Are you being rhetorical, or serious?

I'm being serious in that many people, some of them quite intelligent people, enjoy playing Call of Duty very much, which in my book makes it a good game, even though personally I couldn't get into it.

Umm, who else in Interplay's heyday was bigger? Pretty much no one, EA was much smaller back then.

I'm going to have a agree with Orish on this one, just because a game comes from a big company does not mean it is incapable of breaking ground. Bioware does a lot of stuff that I enjoy, the same goes for Blizzard, Ubisoft, Bethesda, Obsidian, hell, even Microsoft and Nintendo have done some stuff that I have enjoyed over the past few years. Indie games add creativity and originality, this involves taking design risks that big companies are unable to take because they are driven first and foremost by profitability.

I think this rise in Indie sales says a few things. One, that people are bored of the same old and the new releases this past year have all been sequels or continuation of old series. Which Call of Duty are we on now? Since they stopped numbering them I've lost track. Two, these are tough times, people don't want to drop $60 on a game every month, an Indie bundle costs a quarter of that and you can get a lot more playing time and variety. Three, increased marketing. With Steam, GOG, Origin, etc., all beefing up their Indie selections these games are getting a lot more notice and a lot more attention. And finally, how long has it been since the latest console was released? No one cares about Kinetic or that motion sensor bullshit, they want a bigger, faster, more reliable console and they're not getting it. Turning to a new genre can ease that pain and lead to a lot of fun in the process.

Edit: typo

Yes but "video games" as a market were much, much smaller back then, playing video games wasn't a mainstream activity, it was niche, for nerds, so developers could charge higher amounts of money, and could also directly produce games that their audience wanted,

These days video games try to be as mainstream as possible, appeal to as broad an audience as possible, which of course results in rubbish made so that anyone, even someone who has never played a video game in their lives, could pick it up.

You mean they actually employ good design techniques learned over several decades and an intuitive UI that is easy to pick up... WHAT MONSTERS!!! FUCK THEM TO HELLLLLLLL!!!!!!

Ah... I remember the good old days of Starcraft 2 pre-alfa; when people first heard that you will be able to select more than 12 units at once and immediately concluded that it was "dumbing the game down for casuals"...

Oh, as for the subject at hand: indie games good ^^, mainstream games bad :[ !

Am I doing it right ;) ?

Mainstream games are not bad... but I do think Indies are a breath of fresh air to the gaiming industry. And sells do show I'm right. Still games like Mass Effect ,Call Of Duty,NFS sell a lot of copies...mostly with them is the name selling,not the game behind the game. Let's be honest the last 3 Call Of Duty games looks like one game with new skins :)

Most games ever released have been designed so that first time gamers would be able to play them.

No, the difference is that older games had a learning curve, so if you possessed patience and a willingness to learn, you could play them. This is opposed to games which have almost no learning curve.

Yes!
Game design 101: A game should be easy to learn, hard to master.

I don't see it. Most adventure games, strategy games such as Warcraft 2, RPG's such as Planescape: Torment, they were all pretty easy to get into. So were many games before them. The good games always had you learn the ropes while you played.

There's always need to learn the ropes, and that's still the case. Start any multiplyer shooter and the mechanics are simple, but you'll lose every game until you learn the weapons and when to use them, the layouts of the maps, ...

My guess is you don't play them and your opinion isn't based on experience.

Many games have simple controls, that doesn't mean a beginner can just drop in and succeed at everything.

You've never had to deal with the atrocity that Skyrim tries to pass off as a usable interface I take it.