Gaming: Just Cause Dev Co-founder Says The Studio Got Too Big And 'numbers...

"We're not here to create funky business models, we're here to create great games," says Christofer Sundberg of his new studio and game, Samson.

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It's a story we've seen a lot this decade: An experienced videogame developer becomes fatigued by ballooning team sizes and meetings about monetization strategy, and then strikes out on their own to start a smaller studio with funding from private investors and companies like NetEase.

In this case, it's Christofer Sundberg, co-founder of Just Cause developer Avalanche Studios (not to be confused with Hogwarts Legacy developer Avalanche Software). Sundberg sold the studio in 2018, and then quit in 2019 because "the company had become so numbers focused," he told me on a call this week.

"It went from focusing on creating great games to creating great spreadsheets," said Sundberg. "And that's certainly not why I started the company, and it just wasn't for me anymore. So I was really fed up with the whole industry, which is a bit counterintuitive, as I had sold my company, so I had taken money too, and that's what I was complaining about. But for me, it's always been about the games."

(Avalanche declined to comment on Sundberg's remarks.)

We don't have to be 500 [staff] here in the studio. We don't have to create the massive factory...

A non-compete contract meant Sundberg couldn't start making a new game for a year, and at first he hadn't intended to return to the business at all. Ultimately, though, his interest in games led him to found Liquid Swords, which will release an open world crime brawler called Samson this April.

"I sort of started Liquid Swords to challenge the industry to change the way we are making games, and change the way we're looking at game companies," said Sundberg. "We don't have to be 500 [staff] here in the studio. We don't have to create the massive factory, as long as you work with the right team … We're not here to create funky business models, we're here to create great games, and that's what we focus on and with all its challenges."

I got a brief preview of Samson this week. GTA comparisons are inevitable. The game centers around a bottom-of-the-rung criminal who's in debt to the sort of people who don't ask nicely when interest is due, and begins with him driving around the fictional, Boston-like city of Tyndalston taking illicit jobs for cash, such as beating up his employers' r

Source: PC Gamer