The era of large game development teams based in America is coming to a close.
Some people refuse to believe this. That makes sense. We don't always recognize the feeling of living through a watershed moment. But here we are, knee deep in "interesting times." And while there are many factors, the bottom line is this: it takes too many people too long to make AAA games in America.
Game developers are notoriously conservative when it comes to processes and tooling. The old ways work, they say, so why change them? So instead of embracing radical new tools to handle larger games, they add more people. This increases monthly burn rate. Those bigger teams are poorly run by outdated management structures and processes. This increases development time. Multiply these two values together, and you can see the problem.
This was sustainable when money was cheap and consumers bought everything. That's over now. Inflation continues to grow, so the ROI of local development continues to go down. But, ironically, the dollar is strong in international markets, so the ROI of development in cheaper continues to grow.
The future is easy to see: our local population of developers is going to shrink, and the remainder will have to adapt. There's an opportunity here that we can grasp, but before that can happen, we must first accept that things have irrevocably changed.
It's fair to ask how I came to this conclusion. In brief:
I believe it when a publisher says "large scale game dev is crushing under its own weight" (1)
I believe this because a publisher says we've been doing AAA in the most expensive territories in the world, while a AAA developer in Serbia has 20% of the cost but 100% of the quality. (2)
I believe it when a studio head says "The model of how games are made is failing." (3)
I believe this because the majority of closed studios are in America, Canada, and the UK. (4)
And one week after #Microsoft closed studios in those territories, it opened one in Poland. (5)
I'm not surprised, because the cost of living in Poland is nearly 50% less than California, (6) and the developers are just as good. (7)
Looking for someone to blame won't help. But accepting a new reality might. And that's when opportunity can be found.
Historically, America’s industrial strengths have included technological innovation and an ability to cast aside old ways in pursuit of the new.
I think that points the way forward for us. Since we are unable to address the macroeconomic situation ourselves, we must improve our microeconomic footing by increasing the ROI of our development time.
Is AI the solution? I think it’s part of it. But the broader implication is that we must let go of the rigid thinking of the past and adapt. Otherwise, we risk finding ourselves at the exit ramp, with no way back on.
Footnotes in comments.
Way too excited for this one! especially mobile version 📱