Ovosonico Is Looking to the Future
Massimo Guarini, founder and CEO of developer Ovosonico, recently spoke on the company’s new studio location and what appears to be a shift from an independent developer to a larger, AAA studio.
“It’s focusing on what matters, and making sure that what matters in the game is top quality level,” he said of the studio’s shift to a larger office to accommodate plans for an expanded staff. “It involves saying ‘no’ to a bunch of other things”
“We are facing a moment in the history of the market where we see that the gap between big-budget productions and indie is getting wider and wider,” he continued. “You see more people jumping in, because the barrier of entry is fortunately much lower, but that’s also causing a multitude of super small studios or even individuals getting to make independent video games and saturating the market, while mid-tier studios are moving toward the AAA side of the industry; trying to get noticed, and to make sure that the production values are up to par with the multitude of studios competing in the same market space.”
Guarini also touched on how he believes this industry shift is going to affect the way we play games in the future.
“We are witnessing a moment in the video game industry where the market is expanding, and it’s becoming a little bit more horizontal than before,” he said. “Obviously the barriers of entry for technology are still really high; it’s not easy for non-gamers to jump in and buy a console or install Steam on a PC and make sure that the game works.
“But we’ll eventually get there, and we need to be ready. And when games are like the Netflix button on your remote – that easy – that’s the day when content is the distinctive part of the equation. Games are going to be ubiquitous like movies and music are today. It’s a matter of time to me, and we want to be ready.”