Industry shifting from AAA to aaa titles in near future, believes Splinter Cell: Blacklist director
The current state of the gaming industry and market is considered deplorable by many analysts, who criticise big publishers and renowned developers for not giving enough attention to creativity and originality.
Franchises such as Call of Duty, Assassin’s Creed and Mass Effect have earned critical acclaim already and therefore game makers are more than happy to stick to these brands, milking them for maximum benefit while discouraging too much creativity to be injected
in these games due to the fear that the gamers would reject their efforts if the new creative content fails to appeal to them.
Currently working on the development of a blockbuster title himself, the director of Splinter Cell: Blacklist Patrick Redding is of the opinion that the time is not too far away for a game model featuring more systemic depth to become more popular than AAA
titles on consoles.
Sharing his views during the Gamercamp festival in Toronto, he said that even though the publishers and developers are utilising majority of their resources in reaping benefit off an established blockbuster franchise, they will soon be forced to change their
approach and step out of their comfort zone.
According to him, a great deal of attention is given to graphics, content creation and production value during the development of the game at this time.
However, the priorities will change and developers will start focusing more on the systemic depth of the game instead of the things that they had been focusing on earlier.
He also noted that the new model of games, which he termed as “aaa titles,” will allow smaller studios to step into the competition, thus challenging the dominance of the renowned studios in the market as the battle will be fought through creativity instead
of who has more resources at their disposal.
"The market as a whole is going to undergo a critical shift in priorities, a shift away from the absolute primacy of graphics and production values and content creation toward systemic depth," Redding said, adding, "This trend is going to trigger a reality
check for developers like me who work on established franchises with a large succession of sequels, and it's also going to be a call-to-arms for smaller game creators, including a number of people who are sitting in this room, I hope."
Redding picked Minecraft as a perfect example of an “aaa title” and said that games based on the model focusing on systemic depth would give players greater freedom to decide how they want to play a game and their decisions will consequently determine the
direction in which the story flows.
The director of the upcoming title in the Splinter Cell franchise admitted that even though the game is still a blockbuster title, it will feature plenty of elements associated with what he terms as “aaa titles.”
Games with focus on things other than graphics, production value and content creation are not the only ones that seem to be growing in popularity.
Another model known as free-to-play is also becoming increasingly popular. It allows gamers to get the taste of the experience on offer for free, getting access to the basic elements of the game while being asked to pay only when they really embrace the
game and wish to have access to additional content to enhance their experience even further.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are solely of the writer’s and do not reflect bettor.com’s official editorial policy.
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