FFvsTR - Adventures in Self-Publishing

Irrational Games' Ken Levine discusses their decision to self-publish Freedom Force vs. the Third Reich in a new two-page article on IGN PC. An excerpt to follow:
When we finished the first Freedom Force, we were left with a mix of joy and frustration. We had created a game that, besides winning an Editor's Choice from this lovely website, went on to sell over 400,000 units. However, as we looked at the development and publishing of the first title, we realized that Irrational did the vast majority of the work on the project: we conceived it, we built it, we did most of the testing, we supported the community, we paid for and developed the patches (including a full, free skirmish mode), we supported the community for the years following the initial release.

The two big things we didn't do were pay for the development and actually get the product to the retailers.