Video games are wonderful, but there's an issue: making them is complicated and takes a lot of time. While we would like development cycles to become shorter over time, the reality is different, or at least that's what Matt Booty, head of Xbox Game Studios, declares.

According to information from Axios, Matt Booty believes that longer development cycles for high-budget games are here to stay. Thus, the times when the most important studios in the industry could release 3 or more games in a single decade are now in the past.

According to Booty, high-budget games no longer take 3 or 4 years to make. Instead, we are talking about development cycles of up to 6 years.

"I think the industry and fans are a little bit behind the curve in understanding that games aren't two or three-year kind of developments anymore. They're four, five, six years," Booty said.

Video games are becoming more ambitious

According to the Xbox Game Studios executive, this is because games have become increasingly ambitious. Thus, although development tools improve, expectations increase, and that forces games to spend more time in development.

"There are greater expectations. The level of fidelity that we're able to deliver simply increases," he noted. "Games continue to become a more ambitious art form."

What do you think of this news? Do you believe the industry needs to find alternatives to avoid such long development cycles? Let us know in the comments.

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