Amy Hennig thinks game streaming could spark a creative revolution

Veteran writer and director Amy Hennig, known for her work on franchises like Uncharted and Jak and Daxter, hopes the advent of game streaming platforms like Google Stadia will spark a creative revolution within the games industry.

During an interview with Eurogamer, Hennig, who's recently been exploring the world of VR after leaving EA, claimed the current way of making games is unsustainable, with bigger budgets, rising development costs, and larger dev teams making failure and experimentation far too risky. 

It's a situation that means everything has to be an absolute blockbuster success, which in turn results in bigger publishers and developers taking fewer, bigger bets on new ideas.

Although she notes that indies have shouldered much of that creative burden, she hopes full-fledged streaming services like Stadia -- which won't require users to fork out for an expensive console -- will give publishers and studios of all sizes the financial freedom to take more risks. 

"What you'll see is less risky design decisions inside games, because if you're going out on a limb and it doesn't hit the audience, then you've lost a lot of money. That's also why games can get a little samey, because people are trying to do stuff that they know is already tried and true," she said, pointing to the recent surge in battle royale titles.

"That's the opposite of what we're seeing on things like Netflix, where there's this incredible cornucopia of fiction and non-fiction, comedies and dramas. We need to do the same thing, we need to make sure we're creating a much wider suite of interactive experiences.

"So when I look at where we've been going, and I see it narrowing, getting bigger, scarier in scope but also narrower in terms of invention, then I'm excited about what streaming might unlock."

You can hear more from Hennig by checking out the full interview over on Eurogamer. It's well worth a read.