Jacob Navok, former commercial director of Square Enix, appreciates that the industry has been “hardened” and Triple A is no longer trying to attract young people
The current situation in the industry and the general perception of some of its controversial decisions have caused heated discussions in the networks. In this context, Yaakov Navakformer director of business development at Square Enix and current director of Silent Hill: Ascension, brought to the table a critical issue for the industry: the need adjust prices video games more than 70 dollars.
Navok, who worked at Square Enix for five years and now heads Genvid Technologies, offered a detailed analysis of the current challenges facing AAA video game developers in response to the failed expectations of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, Final Fantasy XVI and Foamstars. The manager, as JeuxVideo colleagues correctly reported, explained on Twitter that budgets for big names like the above They were solved at a time he calls “pre-Fortnite”.
At that time Art Sales forecasts and setting the date launches were carried out under Art the view that the audience will continue to grow indefinitely and they will be attracted to the game for a constant period of time. However, with the advent of continuous service, games are loved battle royale since Epic Games, the landscape has changed dramatically.
The popularity of these free games with continuous service models The dynamics of video game consumption have changed. Players, especially the youngest, They no longer want to spend large sums in new games when they can access free games that offer constant and interesting content. It’s “significantly reduces the market for new AAA titles,” Navok adds.
Triple A’s survival is in jeopardy
In fact, one of the most critical points that Navok highlights is the difficulty of balancing development costs with revenue generated. The development of AAA games has greatly increased due to graphical demands, detailed animations and other technological improvements, something that creates a completely unequal situation for it. As quoted, of the €70 a consumer pays for a video gameespecially when talking about a big project.”only €49 is returned to the publisher net of platform costs.
That said, the manager offers three possible solutions increase return on investment, one of them extremely controversial and that many have criticized: increase the price. And according to the quote, the other two are complicated, to say the least. “Cutting costs is difficult because of inflation and the high quality standards needed to achieve high Metacritic ratings, and expanding the audience is difficult because the number of consumers is not growing significantly,” so he believes the price of these games must rise. .
Of course, Soon Navok wanted to be careful and mentioned that this is not because companies want to disproportionately increase their profit margins, but because “it’s the only way to do AAA game development remains steady in such a competitive market,” he added.
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