A leaked presentation following the recent ransomware attack on Insomniac Games shows that PlayStation Studios will likely change strategy, creating more mid-sized games to fill gaps in the release schedule. This was also hinted at by a prominent insider back in October, who noted that studios are increasingly prioritizing smaller titles instead of larger titles. AAA games has a large budget and takes a lot of time to implement.
1 – The budget for 1 AAA game can be used to develop 3 mid-sized games
2 – The development time for a AAA game is equivalent to 2 consecutive mid-sized games
3 – The performance of 2 quality mid-sized games can be compared to 1 quality AAA game, but is 100 million USD cheaper
4 – The prospect of spending 300 million USD to develop 3 mid-sized games instead of 1 AAA game is very desirable
The leak in question was a presentation by Insomniac Games, in which the studio detailed the financial implications of releasing smaller games like Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales – a title that was later released. became a commercial hit. Insomniac suggests that this could become a necessity in the future, and that the two mid-sized games could achieve performance comparable to a AAA title but with a significantly smaller budget.
The presentation also mentioned that a single AAA game can fund up to three mid-sized games, and that in the time it takes to release a big-budget blockbuster title, a studio can churn out two successively smaller games. Insomniac notes: “The prospect of spending $300 million on three mid-sized games instead of one AAA game is very appealing.”
According to the leak, the studio is planning to release a Venom spin-off game before Spider-Man 3.
