If GoogleTV and AppleTV will remain as open as their mobile counterparts, and include analog joystick peripheral support, the console market will be the next to be severely disrupted.  Cheaper mostly indie (at first) games that don't have to be rigorously certified are going to be very attractive... at least until the first parent complains that the $1 game their kid is playing is not officially rated or is a scam because it's capable or ringing up the credit card within the app.

With Kinect just being recently hacked to be a mocap studio on the cheap, I'm becoming more convinced of being able to make a full 3D game.

For next year, I'm starting to think a more appropriate topic title should be 'A mad dash away from the console market'.

Console has the highest startup costs of any platform - the web has the lowest. 

I actually realized this recently.  Use the web to your advantage to go viral and make the game popular... THEN publishers will be contacting you instead of you begging from them.  What I'm finding now are many games which are just coming out on consoles (heck, even hidden object games), had their run already on the PC.  It's because they proved to be popular and make money, that's why they're on console now.

I'm just making my game in native 720p and compatible with Xbox 360 gamepad and Dualshock 3 (not official drivers -- this is a gray area).  I playtest it on my laptop hooked up to my HDTV.  Besides the additional wires, it feels like I'm playing a console game.  No biggie.

Regarding the general discussion, I didn't know that XBLA was tough (maybe that's why they tried to go hush hush on XBLIG).

I would keep an eye out for AppleTV and GoogleTV -- in 2 years you'll probably see bigger apps made in iOS or Android that works for the bigger screens.

Take my advice with a grain of salt, since I do not have sufficient experience, but I would target the 'easy' console platforms first, namely:

iOS
XBLIG
PSP Minis

Relative difficulty of entrance in that order, since in my region the only one open is the Apple App ecosystem.  I've read that you don't need concept approval for PSP Minis, but you do have to go through PEGI/ESRB (which the other two don't), so if you are capable of making PSP Minis, chances are you'll be accepted by Nintendo for Dsiware/Wiiware as well (Since Nintendo, being the most 'innovative company', has the biggest requirement hurdle for indie developers to overcome, namely a 'secure office location' and incorporated entity)

If you're not yet proven, try to build a fanbase with those entry points, then hopefully you'll get enough clout and eventually be invited for the main XBLA / PSN  and Wiiware.  Unfortunately the economics of those ecosystems suggest you can only charge 99 cents for your game, but as you said you have an awesome zero-budget methodology.

Regarding splitting up royalties, I suggest one person take full responsibility and just pay the other team members their cut.  Just treat everything as out-of-pocket personal expenditures and income and don't set up an official company until you're actually successful.

Anyone have a link to all entries to IGF China 2010?  IGF main had a list, why doesn't China?  All I saw were the finalists.

Shouldn't a form of Android to be used instead? Like GoogleTV... competing with AppleTV (which runs on iOS).  As long as fullscreen and generic gamepads can be supported, I'm in.  You can have touchscreen interaction and motion-control built into the tablets, then physical buttons built into the set-top box for the HDTV.

All of a sudden, Nintendo's business model seems outdated. Why buy a specific device just to play a specific game on a specific platform?  Let me just buy the game once, and play it whenever on my HDTV, my netbook, my tablet PC, or phone.  Third party content providers (i.e. Sega) will be in heaven.

I'll just put an engine-license.txt and assets-license.txt

Usually the engine license is a copy-paste from the engine maker (which are usually copy-paste from GPL license).

For assets-license just list what the assets are, who made them, and the corresponding CC license.

It's a freeware games... don't sweat it 

I've used a lot of USB gamepads and the best, hands down, is a PS2 controller with a USB adapter. It makes sense considering it's pretty much the best gamepad ever made.

Wouldn't a Dualshock 3 be even better, considering it's already USB?  I've seen some links for PS3 gamepad drivers, but they seem to have been taken down.

(I knew I should have gotten an Xbox if only for XBLIG and the plug-n-play controller, but I've built a library around Playstation since the early days).

Is there an ecommerce vendor that fits a Pay What You Want scheme?  (I think the only ones I encountered use PayPal or Facebook)  Is setting multiple price points for the same product even allowed (i.e. increments of $1, $2, $3, etc.)?

Been lurking for several years now.

Just signed up because I have some serious questions and need the support community since I decided to make my first commercial game (I'm too embarrassed about my freeware games so please don't ask).

I've seen many threads here and elsewhere that give hints here and there, but none that address the issue directly.  (Someone mentioned that no one really wants to disclose how harsh the market is and how hard up they are).  So we only hear about 'success' or 'survival' stories.

I remember reading that Aquaria (by one of the founders of these forums, I think) used to sell for $30 three years ago.  And for a couple of years there used to be a thriving casual market where games typically retailed for $20.  Then Big Fish Games started doing the 6.99 promo thing and that raised a ruckus for independent devs of casual games.  Concurrently the race to the bottom occured on the App Store and XBLIG markets, which wasn't entirely unreasonable because most of the games were the equivalent of free or ad-supported Flash games, which were short, quick bursts.

However, now we're starting to see more complicated games on the App Store and XBLIG, and the price points are remaining more or less the same.  On PSN and XBLA, we're seeing more games at the $10 and below price point.  Many older games are also released at around $5.99 (Can't beat a solid RPG at that price!)  So there's so much more choices and competition.  Personally, I find myself now balking at the $20 price point which was nothing to me before.

I've recently seen more and more games being sold between $5-10 and these have a lot of play time, even if they may be episodic.  These are the price ranges of the most expensive games for the mobile devices and probably the only difference from the desktop counterparts is minimal -- just that the Desktop version can command slightly higher prices -- but they seem to be slowly inching downward as well.

This has me worried since I feel as though I have been wasting time dabbling in freeware during the 'good' years of 2006, 2007, early 2008, and now that I've decided to get serious with a commercial release, the market decided to be get really tough just for my sake!

My current project targets low-end computers with integrated graphics cards -- netbooks, and tablet PCs (Android, iOS), and the effects of the App Store markets seems to be seeping in to the Desktop market through the tablet PC / low end route.  So even if I have a 15-hour long RPG it seems I will only be able to sell for $4.99, 5.99, 6.99 and that means getting sales numbers of 2,000 units just to break even -- and most desktop games barely hit the 1,000 mark.

I guess it's too late for you now, but I'm doing things the 'Notch' way.  Namely work on my game and not bother with incorporating until if/when the game takes off.  Unfortunately it's a hit-based economy right now (Thanks iphone!), so I expect to be packing my bags if no one cares about my first commercial game -- and not having to take down an entity I didn't have to set up is a good thing.

If your game is a hit, piracy is barely a dent in the massive amount of sales you'll be getting.

If not, with or without piracy there won't be enough income anyway.

That's just the reality I found.