One thing that always amazes me is how big time publishers can be so out of the loop.
I often wonder whether game publishers forget that their triple A products are not yet ubiquitous pop culture staples in the minds of the world at large. Sure, games make more money than movies or music, but they're also significantly more expensive at retail. Halo 3 was on the cover of Time magazine, but that's one game: how many movies or TV shows have graced the cover of Time? More than one, that's for sure. You can sell a hell of a lot more copies of Bejeweled or Tetris, or even any given DVD release of a popular movie, than you can Gears of War, and that isn't likely to change anytime soon. Publishers need to realize that if they want to reach a wider market than their traditional audience of 'core' gamers, then they need to change how their products are perceived by the world at large. Because, as it stands, many of the ways in which their games are produced and structured are instrumental in keeping triple A games in the province of the hardcore, and the hardcore alone.
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