3. If there's one thing wrong with the gaming industry you'd want to change in the new millennium, what would it be and why?

Chris: There's quite a few things we can and should change - quantity of games, lack of true innovation, the fact we're technology-driven as opposed to content-driven - but the biggest thing I would like to see is the pool of available and experienced game talent grow. Look at the top ten games every year. More often than not, people that have been in the business for over five years, if not ten or more, design the top games. The number of experienced designers, programmers and artists grows much slower than the public's appetite for games. The result is dozens, if not hundreds, of mediocre or substandard games. In the film business, when you must hire a brilliant DP or production designer, you can pick up the phone and have that person on your team in a couple of weeks. In the games business, if you need a talented programmer, designer, or artist, good luck. Either you must hire someone straight out of college and hope they learn on the job really fast or try and hire an experienced person from another company, which not only is incredibly expensive, but also difficult, as most companies make sure their top people are happy.

What I'm hoping is that there'll be more courses or even schools for game design. You want to be a filmmaker? There are dozens of great film schools. Want to study music? Painting? The same. Want to be a game maker? You must teach yourself or be trained on the job. Until we fix this problem, it's going to be difficult for us to grow as an entertainment medium.

4. There is a lot of talk about interactive entertainment becoming the dominant form of entertainment in the 21st century. Although it's a broad question, dream a little and tell us how far your vision stretches for what interactive entertainment can eventually represent and become?

Chris: I'm not sure it will be the dominant form of entertainment, but it will, without a question, be as powerful and far-reaching as such passive mediums like film and TV. On top of this, it has the potential to be more affecting and involving. Why? When you tell a story (in books, film, on stage, or on TV), one of the biggest challenges is to create characters that are compelling enough to hold the audience's attention. This is especially true of the main protagonist in a linear story. In an interactive world or story, the player is the protagonist. You're always going to care what happens to you. This means that when the audio and visual quality parallels that of film, interactive stories will be much more affecting than their linear cousins.

The only reason why I'm not sure whether interactive will be the dominant form of entertainment is that people tend to be lazy. A lot of times, they will want to just plop down on a sofa and have a story told to them; look at another world without doing any work. My guess is that it will be a choice thing. Feeling feisty or full of energy? Then, you'll turn to interactive entertainment. Be the hero. Save the world. Had a hard day at work (or school), you'll just switch on the TV and watch.

Next: Chris Roberts (cont.)