Making wild claims like that weakens your argument.

They made a broken game and a sequel to it with the same problems. They kinda did this to themselves.

Key word there is the "relatively." And in Australia at least you'd be lucky if there one place that sells second hand books or DVDs for every ten legitimate shops. Meanwhile every game shop sells second hand games.

Well, Nintendo Life has now picked up on this rumour:

http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2013/01/rumour_has_junction_...

As has Games Industry Biz:

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2013-01-29-disney-closi...

But as for why games are in such a mess, I think it's not so much second hand (or even piracy) as much as simple costs being too high. After all, there's no REASON every game has to take a team of hundreds of people and cost millions, it's just that a lot of companies seem to be blindly assuming this is the only way forward. If we had some more 'average' games with simpler graphics and gameplay mechanics, that used most pre built engines and and didn't try and target the Call of Duty crowd, a lot less developers would be going into administration.

Free to play and cheap mobile games aren't helping either, they're causing people to really undervalue the worth of a video game and causing a constant race to the bottom from the other end.

None of these business models are sustainable, and some people are even predicting another industry crash. Have to say that if it does come crashing down, I think it might even be the best thing for video games in that it'd cause a lot of the Hollywood mimics and Zyngas to leave gaming for good. And we might then get some more interesting games.

Back to Junction Point though, they kind of brought it on themselves. If they'd just put more work into making Epic Mickey 2 a good game with less of the bugs and glitches, and less questionable game design decisions, they'd probably be around to make a third title. It's a shame, Epic Mickey did have a lot of promise, but I'm really not surprised at the current events.

Anyone who thinks a video game crash would be a good thing gets no respect from me whatsoever. There are PEOPLE WITH FAMILIES working in those jobs that would disappear in a crash.

As for development costs. You try making a game of the quality (I am not talking about a subjective opinion of quality here, but an objective understanding that the best engines + the best soundtrack + the longest development time will produce a far more refined project) of Call of Duty. Then tell me that AAA-development is 'not expensive'.

We need those AAA games. They legitimise the games industry as a mass-market art form and they hire hundreds of thousands of the industry's brightest minds.

The game should've stayed a Nintendo platform exclusive.

You're right that it had a lot of promise. It should have been great. But after 2 games, it still never lived up to that promise. It sucked. Disney shouldn't give up on it altogether, but Warren Spector failed.

Well, it's official, Junction Point is no more:

http://nintendo3dsdaily.com/nintendo3dsnews/confirmed-by-disn...

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2013-01-29-disney-closi...

Insomniac directly mentioned this on Twitter and has said they have positions available, which is pretty cool of them.

Looks like Epic Mickey will soon be in the Wasteland it created.