I''ve been around here for a little while and one thing I have noticed that its accepted as a trueism that the publishers control the distribution channels. Only the big publishers can get games on store shelves so we must all pander to them to have any hope of getting our games out there (on store shelves.) I can think of one industry were this was accepted to be the case as well not too long ago. The toy industry. Todd Mcfarlane was a talented comic book artist and story teller who wanted to market a line of action figures for the characters in his stories. The only thing was, he had his own vision of how he wanted his action figures to be. He wanted them to be larger than the industry standard 5 inches and he wanted them to be super detailed. He wanted a "possable statue" not just a toy. Also he didn''t want to sign away all the rights to his work. So he contacted the manufacturers in China and Taiwan and set up his own manufacturing deals then went to the stores directly and pitched them his product. Now Mcfarlane toys is a very successful company. Certainly there were mitigating circumstances (Spawn was the most popular comic book around back then). But what is stopping anyone from pursuing a similar route today? Are we all just a bunch of whiners?

Going through a publisher is initially cheaper and much less work for most devlopers. Publishing one''s own game requires capital to purchase supplies, print manuals, burn cd''s, and haggle deals with distributors. Most developers don''t want/can''t afford the hassle. Thus, we have publishing companies.