GameDaily CEO and Publisher Mark Friedler recently wrote an interesting take on how the video game business is broken. The op-ed piece generated a great deal of e-mail from our readers, with some of them making very interesting points. Perhaps the most noteworthy trend in this feedback, however, was that no one wrote in to say "you're way off" or "you're dead wrong."

The video game industry would appear to be at a crossroads and the key decision makers need to figure out where the industry is headed, or where it ought to be headed. Within the next 5-10 years, there will likely be (and arguably there needs to be) a fundamental shift in the way video games are made and consumed. The model of higher prices (both hardware and software), fewer risks and as a result less creativity, can only last for so long.

As promised, here we will publish some of the better excerpts from the volume of mail we received. Thanks to all who took the time to write in.

In many ways, the industry IS broken, but could be fixed if the development houses would re-work how the development process works for games. I personally feel that the thing that makes games as expensive to develop as they are is the re-creation of the game engine for almost every major game title. If developers would switch to a two pronged attack on the development of game titles, with one being engine development for the company as a whole, and the other being the content to go into each title, you would see better games and fewer technical problems.

- David Bristel

I think the primary problem is that the industry has always aspired to be Hollywood. But unlike Hollywood, which really does have mass appeal, we mistake revenue with audience. The reason Hollywood is doing so bad at present is they are totally risk averse, and they rely on a few summer blockbusters to make the rest of the year possible. They are slowly alienating their audience for this very reason. They're peddling mindless pap for the most part, and the audiences are getting bored. Sadly, in my opinion, this is what the games industry, (or at least the money men of the games industry) are trying to emulate, with some success I might add. The problem is, that unlike film, games simply doesn't have the authority, presence or cultural prestige. We're like rock music that lives in a perpetual 1950s, or rap that never crossed over. But we simply don't have the audience. Anyone over the age of 45 thinks games are for kids. It's like if Michelangelo used an "etch a sketch." Your mother would come along say, "ooh that's nice" shake it up and give it to your kid sister.

- John J Barry

I think the industry is in for a very rocky couple of years. I don't expect it to just disappear but I do think there will be a lot of fallout and things will look very different five years from now. The big players don't seem to be able to adapt to the changes in player behavior that are already starting to be visible.

I don't believe people are playing games any less than before, they're just playing them differently and that's impacting the bottom line. This is the 'Warcraft Effect' in my opinion. World of Warcraft is huge and the average casual player can take months to hit the level cap. This means that gamers are less likely to look elsewhere for their entertainment. Add to this the monthly fee and people are even less likely to consider picking up other games. Nobody likes paying for a service and then not using it.

I consider myself a pretty hardcore gamer but my actual game buying has decreased dramatically since I started playing Warcraft. I'm playing as much as I used to but I only buy about a third of the games I once did. If even a tiny percentage of Warcraft's subscribers are acting like me, then the industry is missing out on vast amounts of sales.

- Paul

Great to see another voice clambering to be heard amongst the corporate misguided monster that is now gaming! Loved your tie-in in your first piece with the question, "Are Video Games the New Soccer?"

We are feeling both edges of your argument in Australia. A fantastic result for the Aussie team has all and sundry chasing the soccer monster tail. I saw visually your argument in practice with non-supporting media companies doing everything within their power to be associated with a sport and product that they really do not appear to believe in nor support outside of the opportunity of yelling, Me Too!!

Similarly with gaming here, we have a very small market that demands that any local developers chase the tail of the global market. Is this at the expense of quality?. Maybe not. But it does seem to be at a cost. Both in terms of creativity and in terms of ownership. We appear to be fed more and more product but without the pure joy and belief that always appeared to be a part of this industry. Have we grown up? For sure and the growth of myspace and bit-torrent suggests that we are growing into new consumers. Consumers that may well align to digital downloads and 'episodes' quickly...

Let's just hope that in this new age for gaming, that the retailer is not forgotten. Going to be [difficult] if we continue to present pricing over the critical price points, as with the new console software, and we continue to push digital downloads. With the globalization push we may well get video games to become the new soccer. Lets just hope there is somewhere for them to buy their gear!!

- Martin Wilkes

You know you're delivering the same message that GG has been soap boxing for a few years. As with Alsop on digital distribution we see this transition as a major transition point. Indie isn't the entire answer, but it is part of the next phase of billion dollar companies.

What we're doing with democratizing the top quality technology, keeping ownership of IP in the developers' hands (creativity has to be nurtured), letting the players decide what great digital entertainment is (our definition of games is SO limiting - myspace, second life and mobile entertainment all in their infancy) are all key points of differentiation from how the current biz works.

- Jay Moore, Garage Games

Our whole industry is waiting on the answers to the questions you are posing, and the industry looks more broken as time goes on - particularly the rising cost of making a new game, and the declining percentage of games that make money.

One possibility, that in all previous generations has been talked up, but has never been a practical reality is that the PS3 or the Xbox 360, just as they are today, are pretty good IPTV set top boxes. Plugging a 100Mbps connection into the back - which is exactly what AT&T and Verizon are rolling out now in terms of bandwidth, changes everything. So, sure a PS3 is expensive, but if you get rid of my cable set top, get rid of my DVD player, and count on that box being $150 in 3-4 years, it is pretty compelling. As all TVs move to HD, the cable TV business and the satellite business will have to replace every cable TV box and every satellite box - and we could replace them with a box that also played games and Blu-ray discs, for less than what those boxes will cost to make.

- Stephen Ackroyd