Video games sold for 80 euros will “extinct like dodos”, according to the CEO of Saber Interactive

According to Matthew Karch, the CEO of Saber Interactive, i video games sold for 70 dollars (80 euros in our beaches) they will disappear from the market in the future, or rather “they will end up like the dodo” (an extinct bird, ed.), to make room for productions in which the developers will try to keep development costs lowconsequently also lowering the final price for the user.

In an interview with IGN, Karch explained that Saber Interactive, which recently split from Embracer Group, is in a rare position in the market, halfway between low-budget indie development and what he characterized as “middle market”, i.e. productions with costs far from triple A and sold at a lower price. The company boss cited Helldivers 2 as a perfect example of a “middle market” title (it sells for 39.99 euros, ed.) that is doing “well, very well”.

“I think as games get more expensive to make, $70 titles will go the way of the dodo,” Karch said. “Simply I don't think it's sustainable…you remember the hype for Cyberpunk, which I think performed reasonably well, but when expectations are so high and so much money is invested in a single game, it's extremely risky for a company. What happens if it fails?”.

“I think the market will move towards a development process that will not necessarily be of lower quality, but will focus on looking for ways to reduce costs.”

There may be a shortage of content in the future, thanks to numerous layoffs in the industry

Karch added that the use of AI could help lower development costs and at the same time improve the quality of triple-A games, but that in his opinion this will not be enough. In fact, he believes that iThe AAA development model will undergo significant changes and that the trend of productions with stellar budgets and numerous years of development is not sustainable.

He also stated that due to the numerous layoffs that are occurring within the industry, we may see a lack of content on the market and if this were to actually happen, Saber Interactive would have an opportunity to gain market share, also thanks to the aforementioned “middle market”.

“I think that in the coming years there will be a real shortage of content game,” he says. “You saw how many layoffs there were, you saw how many games were eliminated. But we have a lot of good projects going on that I'm proud of and that I feel really, really confident about.”