I can totally understand why developers go with #1 – there’s a ton of money on the line with any title of significant budget. I’ve been on a couple projects that had budgets over $5 million, one that was well over $10… it’s somewhat scary to receive that kind of money. I imagine it’s a lot worse to be the one throwing it at a developer. On my end, I probably spent somewhere in the low 6 digits on Macguffin Games over the last three years; I’d have a house by now if I hadn’t done that. Not that I regret it, but that’s a huge trade-off to me in my 30′s.

This is one of the reasons that indies are able to do good work – the risk is so much lower. Also, I think we as indies tend to start down this road out of a strong and personal passion, and that colors things a huge amount, too. Have you ever looked into

Thanks for the comment!

Played Prototype on the 360, and after reading your article and comparing it with my own experience from back then, I sadly realize 2 things:

1) For most of the time, no one will take the plunge in the water (do something different/depth/width) until they at least know someone else that did so and came out alive (for lack of a better analogy at the moment), THEN they COPY

2) Even IF we want some innovation (depth, pedigree), there’s still that primal urge to go “balls out” and do carnage with no real life consequences, and gaming does that very well. striking the right balance between this and depth is where you can miss it. Which is why I’ll pick Enslaved: Odyssey to the west over Prototype any day (assuming they both came out the same time, but later on I would still play prototype)