In a recent episode of X-Play, a gentleman from www.giantbomb.com was commenting on why games are tough to make – unlike movies, you often have to re-invent at least part of your technology from the start. If you've worked in games (or programming) you know that's not strictly true – there are many development tools – but game development certainly requires a lot of work and a lot of invention if not re-invention.
As I noted that's not strictly true that gaming requires re-invention of technology. It's less true over time, and I think that can signal a shift in gaming.