The Final Boss
Every month an industry leader wraps up MCV/DEVELOP with their unique insight
What has been the most memorable moment of your career?
Since its inception, Villainous Games Studio has been a remote-only studio, so after the pandemic we were finally able to all get together in Brighton before the Develop conference and were able to work in the same room together at last. This has now become an enjoyable tradition at the studio. There are another couple of memorable moments that have also been the highlight of my career, and that is of being able to show our game Harvest Hunt at EGX and WASD, as I had attended those conventions before I entered the games industry. Great to see it from the other side.
What are your aspirations for Villainous Games and the industry in general?
For us, it would be to be able to work on highly polished and unusual games that deliver a lot with a small team whilst maintaining a healthy studio! With regards to the games industry in general, I think changes in how storefronts show games from smaller studios to people would really help. I think the industry is heavily skewed towards very few large games and it needs a diverse range of games to be available, and to do that we need a diverse range of people and ideas in the games industry. As a player, I want to see new things, and to do those new things we need new viewpoints!
What do you perceive as the major obstacles facing the gaming industry in the upcoming years? I think the major obstacles are the lack of funding, generative AI, losing a lot of talent and knowledge to other industries with the constant layoffs, and the monopolisation of storefronts for everything from tiny indies to major AAA games. I think funding will certainly come back, as long as people
Mark Drew, creative director at Villainous Games Studio
“As a player, I want to see new things, and to do those new things we need new viewpoints!”
50 | MCV/DEVELOP August/September 2024
are buying and playing games. In a medium such as games, creativity is not a race to the bottom, so despite generative AI making its way in, people will still need to add soul to the creations, which is something that AI won’t be able to copy. I hope that the layoffs don’t continue and we can get to a somewhat stable state, as that will bring and retain talented people to make great projects and games. At the moment simply finding exposure for your game is
hard which I hope will improve as we get better at finding our audiences via different channels. It’s still a challenge of course!
Do you believe the industry is now moving in a more sustainable direction? I think that is a difficult question. There have been a lot of bad choices made by big studios that have affected everyone, and there is a lot of flux in the industry. Despite this there are good studios showing the way out there and I hope they can be the model for others to follow. It will certainly be an interesting couple of years, especially with the major tentpole releases coming up such as GTA VI.
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