No question when it comes to books! And even if we look just at games: whatever Unreal charges you for publishing a game that uses their software “engine” (analogous to ChoiceScript) as far as I’m aware they’re not doing a single thing to market or promote the game for you. By contrast, the appearance of a game on the HG omnibus, website, and email that goes out to people on the CoG/HG mailing list is the biggest single factor in drawing customers to your game. Add up what you’d expect CoG to charge as software engine publisher to what you’d expect it to charge as marketer/platform, and the gatekeeper rents it’s claiming start to look like they’re within a reasonable margin for the game industry too.
James, I’m really sorry to hear that you’re leaving, and I hope it leads to a reconsideration of the habits you’re protesting.