Near the end of August, EA Partners head David DeMartini said that he felt video game budgets had peaked and were starting to move in the opposite direction. Steven Ter Heide, lead producer at Killzone developer Guerilla, disagrees with that assessment. Ter Heide told GI.biz at the Eurogamer Expo last weekend that he expected budgets to continue to rise for some time.
"There'll certainly always be big budget titles because audiences will always want to see these over-the-top kind of no-holds-barred titles,” Ter Heide said. “I don't know where the budgets are going but they'll probably continue to rise for the next couple of years because the amount of stuff that you need to put into games, the stuff that the audience is expecting, that's still growing as well. I don't see it levelling out - both spectrums are going to continue to grow, from top to bottom."
Ter Heide believes that smaller studios can only succeed by throwing caution to the wind and taking big risks.
"Think about what it is that you want to accomplish and basically go for it. It's very tempting to start small, and work on smaller games and slowly grow, but you have to have an end-goal in sight and say 'how do I get there, what steps do I have to take, how do I build my engine, how do I make my technology positions, what's my artistic vision, what kind of talent do I need to attract?',” he said.
"I know it's risky, but I don't think there's any other way. Playing it safe doesn't hack it, you have to be able to take risks. It's easier said than done, and it's easier for me to say when I'm working with a big publisher and having that support, but I think for an indie developer it's really important to aim high and take that risk. Go for the title you really want to make rather than trying to work your way up."
