Paramount Games chief Shawn Kittelsen knows there are challenges ahead for AAA game development, but he doesn't want to shy away from creating big, blockbuster titles like Marvel 1943: Rise of Hydra and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Last Ronin.
Speaking to The Game Business, Kittelsen said that while he wants big AAA experiences, he hopes to not fall into the trap of spending hundreds of millions of dollars on them. "So, what we do has to punch through the noise, but it doesn't always have to punch through the noise at great expense. Sometimes it can punch through with great innovation," he said.
"We want to take appropriately sized bets for where the market is at today, and that means everything from exploring new ways of working with co-developers and support teams, to having a really strict governance process where we are not trying to start with a team of 300 people on day one, but we are starting with a small team that's working on core vision, core mechanics, story and art and concept, and then gradually as we are validating each of those pieces of the game, building up to the point where we feel confident to scale production and go forward."
Kittelsen admits it's hard to put that into practise. His methods do sound like they could potentially lead to a lot of contract work, as people would only come in for roles when the game is ready for them, or perhaps it'll just need a lot of people at Paramount Games shifting to different projects. What it won't need at the minute, though, is AI.
"It'd be really easy to win points with investors by saying, 'Yeah, we're going to just use AI to make everything faster, cheaper, better.' But those tools have not reached the point of maturity yet where we can say there are truly meaningful savings to be found," Kittelsen said. He explained that while there are some things AI can help speed up, the development of content is not something that's becoming much faster. "We want human hands to be on our products," Kittelsen said, finding it hypocritical to say the games Paramount is making are made by fans, only to turn around and say actually a machine made them.