Anyway, the publishers need to work more on ways to fight the long tail, yes.

That’s close to the stats I’ve always heard. Games are a hit-driven business, where the big winners make enough money to let the also-rans be made.

Of course, many companies want more profitability, which leads to the conservative approach of supporting the nearly guaranteed successes. Note that all three of those games are sequels to established franchises; due to licensing, Madden is the only game in town now for NFL football video games.

Of course, this means that we’ll see less of the interesting games that can prove to be runaway hits. The Sims is the classic example in games, where the managers didn’t want to spend money on it, but it spawned a new (and hard-to-clone) success. The problem is that it’s hard to do so when it’s your career on the line if you back the wrong project.

That’s one of the reasons I’m such a supporter of indie games. I think we need them in order to take the risks that big budgets and profit statements won’t tolerate. Of course, sometimes the audience won’t tolerate the lack of a big budget.