Torchlight Dev: Era Of Huge, Expensive Games Is Over

19 Nov 2009 at 15:44:46 by Tim McDonald

Runic Games CEO Max Schaefer believes that in the current economic climate, smaller games will thrive.

Speaking to IncGamers, the Torchlight dev spent a bit of time reminiscing about his previous games, including Hellgate: London and Diablo 2, and we asked whether he could apply any lessons learned from Torchlight to their development if he could do them again.

"Yeah, I think so. I think that the era of the five-year, eighty-million dollar project is over," Schaefer responded. When we pointed out Blizzard, he laughed. "They have their own rules over there, for sure."

"But as far as the economy downturn and a lot of failed projects out there, people are looking for faster, quicker development and cheaper development and less risk, and I think that there's a pretty good gap in the market right now between the casual game and the super big-budget project, and I think that customers will like it, especially since you can get a lot more product out," Schaefer mused.

What do you think, readers? Big games won't completely vanish, but is it possible that plenty of devs not sheltered under the big-name publishers will shift gears away from gigantic projects?

Stay tuned for our full interview with Schaefer later today, and check out our review of the jolly spiffing Torchlight elsewhere on the site.

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