I know I’ve said it before, and maybe some of you have too. There is just so many games to play and so little time to finish them before the next blockbuster title makes its way onto my entertainment shelf. Bad habits of a gaming addict? Probably so, but apparently one developer seems to share the same opinion.
Ray Muzyka, co-founder of BioWare, has shared some of his personal gaming trends with Develop, lending light to his opinion on the rate of output from the industry.
“There are too many games released today. It’s interesting, because it’s very, very busy – it makes it very hard as a player to keep up. The releases clump up – even though that is changing a little bit.
“For us, we have to play our games, play competitor’s games, play other relevant games and play the handful of games we just really want to play more of and finish.
“I try and play two-or three hours a night, but that’s hard and it’s not enough.”
It also seems that BioWare itself is feeding that “too many games” trend as they are beginning to have shorter gaps between releasing new titles. When Knights of the Old Republic came out in 2003, Jade Empire followed next about 2 years later. Then again, in another 2 years (2007), Mass Effect is introduced.
As of late though, that cycle seems be shortening. In the fall of 2009 brought the year of Dragon Age. Then, a few months afterward, Mass Effect 2 hit the scene in January 2010, probably bottle-necking some time for gamers to dedicate themselves to one game. And now, only a year after that we’re already anticipating the spawn of Dragon Age 2 to grab hold of our time.
That’s the time line with just one developer, so you can imagine the flood of titles when you view the industry as a whole.
So what do you think? Should developers back off releasing too many titles? Or can there never be too much of a good thing when it comes to gaming?
[Via]
