Steve Goldstein, president of Turtle Rock Studios, at the Video Game Bar Association event in Los Angeles.
Categories

Turtle Rock’s Steve Goldstein believes the console game industry lacks risk takers

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 23 min

I’ve formed a lot of opinions about the game industry over the years. And I recently got the chance to spout them in a conversation with Steve Goldstein, president of Turtle Rock Studios, the maker of the Evolve video game published by Take-Two Interactive’s 2K label in February 2015.

At UCLA, we gave a talk before a group of game industry lawyers from the Video Game Bar Association. We were encouraged to talk about the whole industry’s trends, and we started by noting how conservative the console game industry has become, with huge budgets that are forcing publishers to be very careful when it comes to launching original games. Sequels rule, and that’s a sad reality.

Unlock premium content and VIP community perks with GB M A X! Join now to enjoy our free and premium perks. 

Join now →

Sign in to your account.

Next page
Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.