Ubisoft Designer: Hardcore Shooter Market 'Too Narrow' to Support Development

40
Ubisoft developer Phil Therien doubts his company will ever develop another hardcore shooter due to the small size of the market, according to a LiveText interview at Eurogamer.

When asked by a fan whether Ubisoft would consider working on a new tactical shooter in the vein of the original Ghost Recon, the Rainbow Six Vegas 2 designer replied: "I doubt we will ever go back to really hardcore only shooters."

"The market was too narrow for it to be a viable business choice," Therien continued. "We would like to be able to please both sides but compromises have to be made."

Though clearly shooting down the idea of returning to the Rainbow Six series' roots, Therien did leave some hope for development of a game that might please both markets.

"We have some ideas to improve on the situation though--keep in mind however that we want our games to be accessible to as many people as possible, otherwise we just couldn't keep making games."

Filed Under
From The Chatty
  • reply
    March 18, 2008 10:04 AM

    Every development studio should pay a small team of guys to make whatever-the-hell-they-want type games. The ones we had before production costs got bigger than Hollywood movies. It shouldn't take an independent developer to release something creative.

    • reply
      March 18, 2008 10:13 AM

      Like Valve? And Google? Clearly fucked up companies.
      Although seriously it takes a certain amount of financial comfort to do this that most devs simply don't enjoy.

      • reply
        March 18, 2008 10:21 AM

        I'm suggesting that established studios who are working on the run-of-the-mill games designed to make money could potentially pay a small group within their own studio to develop whatever they want. I'm not talking about large independent studios. I'm talking about a way for to get more new franchises and more creativity without hurting the bottom line of these large, publicly held publishers.

    • reply
      March 18, 2008 10:19 AM

      I don't doubt that they would make a profit of a Rainbow Six that's more along the lines of the older ones. Their idea of "viable" isn't to make enough profit for the company to continue creating new games, it's about making silly amounts of money.

      It's a shame really, although understandable: games has become a massive corporate business, and isn't as much about boys living out their childhood dreams by creating and playing games anymore - although there still are exceptions, thankfully.

      • reply
        March 18, 2008 10:31 AM

        Yeah, I think it is about maximizing revenue potential. A hardcore tactical R6 could be made without flashy hollywood production values and do respectable business, but a businessperson has to be looking at that and the Tom Clancy name and thinking how those same resources could be combined with other efforts to make a really big hit. I imagine it is something like, "Why spend X making a niche title and earn Y when you can spend 2X making a mass market title and earn 3Y?"

      • reply
        March 18, 2008 10:53 AM

        Yep. ARMA could be called a hardcore shooter, and if you look at it, they are making a sequel to it just fine, means the market is there, but not the kind of the market large publishers would care much about.

Hello, Meet Lola