Do you remember the mid-00s of gaming? If so, you might remember that there were a lot of companies producing what might be called AAA games. There are still companies out there like Rockstar, Sony, Ubisoft and Activision making those sorts of games, but a lot of developers have fallen at the wayside or moved on to a very different type of game making. Why do you think that is?
According to Cliff Blezinski, the ex-Epic Games developer who worked on Unreal Tournament and Gears of War, it's because the industry has reached a point where only the richest survive. With budgets in the hundreds of millions, only the biggest of companies can take that kind of risk on a new game.
On top of that, the games tend to come out with full $60 price tags, which as Blezinski points out, means the game really does need to justify its cost. If it doesn't, it's not going to sell the literally millions of copies it needs to make back the investment costs and time involved in its creation.
That's why companies like Epic Games have moved over to creating free to play experiences like the revamped Unreal Tournament and Paragon.
That's also why Blezinski, as part of his new venture, Bosskey Studios, is working on what he describes as a "double A" game in his chat with GamesIndustry. He also put games like Rocket League and Warframe under that same banner and they have proved incredibly successful by hitting an affordable price point, but while not costing the Earth either.
What kind of games do you guys tend to buy? Personally I've just been dipping in and out of various indie experiences for the past few years.
