In a recent interview with GamesIndustry.biz, Saber Interactive CCO Tim Willits has provided insights on the company’s AA game development strategy which is more favorable for controlled budgets, global teams, and multiple bets over expensive AAA blockbuster development. Moreover, the Saber exec has also discussed the videogame industry’s shift from making games in the region of North America and how the Continent’s current financial struggles seep into game development in more ways than one.
“If you have one guy who has to get a home run every game, you are not going to succeed,” he also added that “you can take more bets, and you can spread out your resources, spread out your money. There’s something called slate financing that movie industries have been doing for years. And you will see more of this in our industry, where a developer may work with private equity or a publisher, and they’ll invest in four or five games, and then three are hits, one is a loser, and everyone’s happy.”
“The problem is stuff like this: big North American development studios, they run about $2 million plus in burn rate a month. A month. SnowRunner, which has made hundreds of millions of dollars, cost us $6 million to make. That’s literally three months of development time in California.”
He also said that in the business of developing games, having a tighter control on overall budget is necessary as he has experienced “wasted money” and “dollars falling out of the monitor” in many games he has played.
His words also allude to the highly competitive state of video game development in the industry today which is a far cry from what it used to be in the past decades, for better or for worse.
Saber Interactive had made the highly successful Crysis Remastered trilogy which brought some of the most outstanding first person shooter experiences (that manages to shine through even in 2026) for the current-gen player base and if you haven’t played them yet, you should totally do so.
