I believe i did mention something in relation to your second stat…
I believe i did mention something in relation to your second statement in my story, that i enjoy playing games very much and would have a very hard time filling that hole. Some people could do it, some people wouldn’t be able to do it as easily. I didn’t forget, i intentionally left out that it is considered illegal to download copyrighted material because people who pirate things aren’t concerned with the legality of it in the first place and typically know how to get around any legal complications, which leaves only an ethical debate on the matter.
I find it hard to believe that piracy of games is SO widespread that the gaming industry is sinking, because there seems to be more developers and games than ever. Perhaps the market is overflooded with developers and games? Who knows, but all I know is if a developer is going out of business i think it would have much more to due with the quality of the games they makes compared to what is out there (Quality of games in recent years is pretty shitty, i wish we could go back to the golden days of the SNES and its many superb RPGs and such but people are too focused on having top of the line graphics to not make a shitty game.) rather than consumers opting to download instead of purchase. I think the best way to try and prevent some piracy would either be an added bonus outside of the game itself or run the game through accounts and cd-keys that register with the company itself (something very similar to MMOs).
Like i have already mentioned, most companies put a huge price tag ($40-50) on newly released games probably because everyone else does, but your game wont attract customers unless you have a great reputation for past games (like Valve and Blizzard). It seems dumb, but the best way to establish new customers is to hook them cheaper and impress them. You cant trust reviews these days because most of them have no integrity and are paid for a good review. I don’t wish any ill will on your company (unless it’s deserved!), but there has just been so many problems with the gaming universe when it comes to quality and reliability.
Like Jeremy from PP said “I hate to say it but i think theres a serious problem with a lot of new games coming out in that… you know, they suck…”