The economic situation has made the creative situation for games pretty volatile right now. On one hand, the large companies become very risk-averse, reducing investment in new IP, culling big budgets and sticking to sequels and licenses more closely. On the other hand, recessions tend to create opportunities for new studios to emerge (just check out what happened in Vancouver, for example).
The two biggest offenders as far as placing more budget behind new IP than those IP were capable of generating: Electronic Arts and THQ. While the two publishers have somewhat different situations -- THQ can be considered a great deal more dire, for one thing, while Electronic Arts is really only doing badly by its own metrics -- both of them have said they're going to be much more careful about their title lineup and about their costs.
But even though the recession can be good for the industry as far as letting publishers make more strategic acquisitions and helping build an environment where talent can strike out on its own a bit more, it's a really dangerous time to be innovative. I recently did a story about the idea that in the current climate, the road to profitability really may be more of the same, generally.
But hey! It's not all bleak. THQ's Rainbow Studios was able to get the publisher to greenlight an action adventure game all about gross bugs and stuff fighting each other -- and this is even though Rainbow has basically only made motorsport titles forever. Seeing that they could earn themselves the opportunity to break out of the racing licenses and make a game that aims to take "a National Geographic special and meld it with an action horror experience" is pretty heartening, all things considered.
I interviewed lead developer Jordan Itkowitz on Deadly Creatures, which I thought looked pretty cool when I saw it over the summer. The fun part is he says the idea to pitch the game came to him in a dream. Check out the interview, huh?
