Quantic Dream’s Guillaume de Fondaumiere has given a revealing talk in which he talks about the balance of money and taking risks in the video game industry, as well as revealing that Sony hugely profited from Heavy Rain.
“Sony earned more than €100 million with this game,” he told the crowd at Digital Dragons in Poland.
“We should stop thinking that innovation rhymes with unprofitable,” he said. “Creating new experiences is also a way to expand the market.
“We need, as an industry, to be probably more creative, and probably stop creating, every year, the same games over again. Maybe create new IPs. We need publishers of course to take the risk to create new IPs. But we also need the audience to [vote with their wallets].
“What I would like to see is publishers taking more risks and have a balanced approach between the sequels they are financing year after year, and the new projects that they are developing, and this balanced approach will make for a more appealing industry overall.
“Today we are seeing a crisis. We are seeing a market that is in decline… there is a certain creative crisis that is, in part, the reason why some gamers are playing less”.
Quantic Dream have always been pioneers of pushing the boundaries of story telling in video games and they are the perfect example how much money you can make if you get it right. Maybe more studios should take a similar approach and then games might be taken more seriously as a medium and more people can start playing in new immersible worlds.
Do you agree that the industry needs to take more risks? Let me know in the comments below.
