THR: And all of this talk was evident to you at E3?
Rubin: Oh yeah. The buzz on the street among the "above the line" guys was "What the hell are we going to do?" They used to work the hard hours but never had a problem with it because they could get bloody rich. Now many of them are working the same hard hours -- or longer hours -- but the backend is gone. And on top of that, they're being so micro-managed that they don't feel like they're doing art anymore. My observation is that it's all coming to a head.
THR: Any predictions on when?
Rubin: None. The timeline is impossible to read. There are a lot of people out there talking and looking. But it's the kind of thing where somebody has to make the first move. And, once that happens, there'll be this explosion. The guy who jumps first will have a huge advantage because, then, all the developers will want to jump with him. It's going to be interesting -- to say the least.
