What is the biggest problem in the video game industry today?  According to Kotaku's Jason Schreier, it's not overpriced downloadable content or insider trading or software piracy.  It's secrecy.  Or, rather, too much secrecy.  Here's Schreier:

The biggest problem in gaming today is that the gaming industry thinks we're all out to get them. They think gamers are the enemy, a group that needs to be treated with disdain and avoided whenever possible. They think the only way to fool us into buying their products is to cover everything in a shroud of secrecy, only drip-feeding us pretty trailers and juicy soundbites during carefully-tailored marketing campaigns. They think we should just sit there and lap it up.

Game makers are afraid to get our hopes up about projects that might be cancelled. They won't talk about games they've spent months or years creating. They won't show us prototypes or tell us about problems or even answer the most rudimentary questions, like "will this game be multiplatform?" or "can we use guns in this one?"

He has an excellent point.  On this episode of Power Button, Joey Davidson and I discuss the article and debate why these high levels of secrecy are encouraged, how publishers manipulate the public discussion, the impact of social media on the message, and how people on both sides of the cone of silence can help to fix the problem.  Join us for forty minutes of conversation.  Download this week's episode directly from PTB, listen with the player below, or subscribe via iTunes, and be sure to catch up on past episodes if you're joining us late. Remember that you can reach all three of us via , you can leave a message on the Power Button hotline by calling (720) 722-2781, and you can even follow all of us on Twitter at @PressTheButtons, @aubradley84, and @JoeyDavidson or for just podcast updates, @ThePowerButton.

Power Button - Episode 82: Beneath The Cone Of Silence