Big Name Distributors the death of Gaming?

"Indies are saving gaming. EA is methodically destroying it."

Minecraft creator apparently thinks so.

I've always been impressed with the creativity that independent developers are able to come up with, as compared to games published by EA, Activision and Ubisoft. Most of the big budget games from the later consists of games that are updated versions year after year after year. How many Fifa's and Call of Duty's have we seen? Granted, we do see some new intellectual properties (IPs) once in a while, meaning totally universes and back story, but those that sell well are continually milked while those who do ok, but not well enough get thrown out. Rarely do we see an IP get a second chance, and rarely do we see games that break out of the mould.

Game developers under these companies rarely get to get creative with their games as publishers are fearful that the game will not sell. In comes the indie developers. Without the restrictions set by publishers, indie developers can exercise more creativity over their games. This comes with the cost of not having monetary support, so indie games tend to be developed for handphones, or with lower graphical capabilities. Creativity comes with a risk as well, as some games turn out to be a hit, while others are so weird they are not able to find their audiences. Publishing is a problem as well, but with more and more online publishers, indie games are starting to get popular. The low cost of indie games helps them as well.

There are so many game studios that have been shut down by publishers because of poor sales. Why then do these publishers still exist? Because people like block buster games with amazing graphics and cookie cutter gameplay. People do not want to try new IP, or games with strange ideas. Year after year, people repeated buy the next 'update' for full price. In that sense, EA isn't destroying gaming; after all, they are catering to what gamers want, and they deduce what gamers want from what gamers buy. So who's destroying gaming? Us gamers.