Big developers need to understand how to ”utilise the new medium, so to speak,” and build something for PSN and not do ”a big game.” It’s the ”hardest part” to adjust down to something small.
CEO Mikael Nermark was asked if they’re doing their own ‘Renegade Ops’, which Just Cause developer Avalanche released as a bite size digital title to keep them busy.
”We are actually doing it. Right now. That’s why I couldn’t walk you round floor six. We have a self-financed thing going on up there…,” laughed Mikael Nermark in a PSM3 interview, asking about a PSN title. He believes more studios and publishers will look to releasing smaller digital games to fill the gap between major releases.
”I think more developers will do it in the future but, for us being a AAA studio, we have to understand how to utilise the new medium, so to speak, and understand that we have to build a game for the PSN instead of trying to do a big game,” explained CEO Mikael Nermark.
”We can’t be that big when we’re making a PSN game. A big game can be anything between 120 to 200 staff, whereas a small project is one tenth of that, so you have to be able to understand how you handle your resources.”
”But yeah, I love what Avalanche are doing with Renegade Ops . I think that looks really good. The benefit of a small team, as I found out on Bionic Commando Rearmed, is that everyone has ownership. You can sit all ten people in one room, you don’t need a whiteboard, project management tools… you hardly need a producer,” laughed the studio boss.
Renegade Ops was a top-down shooter full of on-screen mayhem as we played a ragtag group fighting the private army of a madman holding the world hostage. It released for Xbox 360, PS3 and PC digitally.
”Okay, you need a producer, but you let the creatives run it and have a producer overseeing, making sure you hit goals. That’s all. You don’t lose a lot of time to nonsense. I think you understand what I mean…,” he added.
Starbreeze is developing EA’s reboot of Syndicate which takes the classic strategy game series for PC and turns it into a cyberpunk shooter for Xbox 360, PS3 and PC. Are you excited for the new direction of the IP?
Check out the full interview between Mikael Nermark and PSM3.