Telltale Games (The Walking Dead). Visceral (Deadspace). Gazillion Entertainment (Marvel Heroes). Capcom Vancouver (Dead Rising). Wargaming Seattle (Dungeon Seige). These are but a few of the video game studios that shuttered their doors within the last 18-months. And this list doesn't even include the studios that underwent mass layoffs or were absorbed by larger studios.
Going by that trend, it's no wonder that Amy Hennig says the way AAA games are made is no longer sustainable. Having left behind the days of working on a 300+ development team at Naughty Dog, she spoke with G.I.biz just days before accepting a Lifetime Achievement award at the recent D.I.C.E. Summit in Las Vegas.
"In my career, I've gone from a two-person team to 15 or something, then 30, then 70, and up to now. It's just insane, right? So we all have all the same flaws we have as human beings, and then it's amplified by having a 300-person team versus a 10-person team."
She continued, "I personally needed a break from it, but in that break, it's been an opportunity to say I'm not even sure it makes sense to do it that way. I think we keep doing it that way because we have these established companies and teams, and that's a resource, an asset you don't want to just throw away. But on the other hand, we're seeing news stories left and right where developers are folding and publishers are laying off hundreds of people. It feels like something feels inevitable, because the cost of development and keeping all these people on staff, especially in expensive areas, just doesn't feel sustainable."
As a potential solution to the problem, Hennig suggests that the video game industry looks at how television and film studios operate. Namely, to farm out a lot of work to freelancers and outside companies rather than keep everything in-house and carry a large load of salaries.
In a reaction to the interview, gamers are throwing out their own solutions, such as slashing bloated executive salaries or slowing down the pace of technological and graphical advancements.
In particular, Hennig's assessment seems applicable to 3rd Party developers, who often chase loot boxes and microtransactions in order to make a game profitable when the studio is bankrolling thousands of employees.