This is true if you're looking to build a typical console/PC game, but flash games and social gaming open up new possibilities for game creation and distribution, and therefore for success.<p>Playfish sold their games and game ideas to the tune of $300MM.  Their games are great, really a cut above their peers, but in no universe did they take millions of dollars or three years to make.<p>And yes, they weren't "game ideas," but they also weren't "scaled down prototypes."  Restaurant City is not a scaled down version of some massive, multi-million dollar console game.<p>Get three or four quality people together -- flash developer, illustrator, and (game) designer -- and you can have a Restaurant City in a month if you hustle.<p>Anyhow, here on HN I'm sure I'm preaching to the choir, but social gaming offers a new model for distribution more than anything else, so the idea that a game takes eighty people, three years, and $20MM to be successful is precisely the idea that needs to (and will) die.