Zmak: I just think it’s a apples-to-orange comparison when you look at a company like us and you look at a company like them. Because we don’t carry any of the heavy burden, right? We don’t have to. I don’t have quarterly earnings I have to report; I don’t have to sit in front of a group of shareholders and deal with those realities. And those are very real. But I have absolutely no doubt that they will evolve and respond. Look at the quality of the games. Has there ever been a time in our industry that the quality has been so high? And everybody likes to complain about “Well, it’s just another one. It’s just another sequel,” or it’s just another this [and that].
But you look at the innovation in those games, and you look at the millions and millions of players that are spending their money to play those products. You can’t deny that the quality is there. And there is innovation happening. I think the innovation conversation — the whole debate around innovation — is a chicken and egg thing. So you come out with something innovative but it doesn’t sell, was it really innovative or was it just not fun? [Laughs]
I don’t know. It’s a tough balance. I look at the market and I look at the conditions and I look at the competition. I think right now in our industry what we need is less failure and more success. And whoever finds that success helps establish business models that achieve it.
I’d like to believe one day people will look at our organization and go, “There’s a model for success.” And we’ve demonstrated that model, we’ve demonstrated that business, we’ve demonstrated that financial reality. And our developers have shared in that success.
And they’ll look at that and say, “There’s a model that needs to be copied.” Great flattery.
GamesBeat: These days, so many publishers in the console and PC space are chasing after Call of Duty-like sales numbers to offset the rising costs of development. It’s not all that uncommon to hear them say that their games must sell so many millions of copies if they want to break even, let alone make a profit. And all these studio closures keep happening. Sooner or later they’ll have to adapt and find a sustainable business model, whether it’s F2P or something else, to mitigate the high risks that exist in the market today.
Zmak: I think it’s easy to get caught in the here and the now. This is an industry that adapts. I believe it was 1982 in a New York Times story: “The Video Game Industry Is Dead.” I always look back on that time because at the time, they were burying cartridges in the desert for the Atari 2600. Literally, everybody thought it was dead. We have always been the [cockroach], we’ve always been the adaptable ones. We’ve always been the ones to respond.
“This is not the time to lick our wounds. This is not the time to hunker down.”
We’ve always been the ones to…[when] a studio blows up, we form entrepreneurial small development studios all across the city. It’s a different and a challenging time because it’s combined with political and economic realities that are making it tough for everybody. But those political and economical realities are part of what’s causing the challenge in the consumer trend. So I look at that and go, “This is not the time to lick our wounds. This is not the time to hunker down.”
This is a time for entrepreneurs and business folks and investors to step in and say, “Look, this is a $50 billion business. We have the opportunity to influence culture around the world. We either take that, or we walk away from it.” And it’s silly to walk away from it. And again, I generalize it, but I’m one small guy working on three games out of Montreal. And I look at this and go, “This is exactly what we need to be successful. This is what we need more of.”
This is exciting. This is what we do. And to think that this is not what we do means that you don’t understand where we came from. And I say that because I started in ’85, so maybe I’m just one of the old guys. [Laughs]