Amy Hennig: ‘AAA development has become unsustainable’

[KcebAnier]

Fortunately, she is wrong. AAA is finally about to get its chance at stabilization. This whole problem was caused by the Xbox 360 and the PS3 skipping a generations worth of power when they released. They should have been capped at 720p. The development system was not prepared for the jump to high definition and the tools to make the process reasonable were not developed causing the middle market developers to fold and allowing the Mega Publishers to consolidate. As we moved into the PS4/Xbone generation, the race to 4k exacerbated the problem and now even the Mega Publishers cannot keep up.

Fortunately, the next generation of console is not going to result in another resolution jump. Having to develop these Ultra HD assets and redesign engines to handle them is what drives up the cost of development. The next generation of hardware will give the developers the time to create the tools they should have had a decade ago to reduced the amount of effort needed to build these assets. It will also give them the flexibility to do less optimization to get games to run. By the end of the next generation of console, the industry will most likely stabilize again. Studio sizes will decrease, the number of studios will increase and the cost of development will become sustainable again. The ability to create AAA games will become more accessible.

Let's just hope no one does something stupid and try to skip a generation of power again.

 

[Interficium]

I know I'll probably get a ton of hatred for this, but... I don't understand why a really talented creative at this point would want to work on AAA titles for (most) AAA publishers. Most of the current AAA games seem to become GAAS titles, most of the time you'll have to implement Microtransactions or Lootboxes, most of the time you'll be VERY limited as to what you'll be able to do creatively since publishers (rightfully so) are scared to take too many risks on a 70-150m USD production and worst of all, most of the time YOUR creative input will be very much diluted since there are literally hundreds of people working on the product.

If this wouldn't be gaming, but cooking, It kinda feels like there are almost no high class restaurants anymore and now working in the AAA space feels more like running a McDonalds - No risk, do the same thing everyone else does (aka, follow the recent trend that makes money), really just worry about making as much money as possible and don't even try to be creative cause higher ups are scared to take risks.

Granted, there are exceptions on the publisher side, but these exceptions seem to become fewer and fewer.

So why would a REALLY talented person sign up for that? Especially since a lot of these AAA games are 3, 4, 5+ years in production, which is a long time to commit to something in your life.

We've been pretty lucky at Moon Studios that we now get to choose what titles we wanna make, we usually get full creative freedom and our partners usually trust us to know what we're doing. Granted, our budgets are a lot lower than what AAA Studios get, but it feels amazing that we can do what we really want to do and aren't stifled creatively. So I dunno, maybe it's too daunting for experienced AAA folks to start fresh with a new team? I just know I wouldn't be up for that ride, I'd rather make smaller stuff where I can make my own luck purely by how well I'm doing as a creative.

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This is a pretty weird flex to try and devalue and tear down your peers working at AAA game studios while simultaneously trying to promote your own studio.

Yeah, game devs at AAA studios are McDonalds employees, not like the true artists at Moon Studios. Perfect analogy.

Not a good look for you at all, dude. But then, given the first line of your post, you already knew that. The shocking thing is that you still chose to keep going after having that realization.

 

[duckroll]

Not a good look for you at all, dude.

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It's on par with pretty much anything he posts from what I can see.

 

[Interficium]

It's on par with pretty much anything he posts from what I can see.

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His post is openly skeptical that any "REALLY talented person" actually works at an AAA dev.

I wonder what his old coworkers at Blizzard think about that.

 

[Deleted member 36543]

She lost her edge after leaving Naughtydog. But I'm sure she's right. Next Gen will be even worst.

 

[Seeya]

She lost her edge after leaving Naughtydog. But I'm sure she's right. Next Gen will be even worst.

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She hasn't been able to release a game since then due to terrible circumstances

 

[Anthony Hopkins]

She lost her edge after leaving Naughtydog. But I'm sure she's right. Next Gen will be even worst.

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She lost her edge?

 

[Seeya]

His post is openly skeptical that any "REALLY talented person" actually works at an AAA dev.

I wonder what his old coworkers at Blizzard think about that.

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He's not saying that very talented people don't, he's saying that the proposition has become less and less logical from his perspective. I get how the post appears, but I don't think that's his actual intent beyond sharing the feeling of freedom and creative satisfaction he has working at High Moon studios.

I can totally understand that perspective to be fair. Small teams = a lot more of individual contributions for any team member as a whole.

 

[hibikase]

The writing has been on the wall ever since we started hearing about AAA games selling under 10 million to be considered as failures by their publishers.

This shit can't continue forever.

 

[Deleted member 36543]

She lost her edge?

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Yes she was a machine while working at ND. She's probably done with having to do that again. She's been in the business a long time.

 

[Seeya]

Nobody should care about what she thinks. Her achievements in video games are not outstanding compared to other than say AAA games matter and are the future.

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Wow.




Wow.

Yes she was a machine while working at ND. She's probably done with having to do that again. She's been in the business a long time.

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You...are basing these comments off of literally nothing and I'm willing to bet that you have no idea what Shen was working on post Naughty Dog. Every opinion you have on this is completely unsubstantiated.

 

[RedHeat]

Okay, so, what would be the hypothetical consequence for this? Will games like God of War go the way of the dodo and instead we'll be seeing more Hallow Knight's?

 

[Anthony Hopkins]

Yes she was a machine while working at ND. She's probably done with having to do that again. She's been in the business a long time.

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Hopefully she will find new areas where she can excell.
I doubt most devs want to be rocking and rolling do long hours and very high pressure all there lives.
She also might be right, even devs say they don't "crunch", great things are never easy, I bet devs at naughty dog, ssm, playground games etc had plenty of sleepless nights, 60hr + work weeks and lots of pressure.

 

[werezompire]

that tweet is older than the article

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The article is based on an interview from last month.

 

[Acorn]

Feel like people are taking her comments to mean it isn't sustainable monetarily when she's mostly talking for employees viewpoint, hence Union mention.

AAA is clearly sustainable for some(emphasis some) monetarily but the hollowing of the mid tier killed off a crazy amount of Devs, some that even attempted to move towards AAA died off. Success in AAA outside of mega franchises seems to be a uphill battle, if you make it the rewards are huge but if you don't you may end up not existing.

 

[Seeya]

The writing has been on the wall ever since we started hearing about AAA games selling under 10 million to be considered as failures by their publishers.

This shit can't continue forever.

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Publishers thinking that they can make games 'too big to fail' and throwing needless scale into the projects back end and marketing so that they can promise 'the next big thing' to vamperous shareholders is the problem there.

It was en vogue to blame gamers for demanding better and bigger back in the day, but we have long since passed that era into the one where companies are simply endlessly scaling up projects beyond what any gamer can really enjoy/engage with simply to bullshit shareholders and generate 'engagement pools' for MTX so that they can promise to beat last years revenue.

The human cost of all this gets lost, or rather ignored, and posters who are busy dismissing Amy Henneign for attack 'mah triple AH' only help to enable it.

 

[Deleted member 45414]

Nobody should care about what she thinks. Her achievements in video games are not outstanding compared to other than say AAA games matter and are the future.

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[Swig]

I work as a Product Manager in software development, but nothing to do with gaming.. I'd love to move into a role with a game developer, but the way that industry works scares the hell out of me. I'd have to be involved with an indie startup or something where I didn't feel like the parent company would just chop heads when they want to save money.

If I ever find something I feel comfortable with, I'd love to move into games/entertainment and away from enterprise software.

 

[Dr. Caroll]

It's crazy how people have suddenly forgotten that Uncharted 1-3 were crunch-driven, soul-sapping shitshows.

 

[John Omaha]

Hardcore gamers in general have been spoiled rotten and for all the blame that AAA publishers get for this trend, them audience themselves are equally to be blamed as well.

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I wouldn't call it spoiled. The big AAA publishers have been conditioning gamers to view graphics and production values as the most accurate indicator of the quality of a game since the beginning of the 7th gen. It was a concerted effort to steer the industry in a direction that is most advantageous for them, and this is simply the end result of the AAA or bust model.

 

[spineduke]

The article is based on an interview from last month.

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Ah, good to know - that said, her comments about nuance weren't being directed to this article. I really dislike Gameindustry.biz, but I found the article itself pretty reasonable with her assessments.

 

[Colossal Moo]

Maybe exectuvies don't "earning" so much money could be something to try out.

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Good executives are worth every penny you pay them. I know because I have worked for some of the bad ones and they are not worth one cent.

For example, the Michael Morhaime (the guy who used to run Blizzard) is worth a lot of money because he delivered the World of Warcarft series (RTS), the Starcraft series, the Diablo series, the World of Warcraft MMO (the greatest MMO of all time), Hearthstone and Overwatch. This guy was one of the best executives in the industry and he deserved his pay.

On the other hand, you do have a fair number executives who are over paid. A good example would any of EA's CEO after Larry Probst. EA seems like it has been in decline for years. On consoles, the only EA division which has successful launched a new franchise in the last two generations is Bioware (please correct me if I am wrong).

Executive pay is a tricky issue because running a large organization is a hard job and few people can do it. If someone can do it well, they usually deserve what they get (you can still over pay a good executive). Unfortunately, not everyone is good at their job and that goes for executives. A lot of them are OK, mediocre or just bad. Many of them are paid millions to screw up or produce sub-par results. I don't know a solution to the problem but I do know that knocking all executives (or all this or all that) isn't a solution.

I also know that good leaders keep organizations out of trouble. If you want to go through a layoff or you want your company, department or team to disapear, get a bad leader. They are great at making things worse.

 

[ivan.k]

putting profits first

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Every company putting profits first. Don't be delusional

 

[Dreams-Visions]

Hasn't Jim Sterling been saying this for quite some time now?

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Yes, he has. Jim is rarely wrong.

 

[Seeya]

It's crazy how people have suddenly forgotten that Uncharted 1-3 were crunch-driven, soul-sapping shitshows.

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I'm what way? It's in the interview.

 

[Seeya]

Sterling was right.

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Sterling is always right, much to the chagrin of people who are start eyed at the possibility of making it in the AAA space.

 

[behOemoth]

It's crazy how people have suddenly forgotten that Uncharted 1-3 were crunch-driven, soul-sapping shitshows.

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I think she is clearly stating how Naughty Dog, while beeing a big studio is doing more & more outsourcing to keep their quality.

 

[Deleted member 51539]

Okay, so, what would be the hypothetical consequence for this? Will games like God of War go the way of the dodo and instead we'll be seeing more Hallow Knight's?

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Hah I wish.

Not but really, Sony and Nintendo studios have the luxury to operate as loss leaders if necessary so I don't think their big games aren't going anywhere.

 

[LuckyLinus]

I think it will take the route of TV and movies.

As gaming is moving into subscription services and streaming I think we will see a higher volume of games made for smaller budgets by independent studios to be exclusive for those services, combined with some big inhouse studios for the blockbusters.

Sony, Microsoft, Google and Amazon (possibly some publisher like Bethesda, EA, Activision and Ubisoft as well) are likely to hold these services but its still Uncharted territory.

As for Nintendo I think they will be able to hold onto hardware and dominate the handheld/hybrid space for some time, atleast until real competition shows up.

 

[thomasmahler]

This is a pretty weird flex to try and devalue and tear down your peers working at AAA game studios while simultaneously trying to promote your own studio.

Yeah, game devs at AAA studios are McDonalds employees, not like the true artists at Moon Studios. Perfect analogy.

Not a good look for you at all, dude. But then, given the first line of your post, you already knew that. The shocking thing is that you still chose to keep going after having that realization.

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lol, way to totally misconstrue my thoughts.

The point wasn't that Moon is the only place where 'true artists' work, but that at this point in this industry, you can absolutely be a lot more creative if you work in an indie or a AA Studio. The budgets of games became bigger and bigger and yeah, you need a factory now to make a AAA game that can compete. And that work environment isn't necessarily where I'd see really talented creatives excel.

There's absolutely a place for AAA games and I also like playing them every once in a while, but I'm not sure why Henning is doing this to herself at this point. If I'd be in her shoes, I would've just started something smaller and focused on the fun of it again.

 

[thomasmahler]

His post is openly skeptical that any "REALLY talented person" actually works at an AAA dev.

I wonder what his old coworkers at Blizzard think about that.

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A lot of my old co-workers at Blizzard aren't at Blizzard anymore, that's what they think about that :)

 

[Deleted member 21326]

Iwata was right

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.

 

[Nightengale]

lol, way to totally misconstrue my thoughts.

The point wasn't that Moon is the only place where 'true artists' work, but that at this point in this industry, you can absolutely be a lot more creative if you work in an indie or a AA Studio. The budgets of games became bigger and bigger and yeah, you need a factory now to make a AAA game that can compete. And that work environment isn't necessarily where I'd see really talented creatives excel.

There's absolutely a place for AAA games and I also like playing them every once in a while, but I'm not sure why Henning is doing this to herself at this point. If I'd be in her shoes, I would've just started something smaller and focused on the fun of it again.

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Hennig is no longer in AAA. She's set up a small independent studio recently and is exploring VR.

She's not talking about her own game or studio plans yet though.

 

[thomasmahler]

Hennig is no longer in AAA. She's set up a small independent studio recently and is exploring VR.

She's not talking about her own game or studio plans yet though.

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Oh, I haven't heard about that yet. Good for her, Henning was always a smart lady.

 

[Budi]

I know I'll probably get a ton of hatred for this, but... I don't understand why a really talented creative at this point would want to work on AAA titles for (most) AAA publishers. Most of the current AAA games seem to become GAAS titles, most of the time you'll have to implement Microtransactions or Lootboxes, most of the time you'll be VERY limited as to what you'll be able to do creatively since publishers (rightfully so) are scared to take too many risks on a 70-150m USD production and worst of all, most of the time YOUR creative input will be very much diluted since there are literally hundreds of people working on the product.

If this wouldn't be gaming, but cooking, It kinda feels like there are almost no high class restaurants anymore and now working in the AAA space feels more like running a McDonalds - No risk, do the same thing everyone else does (aka, follow the recent trend that makes money), really just worry about making as much money as possible and don't even try to be creative cause higher ups are scared to take risks.

Granted, there are exceptions on the publisher side, but these exceptions seem to become fewer and fewer.

So why would a REALLY talented person sign up for that? Especially since a lot of these AAA games are 3, 4, 5+ years in production, which is a long time to commit to something in your life.

We've been pretty lucky at Moon Studios that we now get to choose what titles we wanna make, we usually get full creative freedom and our partners usually trust us to know what we're doing. Granted, our budgets are a lot lower than what AAA Studios get, but it feels amazing that we can do what we really want to do and aren't stifled creatively. So I dunno, maybe it's too daunting for experienced AAA folks to start fresh with a new team? I just know I wouldn't be up for that ride, I'd rather make smaller stuff where I can make my own luck purely by how well I'm doing as a creative.

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I get what you're saying, not to downplay any talent at AAA studios of course. Made me think of Lucas Pope, choosing to leave Naughty Dog to work on more creative and experimental projects. Which has worked really well for him (and for us who play games), especially his two latest releases with Papers Please and Return of the Obra Dinn. Two games that are entirely unique, while also being critically acclaimed and commercially succesful. I don't think there's much of a chance we would have got anything like those games, if Pope just kept churning out Uncharted after another. Uncharted games are really well made too of course, but essentially just typical blockbuster games that don't really offer anything new to the medium. But I think Pope as an example of the great things that can come when really talented people get to work on more personal projects with full freedom.

 

[Kathartic]

Anecdotaly, in the last year of every generation we have the same conversation: AAAs busines are not sustainable.

And then the next gen arrives with new tricks to make money and all are happy.

Except the ones that got fired or closed their studios. Remember when at 2010/11 studios closed left and right, we are again at this time now.

 

[Somni]

To think some people here believe the industry is healthy rite now. lol

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In some ways it is though. There are more smaller & indie developers that have access to engines like Unreal 4 and Unity than ever before. Being able to produce games at relatively lower costs, and being able to distribute to potentially wider audiences on multiple platforms.

That isn't to say there aren't plenty of issues plaguing the industry, particularly within the AAA sector as the Amy Hennig situation once again reminds us. Although it's not that black and white.

 

[Quacktion]

EA really did a number on her. Hope some day she'l get a project going again.

 

[s0l0kill]

So the answer is developers creating their own revolution?

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I believe self-publishing is the best route to a sustainable, creative studio, akin to CDPR

 

[Papacheeks]

I get what you're saying, not to downplay any talent at AAA studios of course. Made me think of Lucas Pope, choosing to leave Naughty Dog to work on more creative and experimental projects. Which has worked really well for him (and for us who play games), especially his two latest releases with Papers Please and Return of the Obra Dinn. Two games that are entirely unique, while also being critically acclaimed and commercially succesful. I don't think there's much of a chance we would have got anything like those games, if Pope just kept churning out Uncharted after another. Uncharted games are really well made too of course, but essentially just typical blockbuster games that don't really offer anything new to the medium. But I think Pope as an example of the great things that can come when really talented people get to work on more personal projects with full freedom.

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With regards to uncharted maybe not in gameplay, but the things that they do offer that is new is the story telling and characters no one has been able to replicate on that level. Maybe Rockstar with recent characters like Arthur. But even so, the animation, mo-cap and character interaction in showing emotions goes to naughty dog and those games. Especially if you played Uncharted 4 and lost legacy.

No one so far has been able to get to the level Naughty dog is at when it comes to mo-cap, and animation with tight writing. Red dead is great and arthur is an amazing character. But compare his interactions to that of Nathan drakes from Uncharted 4 or even Joel and ellie. The writing for the scenes is at such a high level everyone tries to strive for that. Which I think Red dead 2 does try and mostly achieves when it comes to characterization. But scene by scene naughty dog wins that.

And I think that's what keeps people like myself and others on these types of forums interested in their games even if the gameplay is something that isn't super special.

 

[Budi]

With regards to uncharted maybe not in gameplay, but the things that they do offer that is new is the story telling and characters no one has been able to replicate on that level. Maybe Rockstar with recent characters like Arthur. But even so, the animation, mo-cap and character interaction in showing emotions goes to naughty dog and those games. Especially if you played Uncharted 4 and lost legacy.

No one so far has been able to get to the level Naughty dog is at when it comes to mo-cap, and animation with tight writing. Red dead is great and arthur is an amazing character. But compare his interactions to that of Nathan drakes from Uncharted 4 or even Joel and ellie. The writing for the scenes is at such a high level everyone tries to strive for that. Which I think Red dead 2 does try and mostly achieves when it comes to characterization. But scene by scene naughty dog wins that.

And I think that's what keeps people like myself and others on these types of forums interested in their games even if the gameplay is something that isn't super special.

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Oh sure, but atleast for me Uncharted is bit more of a technical achievement than artistic one and technical achievement takes talent too obviously. I don't agree with the writing bit at all. Even at AAA space we have CD Projekt Red in example that writes excellent characters on their own right and not just their versions of already established characters in the Witcher books which are also great. Naughty Dog does have good writing too of course, but they're not in league of their own. Especially when we include AA or indie games to the comparison, there's plenty of studios that can do the same and then some. I haven't played RDR2 at all and watched only very little of it, so can't compare that to UC or TLOU. But I don't even have to, Rockstar isn't in a league of their own either. There's a lot of games praised for their writing/storytelling (not just by me I mean), Bioshock, Telltale games like The Wolf Among Us and The Walking Dead, Sunless Sea, Pillars of Eternity, Firewatch, Portal etc. Or much older games like Planescape Torment and Grim Fandango. And we do have a lot of visually impressive games too besides Rockstar and ND stuff, EA and Ubi in example keep releasing gorgeous games (no matter if one likes the games or not, they do look great). But we have nothing like Papers Please and Return of the Obra Dinn are as games. Even visually both games are very distinct. They don't have the animations and mocap of Naughty Dog of course, but I wasn't arguing they do. I was arguing that leaving ND opened the chance for Pope to do something experimental, personal, new and creative. I'd say Hellblade is up there atleast though, in regards of motion capture.

 

[BAD]

Ah, good to know - that said, her comments about nuance weren't being directed to this article. I really dislike Gameindustry.biz, but I found the article itself pretty reasonable with her assessments.

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Curious why you dislike the site? I'm actually not familiar with their other articles

 

[Dekuman]

Curious why you dislike the site? I'm actually not familiar with their other articles

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My pet peeve is they report UK market data with very generic headlines that confused people and you'll constantly get people inserting opinions based on those headlines

They seem to be.a UK centric publication but don't always make that clear.

 

[spam musubi]

This is a pretty weird flex to try and devalue and tear down your peers working at AAA game studios while simultaneously trying to promote your own studio.

Yeah, game devs at AAA studios are McDonalds employees, not like the true artists at Moon Studios. Perfect analogy.

Not a good look for you at all, dude. But then, given the first line of your post, you already knew that. The shocking thing is that you still chose to keep going after having that realization.

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I haven't seen posts from him for a while but a lot of his activity in the past few years was going into threads about other metroidvanias and criticizing them and propping up Ori. I mean, Ori is a great game, but yeah. The humble brag is the MO.

 

[K Samedi]

Maybe there's just too many AAA. Im glad the market is moving more towards mid tier and smaller titles again. The big future AAA will consist of a couple of GaaS market leaders and first party studio efforts. The rest will be indie and mid tier which is good. The creative forces show more in the smaller budget ranges.

 

[Imitation Of Life]

She has had her last two projects taken away (Uncharted 4) and cancelled. I'm not sure she is a good authority on what games are sustainable.

 

[Judge]

I think companies like EA and Activision have unsustainable AAA games by launching mediocre games and putting profits first.
But I think Ubisoft is actually doing quite well.

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This is how anyone who doesn't run a non-profit operate...

 

[Deleted member 15395]

The way I see it, she's not saying that AAA game development is unsustainable in an of itself but that the current model for developing the games is flawed. I'm inclined to agree with her.

 

[Interficium]

I haven't seen posts from him for a while but a lot of his activity in the past few years was going into threads about other metroidvanias and criticizing them and propping up Ori. I mean, Ori is a great game, but yeah. The humble brag is the MO.

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