http://games.slashdot.org/games/08/08/21/1758238.shtml

Bad news for us gamers out there, the Record companies are in a panic, and now a guy who advocates 222,000 dollar fines is now moving to the ESA. What does this mean for us? I rather not think about it.

Going to school for this stuff and working in a similar industry, has led me to believe that, the price of games is about equal to the profit needs of game designers. But also a a lot of gauging by the big names out there. It takes any where from 100,000 to a million dollars to make a game. The small game systems are cheaper to make than the bigger system games.

$60 $Million
----- ~ ---------------- average estimate.
1game 5 years of labor

A majority of games are now slop, and mass produced. There is a market for video game sheeple much like prime time TV. I prefer studios that work semi independently from big names, like Bethesda, big huge games, bungie(now independent from Microsoft), Loin Head Studios. These companies are semi free to do what they wish. My concern is with the big publishing houses: EA, Microsoft, Sierra, Ubisoft, and any others I cant think off.

The sports games, racing games, fighting games, and the mass produced sequels and movie games that tend to turn out like crap, are killing the market.

But lets talk about the RIAA stepping into Gaming.