Saber Interactive Chief Creative Officer Says Company Has No Real Development Left in North America

Saber Interactive Chief Creative Officer Tim Willits revealed in a Gamescom interview that the company has no real development operations remaining in North America. Publishing operations continue to function in the region, but actual game development now takes place entirely at a host of global subsidiaries.

Willits noted that Saber maintains development offices in Serbia, Armenia, Georgia, Spain, Portugal, Sweden, Argentina, and Australia. He stated that the company is not afraid of territories that other publishers might not understand, preferring to locate talented developers globally. According to Willits, brilliant programmers, artists, and animators do not need to be based in California.

During the interview, Willits criticized what he described as wasted money in many triple-A video games. He contrasted an unspecified recent release with Saber's own game, Space Marine 2, stating that Saber's title cost a third of the amount to make and sold significantly more copies. Willits highlighted the high financial burn rates of large North American development studios, which he estimated at over two million dollars per month. He contrasted those figures with the development cost of SnowRunner, which cost six million dollars to make and generated hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue.

Willits also identified overspecialization among developers as a contributor to broader industry challenges, though he expressed the view that the current crisis is not quite as severe as recent reports suggest.