The point isn't that a publisher repeatedly overbudgets the same IP. It's that the culture is such that a game like Tomb Raider would even be expected to move 10 million units in the first place. That Kingdoms of Almur would require 3 million units. We can sit here and think of how crazy that was and how 38 Studios got what it deserved but clearly this isn't just random lunacy. It's something that was contemplated as a calculated risk because apparently that's what was necessary for the game to find a place in an overcrowded market. And when these games fail to perform, publishers make excuses and look for scapegoats.
What's happening is that the bar keeps going up and there's an increasing lack of a middle ground. Games are produced as either blockbusters or niche because they can't survive otherwise. Well, that's a bad thing. Because that inevitably results in consolidation. Literal consolidation in the form of giant publishers absorbing everything and figurative consolidation in the lack of fresh ideas. New shit is too risky. EA found that out the hard way with Mirror's Edge, which wasn't even a huge game. But it's obvious that developing even an ordinary modern game is too expensive since if an experiment like Mirror's Edge selling a respectable 2.5 million is below expectations then that means what we understand as "normal" is pretty fucked up. It's not really the budgets of GTA and CoD that are the problem. Those are proven blockbusters. It's the inflated cost of ordinary mainstream games that induces the Tomb Raiders and Kingdom of Almurs. The usual shit that isn't breaking any records but at the same time isn't some Nippon Ichi JRPG either. It seems like if we were to envision a "typical" PS3 game, sales need to hover around 3-5 million. And based on what we're seeing, that might simply be too high, where the successful publishers can barely make it work and everyone else has to fail out and/or get absorbed or do iPhone games and hope they hit the next Angry Birds.
Really, what's the value of games failing? It's one thing to say that Square Enix and 38 Studios got what they deserved. Sure, I agree. But are we really better off in the long run? Is it is a good thing that publishing a mainstream game costs enough that studios and IPs are in active danger if they sell "only" 2 million units?
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