But conversely, maybe an indie game studio could monetize their game hugely by getting a lot of hype and carefully sizing license issuance with demand.

If they said "We're only selling 10 copies per day" and the game was very popular, the price could shoot up very high as owning the game early becomes a status symbol, and developer would have a chance to do 'whale' sized monetization from initial customers.

If a million people wanted to play a game, but only 1000 licenses were available (and there was a good chance you could resell the game at the same or greater value) demand could get huge.

Other customers will complain, but there are definitely gamers that would pay 10x to be able to play a game before others - I think price discrimination that monetizes early hype around media is probably inevitable as there is demand currently left on the floor. Probably not great for society, but I bet it's coming.