Jenova Chen is known predominantly for directing the 2012 video game, Journey.
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Now Playing:Sky: Children of the Light Thatskystory Trailer
Jenova Chen: I have been thinking about this.
You have major releases every three months.
How many people are going to say, “This is imperfect”?
And by next month, there’s a bunch of new players, too.
It reduces a lot of the fights we have, when we work on premium games.
We fight a lot near the end.
It’s like, “This has to go in.”
It leads to a lot of very heated battles about what would make the game perfect.
Could you put this in the next build?"
It’s just a matter of when it goes in.
Imagine making a premium game is like a sprint and live-service is kind of like distance running.
you might just tire everybody out and they get burnt out very quickly.
So, in a strange way, live-service is more important for managing burnout than premium titles.
So live-service is your preferred style of development moving forward?
Will you ever return to that premium style of game?
I will say that I do not see myself going back.
This is way better life-quality.
And also, it’s much safer.
The relationship of the publisher and the developer can be very tense.
If you make something the player likes, you make financial returns right away.
When you make a premium game, it’s a bet.
It’s like, “Hopefully someone’s going to like this.”
You have no feedback for a very long time.
When we were working on small indie games, we were mostly seven to 10 people.
We made Flower with seven people.
When we launched Sky, we had about, developer-wise, 25.
It’s a very small team.
But now, to operate Sky, we have probably over 100 people now.
It’s just a very different punch in of business model.
you’re free to also read GameSpot’sSky: Children of the Light reviewby following the links.
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