ToxicJosh on 14 August 2014
I think the issue is that publishers aren't content with minor successes.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/entertainmentnewsbuzz/2010/02/anatomy-of-a-60-dollar-video-game.html
Using this (getting old) breakdown. $27 out of a $60 game goes to the publisher.
http://kotaku.com/how-much-does-it-cost-to-make-a-big-video-game-1501413649
And Kotaku has a relatively current look at the cost to make a game. Watch Dogs cost $65 million and for no good reason I'll use that as a baseline. (OK, the reason is that it was a big AAA release and is a reasonable upper limit for probably 95% of console retail titles).
$65 mil/ $27 = 2.41 million sales
In other words, for a game to be profitable in it's own right,
