Develop 2010: Big budget work is becoming a fruitless undertaking for many, claims Zeschuk
BioWare's co-founder Dr. Greg Zeschuk has said that for most studios attempting to do triple-A projects is largely a pointless task.
"Striving to do triple-A console development right now is the wrong goal for most developers," claimed the exec, speaking in the keynote opening the
Zeschuk, who also serves as the general manager of BioWare's Austin studio, made the remarks in his keynote opening the second day of the Develop Conference in Bighton today.
"The market has changed now to the point that it is becoming just a goal setting excersise," said Zeschuk, who suggested that many years ago imost in the industry aimed to create triple-A games.
"It's now precisely the wrong thing to do," he added.
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Zeschuk pointed to the success of industry veterans forming microstudios, before offering some advice for other developers: "If you're going to pick a direction, online gaming comes in all shapes and sizes."
"There's a lot of money there," he concluded.
I was at the conference, and it was a interesting subject and nevertheless every studio will strive to produce the next Hollywood game blockbuster.
What one can note is - and taking a leaf from the British film industry. One does not necessarily need a AAA funding to produce AAA quality games and content.
Innovation and thinking big, and still producing AAA like appeal, scope and long lasting playability or AA Lite products are aspirational goals.
A thought in point are games such as Little big Planet & Flower.
These epitomises the microstudio culture, which is mobile, innovative and punches well above many studio games by deciding early on what can be afforded in a game, required for gameplay and have resultant polished long lasting appeal in their games that becomes the next AAA blockbuster games of the future and now.
The rest is marketing, metacritic journalism to hype a game and more marketing
:)
Hmm. A difficult one. I actually kind of agree with him, having aimed to make Triple A games and failed, I couldn't encourage others to do the same. The logic would be that the budgets are too big and the risks of failure too great. Also, these costly ideas are hard to sell to publishers, which is a whole new problem.
Arguably innovation must take place on a smaller scale, probably through independent developers.
My only issue is that it does beg the question of how we ever achieve Triple A titles? The other way to put it would be, some ideas simply aren't scaleable, they are big ideas, and only work on a big scale, so how do we innovate in those areas?
I suspect the answer is make the money off the small games till you have the money to fund the big idea, although I don't think that's a guaranteed path. I actually think succeeding with a smaller title is harder, as you have to have a great idea to rise above the others, but it's not my area of expertise.
