Sport developer Hjalmar Vikstrom, a online game trade veteran who labored at Grin and Avalanche Studios earlier than co-founding GTFO developer 10 Chambers, has left his job and plans to work on smaller-scale tasks going ahead.
“Making video games is difficult. And these previous years have taken their toll,” he wrote on LinkedIn.
Vikstrom stated he plans to go unbiased and make “means smaller video games” as he focuses on his well being and household “and simply having fun with recreation growth.”
Vikstrom didn’t elaborate as to what he would possibly do subsequent, past his feedback concerning the indie area. Nevertheless, he teased, “Extra on that later.”
10 Chambers was based in 2015, with Vikstrom being one of many founders. The studio launched its first recreation, the co-op horror FPS GTFO, in 2019. The developer began with a staff of 10 working remotely earlier than organising a bodily growth workplace at Drottninggatan 95 in Stockholm, the previous house of Sweden’s Royal Institute of Expertise. The studio now employs greater than 100 individuals. 10 Chambers’s second recreation is the heist recreation Den of Wolves, which is within the works now and set for launch on PC.
Vikstrom is leaving the enterprise of creating massive video games at a time of serious upheaval. The present $70 AAA mannequin is just not sustainable, some have stated. With the success of video games like Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, some have stated the sort of “AA” games–titles with doubtlessly smaller scopes and budgets, and decrease sticker prices–could be a viable path ahead for gaming. Break up Fiction director Josef Fares hopes AA video games do not take over the trade, and reminded those who for each success like Expedition 33, there are quite a few extra video games of that ilk that didn’t succeed.
Folks shouldn’t permit themselves to be satisfied that “AA is a brand new factor” or “indie is a brand new factor,” he stated.
“We’d like the variety. I hope that publishers do not simply take a look at a recreation like Expedition, which has been tremendous profitable, and suppose, ‘Oh, AA is a brand new factor. Let’s solely do this.’ I do not imagine in that,” he stated.