The Future of Game Development

In the book Press Reset: Ruin and Recovery in the Video Game Industry by Jason Schreier, the author discussed the future of video game development.

I will tell you: small studios with specific specialties:

“‘I think the future is going to be: there’s a small team in charge of the creative vision, and then all of the other work is outsourced,’ This is one vision of a sustainable model for video game development: dedicated outsourcing houses that a group of core creative leads can hire as needed.”

… and the current state-of-practice:

“That’s part of why studios shut down - they say, ‘Well, we don’t need this whole gigantic team of people behind games, so we’re just going to [lay off] and then we’ll rehire later’.”

… and the culture of estimation:

“many [developers] of whom tend to overestimate their skills and underestimate the challenges they have to face.””

… and not everything can be outsourced

“The line of outsourceability is inversely related to how close to the player experience you get”

This is an opinion from an reporter, not a game dev or even an academic. But he is covering the game industry for years. All in all it is an interesting take.