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They just don't make 'em like they used to. At least, that's according to Eidos Montreal founder (and former general manager) Stephane D'Astous, who recently chatted with Thunderpick about the way the direction of the games industry—and the people setting that direction—have changed in the past 15 years.
"The big players 15 years ago are not necessarily big players [now]," said D'Astoud. "There’s new players. 15 years ago Tencent existed but it wasn’t the 800-pound gorilla it is today… If you look at the sovereign fund of Saudi Arabia that has unlimited resources buying up EA, 15 years ago who would have said that EA was on the chopping block to be bought?"
The scale of the companies involved in gaming in 2026—and the size of their pocketbooks—means the vibe has shifted decisively. "The people with the money and the decision power are much fewer, and their pockets are much deeper… they don’t have the same DNA of the decision maker 15 years ago; it’s much more Excel than passion-driven."
Which might sound a little rosey-hued—it's not like there was a time where videogame development was some sort of commune—but as we look back on too-many years of swingeing layoffs, ruthless and boneheaded corporate decisions, and various golden parachutes, it's hard to deny that things do feel markedly worse than they did back in D'Astous' heyday.
D'Astous puts some of the blame for it on the Covid-19 money spigot: "Thousands of projects were given money during Covid," said D'Astous. "When I saw some of those… I said, 'That idea was funded? Oh my god, this is bad news'... We’ll see the end results of that bad decision of this investment [a few years from now]."
As company scale has increased, so have executive expectations. D'Astous says he's been asked to make a "Witcher 3-like game with a limited budget in less than four years with a new team" multiple times, such are the baffling and unrealistic expectations of the people at the purse-strings.
Does that look set to change any time soon? It doesn't feel like it. Videogame companies are more desperate to amp up their revenues than they have been for some time. That's not the kind of atmosphere that's conducive to risk-taking and "passion-driven" game development, or at least certainly not in the traditional studio system where D'Astous cut his teeth.
