I'll try to sum up the above discussion for those who don't want to read it.
The main point is that many games don't sell well. Some games do better than others in units sold, but what counts is profits made. Squilliam argues that most sales happen for a few games, which is true.
There's a long debate about profits versus revenue, but it boils down to this: profit matters more than revenue. Argument are made about what cuts into profit, but the main point is that most games don't draw a big profit; the lucky ones break even. I think that's a bit shortsighted, since it weighs all games equally.
Squilliam says a lot of things about how things are. I'm surprised he didn't ask why they're that way, which would be the first thing I'd ask. My take: games that fail to sell have poor strategy behind them. They're made to cash in on a trend, not to sell to an audience. The difference being that trends are what you think people want based on what they buy right now, and selling to the audience is looking at what they do and making to what they're actually after.
That's the Cliff Notes version, anyway.
Sky Render - Sanity is for the weak.
