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On The Need For New Videogame Funding Models
Thanks to Costik.com for pointing to entrepreneur Gordon Gould's comments on possible new videogame funding avenues, as he notes "the coming console shift to Xbox 2 and the Playstation 3 is going to once again raise the bar on development costs", meaning "a shrinking number of titles per publisher slate w/increased pressure on those titles to be out of the ballpark blockbusters." He suggests that "developers' ability to gain more control over their destiny is handicapped by the relative scarcity of funding sources", but this may be changing, as investors from outside the industry start to fund development (as seen recently at MMO creator Turbine.) However, Greg Costikyan weighs in with a response, arguing that "...even looking at something as goofy and hit-driven as the game industry, an investor is already taking a big risk, and his or her instinct is going to be the same as the publishers': be conservative in what you fund."
The unfortunate consequences that this brings, not entirely unjustifiably, is that daring new games will not be made. When every 5 years or so brings a new genre (FPS, violent vigilante games), we'll simply see 10 clones of those, instead of new ideas. When developing a game costs millions of dollars to make, with entire teams of workers to go at it (as opposed to the Atari days when one guy made the whole game), you kinda can't blame them for not taking huge risks.
Even Nintendo's very creative games this generation, Pikmin and Viewtiful Joe, were made (I'm totally speculating) only because they were pet projects of titans of the industry.