Industry vet who worked on Ultima Online says the next big thing needs to have 'sh*tty graphics' to escape the doom of rising development costs
Industry veteran Raph Koster argues rising development costs and stagnant game prices threaten studios, urging a new platform with deliberately low-end graphics to reset industry economics.
Raph Koster, a veteran developer behind Ultima Online and Star Wars Galaxies, warns that escalating development costs and static game prices are pushing the industry toward unsustainable cycles. He highlights Myhrvold’s Law, noting software expands to consume available hardware resources, driving up content costs even as tools like Substance automate parts of the process. Koster emphasizes that modern textures and shaders, once simple 128x128 images, now require multiple 4K assets with complex interactions, inflating budgets despite procedural generation tools.
Koster argues that traditional game pricing has failed to keep pace with these costs, citing widespread discounts as evidence of a broken model. He suggests the industry is trapped in a cycle where rising expenses are not offset by revenue growth, risking long-term viability for developers. His concerns stem from decades of observing how content costs balloon while player spending remains flat, particularly in AAA sectors.
To break this cycle, Koster proposes a new platform must offer unique gameplay affordances unavailable elsewhere, deliberately disadvantaging traditional game development. He insists such a platform would need to prioritize accessibility over graphical fidelity, creating barriers for established studios to dominate immediately. Historical examples like Flash, Facebook social games, Wii, and mobile illustrate how lower-cost platforms initially thrive before costs rise again.
Koster’s proposed solution centers on a platform with intentionally poor graphics, forcing a reset in development economics. He contends this approach would prevent incumbents from leveraging existing expertise to monopolize the new space, allowing innovation to emerge from constrained environments. His argument reflects a belief that only a disruptive platform can alter the industry’s cost trajectory, which has remained unchanged for decades.