After having been in this industry since around 1994, and having played video games since 1983, I've seen quite a few trends and incredible changes take place in video games. Most of these trends and changes have been documented in varying levels of accuracy by private enthusiast and user group newsletters, books, a smattering of television specials and documentaries, and of course the innumerable web blogs and pro sites.
There is one common thread, that in part will apply to this post as well, that I have seen in all of them, even the ingenious posts of Lost Garden. Observations are made that sometimes deplore the sinking of game design into the sector of "pandering to public taste and mass market appeal". People yearn for the days of yesteryear when games were simple five to ten minute escapes from reality in an entertainment format that was somewhere comfortably between the imagination sparking pastime called reading, and photgraphically realistic depictions of television and film. "Here's the way we should really make fun new games". Mostly theoretical with little to no practice.
However, there are a few answers to this line of theories. Not only is Xbox Live Arcade one of the most interesting and popular new game environments taking account of the five to ten minute escape and adding a few additional goals, but in addition, the fact remains that new game ideas are inappropriately tested and researched. I probably have at least ten to twenty ideas I consider pretty novel and yes, of course fun for game design based on casual as well as hardcore gaming principles, but I haven't even started to write them down because I would want them properly focus tested, and I'm writing this post to indicate that the barrier to entry I had imagined was based on money, when in fact it's based more on proper planning, a fair amount of hard work, and creative use of the internet.
If one has a game design idea one has only to present it with a few pieces of documentation and as much in the way of a demo as possible by posting it on a website. One then would require an appropriate database with fields for age, sex, region, etc.., and solicit feedback over a period of a few months. Attracting attention to the website could be a matter of posting it to Gamasutra, and a professional looking site dedicated to new game concept feedback could, with the use of some banner ads (no pop ups) do this for free and the ads would pay for the bandwidth and space usage, OR it could be hosted by Gamasutra, Gamespy or Gamespot.
This would be an invaluable tool for publishers and indie developers alike. Testing your idea using this basic principle would yield valuable and most importantly current data without rediculous pre and post market conjecture based on previous titles with whatever similarities you think might make it "kinda like" your new title. Studying previous titles' success by sales is an incredibly complex process, not just involving the sales figures but marketing data and supply chain statistics to come up with a real definition of success or failure based on break even numbers. It also encourages someone wishing to publish a game with a more broad and informed set of figures to make a much more educated guess about pubic interest in a product.
There are in fact focus programs that generate tons of data for five grand and up per session, but the most important time to do a focus test on a product is either when a design document is presented and / or when a single chunk of the game (the demo, or vertical slice as it is called by some) is ready to play, before full on development begins. The web is a wondrous place to do this without forking over the cash, but I haven't yet seen an place that does this yet. (hint, hint) :)
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