DRM News

We’re so often hearing game developers ramble on ad nauseam about their 633 latest projects requiring 19,204 artisans and a budget roughly commensurate to the Gross Domestic Product of Poland to bring about. It’s exhausting. It’s numbing. It’s a constant reminder of why so many development companies are suffering through serious financial issues.

So, when a developer comes out and says that publishers need to start cutting projects earlier in development and keeping costs vs. profits in mind, it tends to be a refreshing change of pace. And that’s exactly what Avalanche CEO Christofer Sundberg had to say in an interview with Develop (Part 1, Part 2).

I still believe publishers should cancel more projects in case the developers fail to deliver quality, before the investments become too high.

A better due diligence process for developers is needed, as is a higher demand for quality, along with a courage to invest more money in fewer projects, rather than spreading the budget over many ‘OK’ projects.

Avatar is a great example of a game that should never have come out, regardless of how much money it made. I don’t know if it was profitable or not, but games like that give licence-based games a bad reputation, and that reputation is already at an all-time low, and you’re shooting yourself in the foot.

How truly sad is it (and how big an indication of how big the problem is?) that talk like that is so utterly refreshing? It just makes sense. Well, aside from saying that Avatar gave license-based games a bad name…that ship sailed LOOONNNNNG ago!

And he doesn’t mince words about the rough year his own company has had, either.

The first thing Christofer Sundberg says as I switch on my recorder is that 2009 was a bad year for the company.

It’s the kind of blunt, untampered honesty that can catch people by surprise in an industry where “everything’s going just fine”, and where developers are overly keen to “thank our publisher for their exceptional support.”

Perhaps what the industry needs are a few more people capable of being bluntly honest when looking over the ledgers?