[PCGamer] Former Arkane boss on why he left triple-A: 'You're not making a game anymore, you're making a product'; Talks about dev on Weird West

[stormfire]

Raphael Colantonio founded Arkane in 1999, led it through Arx Fatalis and Dark Messiah of Might and Magic, and then hit the big time in 2012 with Dishonored and its multiple expansions and sequels. But after the release of Prey in 2017, he packed it all in, saying he wanted to step back from the industry and "reflect on what is important" to him and his future.

Now he's back, with a new operation, WolfEye Studios, and a new game, the isometric action-RPG Weird West.

"Our passion and our ambitions are very high, and we want to succeed and we want to make a game that people enjoy," he said. "But at the same time, we can take more risks, and we are less worried about the market than we would be if we were doing a triple-A game. Because the numbers to recoup a triple-A game, you're talking about numbers that are so high that, then you're not making a game anymore, you're making a product."

"Plus I was so tired in general, I just wanted to take a break and focus on other things," he said. "So it was extremely, extremely liberating to leave a company that, in spite of all the passion and love I had for it, at the same time it had been an 18 year chunk of my life."

And while the urge to make games returned after some time away, a desire to go back to big-budget productions has most definitely not. "There was no way I wanted to come back to triple-A, making another thing where you focus 90 percent of your efforts on having the feet not sliding on the floor," said Colantonio. "This is not what I'm making games for."

More at:

Former Arkane boss on why he left triple-A: 'You're not making a game anymore, you're making a product'

Arkane founder Raphael Colantonio talks Weird West, immersive sims, and why he doesn't want to go back to big budgets.

www.pcgamer.com

 

[Strings]

Probably should have kept the title as 'why he left' instead of changing it to present tense.

 

[Łazy]

Very good for them. Hope it works well.

 

[orzkare]

Arkane 's titles are AAA ?

 

[Kalor]

He's been gone for a while so should have used the past tense. The title makes it sound like it just happened.

 

[Com_Raven]

Probably should have kept the title as 'why he left' instead of changing it to present tense.

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Yeah, I was confused and thought someone else had left now.

 

[808s & Villainy]

Sort of a strange choice of title considering the article had a better one and he left some time ago

 

[Shelbyville Milhouse]

Thought this was about Harvey Smith from the title (tho I don't know if he is actually a boss at Arkane)

 

[Patitoloco]

Arkane 's titles are AAA ?

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Of course they are?

 

[Edge]

Shouldn't the headline be "Former Arkane boss returns to the video game industry" instead of something he already did in 2017 while the article is about him returning to creating games?

 

[SJRB]

Arkane 's titles are AAA ?

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...are you serious right now?

 

[Nugnip]

You shouldn't have changed the title, this happened months ago. The article is still interesting.

 

[Westbahnhof]

Arkane 's titles are AAA ?

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What made you think Dishonored 2, Prey and Wolfenstein: Youngblood weren't AAA? Deathloop, too.

 

[Naga]

Left*

And yeah, that's the same reason that everyone leaving AAA development gives.

 

[Com_Raven]

What made you think Dishonored 2, Prey and Wolfenstein: Youngblood weren't AAA? Deathloop, too.

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In that users defense, Arkane's games are probably on the lower end of what we think of in terms of "AAA" for budget, especially their marketing, which is nowhere near some of the bigger brands. That has nothing to do with the quality of their games, which is pretty much always excellent (and I expect Deathloop will be very good as well)!

 

[Anustart]

I wouldn't even consider budget in my definition of triple a. More just the production value. But I guess it's different for a lot of people.

 

[Lowrys]

Thought this was about Harvey Smith from the title (tho I don't know if he is actually a boss at Arkane)

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He leads at least one of their studios.

 

[Haze]

Interesting. A few days ago people in another thread were very adamant about how big AAA budgets and resources equate to being able to take more risks.

 

[Sabretooth]

I had a near heart attack thinking Harvey Smith left the studio. Colantonio leaving is pretty old news, and his game is very far along now too.

 

[Com_Raven]

I wouldn't even consider budget in my definition of triple a. More just the production value. But I guess it's different for a lot of people.

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Isn't budget traditionally THE main factor when discussing if something is "AAA" or not? Since budget numbers (assuming they are communicated, of course) are an objective value, whereas most other factors are often more subjective (like the classic art style vs visual fidelity).

 

[Patitoloco]

Interesting. A few days ago people in another thread were very adamant about how big AAA budgets and resources equate to being able to take more risks.

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It depends on the publisher at the end. Some publishers are more lenient on what they let their teams try.

I think very few publishers would have allowed Arkane to create such different and "against the market" games as Dishonored, Prey or what Deathloop looks like it is. Bethesda is good about that (or at least, better than most big publishers), it's a shame on the other hand they dedicate exactly 0$ for marketing.

Arkane, in Activision for example, would be creating COD maps until they disappeared.

 

[Donniewahlberg]

This was at the game awards last year right? Looking forward to it, i pretty much love everything this guy has worked on. Also never forget #presssneakfuck

 

[Messofanego]

I wish the videogame industry allowed breaks between games, too.

"This is an industry, right, it's not a hobby, and as an industry it's set up in a way that you can't breathe," said Colantonio. "You can't take a rest, you have to keep going and going and going. I think in the movie industry at least, which I don't know much about, but I have this idea of the movie industry, this fantasy, where movie directors, they do a movie and then they take a break. They're like, well, I don't know what I'm going to do next, let me breathe for awhile, let me not do anything for three years. And then they have the passion, it comes back—'Oh my god, I would like to talk about this thing.' And I wish games was sort of this way. Instead they're set up like a car factory, where, you know, after Model 3 we have to start thinking about Model 4. What a way to kill creativity and the juice of a creative person."​

 

[ResetGreyWolf]

I wouldn't even consider budget in my definition of triple a. More just the production value. But I guess it's different for a lot of people.

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AAA is literally about the size of the budget. How would you even classify "production value"? By using such a vague definition, you turn what could be a somewhat objective definition into a blatantly subjective definition, which makes no sense.

 

[Com_Raven]

I wish the videogame industry allowed breaks between games, too.

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Worth pointing out that Hollywood directors are usually not employed by the studio, and so no one has to pay them on their break, I think? So the gaming equivalent would be to ship a game, leave the company, take a creative break and come back with a new project and company.

 

[Anustart]

Isn't budget traditionally THE main factor when discussing if something is "AAA" or not? Since budget numbers (assuming they are communicated, of course) are an objective value, whereas most other factors are often more subjective (like the classic art style vs visual fidelity).

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Even with budget numbers, the dollar amount where a person places triple a at is subjective as well. We don't have a defined x dollars = triple a. So even that doesn't work really.

So really it's up to the Individual anyway to define it for themselves? Any arkane game I've played I'd define as AAA, and still would if say in some fantasy world where all game dev costs were what they are but somehow Arkane made it for 5 bucks.

 

[pswii60]

It's why I find indies so much more interesting these days. For example, I bought Creaks on a hunch last night and saw more creativity and soul in the first 5 minutes of that game than I have in a long time.

That said, I would argue Arkane's games are way more unique and interesting that the majority of AAA stuff.

 

[ZeoVGM]

Arkane 's titles are AAA ?

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That was your takeaway from the article?

 

[Alienware]

Isn't budget traditionally THE main factor when discussing if something is "AAA" or not? Since budget numbers (assuming they are communicated, of course) are an objective value, whereas most other factors are often more subjective (like the classic art style vs visual fidelity).

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Yeah, definitely this.
I don't think there's much room for other interpretations of the term, it's about the budget invested in the development of the game and also of the marketing.

And I can understand why one would feel like Arkane would be on the lower end of this, despite making amazing games.

 

[MnM]

Arkane 's titles are AAA ?

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That's news to me, too.

 

[Xando]

Arkane 's titles are AAA ?

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In a world where everything not indie is AAA maybe.

They always seemed like the typical AA dev to me

 

[Com_Raven]

And I can understand why one would feel like Arkane would be on the lower end of this, despite making amazing games.

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That is really the crucial part. I frequently see people who think that saying something is not AAA is a slight on its quality, which is of course not true at all. AAA is about the budget, as we all know, you can find both great and poor games at any budget levels. In Arkane's case, their output is usually top tier!

 

[Magic Mushroom]

In a world where everything not indie is AAA maybe.

They always seemed like the typical AA dev to me

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Something like Earth Defense Force is AA, not Arkane's games, which have Hollywood stars like Rosario Dawson and Benedict Wong attached to them.

 

[Apenheul]

I fully understand his position, it's the primary reason many senior developers at some point leave the AAA industry. I was talking to a former colleague/friend of mine who's a video game producer at a large development studio and he said he missed the 'good old days' when we (we worked together in the early 2000s) were overambitious to a fault but cared so much about what we were making that our heart and soul went into game design and development. At some point when a studio becomes large and projects take more than four years to finish chances are you loose emotional connection to that what you're creating. As a game artist you might still feel really proud of a character model or prop that you went all out on because the passion can definitely be found in the details, but in producer and director roles you often have a very different perspective and things seem to move at glacial pacing while time just flies by.

To add to the budget rating discussion I'll just provide an example from a project I worked on in the early 2000s. With a team of 20 people on average (it started with about 10 people and grew to about 30 people over time) we created a prototype for a new 3rd person game that our producer sent to several large publishers. From some of those publishers we would receive a report which detailed how much they were willing to invest in development, how much they would invest in marketing, if it had franchise-potential and the expected return of investment; and that all combined (though maybe there were additional factors to it) would determine the rating. So yes, the rating has nothing to do with quality and production values are only a part of the rating; a game with very high production values can still have a AA rating, and game with low production values can still have a AAA rating.

 

[Dphex]

Raphael Colantonio is one of my favourite "gaming personalities", i have high hopes for Weird West that it will feel fresh and unique. that being said i am also looking forward to Deathloop as the recent Arkane titles didn´t come off as "products" like other AAA games.

could very well be that Deathloop marks a change for Arkane though if it is a bigger success than Prey or Dishonored 2 we all know where it will lead:more streamlining, less immersive sim, more action.

 

[Alienware]

That is really the crucial part. I frequently see people who think that saying something is not AAA is a slight on its quality, which is of course not true at all. AAA is about the budget, as we all know, you can find both great and poor games at any budget levels. In Arkane's case, their output is usually top tier!

Click to shrink...

Yeah. Anthem is the definition of a AAA for example, doesn't stop it from being a mediocre game.

 

[Tora]

"There was no way I wanted to come back to triple-A, making another thing where you focus 90 percent of your efforts on having the feet not sliding on the floor," said Colantonio. "This is not what I'm making games for."

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People on this forum complain about things like that, I don't blame him lol

 

[Xando]

Something like Earth Defense Force is AA, not Arkane's games, which have Hollywood stars like Rosario Dawson and Benedict Wong attached to them.

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So you're saying broken age is AAA because it had Elijah Wood in it?

 

[Magic Mushroom]

So you're saying broken age is AAA because it had Elijah Wood in it?

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Oh, there are exceptions to every rule. But Arkane's games are AAA through and through. Some people only seem to think a game is AAA if it has Rockstar or Naughty Dog budgets and production value.

 

[HStallion]

In that users defense, Arkane's games are probably on the lower end of what we think of in terms of "AAA" for budget, especially their marketing, which is nowhere near some of the bigger brands. That has nothing to do with the quality of their games, which is pretty much always excellent (and I expect Deathloop will be very good as well)!

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That seems more of an issue with their particular publisher considering they don't seem to advertise anything but Elder Scrolls and Fall Out.

 

[test_account]

Is the movie industry like he think it is? That directors take a few year breaks and then come back? Honest question. I guess that might be the case for the directors themself, while the other people working on the movies (as in not directors and producers) need to work on a more steady/planned schedule.

I'm curious if there were something that he wanted to include in Dishonored and/or Prey, but didnt do because he thought it was too risky in terms of affecting the sales of the game(s) in a negative way. But its understandable if he felt more pressure for a game to be a commercial success considering the time and resources being put into a big production game, and working on a smaller scale means that he has less of those worries. I'm looking forward to see how Wierd West will end up doing. Good luck to the developers further on! :)

 

[Nardy_19]

All things considered, his games still took more risks than the average AAA game.

 

[monmagman]

It's a bit weird him saying the "product" thing given Arkane's games don't come off like that at all....they are deep system driven games that put gameplay over any of the AAA mtx laden bullshit we see so often these days.

 

[Com_Raven]

That seems more of an issue with their particular publisher considering they don't seem to advertise anything but Elder Scrolls and Fall Out.

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True, though marketing budgets don't exist in a vacuum. They are often tied to the production budget, which in turn of course takes the sales projections into account. So it seems that Bethesda doesn't believe that spending more on marketing would necessarily lead to much higher sales (Arkane's games are clearly aimed at core gamers anyways).

 

[Quad Lasers]

Tfw executive sneak fucks make you call your System Shock game "Prey"

 

[Deleted member 46804]

Raphael Colantonio is one of my favourite "gaming personalities", i have high hopes for Weird West that it will feel fresh and unique. that being said i am also looking forward to Deathloop as the recent Arkane titles didn´t come off as "products" like other AAA games.

could very well be that Deathloop marks a change for Arkane though if it is a bigger success than Prey or Dishonored 2 we all know where it will lead:more streamlining, less immersive sim, more action.

Click to shrink...

I feel like Prey and Dishonored had hype that Deathloop lacks currently. I'll be very interested to see how it performs. It should be helpful launching on a platform that will have few PS5 specific titles.

 

[Deleted member 46804]

Tfw executive sneak fucks make you call your System Shock game "Prey"

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You have to make money back on that IP investment. lol

 

[CloseTalker]

Whatever makes him happy, I suppose. To his credit, I feel like Arkane made some of the least "product-like" AAA games around.

 

[kamineko]

this is true, but... only large corporations can afford to finance AAA, right? isn't that was large corporations do?

 

[Pyro]

Read this yesterday. Its interesting how he says there are a lot of parallels between Weird West and his past first-person immersive sims. Still not much of a PC player but I'll definitely keep it on my radar.