GCG ‘Holes to Fill: Jason Rubin at the Vancouver Game Summit’

Jason Rubin recently delivered the closing day keynote speech at the Vancouver Game Summit, which has been reported on in full on GameCareerGuide.com. The former Naughty Dog founder has been out of the industry for the last four years, though his ability to see “holes” in the game market that could be filled -- profitably for whomever fills them – is more acute now than when he was in the thick of game development. Writes the article’s author Albert T. Ferrer: “One of the benefits of being an ex-developer, according to Rubin, is having the ability to look back on his own career with a unique point of view. ‘My perspective, which is very different now than four years ago when I left, is that opportunity is knocking, and that everybody in this room has chances and opportunities that they didn't have four years ago and probably haven’t had for over a decade in the industry. It's a great time to be a game developer.’ However, one of the negative aspects Rubin sees in the current state of the industry is how independent developers fit into the picture: “Independence has almost disappeared. If you really think about, the triple-A independents -- Insomniac, Epic, Valve, just to name a few -- [they] are very few and far between, and they had to have successes before. They had to build a giant coffer and be able to finance their games, or at least partially finance their games. Their independence in a lot of ways is questionable because they had to sign multi project deals and were kind of bogged down.” The complete report from Rubin’s keynote address is available now on GameCareerGuide.com.