[pandaman]

Some studios are owned by publishers, some are not. The statement I argued was made about every AAA studio, BTW. But if you cannot compete with a publisher owned studio then go after ones that are independant like Epic or Bungie or Insomniac or Arena or Telltale or Riot etc. etc. If you want how it's done look no further than Respawn. The studio was just founded in 2010 , signed a publishing contract without long relationship with the publisher and infrastructure, shipped a game already. It is how almost every AAA studio started (there are few studios that had been seeded by publishers, but as far as I know, none if them exist now).

It's pure meritocracy here, if you are good then getting a publishing deal is not a problem.

[eropple]

So you have a list of studios that all either got big when the barriers to entry were much, much lower than they are now (Insomniac did not spend a hundred million dollars on Spyro the frigging Dragon) or were founded by people with significant industry contacts and kicked off with direct lines to Sony and Microsoft and to publishers right in hand because of who they are? Are you sure you're proving what you think you're proving?

The core of an "AAA studio" is a big fat wallet. It's essentially definitional. You're not actually saying anything with respect to them in any of your posts.

[pandaman]

So who were Riot's founders? Who were Media Molecule founders? Did the barriers for entry suddenly rise between 2008 and now? From what I see it's much easier to publish a game even for consoles. There are tons of indies doing that regularly. In 2008 you had to have a secured office and 20K in cache to get a devkit, today you can get a loaner at home if you cannot manage 2K price.

AAA do get a lot of money but it's the effect of them making games that sell well. There are dozens of startups in SF that cannot make even mobile games with their piles of cash and hundreds people. Money do not make you a AAA studio.