Good comments. I'm always pointing out to folks how the film industry has managed to support indie films - in both funding and screens - in spite of the block buster mentality. It's a shame the game industry can't see that its the small fringe developers that are most likely to create the next innovative original concept.

I had a very high ranking person at Sony (who I'll leave namelss just in case I ever have the unpleasant experience of having to talk to him again) tell me that if I could guarantee that if they invested $100,000 in one of my projects and would see one million a year profit for five years that he would tell me that it would be a total waste of time. That unless it had the potential to net at least 8-10 million dollars, that it simply wasn't worth their time to even think about.

(He also told me that it wasn't possible to develop a game that "anyone" would even look at - much less play - with a budget of less that $4,000,000.)

It's worth reading Doug Lowenstein's State of the Industry Address from this year's E3. I thought it was actually very encouraging...

The "State of the Industry Adress" link didn't work when I tried it, but I found another one. Thanks for bringing it up; interesting document.

With huge success stories from the mod community such as Counter-Strike, Day of Defeat and Desert Combat - publishers that refuse to acknowledge independant game design are only hurting themselves.