cormack12
Gold Member
Secret Source: https://www.pcgamer.com/former-arka...making-a-game-anymore-youre-making-a-product/
...after the release of Prey in 2017, Raphael Colantonio packed it all in, saying he wanted to step back from the industry and "reflect on what is important" to him and his future.
"Usually I do games that are pretty confined, in an enclosed environment, where it's all about exploring a hostile environment, whether it's in Arx or Prey. Dishonored was a little bit different because it was mission to mission, but still, it was not like an open world. This time we're doing an open world thing, but the values are very similar to immersive sims the way we've always done them."
"I think a lot of people are fine with—happy, actually, maybe they feel safer—playing in games that are more channeled, that are more in a canyon, a very controlled experience, very prescribed," he said. "And then there's a cinematic that tells them a bit of story and they feel good about it, and then it keeps going and they kill a few more monsters, and then it stops again with another cinematic. I don't get that, it's not my thing.
"Our passion and our ambitions are very high, and we want to succeed and we want to make a game that people enjoy," he said. "But at the same time, we can take more risks, and we are less worried about the market than we would be if we were doing a triple-A game. Because the numbers to recoup a triple-A game, you're talking about numbers that are so high that, then you're not making a game anymore, you're making a product."
And while the urge to make games returned after some time away, a desire to go back to big-budget productions has most definitely not. "There was no way I wanted to come back to triple-A, making another thing where you focus 90 percent of your efforts on having the feet not sliding on the floor," said Colantonio. "This is not what I'm making games for."
"This is an industry, right, it's not a hobby, and as an industry it's set up in a way that you can't breathe," said Colantonio. "You can't take a rest, you have to keep going and going and going. I think in the movie industry at least, which I don't know much about, but I have this idea of the movie industry, this fantasy, where movie directors, they do a movie and then they take a break. They're like, well, I don't know what I'm going to do next, let me breathe for awhile, let me not do anything for three years. And then they have the passion, it comes back—'Oh my god, I would like to talk about this thing.' And I wish games was sort of this way. Instead they're set up like a car factory, where, you know, after Model 3 we have to start thinking about Model 4. What a way to kill creativity and the juice of a creative person."
...after the release of Prey in 2017, Raphael Colantonio packed it all in, saying he wanted to step back from the industry and "reflect on what is important" to him and his future.
"Usually I do games that are pretty confined, in an enclosed environment, where it's all about exploring a hostile environment, whether it's in Arx or Prey. Dishonored was a little bit different because it was mission to mission, but still, it was not like an open world. This time we're doing an open world thing, but the values are very similar to immersive sims the way we've always done them."
"I think a lot of people are fine with—happy, actually, maybe they feel safer—playing in games that are more channeled, that are more in a canyon, a very controlled experience, very prescribed," he said. "And then there's a cinematic that tells them a bit of story and they feel good about it, and then it keeps going and they kill a few more monsters, and then it stops again with another cinematic. I don't get that, it's not my thing.
"Our passion and our ambitions are very high, and we want to succeed and we want to make a game that people enjoy," he said. "But at the same time, we can take more risks, and we are less worried about the market than we would be if we were doing a triple-A game. Because the numbers to recoup a triple-A game, you're talking about numbers that are so high that, then you're not making a game anymore, you're making a product."
And while the urge to make games returned after some time away, a desire to go back to big-budget productions has most definitely not. "There was no way I wanted to come back to triple-A, making another thing where you focus 90 percent of your efforts on having the feet not sliding on the floor," said Colantonio. "This is not what I'm making games for."
"This is an industry, right, it's not a hobby, and as an industry it's set up in a way that you can't breathe," said Colantonio. "You can't take a rest, you have to keep going and going and going. I think in the movie industry at least, which I don't know much about, but I have this idea of the movie industry, this fantasy, where movie directors, they do a movie and then they take a break. They're like, well, I don't know what I'm going to do next, let me breathe for awhile, let me not do anything for three years. And then they have the passion, it comes back—'Oh my god, I would like to talk about this thing.' And I wish games was sort of this way. Instead they're set up like a car factory, where, you know, after Model 3 we have to start thinking about Model 4. What a way to kill creativity and the juice of a creative person."
