Major AAA Studios Should Also Make AA or Indie Games, Says God of War Ragnarok Producer

AAA developers usually make AAA games — it’s obvious from the name itself. However, there’s nothing stopping a big studio from working on smaller projects, such as classic AA titles or even low-budget games.

That’s not just our opinion — it comes from Meghan Morgan Juinio, former Co-Head and Director of Product Development at Santa Monica Studio, and Producer of God of War Ragnarok.

AAA Developers Should Diversify

Speaking with Game Developer, Morgan Juinio explained that lower-budget projects don’t have to replace massive franchises like Call of Duty or God of War, which generate potentially huge profits. Instead, she believes that “there’s an opportunity right now for all of us, at any level, to really look at the strategic long-term view—and that might be five or ten years—[in order to course correct] because of the ‘seize the moment’ type decisions that came out of the pandemic.” In particular, she highlighted the strong potential of AA and indie games — especially when developed by large teams.

“I do also think there is an opportunity for those big players to also look to diversify into double-A and single-A, and then perhaps indie as well right?” Juinio said. “And what size, shape, or form does that take? I don’t know […] but I think we need to look beyond the knee-jerk reaction of the pandemic and post-pandemic couple of years and really think about who do we want to be? What kind of product do we want to put out? We need to plot out intentionally how we’re going to get there.”

Players Want More Than Just Graphics

Morgan Juinio mentioned Astro Bot and Split Fiction as examples of games published by major companies — Sony and EA, respectively — that step away from the usual AAA model in favor of shorter development cycles and playtimes. “I think gamers right now are a little bit desensitized to beautiful graphics and size and scale and scope. It’s almost a given, right?” she said. “If a game isn’t fun, it doesn’t matter hows pretty it is. If a game isn’t engaging or delivering some hook, then it’s not going to connect with players.”