Interesting. About 15 years ago, give or take a year, that's where we were at in the U.S. gaming community as well. Consoles made a come-back with the NES in the late 80's, but computer games continued to be niche-driven for adults and more mature style games. Chris Crawford actually considered the period from 1983 (post console crash) to early 1990 (with the release of Wing Commander) as the richest era of game design and innovation.

The problem was, it didn't last. PC games started to go for bigger investments; Chris targeted WC specifically because it was the first PC game that spent more than a million dollars in development. Eventually console gamers of the early 90's grew up, and became the new audience. And since they demanded PC games more like what the games they played when they were young, the PC slowly lost any maturity and design innovation it had as a platform. And that's how we got to where we are now.

I'm glad to hear things are different in Europe... I just don't know if they'll stay that way. Enjoy it while it lasts!

Adamantyr