Video games vs music and movies: A fresh 2025 perspective

As per tradition, we at Gamereactor aim to understand the video game industry better, and to share with you gamers and devs the most valuable insights by talking with real insiders, namely veteran developers and executives attending the different conferences and industry events as speakers. And this year we've been trying to decipher the keys and solutions that will bring gaming to a better place in the years to come.

And there's a trend towards a beautiful, optimistic message: creativity will save us. Where Phil Foxton told us that laid off developers are making studios "that are creative powerhouses" at the BCN Game Fest, and where Adam Boyes envisioned a healthier, human-centred games industry by 2030 in his "Rally to Recover" workshop at DevGAMM, we now add another vision, also from the Lisbon event, that converges into similar lines.

From AAA veteran and now head of Studio Ellipsis, Alexandre Amancio:

"Focus on small creative nuclei with a strong vision. Focus on trying to predict the future trends rather than chasing trends. And also focus on excellence", he explains to us was the message he conveyed to devs gathered at DevGAMM. "We've exchanged excellence for complacency, and I think that refocusing on our core passion where we all join this industry is super important".

"And you know if we do that, we focus on smaller creative teams, on pure vision, and on the search for excellence", he continues in the exclusive Gamereactor interview below, "I think that will lead the way to a bright future for this industry".

Amancio's promising strategy then took our conversation to two other areas: what this all means for indie/AA/AAA given how creative stagnation didn't happen in smaller teams, and the never-ending problem of scalability in the industry.

"That duality and that creative synergy between bigger AA or AAA studios", he added to the former point, "[they] are the engine for scope, and polish, and quality, and the relationship with small indies that are pushing innovation. That virtuous circle has to be amplified in our industry."

"Even though the AAA industry has been shrinking, the indie scene has been expanding. But that also comes at a price. Something like close to 1600 [games] this year, It also means dilution. We are growing closer to the music industry in the sense that discoverability is becoming a problem."

"If you look at most games that come out on Steam... the amount of games that actually make the $100 that it takes is quite low. And so even though the indie scene is thriving it also has its own issues"

Instead of the music industry, and to tackle the scalability issue, Amancio then compared video games with movies, but there was a more interesting analogy with a detachable train...

"If you look at the way the movie industry evolved, there are some elements that we can learn", he compares in the video. "There's small creative teams and a lot of people almost like outsourcers they will hire for a project. And then the project grows when it needs to grow; it contracts when it needs to contract."

"Not only using co-dev but also using outsourcing I think is the key. I think that core teams should be at a human size, and then complemented by either co-dev and or outsourcing when the needs are there"

"My biggest was like a thousand person team at Ubisoft", he recalls. "It's like having a train. The locomotive is the creative team. You have wagons tied to the train, each has its own constraints. By detaching these and having a leaner locomotive and then attaching the components when you need... I think is going to make the overall process a lot smoother."

Easier said than done, but even telling by this year's GOTY-contenders, it does look like smaller creative forces will reclaim their throne in the industry in the upcoming years. For much more insight, you can watch the full 15-minute interview with local subtitles below: