The cost of games is skyrocketing, but the amount of gameplay hours delivered is getting smaller and smaller. Games are supposed to be about Gameplay, but the industry chooses to spend loads on graphics.
They even had a big stab at the big players in the industry like Nintendo:
"Iwata says he has the heart of a gamer, What poor bastard did he carve it from?" Costikyan railed against Nintendo's premise, asking "is our idea of innovation blowing into a microphone?"And yes, developers can rant all they like, kick and scream about innovating and how they must look at other industries for solutions, but not a single one of them had an answer.
Unfortunately the industries distribution model is too far gone to be rescued over-night. If they could choose a market however and then establish a development budget and product scope to target that market before they started making the game then they could set a profit margin. This would allow them to produce a good product on budget and give them a good reason to produce a sequel to a successful product (beyond squeezing the cash cow), because as things are the product is not getting better. And when that happens in other industries, they start again with a new model.
