Deadline Games is an independent game developer. Chris Mottes, the CEO of the company, believes that many game companies have taken the safe route by hanging onto franchises and sticking to worn-out game ideas instead of being innovative and progressive.
Mottes said, "I have to worry about the fact that this industry is so immature commercially that it sticks hard and fast to a model which crushes the innovative independent forces."
He sees the situation as a vicious cycle in which publishers are afraid to try new ideas and instead, fall back on franchises or tie-in games to movies as their sources of inspiration.
"…publishers are going to be left in a situation where they’re going to be more and more reliant on IPs from external sources like movies and TV series’ and so on. The games industry is going to become a secondary market in itself for other industries rather than a primary IP developing industry and that’s going to kill, or at least limit the growth of the industry hugely."
Mottes said that the problem lies with the mindset of the people who run the game companies–they are too reserved and cautious when it comes to trying new avenues.
"When I meet publishers, to a large extent, they are very driven by what has sold in the past rather than by expanding the market. My big worry is that the core gamer market, the market which has previously driven growth in the industry, is going to slowly dissipate as people get disappointed by the lack of originality in our industry."
The view of Mottes is rather bleak, but as evidenced by the strong games coming out from the major game publishers last year, hopefully the future of gaming won’t "slowly dissipate." And that won’t happen as long as game developers don’t sit on their laurels.
[via next-gen]
