I originally wrote a huge essay about this article, and how it sin't really a great idea.
Then I realized that his strategy he espouses (and even more so after reading his follow up article about how to gauge if a game will sell) is pretty much what >G is doing, aside from the killing games argument.
>G disn't exactly have a huge budget when they started out, but they have sunk a lot of resources back into the game to make the cards better quality, the packaging better and more attractive, and spent a lot of time and energy marketting the game the best way you can market a game like this, by teaching it to others.
My problem with the article is the idea of killing games. Unless you have limited resources and are sacrificing resources better games need to keep lesser games alive (which should really only occur if the company is failing or the game is losing money) it doesn't make sense to stop producing a game that doesn't need design or marketting resources to sell even a small number.
The whole article is about economics of the margin, and the cost of printing a game when needed doesn't affect the creation of newer, better games.
The initial investment is what you need to recoup, the more you sell the less initial investment you need to recoup, and eventually you are done with initial investment and your cost is production and logistics, and a game that loses money in that situation doesn't require a tough decision to kill it.
Perhaps the real questions are:
1. Should small game companies be focusing on making a big seller first, and then worry about making quality games once a cash cow is in the bag?
2. How valuable is the shared experience of gaming, as opposed to the love of a game itself?
The first question seems to be the argument he is making, that if you want to make games and money, sink all you have into making that one hit game and pushing it as far as you can, then sit back and collect and make game you want to make. Problem is that isn't easy to do, and small companies don't have the resources to push games that hard.
The second question is about Saturation. The Game market is over-saturated, we hear that, but is it really true? If the market is oversaturated game makers will know because their game won't sell. If the games are still selling then the the issue is that saturation hurts individual games by letting people find one they like better instead of having to settle for one that they like less because other games don't exist.
That second issue is really a gripe all companies have, if there wasn't competition I'd sell more. Welcome to capitalism is my answer to that problem. The market doesn't worry about oversaturation occuring, when it occurs games fail and companies cease to exist and balance is restored. The way to survive is to make a game that succeeds, not make fewer ones. Make someone else's game fail.
I know several people that don't play their Marvel heroes deck building abomination (I don't like that game) because they played Sentinels and now that game seems not fun. That is how it works, and how it should work.