Publishers overestimate their necessity.

[LemonSlice]

Kresnik said:

I've long been arguing that "the middle" of gaming is falling out and no-one seems to care, so I wholeheartedly agree with this article. Which is the second Jim Sterling-related thing I've agreed with in recent memory (alongside a Jimquisition).

I appreciate high production values and effort going into a game. But not every title needs to be like that. And at the other end of the scale, titles which aren't AAA don't need to be indie. There's a middle ground of "in-between" stuff that we need to preserve.

The problem is that the discounted and used AAA titles are plugging that middle. The very fact that a game enters retail at a lower price point devalues it in the eyes of many customers, and even if they don't have 60$ to spend, they see a similarly cheap only slightly older and discounted/used AAA title as a better value. Sad, very sad, but true.