Why triple-A devs are going indie (and why indies aren’t going triple-A) – VentureBeat

Joe and Anthony Russo had a pretty good summer. The brothers directed and releasedMarvelssummer blockbusterCaptain America: The Winter Soldier. The pair got that opportunity after working with smaller budgets in the independent-film scene and on television, and they worked their way up to making one of the biggest movies in the world.

Thats a story we dont really have in gaming.

GamesBeat originally published this story July 18, 2014.

Above: Cliff Bleszinski is now a CEO at Boss Key Productions.

Image Credit: Epic Games

Independent and triple-A gaming development is experiencing the opposite, really. The big names from top developers are leaving their jobs directing huge projects to start their own, smaller development studios. Meanwhile, the hottest talent responsible for beloved, best-selling indie games arent moving up to direct larger projects for major publishers with enormous budgets. Theyre sticking to their roots or focusing their efforts on expanding the games that made them popular in the first place.

The question is why is upward mobility in gaming broken?

We can point to a list of high-profile examples of triple-A developers leaving behind their positions at major publishers or big developers to do something smaller and more focused:

And on the independent side of things a staggering number of developers have made smash hits but arent moving on Ubisoft, Nintendo, or Sony. Here are just a few:

Im sure you noticed a common theme or trend among the above developers. Most of the former big-name triple-A directors are now CEOs at their own studios. When it comes to the younger, always-independent developers, they dont follow up their hits by seeking out an opportunity with a corporation.

So, whats going on?

A lot of whats happening comes down to who is really in charge of a project. Going back to the Russos, working for Marvel and Disney, they had to answer to one of the worlds largest conglomerates. They probably agreed to a lot before starting production. But once filming started, and this is the case on most films, the director(s) are running the show. They decide what a scene looks like, they are the ones the actors go to for answers.

Again, in gaming, thats not really the case and for multiple reasons.

Developers are corporations

When Disney brought inthe Russos to makeCaptain America: Winter Soldier, they went on to hire a team of contract employees through their respective unions. They didnt try to form a company that would focus on making similar movies with the same people over and over. Instead, the corporation will go on owning the property, and everyone who made the film can use their experience to get more work making another one.

Above: The Electronic Arts offices.

Image Credit: EA

Game development doesnt work like that. Its actually more like a musical band that comes together to make games in a process thats reminiscent to producing albums but only with up to hundreds of employees and a chief executive officer and chief marketing officer and chief financial officer and chief technology officer. Sometimes a developer works under a publisher with multiple studios. This leads to situations where the director of a game is fighting for control with multiple people who all have a say.

For me its pretty simple Im getting older and the time to make something that I feel passionate about shrinks every day, Goldfarb told GamesBeat. I have no interest in burning two years of my life on a very large team making very large games with all the friction and compromise that comes with it. Dont get me wrong. I adore those games. I have loved making them in many cases. But its time to do something else that is closer to the bone.

Team size

Many developers responsible for big games find that directing a triple-A project isnt necessarily about coming up with ideas and executing. Its all about delegating tasks to huge subsets of teams inside a studio and making sure everyone is communicating. That means someone at the top of an Assassins Creed release isnt working on exquisitely crafting important scenes; instead, theyre managing a massive organization rife with office politics.

This doesnt leave a lot of room for creative expression.

At the end of the day, people want to be free, said Goldfarb. Thats the best way I can put it. Finding avenues for that freedom is harder in triple-A, where the sheer mass of the team size makes simple things like communication incredibly difficult. Some people thrive in those conditions and want that to be their end goal. I got there and was profoundly unhappy with how it made me feel. For now, it simply feels like less is more.

Publishers hide the talent

On top of the corporate structure and massive studio sizes, publishers often bury the contributions of individuals under the name of the company. Its hard to feel good about your accomplishments when the corporation pretends like they came out of thin air.

I really, really dislike hiding the developers. It reeks of insecurity, Bleszinski wrote on Reddit. If people know who the developers are, then the developers have leverage. Its Business 101.

Hell, Ubisoft allegedly firedDsilets after acquiring his studio from THQ. They had him back for a few months before splitting up again. We dont know the state ofDsiletss game, 1666, which Ubisoft still owns, but we can infer that the publisher and the designer had disagreements that costDsilets his latest game and his job.

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Why triple-A devs are going indie (and why indies aren't going triple-A) - VentureBeat