As a creative writer/roleplayer myself, I can tell you that the average person these days is staggeringly uncreative. In fact I'd say two thirds of all 'creative' people are just people who copy stuff obscure enough that most other people don't recognize the influence. On average trying to teach somebody to be creative does nothing but expand the mental reach of their copying ability. People internalize creative 'rules and regulations' very easily and will stick with them, even subconsciously, through thick and thin. I'm idly reminded of that ex-Blizzard guy Pippa interviewed, who was raging that the Chinese rejected his unbelievably sophisticated and original ideas that he could sum up with two words; 'sand elves'.
Now I like derivative stuff. One of my favorite game series is Super Robot Wars, which is all about packaging up something that already exists and very slightly spinning it in a new direction. But these days people are taught that creativity is scary. Creativity isn't for them. Only those weird and crazy artist-types 'create'. You don't create, you dumb pleb. You just sit there and copy, and call it your 'inspiration'. Plus, people are taught to crave a comfortable, mindless norm. A VR Kmart is perfect for these people. It's an idealized version of something safe, normal and conventional where they go to consume stuff that leaves them feeling generically positive for a few hours, but with none of the unpleasant stuff like queues, angry customers, etc.
tl;dr; giant meteor when
