Saber’s Tim Willits on the Industry Crisis: Good Games Will Always Be Successful; You Have to Make the Right Game for the Right Budget

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Warhammer 40K: Space Marine 2, out today on PC and consoles (you can find our review here), is a huge game in Saber Interactive's strategy. However, there's more than just Space Marine 2 to the studio's plan to navigate the current crisis of the videogame industry, which saw many studio closures and even more mass layoffs.

At Gamescom 2024, I had the great opportunity to chat about this with Saber Interactive Chief Creative Officer (CCO) Tim Willits, an industry veteran who worked for 23 years at id Software. Having witnessed several ups and downs during his career, he expressed confidence that good games and development teams will always be successful—as long as they can properly manage their business, chiefly the game's budget.

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I have seen all the cycles. I started in 1995, and I remember the death of consoles; I remember the death of the PC. I remember that, yes, there's always cycles, but good games and good teams will always be successful. One of the things that Saber has done well is that we have studios around the world and we focus on the right scopes for our games. We focus on the right deal for our games. Each of our studios has multiple projects, so we don't have 200 people sitting around waiting for pre-production to finish. We're very smart with our money, and we focus on the core aspects of the game. We focus on what's truly fun, whether it's a $5 million game, $10 million game, or $50 million; it doesn't matter.

But if that core game loop is not there, it's not going to be a success, and we've done well by managing our teams, having teams and around the world at different cost structures, and finding the most talented people. If you're a world-class artist, you don't need to be in California. Some teams have, especially in North America, 150-200 people. They pay everyone well. If your burn rate is a couple of million dollars a month and you