The increasing complexity and ballooning costs of developing triple-A video games are pushing the industry toward a dangerous "bifurcation," according to Mark Darrah, former executive producer at BioWare. In an interview featured in the Summer Eternal Anthology, Darrah, who worked on titles like Anthem, Dragon Age, Baldur's Gate, and Neverwinter Nights, outlined his concerns about the current state of AAA development.
Darrah argues that the industry has become hyper-specialized, leading to enormous teams. "No one person can add anything into a triple-A game. It requires at least five people," he stated. This necessitates larger payrolls, increased office space, and more software and equipment, all of which contribute to escalating costs. Tim Willits, chief creative officer at Saber Interactive, previously estimated that a 200-person team could cost over $2 million per month in salaries alone.
This complexity also introduces significant risks related to project timelines. "The reality is that the bigger your team, the more vulnerable you typically are to disruption in terms of time," Darrah explained. He pointed out that a one-month delay for a 500-person team could add millions to the budget, a risk easily realized due to the sheer scale of such operations. The development of Grand Theft Auto VI exemplifies this challenge, with its team of over 4,700 people facing multiple delays. Rockstar's head of publishing Jennifer Kolbe detailed how the game's release was pushed from 2025 to November 2026, a delay that, using Darrah and Willits's estimations, could have cost Rockstar upwards of $500 million.
Darrah also suggested that the prolonged prototyping phase, where developers are encouraged to be creative, can become a trap. Developers may be hesitant to move past this stage to avoid the more rigid execution of lists, but, as Willits noted, keeping a large team on prototypes is financially unsustainable. The pressure to recoup massive development costs means that even successful games require significant sales figures. This has led to projects like the Perfect Dark reboot and Rare's Everwild being canceled before or during early development stages.
Darrah foresees a market split where a few mega-franchises, such as Grand Theft Auto, Assassin's Creed, Call of Duty, and Battlefield, will command immense budgets and become unattainable targets for most publishers. This leaves many games with budgets around $100 million struggling to break even. He cited BioWare as an example of a studio caught in this middle ground, with their recent RPG Dragon Age: Veilguard underperforming EA's projections, reaching only 1.5 million players compared to the anticipated 3 million.
Despite these challenges, Darrah remains cautiously optimistic, suggesting this shift could foster smaller, more focused studios. He pointed to Expedition 33 developer Sandfall Interactive, a roughly 40-person team that heavily utilizes outsourcing for certain disciplines like animation. This model allows smaller studios to maintain lower overheads while still producing ambitious titles. However, it's important to note that while outsourcing can reduce costs for developers, it can also lead to low wages and limited creative control for the outsourced workers, particularly for those in South America who often find it difficult to lead projects and are relegated to assisting larger studios.
Darrah believes this potential bifurcation could reshape the industry, allowing for more titles aiming for 3-4 million sales to become viable. He contrasted this with the current reality of games like Grand Theft Auto needing to sell 50 million units to avoid financial losses, a scenario he calls "insane."
The future of CD Projekt, the maker of The Witcher and Cyberpunk 2077, is a significant concern within this prediction. Darrah categorizes the company as being in a "really dangerous place" due to its entry into the mega-game space, where titles must achieve 15-20 million sales to be profitable. This was underscored by the news that The Witcher 4 has more than double the staff working on it compared to The Witcher 3, highlighting the escalating team sizes in blockbuster development. Darrah's analysis suggests that a move away from the mega-budget model is inevitable for all but the largest studios.