This is a bit of a side point, but this quote seemed off base to me:

“People are paying for these games!,” he exclaimed. “This is not happening for … books.”

50 Shades of Grey was an all-human alternate-history Twilight fanfiction that was largely plagiarised.

There are also entire genres that are becoming successful for independent authors, mostly self-publishing on Kindle Unlimited like LitRPGs (basically fantasy novels with videogame-like systems) or Jane Austen variations (like Pride & Prejudice retold slightly or very differently).

I think the Long Tail of the Internet is changing a lot of industries, creative or otherwise, not just indie games.