Smaller games benefiting from a renaissance

Avalanche's studio development director believes that the growing market for casual games is creating a renaissance for smaller games.

"It's interesting to see what's happening with online communities and also there seems to be a much bigger market for casual games in the PC space in the future," Avalanche's Oskar Burman told GamesIndustry.biz.

"Flash-based games are becoming much stronger now, and I can see smaller games benefiting from a renaissance."

Avalanche, an independent studio which was founded in 2003, is probably best known for its first release - Just Cause. The company is currently working on a sequel, but is also working with other publishers on multiple projects so as not to be dependent upon a single customer.

"It's a common saying that it's impossible to start up a new games studio but I actually think there's never been a better time than now to be starting a games studio," he said.

Burman said that there were many different ways now into the games business, including small projects such as the one his company is doing with Emote - a social networking hunting game for the PC.

Fewer than ten people are working on the Emote project, which is a cooperative venture different from the traditional developer/publisher model.

"It's a pretty small project but it's very interesting because you can get much closer to the end consumer which is something I find is missing sometimes on the bigger titles."

Overall, Burman thinks that it's a good time to be independent.

"A lot of good studios have been bought up by publishers, but when we're out meeting publishers they actually really want to work with independent studios on new games.

"Publishers are really trying to find developers who can handle a big new project and that seems quite tricky for them. But as an independent there's always more risks, there are greater rewards and you're in control of your own destiny."

The complete interview with Oskar Burman is now available online.