[erikb]

You should study how markets work. Sadly customers are not the well educated, disciplined people we want them to be. Especially for entertainment they are often exhausted office workers who just want to relax in the evening. They really need some relaxation and some escape from reality. And they pay for it not as a political choice but like VAT, something they can't avoid. They are the slaves of whoever produces the best solution for their relaxation.

So the power comes not from the customers but from the investors. Because investors will bring money for developing these products and they will do so with the very intention to influence the market to their own advantage. And these people want a more and more centralized monopoly around their source of income.

That's why companies like Blizzard get worse and worse, they don't care if they lose their current player base. They can gain another and make their investors more happy with that.

That's why a company like EA exists for so long and is so successful.

The market is not getting better but worse. The more easier to use and open worldy and better graphics the AAA titles get the harder it becomes to find players and investing for your indie titles. Probably we will also see that regulation will set in more and more, creating real legal requirements to sell games.

Indie games will always exist. Like indie movies, and indie music. But they will make less and less money, get less and less actual funding, and become more and more a personal hobby and art form.