EA: Triple-A Industry Reduced to 25 Studios

[Guffe]

I don't see the problem here...
Because there isn't one! It's interesting in itself thou, many few less studios but the same amount of work.
This is like in a small village there are 3 grocery stores, 2 "vanishes" but the third one grows bigger and everyone from the 2 other stores get work there. No harm done, everyones happy!
I guess this is how it works today, smaller companies being "bought" by bigger ones, thus creating "less companies" even thou nothing significant really has happened.

 

[MrBaskerville]

So that´s why there are so few interesting AAA games out there, back in the day i could find plenty of cool expensive games but recently it´s been tougher and tougher. No wonder everyone is making the same game.

 

[Jumwa]

And having less triple A studios is bad because? I do get he feeling triple A games are more for the ego of the industry rather then for customers but yet it's the customer/used games/pirates that gets blamed for studios going under and killing gaming.

Well said.

All the truly interesting developments in gaming tend to come from small to mid range developers these days, and the gamers who hang on E3 news for exciting ideas are just barking up the wrong tree.

The indie scene has exploded, both in popularity and success. Developers have left the big studios or been forced out by their unsustainable financial models and in the process have formed an increasingly strong new market, that caters more to the diverse tastes of gamers, just without the ridiculous motion capture and big budget stuff that none of us really care about anyhow.

Maybe there's room for a small number of "AAA" Hollywood style titles each year in a larger industry of small to mid range games that dare to be something interesting. But probably not if they keep insisting on blaming the consumer for not buying it.

 

[Zipa]

This is astonishing news...

EA has a chief creative officer!?

i'm pretty sure that pic is actually the Area 51 scientist from Independence Day...

He doesn't look that much like Brent Spiner tbh.

Also EA can't complain they are the people that have killed some of the best studios to have existed.

 

[FantomOmega]

EA is just pissy that there are not enough Triple A developers to buy-out and suck DRY and their current IPs are losing its appeal excluding the Battlefield series

 

[Canadamus Prime]

Hilleman attributes this change to the gradual shift between standard and high-definition televisions. As HD became the norm, certain teams expanded to better produce enhanced visuals, while other studios dissolved or switched markets entirely. "This has everything to do with the standard definition to HD change," Hilleman continues. "If you look at the math, that change is about content - richly about content - and as we evolved, our costs went substantially up. And the number of people on teams with that kind of vision went up by necessity."

Yeah, I don't see any of that as a good thing. Enhanced visuals do not mean better games. Often it's quite the contrary, because you have to skimp on content in order to accommodate all your enhanced visuals.

 

[TrevHead]

This news doesn't surprise me since probably 60-70% of the 50 or so 360 games on my shelf are cult classics that failed to set the world on fire and pretty much quickly became bargain bin fodder.

Small indies are great and all but they can't fully fill the shoes of the game studios that went tits up this gen. I'm pinning my hopes on a big return of the mid tier flourishing again with a healthy mix of indie, crowd and publisher funding sources.

 

[Danceofmasks]

EA probably thinks Darkspore is a AAA game.

 

[RJ 17]

Well, at least he's not blaming gamers for this one. I don't entirely know how TVs could play a big part in it, but then again I'm not a market or industry analyst so whatever.

"What's interesting is that, if you look at the composition of those teams, the numbers are exactly the same: those 125 teams became 25; the size of the teams increased by a factor of four."

Hold the phone here... am I reading this right? If so:

125 teams became 25.

25 is 1/5 of 125.

Team size has gone up by a factor of 4.

1/5 of the teams remaining, with each of the teams being 4 times larger.

4 x 1/5 = 4/5 = 80% of the total people remaining in the AAA industry.

80% =/= 100%

Either EA doesn't understand math, doesn't realize what they said, or they're knowingly contradicting themselves; because by their own admission the AAA industry has lost about 20% of its workforce yet somehow is exactly the same size. In any case, something is definitely wrong here.

The wording he uses implies that his numbers aren't exact, that he's "guesstimating" at best. Still, it wouldn't surprise me if his numbers were off...certainly wouldn't be the first time.

 

[shiajun]

I don't see the problem here...
Because there isn't one! It's interesting in itself thou, many few less studios but the same amount of work.
This is like in a small village there are 3 grocery stores, 2 "vanishes" but the third one grows bigger and everyone from the 2 other stores get work there. No harm done, everyones happy!
I guess this is how it works today, smaller companies being "bought" by bigger ones, thus creating "less companies" even thou nothing significant really has happened.

Nothing significant. Just monopolies and monoculture.

Truth therein. This reduction in the number of studios is not a good thing, and it's just a diagnostic of how bloated and unsustainable the business model is that 80% of the industry vanished in a few years. Also, if it's true that the move to HD forced 80% of the developers to focus on MOAR GRAPHICS, then it's no wonder that creativity in all other areas (sound design, level design, art design, gameplay mechanics, narrative, etc) has taken a nose dive.

Again, even if the same number of people are working (which is seriously doubt considering the amount of layoffs we've seen just this year), losing 80% of all studios can't be a good symptom. AAA crash is almost imminent at this point.

 

[Quiotu]

Is that picture actually Richard Hilleman, or is that someone cosplaying as Pickles from Deathklok. Seriously, cut that goddamn hair; you're embarrassing yourself.

As for the statistics, perhaps he is right, but perhaps he should look into how many smaller studios and indie studios are around now. Perhaps there's less AAA studios because AAA games today are a much more dangerous venture, and that AAA game budgets are bloated to the point where making one profitable is incredibly tough.

He's the chief creative officer... isn't he supposed to be smart? This news kinda falls under the 'erm... duh' category.

 

[Weaver]

Why are only console games included? Also, what does AAA status even mean here?
The Creative Assembly, Relic, and Firaxis all make excellent games on the PC and they probably aren't AAA games by cost definition. However, I find them graphically excellent and really fun to play, so what does it matter?

 

[Tel_Windzan]

Yeah, but if the whole point of reducing the number of AAA studios out there is to reduce the cost of producing top-quality current generation games, I don't think they are quite doing that. If the studios that are remaining have more people working at them, that means more money has to be put down in order to pay those people, so you are probably paying the same or possibly more by having more people on board for each studio.

Granted, I supposed the payoff is that with more people working, you can divide the work up better and get the right people working on the parts of the game they do best to make a really good game. That's probably where the EA Chief Creative Officer is saying the industry is now stable due to the reduce studios. That is, assuming these studios will be smart and use their employees reasonably so the game can be as good as they can make it, so its really up in the air still if any of this is true or not.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Has anybody tried counting up to those 25 studios? It'd be interesting to come up with a list.

 

[barbzilla]

Well, at least he's not blaming gamers for this one. I don't entirely know how TVs could play a big part in it, but then again I'm not a market or industry analyst so whatever.

"What's interesting is that, if you look at the composition of those teams, the numbers are exactly the same: those 125 teams became 25; the size of the teams increased by a factor of four."

Hold the phone here... am I reading this right? If so:

125 teams became 25.

25 is 1/5 of 125.

Team size has gone up by a factor of 4.

1/5 of the teams remaining, with each of the teams being 4 times larger.

4 x 1/5 = 4/5 = 80% of the total people remaining in the AAA industry.

80% =/= 100%

Either EA doesn't understand math, doesn't realize what they said, or they're knowingly contradicting themselves; because by their own admission the AAA industry has lost about 20% of its workforce yet somehow is exactly the same size. In any case, something is definitely wrong here.

The wording he uses implies that his numbers aren't exact, that he's "guesstimating" at best. Still, it wouldn't surprise me if his numbers were off...certainly wouldn't be the first time.

Actually that variance is probably accounted for in the form of the number of two to four man studios that closed down (there were a number of them). So while it may seem that there is a number variance the 125 studios does not mean that all 125 held average size teams. These numbers imply that many of them were undersized.

 

[Tien Shen]

This AAA business is killing creativity. When budgets become bloated, the less likely that publishers are willing to take risks. Then we get crap like the Syndicate reboot, MOH:Warfighter and FUSE which shows all the signs of trying to play it safe but ultimately failing to do much to distinguish itself from the head of the pack.

 

[Charli]

This is astonishing news...

EA has a chief creative officer!?

...Do you think they keep him in a refrigerator somewhere inside the company in cryostasis, and just... bring him out every couple of years to maybe have him say a thing.

 

[Meatspinner]

So we have fewer studios all with more cooks in the kitchen on a bigger budget... yay?