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I think you're way too pessimistic - but some commenters are even worse! We've talked about this before, but since you updated your text let me add a few things:
1. There's way more than a handful of game "auteurs" that have a strong fan following and would be able to raise a shit load of money. I mean, how many cult games are there ? Do you know how long hundreds fans have been bitching for a new X or Y ?
2. You really think someone like Hideo Kojima or Tetsuya Nomura wouldn' t be able to raise 30 million ? That's ludicrous. That's only half a million 60 bucks pre-orders: it's nothing compared to the numbers theses guys regularly pull off on the basis of a couple of trailers. I mean that's almost what NIER did on week one in Japan.
3. Games budget do'n't need to be that high. In 2005 the average PS2 game budget was 2 million, so that's what would cost a HD-ifed version of those which is perfect for a mid-budget game (I mean it still looks better than anything on the Wii), and a lot of that money is actually wasted on channels that you wouldn't need in the Kickstarter model.
4. Activision owns the Call of Duty IP so the dev's are F***d. But imagine they didn't. How many preorder could Call of Duty dev raise and input directly in the game budget, one year in advance for the next interation of the series ? Monolith for instance has been able to reclaim the "Xeno" IP by finding a loophole in system, aas did From Software with the "Souls" series they took away from Sony. It's very easy to imagine a AAA title funded this way, just do the math.
Still, great writing, as always."
I get this point of view and I'm certainly not sure i'd rather have a remake than a new iteration of the series.
However, Final Fantasy 7 is an iconic game that really didn't age well - probably worse than most other RPGs as it is in this very awkward phase at the beginning of 3D graphics and CD-gaming. It's hard to introduce it to youngsters or even to play it again for some veterans.
A lot of HD remakes have been done extremely well, and I'm pretty sure FF7 could be a success in that regard."
1. What does a budget of a cult game need to be ? Certainly not 30 millions dollars, and when you loon at the pre-order numbers of game like the Atelier series and such, you see that a reasonnable figure could easily be obtained pretty quickly
2. Why would you need PR, marketing and so on when you're sure to be profitable ? Just let word of mouth and glorious internet do the rest"