Why make games if no profit ?

[scottie]

Too few companies are Nintendo.

Seriously though, Viper1 covered all the good points, although I would like to add that the situation isn't as bad as it might seem (depending on what sources you use) It gets thrown around a lot that "only x% of games make a profit" First of all, a lot of these studies are bogus.

I remember one started with the assumption that a Wii game must sell 1 million units to make a profit (its closer to half a million btw) It then said that x% of games that the NPD tracked had not sold a million, and had thus made a loss. NPD tracks only the USA (and canada I think?) and so you can see why this is invalid. Regardless, it is actually a fairly common business practice - Release 5 games from new IP, 2 make a profit and get (very profitable) sequels, 3 make a small loss and don't. The profit from a hit game can balance out the loss from many flops - companies will take risks to get new hit IPs.

[sarcasm] Also it's teh piracy and the second hand market. Piracy and the 2nd hand market are both new things, as is the loss of money by companies [/sarcasm]