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One of the most successful console developers of our generation has warned that the traditional core games audience as we know it "isn’t really expanding much".
The confession comes after Insomniac Games – the creators of IP such as Ratchet & Clank and Resistance – announced the formations of its new social games division Insomniac Click earlier this week.
"That core audience isn’t really expanding much and the total dollars each core gamer spends isn’t going up," chief creative officer Brian Hastings told CasualGaming.biz.
"So as triple-A budgets inflate, each developer has to steal players away from other games in order to simply keep their revenues above their costs. The only long term viable solution for all parties would be to expand the audience.
"I’m not in the doom-and-gloom camp in terms of the health of the console market, but I do think it’s becoming increasingly challenging in that space. It’s getting to the point where only the very best triple-A console games are profitable.
"And, of course, it’s increasingly expensive to make the very best games. So not every developer can survive.
"The main reason I believe it’s important – even necessary – to expand into the social sector is that there is simply a bigger audience there. Because triple-A games are necessarily complex they have a fairly predefined audience of core gamers.
"But they’re not giving away free money in the social and mobile space either. You still have to compete with the other top teams in the industry."
To read the full interview, click here.
