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Game Profitability Under Threat
The BBC has up an article looking at the dwindling opportunities for profit on games in the coming years. Soaring prices for game development, the increasingly-entrenched segmentation of the marketplace, and overwhelming emphasis on sequels means that it's looking increasingly dire for game development houses. While the success of the DS means that there's a wide market for games on that platform (witness Square/Enix's movement of the Dragon Quest franchise), the phasing out of the PS2 means that for the moment there is no 'leading platform' for game creation. The article talks about how the various game companies are responding to this challenge, as in Microsoft's reliance on exclusive deals and Sony's absorption of development houses into their infrastructure.
This is just a prelude to the games industry lobbying for more DRM, less content control, tax breaks or some other corporate-socialism handout.
Why can't we have socialism for the little guy? Why is it always handouts for the ones that need them the least?
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton