It's not difficult to be profitable in the industry as long as you properly manage the development process and set you expectations accordingly. Big developers and publishers have only themselves to blame for the hole they've dug themselves into regarding this. They try to make every single game they release into a massive blockbuster success that sells millions of copies, and then they budget the game and its marketing on these massive expectations.
All this leads to are things like Dead Space 3, which EA tried to turn into their next Battlefield size franchise, completely failing to understand what people actually wanted from the series. It wasn't enough that Dead Space was a decent success that brought in a nice profit. They changed the franchise to a more action oriented fare, becoming just another 3rd person shooter largely indistinguishable from the rest of its kind, and then when it failed to attract the mass audience EA wanted the series was killed as a result.
What really needs changing is the design and marketing philosophies of big publishers. Its absolutely ridiculous that Square Enix can say they were disappointed by the Tomb Raider reboot selling "only" 3.4 million copies within four weeks of release, and then people saying that the problem is the price of games. The microtransactions, on-disc DLC, and the like are not a result of companies not making money, they just want to make more of it.
During the previous fiscal year (April 2015-March 2016) Square Enix, Ubisoft and EA all saw increased revenues and net income, and while Activision's was down, they still made $2.2 billion in revenue. Companies not making money is most definitely not the problem here.
Existing User Log In
New User Registration
Register for a free account to gain full access to the VGChartz Network and join our thriving community.
