"No room for B-games," says Ubisoft Montreal head
Yannis Mallat on next-gen trends, rising development costs, and managing a team of more than 2,700 people
If you're expecting the next generation of consoles to change everything, you may be a bit disappointed. Speaking with GamesIndustry International at the Game Developers Conference last month, Ubisoft Montreal CEO Yannis Mallat said he expects a continuation of market trends that have emerged in recent years.
"On one end of the spectrum you will have all the big, AAA blockbuster games that [offer] more and more production values, more value for the players, but there will be fewer of them taking a bigger chunk of the market," Mallat said.
On the other end of the spectrum, the developer said mobile initiatives, tablets, and Facebook will continue to bring in new customers to the gaming industry. The problem is with what falls in the middle of the spectrum.
"The in-between, the belly of the market, is the one that just collapsed in a way and disappeared," Mallat said. "Meaning there is no room for B-games, if I should say so, which proves the point of quality. I think that companies that put quality and consumer value as a primary focus, as we've been doing at Ubisoft, will enjoy great success."
"You gather as much talent as possible, and you give them three things: Trust, means, and insane challenges. Usually they come back with pretty good stuff."
Yannis Mallat
That's not to say the new consoles will have no impact; Mallat said the arrival of a new generation of consoles will bring with it new perspectives and innovations, giving the recently struggling packaged goods market some much-needed traction. It also means rising development costs, but Mallat said he's actually found those "very manageable" of late.
"It's a question of bringing quality content to the gamers and enjoying great success thanks to that," Mallat explained. "So it's OK to invest more when you get more in return."
He noted Ubisoft's strong performance last year, saying the company is investing a lot in new technology, but still managing costs the right way. He added that the way the publisher uses larger development teams and cross-studio collaboration has also resulted in productivity jumps.
As the head of both Ubisoft Montreal and Ubisoft Toronto, Mallat understands a bit about the logistics of managing those larger teams. The Montreal studio has roughly 2,400 developers, with another 300 or so in Toronto. When asked how he manages that many people, Mallat chalked it up to lean management and a bottom-up approach that empowers the creative talent.
"That's my recipe for AAA games," Mallat said. "You gather as much talent as possible, and you give them three things: Trust, means, and insane challenges. Usually they come back with pretty good stuff."
As for how big the studio can conceivably get before the current structure starts to break down, Mallat brushed the questions aside, saying, "I was asking myself the same question years ago when we were 1,400. Then I stopped asking myself that question, and we're still here and we're fine. I think it's working."
I really hope with Sony being much more open to self publishing (and maybe Microsoft also, who knows) in the next generation we can see the return of "B" games to consoles. There are a tonne of "B" games (PC & Mac) on Steam, Desura, etc that I'm sure are quite profitable for their respective developers.
When your a AAA publisher then obviously yes there's no room for B games, but that's only in your corporate structure and doesn't reflect the industry as a whole
But I understand their logic... they are in the "billions" part of this industry, not "millions". But it's like if James Cameron or Michael Bay said that there is no room for Woody Allen or Lars von Trier...
Edited 1 times. Last edit by Jakub Mikyska on 11th April 2013 4:37pm
Triple AAA certainly has nothing to do with the actual quality of content though. It just seems to mean the same thing as "blockbuster" which we all know, blockbuster movies can be bad.
At any rate, without any "B" games, all we'd see is a thousand sequels to squeeze as much money out of an IP as possible - to make it worthwhile for the publisher. I love lots of "B" games and I think it's safe to say those who call themselves gamers tend to enjoy many more B games than "AAA" games.
When I think AAA I think of a large publisher's flagship games. Like Call of Duty, Battlefield, Assassin's Creed, and on the JRPG side, Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts, that type of thing. But if, according to Ubisoft there's only room for like 10 AAA games a year, what do they expect us to play in the meantime? Ubi just seems to be high off their commercial success lately...
Edited 2 times. Last edit by Ajané Celestin-Greer on 11th April 2013 6:20pm
While we're at it I'll also take a stab at: "AAA blockbuster games that [offer] more and more production values, more value for the players," I'm hoping here that what he means is that AAA games offer more production value and more value for the players because the former most definitely does not equal the latter.
Like Darksiders 2 (I have NOT actually played or researched this, correct me if I am wrong.). I heard it's not that spectacular. I don't know about its development costs but I do believe it was meant to stand among other AAA-games.
I think in this article AAA-games are the super polished games and B-games are similar but without the polish. (would that make heavily bugged games B-games?)
I think the perfect example of a B-game is Deadly Premonition. It's very high on my to get list but it is easy to see not everyone would be as interested.
But that's just discussing semantics.
The point of the article, how i interpreted it, is that they can't afford to make unpolished games.
How many developers have we seen shuttered because companies were aiming for the #1 position in the sales race? How many executives let go? How many of these amazing, $100m budget games have to fail to "meet expectations" of 6m sales before executives learn that they're essentially playing Powerball?
Last I checked, all of those AAA games that came out last year, and Journey was the one that took home all of the awards.
because no two people are the same there is a market for games ranging from ZZZ to AAA, if you believe in such quality identifiers
no room for AAA games would mean Angry Birds should never have existed, but guess what.... I think what Mr Mallat is saying is the studios he works within are tasked and budgeted to make AAA games and righty so. But saying there is no room for them full-stop is misguided at best.
for those who ask "what is AAA", IMO it's a convenient quality description for publishers who like to attach a quality to their game, or to place their game within a tier that is "the very best". It is a widely used measure of quality in many areas of business and manufacture but the lines between the different leves are blurred.
Same issues within games perhaps
They keep blowing up development costs. Logic tells me that with so many tools avalable to make games, its supposed to be streamlined and easir, however groups keep being larger, budgets keep increasing... and then you have a game like Tomb Raider, Which was great, but cost 100 million to make and they expect to sell 10million to make a profit. I cant see that happening so fast.
But i look at games like Metal gear Solid 4, Uncharted:Drakes fortune, The original Assasins creed. Did they cost all 100million to make? All these games have high production values and great graphics and can compare to new games like Tomb Raider.
Its like the more money these people make, the more money they also burn. Why cant companies make new games without having to increase the development team size or go beyond there limits.
Anyway Im looking foward to that new remastered Duck Tales game. I bet that didnt cost 100million to make.
still, at least they worked the tax breaks to their advantage, and how...
And then, I read the "in-between, the belly of the market, is the one that just collapsed in a way and disappeared"? Really?
Jokes aside, considering the strategies adopted by big publishers these days, this sounds like a big unintentional irony to me.
Trying to retroactively apply fixed definitions to terms that grow in to use like this is probably rather pointless. It's a "you know what I mean" term whose real meaning is not the same in every use.