The media-as-a-product model is breaking down for games the way it has or will for everything else (journalism, music, movies) because in a competitive market,

The media-as-a-product model is breaking down for games the way it has or will for everything else (journalism, music, movies) because in a competitive market, marginal price trends toward marginal cost, and the marginal cost of digital is nothing. More than that though, is that in a connected world, basically anyone is able to become a competitor selling low-quality junk for basically nothing, or a pirate giving away your stuff. Being able to publish is no longer a gate that can hold prices high. We are in the twilight of this short-lived infinite marginal price to marginal cost ratio of digital publishing, and the games publishers are scrambling for the last rays of light by selling non-scarce product inside the games instead of the games themselves. This too will end as they eventually alienate enough of the customer base that they have to adjust their strategies to something economically sound. If it turns out for games (as it did for journalism) that people just aren't willing to pay as much as they used to for good content then we'll see a smaller market. Whatever audience there is of folks that are willing to pay up-front for a good game (sans manipulative bullshit) and the developers able and willing to make those games seem likely to find that crowd-funding is their best option - publishers not required. Game-as-a-service (MMOs) have shown that they work well, and will need publishers if they're to have high budgets and quality that players expect but players demand there to be some amount of service (you can't pull a SimCity without pissing them off). There will always be some amount of this IAP model, but it'll have to become tasteful enough to be sustainable in a world where the available audience of fresh unalienated suckers is exhausted (Valve's use of IAP is a good example of what this is likely to look like). I think (or at least hope) there's not enough gamers willing to be repeatedly abused to sustain a whole market of abusive IAP games forever.