| Reasonable said: I know all that. That's kind of my point - the low risk/high reward focus on consoles is for sure more limiting to gaming evolution than PC. |
It all boils down to increased development costs. The days when one guy produce an entire game himself are pretty much done as far as major publisher releases go, or more specifically, physical media retail releases.
Thanks to DD, there are plenty of outlets for independently developed games to be published and bought. The only problem is that they are small niche games that rarely create much more than a ripple in the industry.
But there were games like Limbo, Braid and Everyday Shooter that were developed by one guy or a very small team working independently; each generating a degree of interest for their originality. It's just a little unrealistic to expect many independent developers to use pre-existing game development tools like UE or Cryengine or Source to create a larger scope project that is genuinely unique and pushes boundaries yet manages to appeal to a large enough audience that the costs of paying for the development tools and development staff don't result in a one time project. Zeno Clash (Source Engine game published on Steam, independently developed by Ace) comes to mind even though that was more different than unique.
Anyway, consoles aren't any more limiting in that respect as Limbo, Braid and Everyday Shooter were all available on console through XBL and/or PSN. There are a lot of these types of titles available, only with lesser degrees of success. Other than PSN, XBL or Steam (don't know the approval process for getting published on Steam), independent developers have iOS and Android to publish on. Other than Steam, none of those are tied to PC gaming which is really Windows gaming. I won't even go into Linux gaming which is a tiny niche.
