So last week it was revealed that Homefront sold a million copies. This sounds great and all, and for the most part makes for some good sales numbers despite some harsh reviews. You’d think THQ would be pretty well off with numbers like that.

Except they had to lay off 33 employees, including 17 at Homefront developer Kaos Studios. I guess Homefront really was a success since, all in all, 33 employees stretched across two studios isn’t bad in the modern condition of layoffs and closures. That Kaos Studios has survived to develop another game is, honestly, good news for them.

One of the reasons I haven’t put up my review for the game, however, is because this changes some of my feelings on it. I felt that the game would have done better if it were a $30 budget title, that the review scores would have reflected better and more people would have likely went out and purchased it. Let’s be real, though. If they shipped 2.4 million units and sold 1 million at $60 a pop, then the only way they’d have done better at a lower price point is to have sold out of the product worldwide. The odds of this happening, even with better review scores and a budget price, are highly unlikely.

I’ve previously discussed alternative forms of revenue for the games industry in the past, but it is honestly easier said than done. I feel like Homefront actually had a good start with its product placement, though unfortunately it was all for free. They received not a single royalty check for people fighting in a Hooters or White Castle establishment, and most companies rejected them flat out due to the game’s premise. Would the situation had been different were this a film?

I speak honestly when I say I didn’t mind the product placement in the game. Technically, it worked. Potentially not as desired, as my first thought at seeing a White Castle was “God, that place is terrible” followed by a quick reminiscing of Harold and Kumar. When I realized, however, that I was looking at a real restaurant, well, I was filled with glee. Games are growing up, man!

Hopefully this is the beginning of companies getting paid to play products and ads in their games as an alternate form of revenue.

The greater issue here, however, is the number of people playing games. Let’s face it, 1 million copies sold is pathetic. That’s not even enough people to fill the city of Philadelphia. This is a game that had television commercials and some marketing behind it, yet it only managed to sell one million.

That shouldn’t be a celebration, that’s a failure. So many developers out there have mocked film and television, yet we can’t even hope to get the numbers they can manage. To put it into perspective, if we had 200,000 people per State buying a given game in its first week of release, then that game would sell 10,000,000 copies. The population of all of America is above 300 million. The Nintendo Wii, the largest selling console manufacturer, has sold over 70 million worldwide.

Video games are still a niche, and no one is trying to expose them to a larger group. Our budgets are well outside our means of supporting the industry. It’s just not possible.

There are ways to make gaming more accessible, even the big budget triple-A games, and I think reducing the price of games is one of them. However, that’s not going to solve all of our problems. As long as we gamers demand big budgets without trying to expose the hobby to a wider audience, however, the more we’ll find our favorite developers suffering layoffs and closures.

This is a horrible time to try and get into the industry, though it is also the perfect time to try and do something about it.