Proposing zero, ZERO fucking solution about it.
Hardware manufacturers:
- Push for value adds that matter outside of the dwindling core demographic (less focus on dick swinging with technical specifications that the layman and many enthisiasts either do not understand or find meaningless outside of one number being bigger than another)
- Cultivate first and second party studios focussing on non-traditional gameplay concepts (as Sony did successfully with EyeToy, SingStar and Buzz, and as Nintendo did with Wii ___ )
- Use the moneyhats usually spent on cock-blocking the competition to create and fund new content instead
- Market outside of the enthusiast press
- Licence middleware and make it free to developers as part of your SDKs on a non-exclusive basis
Publishers:
- Reduce individual game budgets, particularly on iterative known successes where smaller teams do not need to reinvent the wheel
- Reduce marketing spends (and the ludicrous excesses thereof)
- Reduce marketing control of game design (never refuse to fund a project because a marketer thinks the concept is too difficult to market or not cinematic enough)
- Bring back middle tier titles, at middle tier prices; not every game should be either a AAA $60 or $15 digital download. Use variable pricing systems.
- Greenlight riskier projects routinely with the expectation that they will fail, to promote innovation
