- The former Bethesda developer and Starfield designer has claimed that the current gaming market is unsustainable.
- He noted that a big-budget title that takes six years to develop needs to sell ‘tens of millions of copies to be successful.
- Keeping up with the evolving hardware and driving hundreds of devs in a single direction is also a massive challenge.
Despite massive technological leaps in the last decade, the state of the gaming industry has ironically been on a noticeable decline. Sustaining massive AAA releases after launch has slowly become more of a challenge for developers than ever before. The former Bethesda dev and designer of Fallout 4 and Starfield thinks that the current model the industry runs on is far from sustainable for many studios.
Bruce Nesmith recently clarified that a huge AAA entry that takes about 6 years to develop consumes a plethora of resources and funds. So, to break even and recoup any losses, ‘tens of millions of copies’ need to be sold at the very least.
Why it matters: The words of the former Bethesda dev resonate deeply with the current state of the gaming industry, where multi-million budget AAA entries need to meet colossal expectations just to sustain themselves after launch.
In an interview with Video Gamer, Bruce Nesmith clarified that besides simple economics, other factors also need to be considered since a game of AAA scale is never guaranteed to be a success. So, it’s ‘really, really hard’ to make a bit hit in the market.
In order to sell a game that you spent six years working on, you have to sell tens of millions of copies. That’s the only way you’re going to recoup your loss. So if it isn’t a big hit, you’re dead.
-Bruce Neshmith
The evolving technology during the development times and effectively driving hundreds of developers towards a single direction are some of the other concerns, for instance.
Even the developers argue that the AAA market is unsustainable since they need to sell millions of copies. But what are your thoughts regarding the industry? Do let us know your opinions in the comments below, or join the discussion on the official Tech4Gamers forum.
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Shameer Sarfaraz has previously worked for eXputer as a Senior News Writer for several years. Now with Tech4Gamers, he loves to devotedly keep up with the latest gaming and entertainment industries. He has a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science and years of experience reporting on games. Besides his passion for breaking news stories, Shahmeer loves spending his leisure time farming away in Stardew Valley. VGC, IGN, GameSpot, Game Rant, TheGamer, GamingBolt, The Verge, NME, Metro, Dot Esports, GameByte, Kotaku Australia, PC Gamer, and more have cited his articles.
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