Former World of Warcraft lead developer, Mark Kern believes both Sony and Microsoft are not embracing changes in the industry and that they should be more open.
Marc Kern – Now CEO of Red 5 Studios
Kern believes that the two console giants are using out-dated business models, and that this is having a negative effect on developers. He says that the high price of games is making it harder for studios to innovate.
“In order to stand out from the crowd you have to spend as much on marketing as you did developing it,” Kern told Eurogamer.
“This is not a sustainable model. Teams have gotten to have to be larger and larger and larger to justify the $60 up-front model.
“It’s killing innovation because no one can take those risks anymore or try something new with those kinds of numbers. I think that’s bad for gamers and I think that’s cripplingly bad for developers. And to be honest, I don’t see Sony or Microsoft embracing the openness of the changes that are happening in the gaming industry right now.”
Kern believes that the reason we have no innovation left on consoles is because of the huge financial investment that need to be made to make games appeal to widest possible audience, and on “that platform which is a closed platform.”
“So that’s a limited number of users, right?
“Versus a PC with a free or open distribution model you can build a community around your game,” adds Kern.
