Comment by kranner
6 years ago
This assumes different games are perfectly interchangeable. Would you make the same argument about books? Why does anyone bother to write a new book at all? My answer is that we're really all different: devs and players both. A game developer can compete the same way an author competes: by offering something only they can make, and only to someone who would buy precisely that sort of game.
To a degree. I don't know the authoring world, but my intuition is that it's a similarly difficult profession to make a living in -- returns are thin, breakout success is unlikely, but you can probably carve out a niche for yourself.
Same with TV/Movies. I watch what Netflix and Prime have, and generally don't buy a series or movie (unless it's something really special.)
Are they perfectly interchangeable? No, of course not. I'm sure there's a musician/author/tv show out there that would be my most favorite of all time and I'll never know it because I won't be exposed to it. I don't get hung up on that, and enjoy that I have a lot of pretty good options at any given time.