The DeanBeat: Where game developers still dare to bet big

In 2010 and 2011, the development team at Guerrilla Games in Amsterdam surveyed the landscape of video games. They had just shipped the sci-fi shooter Killzone 3, selling in the low millions of units. It was successful enough to give the studio — which was the only surviving Triple-A company in the Netherlands — another chance at making a big game.

But the small team saw the increasing investment that was required to stay competitive in the first-person shooter market. They saw that Activision Publishing was investing more in Call of Duty with its monstrous hits Black Ops and Modern Warfare, and it was adding more studios to make these games. Was there still room for a relatively small team to produce exclusive titles for the PlayStation in the shooter business?