10 Overlooked Ways ALL Video Game 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.