GameCentral interviews the CEO of IO Interactive about 007: First Light, Eminem in Hitman, and what’s gone wrong with the video games industry this generation.
Ever since Covid and the decline of E3 there’s been far fewer opportunities to interview developers and, in particular, publishers than there used to be. Part of that is due to the increasing rarity of physical events but there’s also a sense that companies would now rather say nothing than risk something that could adversely affect their sales.
So it’s always a welcome surprise when a publisher approaches us and actively wants to talk about the current state of the games industry. Hakan Abrak is CEO of Danish publisher and developer IO Interactive and the reason he wanted to get in contact is that IO are featured twice in this week’s Partner Preview showcase from Xbox.
Not only are they promoting 007: First Light, including support for Xbox Anywhere and Xbox ROG Ally, and the inclusion of the Aston Martin Valhalla, but they also announced that Eminem will be the next Elusive Target for Hitman: World Of Assassination – or rather Eminem will be hunting down his alter ego Slim Shady.
According to Abrak, he wanted to inject some positivity into the games industry, as it suffers from continued worries about investment, layoffs, the influence of AI, and the unhealthy machinations of bigger publishers in general.
He was impressively open about all these issues and more, and clearly very enthused about the launch of 007: First Light next March.
GC: So, the Xbox showcase hasn’t happened yet, but I gather you’ve got a couple of games that are going to be featured?
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HA: We are very busy working on different games, First Light being one of them, and obviously we are still going on supporting Hitman. But we just thought, without making it sound like we are beating our own chest; we just wanted to show a bit of a light in the industry where there’s a lot of tough news lately.
So, we’re an independent triple-A developer and we are still trying to carry the torch of trying to make ambitious triple-A games. And in the context of the Xbox Showcase today, we just wanted to contribute with some positive news.
GC: I don’t know if you saw it, but there was a report this week showing that people still prefer single-player games to multiplayer. And I wonder if a lot of the problems that’re going on today, are because companies are making the games that they want to be successful rather than the games that people actually want to play.
HA: Interesting question. So in terms of making games that the player really wants, I think it’s about risk assessment. It’s a lot of risk, right? So, when you’re taking big risks, I think for a lot of the big corporations, they have to think about… this IP has worked before, so should we do a new IP and take a bet on some of the trends they see in the indie space or mobile space? Should we turn that into a mechanic in triple-A or should we try to think that it’s a sure bet to do another iteration within a big IP? And I think for a while that was maybe the least risky thing to do. But I think we are in a place where that’s not even a sure thing to do for a lot of these corporations.
I don’t think it’s a sure thing anymore just to take a big IP and iterate on that, thinking it’s going to be worth your triple-A investment. And I think things like that are changing. And I think after Covid, where we saw these huge surges of everybody playing everything, staying home and playing, all of a sudden people are a bit more selective again, now they’re not just sitting at home and playing.
And the traditions of growth in the industry have changed and all the investment has been thrown at new companies that maybe grew faster than the culture could carry it, to do solid games. That’s why I think a lot of investors are also pulling a bit back. So it’s a complex thing, but it is risk adverse for big companies and when you are thinking about some of the indie productions that have success now, I think maybe they can afford… they have to maybe be a bit different. They have to take some risks, they have to be creative with some of these things.
So I think that’s very exciting to follow. And you also see a lot of companies killing big services because it’s a very hard space for them; it’s where they thought maybe that was a way to get sustainable business. But that has been shown to be very difficult as well.
I think for IO Interactive, we are not a big supertanker. We are not a small indie either. We are in that independent triple-A space and we have to be very careful. We are very ambitious with our scope, but we have to be careful what we do. But I think not being ambitious, or taking some risk, is also very dangerous for a company like us and what we have done, when we’re thinking about single-player… It’s a very interesting angle you have there, right?
Yes, I’ve seen the report, people still want single-player and every time there was a myth about single player’s death – like, it’s five times more than multiplayer – that’s always been disproven. And when we look at what we have done with Hitman, we are going on as single-player as a service, as we call it, for 10 years now.
And it’s unthinkable, like what we have done and achieved. That was maybe unthinkable 15 years ago, with Hitman, because Hitman has always been very successful for us, but nevertheless it’s always been a niche product. But the way we have built these campaigns and collected three games in one, and we have these elusive targets, or we have escalations, we have these living, breathing expansions of the universe that we’re doing, that has led us to having around 85 million players playing World Of Assassination.
We have north of 25 million copies sold and we have more than 1 million active users every month, still 10 years after the single-player game was first launched. So, I think there’s other ways of attacking this than just trying to make your own battle royale. We are not too big not to have to think out of the box, but we are able to pull off very high quality games at the same time.
GC: It always amazes me how quick the industry is to copy some things and how absolutely adamant it is to ignore the success of other things. Why has no one tried to copy you with Hitman? Why does no one ever try to copy Nintendo? No one ever seems to learn from past mistakes, either their own or others’. It’s worrying that so many of the decisions in the industry are based on what will please an investor that knows nothing about games and is only looking for short-term gain. Especially when you see so many layoffs, so many people’s lives being sacrificed for nonsense reasons.
HA: It’s very tough. It’s very tough. And I think all industries go through ups and downs, and I think this is the maturity of the gaming industry, where investors thought it was a gold rush through Covid. Now it’s a bit more of a nuanced picture. So the future… there’s very great questions of being risk adverse and bandwagon-ing versus putting a lot of money after being original.
Why do people not copy Nintendo? I think there’s something Nintendo does that’s difficult to copy, in terms of being very innovative with their gameplay mechanics, within their known IPs and being able to keep them relevant like that is a great ability.
Somebody who comes close to that is Sony. But where they’re copying a bit is to be less of a, ‘Here is your console in your living room.’ I think some of the things they’re doing with the distribution and the consumption of games, with Portal and these handhelds and whatnot, might actually change some behaviours and have more casual gamers play a broader range of games. But you still need to have a strong platform for how you approach gameplay.
GC: What also worries me is there’re so few independent companies left in the industry, with a question mark over EA and Ubisoft now too. Are we looking at a future where only two or three corporations own everything? Or maybe we’ll see an end to giant-sized third party publishers and instead medium-sized ones like yourself will be seen as a more viable way of connecting with an audience and innovating without so much corporate pressure.
HA: I hope so. I mean…
GC: I get the impression that you guys like making games, but I wouldn’t necessarily say that was true of some of the corporate execs I’ve spoken to over the years. I can see that look in your eyes where you’re passionate about what you do, but when I talk to one of these corporate drones, that light is not there.
HA: I think there’s something about if you want to make a game for everyone, you’re making a game for no one. You have to have some soul and take a risk, you have to take some chances. And I know we’ve only done our own IPs, throughout the years – Mini Ninjas, Kane & Lynch, Freedom Fighters, and Hitman obviously being the most successful of those. This is the first time we’re doing a licence game, a big IP. This is probably the only IP in the universe that we’ll work on that is not our own, because somehow, subliminally, it feels like we’ve been training for this for 25+ years! [laughs]
But one of the things that was very important for us, is to leave our fingerprints on it as well, to put part of our soul into this, in terms of an original Bond origin story, it’s extremely important for us. So, having a financial foundation is important to be able to do games. So that part is important, but what’s really, really important is to make amazing games.
And this is kind of the pinnacle point for us. We have this new IP, a fantasy project, we are working on; Hitman is going strong; and then there is maybe a start of something great with Bond. We have spent six years on this. This is by far most ambitious project we’ve done. The game is done, you can play it from start to end.
GC: Oh good. I half expected you to be announcing a delay when you organised this.
HA: [laughs] I mean, we are obviously polishing and bug fixing, but the game is coming out spring next year and it’s just amazing to be here after six years of journey. And we are single-player as a service, we can do multiplayer. We still are looking for edges and still thinking out of the box and pouring everything we have into these things.
And hopefully companies like Remedy can keep taking risks and make mistakes and take risks again in the future. Larian Studios hopefully will do that and keep going strong. The indies of today will hopefully be the agile triple-A companies of tomorrow and still do games with soul. That’s what I wish for the industry.
GC: We’re running out of time now but I’m sure you’ll be glad if I skip over MindsEye. [laughs] But… are you genuinely optimistic about the future of the games industry? In all my years of covering it, I’ve never seen companies being so recklessly destructive as they are now. The layoffs and the acquisitions, and the obsession with live service games… none of that has stopped, we’ve just got used to it. And yet it’s all still as poisonous now as when all this nonsense started three years or so ago.
HA: It is very tough right now. It looks very bleak right now. This is not the first big crisis that the games industry has been through though. There was a point where games, when they were mass produced, all of a sudden they were just like slap-on products. So we had a dip before. But I think it’s such a strong industry for creators and creation that this will not go away.
It ought to be a bright future, a future that will continue, but as every industry that gets a slap or two through a maturity phase… that’s what we are going through as well. There are big questions in the future.
Now Bond is 100% organic, as I call it. It’s not AI and whatnot, but we don’t know what kind of games the indies of today will be able to create tomorrow. So I think creativity will prevail and because you and me, as gamers, we will look for something that feels different and that is original.
And I think these things will have a way of balancing themselves. Live service games have become stale, they’ve become samey. In the name of taking less risk it actually imposed a lot more risk, including unfortunately on human lives losing their jobs.
But I think there’s examples, and hopefully we can be one of the examples, without sounding too brash about this, but we are definitely trying to show another way. And I think there are other studios, upcoming and a few veterans left, that I think can maybe be examples moving forward, hopefully.
GC: That’s great. Well, thank you very much for your time. Thank you.
HA: Appreciate it. Thank you so much.
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