I think this was definitely true before smartphone/social platforms got to scale. A few points to consider that are counter to yours: Check out the top apps o

I think this was definitely true before smartphone/social platforms got to scale. A few points to consider that are counter to yours: Check out the top apps on the Facebook platform. http://www.appdata.com/leaderboard/apps http://www.appdata.com/leaderboard/apps Yes, the top games have big budgets (still TINY compared to video games historically). But page 3 or 4 pages in and guess at the budgets of those games (that are merely in the 2M monthly active uniques range). Scroll 9 pages in (600k monthlies). How many consumer businesses EVER touch 600k people, much less in a month? Gamers are NOT immune to ads. Most of the game builders I know buy installs (i.e. CPA ads) because it makes financial sense to do so. Virtual goods models allow you to fill up the demand curve. In other words, poor people (who would've stolen games in years past) can play for free. Middle of the road folks can pay a few bucks when they get bored. Rich hardcore players can pay hundreds or thousands of dollars per month. Virtual goods models make piracy somewhat impractical. Most of the people I know succeeding in games had never developed games before. I think your advice is dead on for shrink-wrapped games, traditional shareware, and maybe even fixed price mobile games. I'd throw my weight behind mobile games before I'd throw it behind virtually ANY other consumer effort. All that said, of course, a b2b startup has a much greater chance of survival. The whole consumer-software world is crowded beyond belief.