Publishers â??should cancel more projectsâ??

The CEO of one of Europe’s most fiercely independent studios believes that publishers should cancel more projects that begin to look shaky.

Christofer Sundberg told Develop in an interview published today that the industry needs to better manage its costs.

“I still believe publishers should cancel more projects in case the developers fail to deliver quality, before the investments become too high,” he said.

Sundberg believes that “a better due diligence process” is needed to determine whether projects should still be financially supported or not, before costs pass the point of no return.

“Avatar is a great example of a game that should never have come out, regardless of how much money it made. I don’t know if it was profitable or not, but games like that give licence-based games a bad reputation, and that reputation is already at an all-time low,” he said.

Elsewhere in the interview Sundberg said that the industry has turned into “a big chicken farm”, with the sector suffering from mass-confusion in the wake of the global financial crisis.

“In this industry, if you want to be successful you have to be patient, and look beyond that big bag of money,” he said.

“There is no way to make a quick buck in the game industry. The sooner people realise that, the better.”