Ok, theoretical situation. You could make all the game publishers just disappear tomorrow. What would that do? My view of it is this:

1. Since only some developers are widely popular and sit on a decent amount of cash, we would see just tons of sequels. Half Life 10 anyone?

2. With noone to fund new games, we would see the market settle even more into a genre rut then it is now. The developers would be too afraid to try something new, since if it fails, the company would be gone even if they had past success.

3. Existing development companies would be bogged down with support calls and would have to hire people to take them. They would also have to hire more IT staff to manage the multiplayer services themselves, and all of a sudden you have a large company to make one game. Game doesn't sell a million copies, they are gone.

I do think most game publishers do screw over the developers in a bad way. Well, I more then think that, I know that from my own personal experience. But simply getting rid of them is not the answer.

The ideal publisher would be one similar to Gathering of Developers, but with more business sense. I highly agreed with how they ran things, they just never got that blockbuster title they needed to stay afloat with their .com like spending tendencies.

The RIAA does need to go, since people can just make a CD with a few insturments and a computer now. However, a game still costs millions to make and a bunch of time. Vaporizing the funding source for that kills the industry.