The industry is increasingly retreating away from big ambitious games in favour of casual genres, the CMO of CCP has said.

Speaking in a newly published interview with Develop, David Reid said over the past few years many of the traditional big studios had taken their foot off the gas when it comes to triple-A core gaming experiences.

He felt that many developers had shifted their focus to social and casual games as well as new monetisation models, although admitted this did not necessarily mean all these titles were poorly made.

“A lot of gamers in particular, and those of us who work in independent development, we’re still gamers as well, and we see what’s happened in the industry the past few years of almost a retreat from big ambitious games,” said Reid.

“I’m not saying there aren’t good games out there but you can really see how the traditional titans of the industry have maybe taken their foot off the gas from great core gaming experiences in favour of social, casual genres and platforms and monetisation models.

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“And in the midst of all that, we’ve embraced a lot of changes as they’ve come but we’ve never deviated for a moment from building these breakthrough experiences and I think people really like that.”

Reid said the fact that Eve Online offered a true core gaming experience and had yet to embrace free-to-play, with no plans to do so in the future, meant that the title was able to increasingly standout amongst its competitors, with the game continuing to grow year-on-year.