Get all your news in one place.
100's of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
Tom’s Hardware
Tom’s Hardware
Technology
Christopher Harper

Gaming industry insiders say cutting-edge graphics cost too much to make for AAA games

Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora screenshots and images.

Speaking to The New York Times, several game developers and some industry figures spoke out about how the gaming industry's AAA studios couldn't reasonably handle the stress of creating cutting-edge graphics— particularly in light of major waves of layoffs throughout the past two years, and several high-fidelity AAA games underperforming in the market. Even live service games, which are known to be cash cows when successful, are noted to be a mature market and thus a dangerous investment, particularly when end users tend to despise particularly greedy live service business models.

As former Square Enix executive Jacob Navok noted to The New York Times, "It's very clear that high-fidelity visuals are only moving the needle for a vocal class of gamers in their 40s and 50s. But what does my 7-year old son play? Minecraft. Roblox. Fortnite."

Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100's of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
One subscription that gives you access to news from hundreds of sites
Already a member? Sign in here
Our Picks
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.