I find it hard for the consumer to make video games... you know... the things that the video game industry runs on... consumers fund the market and also has a hand in choosing weather it lives or dies, but when a developer can't survive cause of development costs that's a real issue... sure they can make a better game but development costs hinder that as well... and downloadable games are a limited market still, as with handhelds you're limited to more people and kids that don't know how to hook their systems to a wireless router, then you have another factor which is people fearful of buying anything over the net, having downloadable games is limiting yourself a lot.
I dont since the first generation of games period came from end consumers and many who are making them today are also consumers. If they didn't have any consumers they would the industry would fall as if it didn't have a backbone now wouldn't it.
People can find much success in limited markets. Ask the creator of Braid. Developers NEED to learn that they aren't pleasing themselves they are pleasing the people who will purchase the product. If they can't do that in their current business model then it is time to find a new one. Given the Wii and Downloadable titles and the success of XBLA I would love to hear people say that it's impossible because we play today the proof that it is.
Overall the gamers that came into gaming during the Saturn, PS1, and N64 era of gaming generally love the looks of games, 3D was a big part of bringing them into gaming as well as image, so many of these gamers want more and better graphics without knowing what it's taking to produce these graphics, hell you got some of these people out there everyday spouting how their PS2 was graphically superior to the Gamecube. Companies like MS and Sony listened to these fans and made consoles with tech to try and rival the PC which in the console business had never been done before, sure there was the console here and there that tried and failed horribly but on a large scale it has never been done and trying to make near PC graphics standard and now we're seeing backlash to that with developers like Free Radical having to let go a lot of it's staff because of one flop...
Sounds like some companies shouldn't be competing in this kind of market if they aren't sure of the payoff. Sorry but businesses close when they aren't paying enough attention to market environment and demand. Sounds like irresponsible management to me. Any company can go the way of the dodo. Why should i mourn Free Radical for their mistakes? Do developers get some kind of pass on the rules of reality unlike any other business?
