.
And you rag on TLOU and most of the games coming out now about not being innovative or as risky, yet you say you like playing EVOLVE, which is nothing new outside of VS mode in LEFT 4 DEAD.
And that game seems to be only that 5v1 mode for 60$.
I guess you can see from the past year and how long last generation dragged on, but you also have to put things into perspective. That when you start a new generation that's coming off of one that had a lot of problems, it's going to take time to see those innovative genre's pushing games.
lot's of money was lost in the Big companies trying to figure shit out, when it came to online, DLC, Day one Patching, and having games reach an audience.
If we don't see games like The last Guardian being mentioned next year along with whatever Level 5 is making then I guess you would be right to have that reservation on where the industry is heading.
But as long as we have NIntendo, Indie, Indie AAA, and small publisher made games still in circulation it will usher in more creativity and collaboration with industry vet's.
