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The publishing side went big because of the rachet of financial leverage and consolidation. From their perspective, because a big game is predicted to earn more, and because investment will chase higher returns, they have to say they'll go big to get any investors on board. The publishers that can stay small have to bootstrap, which makes them unattractive as sources of funding. It's not being driven by consumers that assume a production with 4000 people involved is strictly better than one with 3 people, it's the funnelling effect of all the money coming from more speculative sources that have no motive to consider industry health holistically - which is a macro-economic problem. You can learn about the early days of this from Matt Barton's interview series with Robert Sirotek, particularly the last part[0]. Sir-Tech ran sustainably, by Robert's assessment, and consistently shipped smaller productions, but a shake-out occurred in the 90's. At first it was primarily coming from retailers who wanted things done their way to get a placement, squeezing out lower-cap players and imposing drop-dead ship dates on the developers. But it's reasserted itself a few times in a few different ways, since then, and is now pretty clearly tied to the industry being in a dilemma of either getting no investment, or endless amounts, with a promise of making 100x that, which ultimately reflects the decades-long asset bubble and increasing use of "free money" federal lending. If they don't promise those kinds of returns, someone else takes the funding. So, the market is actually scrambling to figure out what to do with the investment tap cut off right now. Embracer Group, one of the biggest consolidators of the last cycle, reported troubling finances last quarter and has started closing studios. It's become a "lowering tide, see who swims naked" market. [0] https://mattbarton.net/?tag=robert-sirotek |