Insomniac recently formed their Click division as an attempt to reach the larger social and mobile audience. Chief creative officer Brian Hastings offered some comments as to why the AAA developer was moving in this direction.
“That core audience isn’t really expanding much and the total dollars each core gamer spends isn’t going up,” said Hastings. “So as triple-A budgets inflate, each developer has to steal players away from other games in order to simply keep their revenues above their costs. The only long term viable solution for all parties would be to expand the audience. I’m not in the doom-and-gloom camp in terms of the health of the console market, but I do think it’s becoming increasingly challenging in that space. It’s getting to the point where only the very best triple-A console games are profitable. And, of course, it’s increasingly expensive to make the very best games. So not every developer can survive.
The main reason I believe it s important – even necessary – to expand into the social sector is that there is simply a bigger audience there, he added. Because triple-A games are necessarily complex they have a fairly predefined audience of core gamers. That core audience isn t really expanding much and the total dollars each core gamer spends isn t going up, so as triple-A budgets inflate, each developer has to steal players away from other games in order to simply keep their revenues above their costs. The only long term viable solution for all parties would be to expand the audience.
Source: CasualGaming.biz
