10 Overlooked Ways ALL Video Game Studios Could Improve
Maybe stop playing everything so safe?
Game studios are incredibly lucrative places.
By all accounts, their more recent successes far surpass just financial gains - gaming has now transcended its initial public conception of being a fringe hobby, and has become so much more creatively thanks to its key, unique facet of being the only media form that’s entirely interactive/non-passive.
So, you’d be right in your assumption that game studios, thanks to their many successes (individually and across the whole medium) are rad places to be. With more money, more exposure, and more time in the public eye, the ever-increasing resources get funnelled back into the studios, which in turn offer a plethora of funnage for the staff.
They’re great, and I’d know - I’ve worked in quite a few, from the outrageously bustling AAA heights of Ubisoft Reflections right through to tiny little three-man operations at High Tea Frog.
If you’ve worked hard to compete with your peers for several years through portfolio-building and postgraduate courses, you can finally reap those tasty game dev benefits in those wondrous game-creation utopias... but, of course, nothing’s ever perfect, except Sara Lee’s Double Chocolate Gateau.
So, here are a few ways I personally believe ALL studios could improve.
10. Take More Creative Risks
With growing success, a large game studio has a responsibility to grow in a way that’s both sustainable and consistent. As the studio develops a formula for financial gain (for example, Ubisoft with its ubiquitous open-world formula) it tends to stick to it, to mitigate risk.
Hey, if you’ve figured out the Colonel’s secret recipe, why drop it in favour of an untried, untested flavour?
Gamers tend to complain that larger game companies don’t take enough risks, yet when urged to vote with their wallets, the Call of Duties and FIFAs always seem to sell tens of millions whilst the little, more creative pieces get overlooked.
During my time at Ubisoft Reflections, I was lucky enough to work on both big franchises like Driver and Tom Clancy’s The Division, but I also got to work in the studio’s dedicated mini-team which worked on neat new prototypes (and yielded such titles as Grow Home, Atomega, and Ode), but despite neat concepts, they eked poor sales, and the department was canned.
Yet, to the majority of those who did get buy/play those quirkier, small titles say they were a breath of fresh air, and that more studios should take more risks in the future.