I wouldn't totally agree. I mean, he's right that a proven franchise is a much less risky investment than a new game. But I believe that the market totally is there for new, unproven stuff - given that the price is right. If you invest a lot in a new franchise chances are that you fail, but then again, if you take the risk, you may have a basis for the cash cow he mentioned - see Bioshock or Assassin's Creed and its spinoffs.

It comes down to choice - if you plan to spend 60 dollars on a game, you probably reach for a proven franchise instead of an unknown 60 dollar box. However, if the choice is one AAA game vs 3 or 4 interesting-looking titles for the same sixty dollars, the outcome can differ a lot. And you can cut down prices significantly by e.g. using only digital downloads for the "lesser" games (see 2K and their 2K Play, which published e.g. The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom). In other words, there are ways to significantly mitigate risks connected with new franchises and it doesn't have to cost you millions in marketing budget.

I take issue with how he seems to imply that:
a) triple A is somehow directly proportional to the money you throw at a game
b) the money you throw at a game is directly proportional to the quality of the game.

...this type of cynical business outlook on my beloved hobby makes me grumpy and all the more motivated to spend my gaming money on indie studios who "get it".

Obviously Eidos agrees with them. They seem to believe making a sequel to a game that was universally panned (Kane & Lynch) is preferable to coming up with a new idea.

I wonder how much money Valve makes on indie games. I bet it's more than enough to justify making games (not that Valve makes them but they get a cut of the profits).

I think the major issue is that games by smaller studios on a budget, and possibly even released at a budget price, tend to be quite obviously lacking in quality. Jurassic: The Hunted was released at $40, but even then I was lucky enough to get it as a review copy because it took me about three or so hours to beat. It was certainly lacking in good A.I. and design and pretty much had nothing but good graphics (to an extent).

Funny thing is, if the game's survival mode was up to four players online the $40 price point would have been near worth it.

Still, when the industry makes budget titles they tend to suck. It's like a small studio is trying to make a AAA budget title without the budget. To which I say screw it, make a game that takes some of the older sensibilities and make it fun. I mean, if I go back and play the original Halo, which sure as sh*t didn't cost as much as Halo 2 or Halo 3, I still find it to be a lot of fun because it had good design choices that surpass technology. The issue comes with developers trying to make carbon copies.

People say go big or go home, but honestly, what do you mean by "big"? Because you don't need a huge budget in order to be fun. Nor do you need hours upon hours of voice acting. Sure there are smaller groups of modern players that are willing to put up with a game with all text (sort of, considering a lot of Nintendo games on the Wii are still all text), but if you're not trying to make a AAA budget game then you don't need to worry about getting as large a return on investment anyway.

RE: Jurassic - I wish that there were more games like this. I bought it, played it, really enjoyed it. I just wanted a throwaway game to play for a weekend - and at the price point, i could handle it. I subsequently traded it for a different game on switchgames - so I wasn't really out any money. I wish devs realized that we don't always want huge mind-blowing experiences. Sometimes we just want to shoot some dinosaurs with crappy graphics and gameplay.

There seems to be a lack of understanding in at least the big game shops about what makes a good game. If I had to guess, the line items for a game that cost the most time and money are realistic graphics and realistic physics. I would bet that either (or both) of those "features" make for a tremendous rathole that just sucks in money, time and personnel. Without one (or both) of them, I bet it's a whole lot easier to put out a high quality game as long as your game works without them - and let's face it, most games would. Apply all the time you would spend on 'realistic-izing' your game on good design and excessive polish, and you'll do much better that if you put out a great looking game that plays like ass.

EA and THQ have their respective 'partners' programs, which seems to be for a variety of sizes of project. If anything I wish more indie developers would use the big publishers a bit more.

Given that Double Fine owns Costume Quest, I wonder how rigid they are with that requirement. Granted, Double Fine isn't an unknown indie team but given that both of their AAA titles to date have been flops, you wouldn't think THQ would be willing to bend over backwards for them.

I'm still waiting for someone to realize that removing the zombies from Left 4 Dead and dropping in Raptors and sh*t is a bad ass idea.

Well, someone that makes games, that is.

In other words, "Our DRM-infested sh*t isn't selling well."

It was, until everyone and their mom tried to hop on board. Now XBLA is the "high quality" stuff and a lot of the more independent titles go to Indie Arcade, where there is absolutely no control ever. Of course, the chances that someone will find your game are also nil.

Every once in a while Live Arcade gets some genuinely indie stuff, like Dishwasher Dead Samurai, but if you notice a lot of times it's just ports or smaller games by big companies in order to provide a level of quality control.

I seem to remember reading somewhere else (I hate citing articles without links but it was a long time ago) that there is an overabundance of content for XBLA and since Microsoft only wants to put out one or two titles a week, some developers were getting delayed indefinitely. Apparently when you apply to go on XBLA, the little guys are told by Microsoft when their games will go up and that can sometimes be months away or just "We'll let you know." Given that games which meet XBLA's quality requirements must take at least thousands to make, I can see this scaring off the little guys. I guess the bigger publishers are able to use their clout to get around this. Say what you want about PSN but it's inconsistent release schedule and frequent droughts are probably good for indies who want to get on there without giving the vast majority of their profits away to Microsoft and now a publisher to boot.

I think MS simply didn't want it to be released at the same time as the Summer of Arcade games. I think they would have released it the same week as PSN otherwise.

You mean the Ass's Creed series that sold over a million and a half copies on the 360 last Christmas in the US?

Lard, meet facts. Facts, this is Lard.