I’m currently working my way through Marshall McLuhan’s Understanding Media (a truly insightful book on media, written in 1964 no less!). I’ll do up a more complete post on my thoughts when I’m done reading, but this paragraph really struck a cord in light of the recent “indie game aesthetic” thread at Terra Nova:

“Any innovation threatens the equilibrium of existing organizations. In big industry new ideas are invited to rear their heads so that they can be clobbered at once. The idea department of a big firm is a sort of lab for isolating dangerous viruses. When one is found, it is assigned to a group for neutralizing and immunizing treatment. It is comical, therefore, when anybody applies to a big corporation with a new idea that would result in a great ‘increase of production and sales’. Such an increase would be a disaster for the existing management. They would have to make way for new management. Therefore, no new idea ever starts from within a big operation. It must assail the organization from outside, through some small but competing organization.”