As the Devcom developer conference kicks off today in Cologne, organizers have shared the results of this year’s speaker survey: nearly 90% of respondents say they believe AAA games can be successful without additional purchases.
In a survey of 100 speakers, of the 300 industry experts taking the stage over the next two days, 89% said AAA titles can be “financially successful simply by being Buy-to-Play.”
The result comes after years of scrutiny over add-on purchases within AAA gaming spaces, including loot boxes (such as EA’s Ultimate Team modes for its sports games), battle/season passes, and progression boosters like XP multipliers and crafting resources.
Elsewhere in the survey, 65% of respondents said they were in favour of the premium model for both digital and physical games. This represents an overwhelming majority, followed by 10% who prefer community funding for games, and only one person who argued for free-to-play titles with ads.
When asked what role AI should play in game development, 31% said it should be used as little as possible, while 21% said it would benefit coding and production and another 18% advocated its use in marketing and communications.
Less than 10% said AI should be used in art and animation, less than 5% said it should be used in narrative design, and one speaker predicted AI will replace human translation and localization within the next two years.
When it came to the industry’s biggest challenges, more than half (55%) cited market saturation, while 46% said rising development costs were the biggest barrier companies face.
Finally, 57% of speakers expect layoffs in the industry to continue over the next 12 months, with nearly half expecting the pace of job cuts to accelerate. Only five people expect layoffs to slow and hiring to increase.
GamesIndustry.biz is a media partner of Devcom. Travel and accommodation were provided by the organizers.