If you're online somewhere, you're inherently hard for consumers to find. Yes, Google helps, but in general, if someone doesn't already know about you, he's unlikely to find you, without a big advertising spend.
And finally - changing consumer behavior is hard. Most people still expect boxed product, and assume that they'll find everything of importance at a brick-and-mortar store. They have not been exposed to, yet alone have adopted, the meme that says "indie is cool, gameplay is more important than glitz."
To solve the marketing problem, we need a new kind of business.
You need an operation that aspires to be the place to go for indie product. Not casual games; there's no point in trying to compete with the likes of Yahoo! and Real, the casual games market is well served already. No, you want to be the place to go for hardcore gamers looking for something beyond what the conventional machine gives them.
And the company needs to be marketing driven. Developers (and if truth be told, many publishers) suck at marketing. It's not a core competence, and it's not something they've ever done. The purpose of this intermediary company must be to figure out how to get exposure for independent games and niche/indie product - and it needs to spend the bulk of its revenues on advertising and PR.
In other words, the Internet allows you to avoid retailers and solves the problem of distribution; what it does not solve is the problem of making consumers aware of your product, and getting them to want to buy it. There's a role for an operation that steps up to the plate and says "We know how to sell online, and we will spend good money to make sure your product does."
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.
And anyway - our product consists of bits. So why are we still shipping boxes of air when we have a network designed to ship bits?
Re-Engineering the Customer
In comics, film, and music, there is an audience that has what you might call "the indie aesthetic." They prize individual vision over production values. They believe they are hip and cool because they like indie stuff. They like quirkiness and niche appeal. And they are passionate about the things they like.
We need to establish the same aesthetic in gaming. And while that's hard, it's also pushing at an open door - the meme exists in other media, so why not in games? In other words, some of the marketing you need to do is the conventional stuff - advertising and promotion. But 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.
Here are some slogans, if you like:
"Corporate games suck."
"Gamers of the world unite! You have nothing to lose but your retail chains!"
And one more, but a little explanation: The PC is largely irrelevant to the publishers now - it's the fourth, and weakest platform. When they publish a PC version, it's usually because there's an Xbox version, and the port is easy. But games designed for console controllers and TV screens twelve feet away just don't play so good with mouse-and-keyboard and a screen two feet away... You're better off playing the Xbox version. And so PC sales continue to slide... Except in the genres that just don't work on consoles: MMOs, RTS, and sim/tycoon. PC games should be designed for PCs. Thus:
"Aren't you tired of getting Xbox's sloppy seconds?"
