- Games nowadays take a really long time to develop and cost a lot.
- The director of RGG studio has given his two cents on the situation, stating that developers should reuse assets for sequels.
- He thinks that instead of completely rebooting the game, it is better to reuse the assets to release the games quickly.
Games take a long time to develop in this era, as the developers are ambitious and want to meet the fans’ expectations. Games like GTA are so big that the fandom has to wait years for the next game in this franchise.
Rockstar released GTA in 2013, so it has been well over a decade since the fandom has been longing for another game in the series. This is because the developers focus on complete reboots.
The developer behind the Yakuza series has claimed that games take too long because they are complete reboots more than a sequel.
Why it matters: The development cost and time for a game is skyrocketing every year. Due to this, if a game of such a high budget fails, the developer most likely will face closure.
In an interview with The Washington Post, the Director of RGG Studio Masayoshi Yokoyama said most games aren’t truly upgrades of their predecessors, but they are more like complete reboots.
Most games these days aren’t necessarily upgrades of the previous as much as they are complete reboots.
-Masayoshi Yokoyama
He used the GTA and Assassin’s Creed series as examples of how big companies completely change a large portion of a game. In such big games, every sequel features a completely new setting and a different type of gameplay, which makes the development cycle too long.
He thinks that reusing assets from previous iterations is the way to go, as it helps to release games faster. Yokoyama thinks only RGG studios follow this approach with video games in the gaming industry.
It is true that most developers focus on rebuilding the sequel way too much. RGG Studio focuses on movie- or drama-type development, which consists of linear media content.
Unlike other studios that increase the budget significantly, RGG Studio focuses on releasing many titles to cover one story, which is a brilliant idea. Ever since Rockstar released Red Dead Redemption, Ryu Ga Gotoku has released seven new games in the series by reusing assets.
This is probably a safer method of developing games, too, as recently, we have witnessed the biggest failure in gaming history. Concord has been a disaster for many reasons, and such failures hurt the gaming industry.
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[News Editor]
Obaid is pursuing a Law degree, while working as a content writer. He has worked as a gaming writer for over a year because of his passion for the medium and reporting the latest updates in the industry. Having played hundreds of games, Obaid finds himself coming back to Elden Ring, Cyberpunk 2077, and Red Dead Redemption 2, with these games being among his favorites. He has also been mentioned on highly regarded websites, such as Wccftech, Metro UK, PS Lifestyle, GamePressure, VGC, and Gamespot.