TalkChess.com

[Martin Sedlak]

As for Blizzard, I think you forgot World of Warcraft which I believe does a fair portion of income.
Developing a game costs a lot and AAA titles take around 4 years or more to complete. And the same money goes into marketing, I believe it's 50% development costs and 50% marketing these days.
Hard to say how much the developers get. But there are also online sales where they get much more than a fraction of the retail price you mentioned.
Many good companies went bankrupt (for example my all time favorite Looking Glass Studios). It's a tough business for sure. A fight for survival. One mistake and it's all over.
What I don't like about today's games is that it's 100% effect, 0% gameplay. Remember good old Space invaders? 8-bit games where idea was worth much more than tons of graphics? 6-pixels guys floating around... Today it's more like Hollywood movies, unfortunately.
I guess that's why indie games gain more and more popularity (back to the roots).