I'm very confused by the article. It says Uncharted won by "a clear mandate from our audience, pulling in over double the votes of the number two winner". I thought from the US presidential race that to have "a clear mandate" the 2nd place game needed to get 3 million more votes than the one named the "winner".

Its a very interesting hypothesis, with more than a ring of truth to it. While I agree the new model is going to have an unpleasant effect on game design over the next few years (at least), the same industry fickleness will help undo the damage. When the Skyrims and KOTOR's make insane bank on traditional single player and mmorpg models, they'll be emulating those right back. That's whats' so great about capitalism -- in the end, the greed that's going to hurt development is going to save it. People always want to make a buck, even if that means making a quality, one-fee, high-value game.