Saber Interactive CCO Tim Willits says its AA strategy favors controlled budgets, global teams, and multiple bets over expensive blockbuster development.
Furthermore, he discussed the industry’s broad shift away from developing games in North America and the region’s financial struggles.
Saber CCO Says Big Studios Must Be Smarter About Costs
GamesIndustry.biz interviewed the Saber executive, during which he discussed a variety of topics. Among them, he explained his belief that AA game development has been more effective than AAA in the industry.
“If you have one guy who has to get a home run every game, you are not going to succeed,” he said, adding that with more releases, “you can take more bets, and you can spread out your resources, spread out your money. There’s something called slate financing that movie industries have been doing for years. And you will see more of this in our industry, where a developer may work with private equity or a publisher, and they’ll invest in four or five games, and then three are hits, one is a loser, and everyone’s happy.”
He also says it’s important to focus on what matters and keep development and scope in check, noting that sometimes he plays games and can see the “wasted money” and “dollars falling out of the monitor.”
“The problem is stuff like this: big North American development studios, they run about $2 million plus in burn rate a month. A month. SnowRunner, which has made hundreds of millions of dollars, cost us $6 million to make. That’s literally three months of development time in California.”
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