Bloody Hell, Are Publishers Too Scared to Save Our Favourite Games? The AA Magic Potion They're Ignoring!
AI Gaming News Author · kotaku ·
Gaming publishers are shelving beloved franchises like *Dead Space* and *Prince of Persia* due to sky-high budget expectations and corporate consolidation, but Jeff argues a simple solution lies in licensing these IPs to agile, mid-size AA teams who can deliver quality games for a fraction of the cost, turning a profit where 'no game at all' currently makes nothing.
Right, listen up, you lovely lot! I've been staring at the digital tea leaves all morning, and what I've seen has me equal parts scratching my head and wanting to shout 'EUREKA!' from the rooftops. We're talking about those legendary game series – you know the ones, the absolute bangers like *Dead Space*, *Deus Ex*, *Thief*, *Titanfall*, *Prince of Persia* – currently gathering dust in the publisher's attic, deemed 'too big to fail' but seemingly 'too risky to make.' Bloody hell, it's a conundrum, isn't it?
It’s like we’re stuck in some bizarre loop where publishers are convinced every single new entry needs to be a multi-billion-dollar, world-shattering event, demanding nine-figure budgets just to get off the ground. And if it doesn't promise to outgross the GDP of a small nation, then poof! It vanishes into the ether of cancelled projects and shelved dreams. We've seen *Dead Space* permanently put on ice, no non-VR *Thief* since 2014, *Deus Ex* dormant for a decade, and *Titanfall 2* practically ancient at ten years old. Even *Prince of Persia*, bless its time-rewinding heart, hasn't had a new 3D outing in 16 years, and the remake situation has been… well, let's just say it's been a bit of a catastrophic spell gone wrong.
This whole mess stems from what I reckon is a genuinely chaotic phase in the industry. We're seeing this grotesque consolidation, with giant company buying giant company for what feels like imaginary money. These multi-billion-dollar deals burden everything with colossal expectations. To justify these ludicrous valuations, every game needs to be predicted to pull in at least half a billion bucks. Ubisoft, for instance, has apparently declared its intention for *each* of its games to annually bring in a billion dollars. A billion! Mate, that's not just a high bar; it's a teleportation spell to an alternate dimension of financial fantasy.
This leads to development costs becoming self-destructively high, with expectations of $200 million plus just for a game to have enough 'spectacle' to impress a hypothetical mainstream audience. Everything now needs to be the next *Call of Duty* at a time when even *Call of Duty* is struggling to be the next *Call of Duty*! It's capitalism 101 gone rogue, where the insatiable need for infinite growth breaks the very thing it's trying to expand. Even a pre-schooler could tell you that model isn't sustainable.
**But here's the kicker, also easily grasped by toddlers: a moderately successful game that costs, say, $50 million to develop will make an awful lot more money than no game at all.**
Take *Dead Space*, for instance. The most recent example of a beloved series getting the cold shoulder. After rumours of a *Dead Space 2* remake cancellation and the original remake's 'disappointing' sales (seriously, how much do they expect?!), EA put the franchise 'on ice.' Even the original creators tried to pitch a *Dead Space 4* and were immediately rejected. Which is just bonkers, right? The original *Dead Space* back in 2008 cost about $37 million to make – that's roughly $55 million in today's gold pieces. And that was an internal EA studio, dealing with EA's famously labyrinthine corporate structure. I genuinely believe, with my whole lovely heart, that a well-established AA team could easily craft a new Dead Space, or even a killer remake, for less than that, especially if they prioritise genuinely innovative ideas and atmospheric horror over simply pushing the very fanciest modern graphics.
Then there's the *Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time* remake, a project that spent six agonising years in development hell at Ubisoft before being cancelled entirely. Talk about feature-creep! By all accounts, it was scrapped and restarted multiple times, adding new powers, changing characters, and just generally making things far more complicated than they needed to be. I remember hearing tales from the dev trenches – like Ubisoft trying to develop *Splinter Cell: Double Agent* by literally passing the baton between three international studios 24 hours a day with 2005-era video calls. Try to imagine a more chaotic way to make a game! The developers themselves could only offer 'taut smiles' when asked how it worked. It sounds less like game development and more like a high-stakes, multi-continental magic trick that inevitably goes awry.
That 2003 *Prince of Persia* original was phenomenal, mate! It didn't need new powers or levels; it just needed a modern refresh. And that's exactly what a super-capable, proven AA team, with a genuine love for the original and a knack for the genre, could have delivered. It wouldn't have been easy, mind, but eminently achievable without Ubisoft constantly getting in the way.
So no, a $50 million AA game isn't going to have the mainstream breakthrough appeal of a *Battlefield* – and it doesn't need to! If you're dropping $400 million on a game (before marketing, mind you), then yes, you absolutely need it to pull in near-billion-dollar figures. But if you've spent a sensible $50 million, and charged a fair $60 for a top-quality product, you're in the black with significantly fewer sales. And if it hits? The profits can be vast.
These aren't fantasy figures either. *Arc Raiders* apparently sold 12 million copies, which at $40 a pop is a cool $480 million. Even after store fees, that's 'only' $336 million. Its dev costs? Nowhere near AAA budgets. And *Clair Obscur: Expedition 33* reportedly cost less than $10 million to make and sold over 6 million copies by the end of 2025. That's at least $300 million before store cuts – a 3000 percent profit! These are the kinds of numbers Ubisoft or EA would sell their grandchildren's souls for, and they're coming from mid-sized teams not trying to boil the ocean.
Now, I reckon some AA teams wouldn't be interested in making a licensed game using someone else’s IP, and fair enough. And honestly, I wouldn't trust a big-name publisher right now either if I were one of them. But many would! If you're a small, talented team with a brilliant $10 million original project that just didn't quite catch fire, you're in a tough spot. Many mid-size studios fold at that point. But what if there was a path? A chance to be trusted with the next *Dead Space*, or *Legacy of Kain*, or *Sleeping Dogs*, or *Thief*, or *Titanfall*, or *Splinter Cell*? The list of dormant legends is longer than my wizard's beard, mate.
I'm genuinely doubtful there's some fatal flaw in this concept. The issue, as far as I can tell, is simply the complete lack of trying! And honestly, in their crumbling, fire-sale-driven state, what does an Ubisoft or an EA have to lose? There hasn't been a *Splinter Cell* game since 2013. That means for 13 years, they've made precisely $0 on new *Splinter Cell* games. A $10 million *Splinter Cell* that 'only' sells a million copies at $50 a pop? That's a 500 percent profit! It might seem like small change in a world where *very, very few* games hit a billion, but it's a heck of a lot more than absolute zero.
Sometimes, the simplest spell is the most effective. These beloved franchises are cultural treasures, sitting there, gathering dust, while their corporate guardians chase impossible rainbows. Let the AA wizards work their magic, I say! What's the worst that could happen?
*Original article by John Walker for Kotaku, published on January 23, 2026.*
Tags: gaming industry, AAA vs AA, franchise revival, game development, publisher woes
Original article: kotaku