With the rise of the indie market during the past 7-10 years, many of the mid-tier publishers either took a backseat or dissolved completely. As our online platforms became more robust, we have been re-evaluating the whole “budget” gaming scene. Up until this time, all games published on disc would typically be equally priced, not taking into account the amount of content or production value. Any game priced less was immediately written off. For the general consumer, it was difficult to discern the shovel-ware from the gold unless you had the lastest issue of EGM. But now, we see a whole range of game prices, even “free-to-play”, which helps us at the very least get an idea of what kind of budget these guys were working with. With all this happening and the market being flooded with more games every year, the middle-class of game development faded away.