By way of The Escapist, designer Greg Costikyan has posted Part 2 of his radical call to arms, "Death to the Games Industry: Long Live Games" (if you missed it, Part 1 is here; it paints a depressing scene). Costikyan calls for nothing less than complete abandonment of the industry's current publisher/developer system, retail model, and marketing approach.

Developers can and should figure out how to stop relying on publishers for development funding--but they will always need help on the marketing side. And moving online not only doesn't solve the problem--it makes it worse, because moving gamers online requires a change to consumer behavior. And yes, that means some revenues need to go to the intermediary--but developers should still wind up with the bulk of the revenues, not the risible 7% they typically get today. And developers will of course own their own damn IP.

The degree of change Costikyan prescribes is clearly too great to be feasable overnight, or even in the near future, but he seems to be aware of that. Near the end of the article, he notes that "the more important task is getting the meme out there. And to do that, you need more than ads. You need manifestoes. Brickbats. Slogans. Outrageous stunts. You need to rabble-rouse. Like, say, by writing articles like this."

He's an extreme guy--anybody who saw his part of the "Burning Down the House" panel at this year's Game Developers' Conference knows that--but for the most part his observations are correct, and he has reason enough to be frustrated.