Saber Interactive creative director Tim Willits spoke in a new interview about a fundamental change in the company’s strategy: the developer has almost completely restricted development in North America. Although its headquarters is in Florida, the publisher’s main studios are currently located in European countries where salary expectations for specialists are significantly lower than in expensive tech hubs like San Francisco or Los Angeles.
According to Willits, the monthly burn budget of a major U.S. studio is about $2 million, and the entire development cycle of a popular game snowwalker The company spent only 6 million. It’s this approach that allowed Warhammer 40,000: Space Marines 2 to be released on a budget three times lower than the cost of its big overseas rivals, while the game sold out massively. At the same time, Saber’s business model has also raised questions: The publisher is actively experimenting with artificial intelligence, which has already caused a public scandal over accusations that it is replacing living authors with neural networks.