Klei Games Founder: “AAA Game Lay-offs Help Independent Development”

While the number of lay-offs that have been hitting studios like EA, Activision and the like only seem to be increasing, Klei Games founder Jamie Cheng feels that rather than a negative, it can go a long way towards contributing to independent game development.

As the Shank and Mark of the Ninja developer states to GIBiz, “With all the changes and layoffs, we’re seeing so many new studios come up that are doing these games without the crutch of hundreds of millions of dollars of marketing…I think for sure that the layoffs are fuelling way more development in the small, independent space.”

However, AAA studios provide a benefit that an independent studio like Klei can’t. “I enjoy having the large AAA around because they were hiring and training tons of people, and I can’t do that. We have 30 people and that seems like a lot in the independent space. I can’t go out and train a lot of people in development, and that’s what they were doing.”