Cevat Yerli, CEO of Crytek and master of all things piracy and Xbox 720 told gamesindustry.biz that Crytek “wouldn’t exist” as a new company if they had to start today.
Absolutely, nowadays I don’t think Crytek could have set up. It wouldn’t exist. The situation has changed drastically – the competition is more serious, companies have consolidated, costs have increased, the platforms are getting more difficult to enter. For example, to make a next-gen PC title entering the market now we’d need about EUR 10-12 million, even for a newcomer, to make an FPS as good as Far Cry was back then. To get the trust and commitment from a publisher for a newbie studio…I think it’s quite impossible.
Regardless of the issues that he brings up, I’ve always respected Yerli’s opinion on the industry. In this regard, I have to totally agree. Mega publishers like EA, Ubisoft, Take-Two and Activision have the capacity to throttle the development pipelines with their massive bankrolls and schedules. It would be hard for a developer without one of these publishers to roll out a decent game because the polishing money just simply isn’t there.
Do you guys think that Yerli has a point? Can a studio like Crytek start and be successful in today’s climate? If you think so, why?
