Automatic part arrangement has been done for 2D CNC laser and plasma cutting tables for decades.

Or use a game engine that doesn't have such an onerous quarterly obligation, nobody said you have to be stupid either.

And nobody will ever see or hear about your game.

There is still overhead involved. A quarter of a Million this year is not a guarantee next year. Entertainment is a fickle bitch. If there are 3 employees and an office with power and software and computers and taxes you will be running break even.

Maya is the best, I have been making CG since the late 70s and maya has made me many many hundreds of thousands of dollars in output even in just the last few years. I can consistently bank with that software, but I am lucky enough to be in a 'relatively' solid gig ATM. I have used ALL other 3d software in a professional setting and Maya is by far the king - Houdini may catch up due to the fact that bloat and 3ds max style crap is creeping into maya. Softimage RIP. Lightwave - Cya. Blender may have promise at some point but they need to standardize on navigation pronto. Alias and Wavefront, oh ya TDI Explore. Those are part of the original Maya core.

Blender actually has a game engine built in. I have also wanted to use it in animation production for a long time, however the learning curve is steep, and the program is poorly organized. Maya really is the baddest CG app out there - I have been using it since version 1, the newer versions are getting wonky with feature bloat, however it is still the most amazing application from many perspectives.

$12000 dollars a year is squat. That's a few maya licenses, forget rent food coffee and employees.

Good business people don't make deals on Gross receipts.

bingo, and lots of promotion until it reaches critical mass.

It's a race to the bottom just like the music and movie industries. GDC looks now like MacWorld looked shortly before its demise. The fact is Game development is rapidly moving into the hobby space much like home studios did to music and youtube is doing to TV. There is not a big enough market for all the titles and thus Epic is playing the odds as best it can. Many games just advertise franchises like Marvel, DC, Walking Dead, etc... You can make a compelling game in Unity for free, and get most of the eye candy for the Pro price. It is possible that a project makes no profit yet the gross is still big enough that a 5% quarterly commitment could put a company out of business. This could happen well before they turn a profit..

Or just get Unity3D

5% on Gross Revenue is horrible. When you look at advertising costs pretty much outstripping development costs 5% is a big chunk.

Perhaps the authorities' well placed subversives are moving to entrap?

Is anyone surprised?

Slashdot digging up Drudge headlines a few hours later than I read them.... You guys are slipping hard. Just another roll of the DICE