Jenkins Interviews Costikyan: "Be Screwed By Microsoft Rather than EA"

The lovely Henry Jenkins (right) has, on his blog right now, the first part of a lengthy interview with indie game designer Greg Costikyan -- best known for the Game Developers' Conference rant that established him, in his own words, as "the industry's voice of cynicism and despair."

He doesn't seem to be doing much to shuck off that mantle, as evidenced by his comments on Xbox Live Arcade:

If you project the [XBLA] model into the future, and assume that all games are ultimately distributed digitally, then on each platform there is one, single, monopolistic provider that controls the distribution chain wholly: the console manufacturer.

And while [XBLA] is offering a very attractive share of the consumer dollar at present, it's also very clear who holds the market power there: Microsoft. And just as the casual game portals have slowly demanded a larger and larger share of the consumer dollar, I'd expect
Microsoft to do so in future as well.

In other words, this distribution channel offers developers short-term opportunities--but in the long term, it offers the opportunity to be screwed by Microsoft rather than EA.