Hawkins: Gaming currently in the dark ages due in part to "software licensing"

Electronic Arts and Digital Chocolate founder Trip Hawkins believes we are currently in the dark ages of gaming. According to Hawkins, the golden age of gaming died when big companies like Nintendo came upon the scene with software licensing.

Hawkins is of the opinion that software licensing stifles creativity and innovation.

“I think we actually had our golden age when game development was using floppy disks and it was an open free platform when we could all make games like we wanted to make,” said Hawkins. ”Nintendo came along and software licensing came in and we’ve been in a dark age since then.

“How many great companies have been built on the world-wide web, which is an open platform. The list just goes on and on, and Nintendo’s been doing things this way for 25 years and there are no great companies that have been built on the back of Nintendo.”

Hawkins said today, developers are only able to create innovative games when backed by a major publisher such as Nintendo. He feels social and web gaming firms can be creative without answering to large firms, and are thus more successful because of it.

Hawkins statements were made during the GamesBeat 2011 conference in San Francisco.

Thanks, VentureBeat.