The Vlambeer co-founder’s workgroup – entitled “We’re moving fast and losing what made us good (creativity, craft & the future)” – called for the industry to reject risk-averse decision-making, asserting that the reflexive avoidance of failure has become a greater threat to success than the inherent uncertainty of creative work.

Ultimately, the group concluded that unique products are forged through internal coherence and disciplined validation, rather than “sanding down the edges” to appeal to everyone.

This will never happen in the AAA space. There’s simply too much money involved for true creativity to be given priority, let alone to thrive. Anyone still looking to AAA for that hasn’t been paying attention.

The days of big publishers regularly and reliably releasing great and innovative games are gone and they aren’t coming back - that torch has been irrevocably passed on to indie studios and solo developers, for better and for worse.