Video Game Costs Could Crash the Industry

Today, video games are more popular than either music or film, but just 30 years ago, they nearly ceased to exist.

Rapid console releases (like the Atari 7800 only two years after the maligned Atari 5200), subpar games (like E.T. for the Atari 2600, most copies of which wound up in a New Mexico landfill) and the fact that most people already owned all the consoles and games they cared to, combined to nearly wipe gaming off the map. Now, history may be poised to repeat itself.

Consoles today are more powerful than ever, and "AAA" video games (popular, mass-market titles, like Halo or Mass Effect) are triumphs of visual, aural and narrative ingenuity. Publishers command massive amounts of capital, and let developers play with tens of millions of dollars to create the best player experience possible.