There have been so many companies doing this so long, if there was a business model that could do it cheaper, you'd think it'd have evolved.
AAA gaming is becoming increasingly less agile, though. Just reforming to some new 'business model' is harder when studios are growing in size, games are growing in scope and complexity, any weaknesses in leadership are becoming ever more consequential to a game's development progress and overall timeline, all while gamers have higher standards and expectations than ever before.
Publishers could certainly be stricter about studios sizes and deadlines, but they cant afford to send out games that aren't in good shape, either. I think we can see that publishers are trying to keep a lid on things with how every other game these days seems to get at least one delay, but giving into the delays all the time is also probably not helping in a way either, because studios generally know they will get at least
some more time if they need it.
And with gamer expectations so high, publishers are afraid of keeping a studio too lean to be able to keep up with the big scope and ultra high fidelity presentation that's demanded.
I do think better studio leadership is probably the #1 thing that needs to be looked at in the current environment. This is obviously an 'easier said than done' sort of thing, but some games just seem so poorly conceived even from early stages that I dont know how they're getting any kind of greenlight unless the leadership is actively pushing for it(and this is ignoring the obvious disasters of studios being asked to make live service games or games they are otherwise unsuited for simply to chase trends). And there needs to be a good Creative lead with actual power and strong vision, who has a good practical head on them at the same time. Again, easier said than done, but I think it's a necessity. Games cant afford to spend years iterating on core concepts while in full production, but all too often that's what I hear development is like with many modern games, often with 'tear it all down and start over' moments which are clearly catastrophic to timelines and thus budget. This cannot happen. This is a monumental failure of leadership in a time where almost nobody can afford this. If ever a director has to say, "This isn't working, we need to start over", they should resign or be fired on the spot. Spending more time in pre-production also seems like an important part of all this. This is a much smaller opportunity cost than trying to shift direction during full production.
Though one clear 'business model' aspect I absolutely think can change basically immediately is marketing budgets. There's zero reason that marketing budgets need to have ballooned in the same way that the actual game development budgets have. The thinking seems to be, "The more we've spent on development, the less we can afford for this game not to be a success, so we need to spend equally big on marketing as well", which is just a cursed cycle of logic. I know there's times where we can look at certain games not selling well and saying, "Well it just didn't get enough marketing", but that's not the same thing as saying it didn't have a large enough marketing budget necessarily. All too often when I see gamers talk about certain games not getting enough marketing, they aren't saying there weren't enough buses plastered with the game on the side, or not enough building-sized ads in LA, they mean the publisher themselves just didn't talk about it enough or push enough previews to outlets, or didn't give them good showcases in presentations. Stuff like that which is eminently fixable and doesn't require spending an extra $50,000,000+.
There have been so many companies doing this so long, if there was a business model that could do it cheaper, you'd think it'd have evolved.
