Massively

Massively: Mr. Jennings, we were wondering if you had any response to NCsoft's decision to move to a 'Triple-A all the way' footing, as regards game development?

Scott Jennings: NCsoft's decision to restructure itself around betting on "AAA all the way" titles is an interesting one, and not one I would agree with were I the one making decisions.

During my time at NCsoft I helped to champion a different development model, in many ways a reaction to AAA titles that NCsoft had gambled on that were less than great successes. It was my belief, and still is, that it is entirely possible to make smaller, less bloated titles that appeal less to the mass market and more to market niches that are underserved to date, which are easier to design and develop for when you aren't married to a $50 million+ budget.

As your interview noted, they're now moving in a different direction, and those of us who championed the more agile development model are now elsewhere. And they may not necessarily be wrong – NCsoft's successes as well as failures to date have been big-budget titles, so a retrenchment to "doing what we know" makes a certain amount of sense on some levels.

However, as a designer my interest is less in making more iterative versions of games that have come before and more in working on new and interesting challenges. So from a personal standpoint, working on smaller projects puts me in a happier place, and from a professional standpoint I believe strongly that smaller projects have been, and will be successful as well, both from a creative and financial standpoint.

Hopefully, the market is large enough that *everyone* can be right!