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What I find weird is that these companies don't sound like they are run by bean counters... The budgets are something that sound absolutely insane if anyone who cared about costs were involved. It more sounds like they are run by empire builders and their legions of micromanaging middle-managers...

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I imagine it is bean counters but like VC bean counters... You dump a butt load of cash into games hoping they'll be the next GTA V or Skyrim

I believe that with the budgets but it's crazy we don't see more risks from a creative perspective. In order for the VC model to work, you need to take risks for asymmetric payoffs. In the end, I guess management would rather follow the internal herd and play it safe.

Compare it more to movie production and book publishing. Where we also see a pattern of the big budget stuff being risk averse and the really creative stuff happening downmarket. Often so far downmarket that the creators themselves end up being the primary financiers.

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