Meghan Morgan Juinio, former director of product development at Sony Santa Monica Studios, has reveal during an interview with PCGamer that she believes spectacle-loaded blockbuster with swelling budgets are “not really sustainable” given the rising cost of developments.
I think it’s already not really sustainable in terms of the cost of development. There’s been a ton of layoffs, and a lot of that is focused on the West Coast of the US, and it’s clearly because the minimum costs are so high. Development costs will necessitate that the big publishers create [new] pathways.
While Juinio doesn’t feel that blockbuster titles like Sony’s own God of War series will still stick around, she believes that that making something that is fundamentally fun is what matters. In this respect, there’s plenty of opportunity for growth in the AA or simple-A games market.
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I think what it comes back to, is just make something fun. Just make something awesome, and that will achieve what you need it to achieve. My opinion is that it has to be fun first. It can look the most beautiful, the best soundtrack in the world, it can be winning all the BAFTAs for audio and all this, but if it’s not fun it’s not worth the investment, whether that’s $2m or $500m.
And I think that’s where the biggest publishers can return: how do we go back to building solid games that are really fun to play. Maybe they aren’t 40 hours long, and maybe they aren’t the most cutting edge – but that doesn’t matter if the core experience is really fun.
Swelling video game budgets have become a major issue over the past few years, and is one of the leading contributors to the hike in game prices, with many publishers including Nintendo now charging $79.99 for their titles. Microsoft announced The Outer Worlds 2 would also join the growing pack of $80 games, although the company later changed its mind and dropped the price to $69.99.