Josef Fares isn’t a business man. He leaves most of that to Hazelight COO Oskar Wolontis. But he stresses the importance of having a balance between the commercial and the creative. He cites the Friend Pass, which is the system that allows two people to play Hazelight’s games online even if only one person has a copy.
If there’s one thing that does concern him about publishers in general, then it’s their penchant for chasing trends. He tells us he’s “generally optimistic” about where the industry is heading, but is somewhat concerned by the excitement around AA games.
“You do hear, after the success of things like Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, that the AA games are taking over. But I would not be able to live without a AAA title. I really want to play the blockbuster games. You can’t do GTA for $10 million. We need both. It’s important not to get stuck in ideas, like AA is a new thing, or indie is a new thing, or ‘blah, blah, blah’ is a new thing. We need the diversity. I hope that publishers don’t just look at a game like Expedition, which has been super successful, and think, ‘oh, AA is a new thing. Let’s only do that.’ I don’t believe in that. You had a huge amount of AA games that came this year, which nobody cared about. Let’s remember that.”
I pointed out that it’s a lot harder to take risks at AAA level.
“I would argue that, actually, Naughty Dog is pushing the envelope of innovation with a AAA budget,” he counters. “I would argue Rockstar is doing it. Nintendo is, most of the time, doing it. So you can do a big AAA title but also take innovative risks.
“But once you go over a $100 million dollar budget, you’re going to be like, ‘okay, shit. There’s a lot of money on the table’. People are more scared. It’s understandable. But it’s proven that you can do it.”
Posted by mrnicegy26
5 Comments
The problem with this quote is that 90% of AAA developers don’t want to take risks. It’s way easier for a company to try new things when their game has a smaller scope or budget, compared to a title that NEEDS to hit 20 million sold for it to be a success.
It’s funny how he got known for his humorous and energetic personality at the TGAs, but every time he gives an interview it becomes clearer he has a deep and complete understanding of the industry. His success comes from him simply knowing his shit, knowing how to please the audience he wanted to hit from the very beginning, his games are stories that only work because they revolve completely around creative gameplay.
I just read an article about It Takes Two hitting 27 million copies “but it could have hit much more if not the Friend Pass”, but that’s simply wrong. His games sell so much BECAUSE of things like that. Even trophy/achievement hunting in his games are fun, they’re not the usual “play along and you get them”, you have to go out of your way to find little secrets and easter eggs and there are quite a handful of those in each game
The key to making great games is that to have actual gamers as part of the development team. Josef Fares is a gamer. He was super confident that his game will be amazing, because he’s a gamer and he knows what gamers want
I’m so so glad he said everything he did about that game. The discourse around it has been insane. I especially like that he pointed out a bunch of great AA games also released last year and were ignored. AA and great is no more a shortcut to success than AAA.
Smart man. This circlejerk around indie games with people acting as if every indie is a passion project has gotten tiring. Not every AAA game is slop, and not every indie is some hidden gem.