The rise of mass media in the last half of the 20th Century turned us all into "consumers" and took away much of the natural human inclination to be creators, performers, singers, musicians and storytellers.
Today, the rapid proliferation of cheap professional-quality media-making tools, paired with the drastic decrease in the cost of content distribution is leading to a quiet, but quite real revolution in the quantity and quality of "amateur" content. It's the democratization of media, the "Big Flip" as Clay Shirky calls it, and we think it's going to play an increasingly important role in how we make, share and consume media. For more, read my introduction to Amateur Hour.
The IGF is always full of really outstanding work by individuals or small development houses that don't have any relationship with big game publishers. I'm sure I'll be digging through these in the next few weeks and fully expect to find some eye-opening work. The first one that caught my eye was Billiard Boxing from Shizzmoo, who did the amazingly addictive KungFu Chess a year or so ago.
Let me know what you think about any of the entrants: