Well at Least You Said Crap Guys, Steve is talking crap again . Brian Sorry you feel that way, Brian. The phenomenon of Shrapnel Games is something we're beginning to see more off in the industry, but it's a long way from being a general pattern. Even so, it fits in perfectly with my prediction that the cost of game development and marketing going down.
Shrapnel can break even with much less product because they've got less overhead.
The small studio approach will definitely help achieve lower up front costs for games but, as I stated in the article, the real problem is that there are too many PC games on the shelves for publishers to reach consumers. As for the other stuff, I completely agree. The site gets updated at around six o'clock in the evening on the West Coast. So at the end of the day, when the site goes up, the date is right. If you don't check the site until the next day, the date is wrong.