It is an incredible time to be a gamer. Publishers are constantly churning incredible AAA titles, and independent studios are receiving the respect and attention they deserve from both publishers and game distributor platforms. Unfortunately, some publishers have been cranking out yearly iterations of pretty much the same game, and the business model is actually a successful one, much to the chagrin of devs constantly trying to push the envelope. Enter A Way Out game director Josef Fares, who echoed these sentiments in a recent interview with GamesIndustry.biz.

During the interview, director Josef Fares revealed that his dream was that the success of A Way Out – now available – would inspire others to focus more on innovation, and less on churning out same-but-different content to the beat of more money. “It would be good for all publishers to take more risks,” he said.

I hope this inspires more AAA titles to improve their writing, the gameplay. I hope we show that yes, you can take risks and you can do well. I mean we’ll probably do less well because we give one copy away for free [per player], but that doesn’t really matter. At the end of the day, it’s a good way of testing stuff.”

Fares continues on, saying “I love taking risks. Like the fact this is co-op only – from the beginning, people were like, ‘Isn’t that risky? Won’t you sell less?’ I don’t care. That’s the vision, so I will follow it.” Fares also said that there’s more than just a single side to taking risks. “There are two sides to the coin here,” he said. “If you just let developers do whatever the hell they want, it will cost a lot of money. Something that’s been missing, but is becoming more and more common, is to have a very clear vision from the beginning. Games are expensive, so you can’t have an attitude of ‘yeah, let’s fuck shit up’. I take my job very seriously. If you’re giving someone $100 million, you want to know that what you get back is actually good. There has to be an understanding, a trust from both sides.

I would use Sony and Naughty Dog as a good example of that relationship. Big publisher, really big budget games, but Naughty Dog still take risks – from what I understand The Last of Us was a risk for them, because it was a new IP, but there was a respect and understanding from Sony. They believed the team could pull it off. That’s a relationship I would love to have, and I think that’s a relationship that would be healthy for everyone.”

The director finished his talk on risk by clarifying that he isn’t necessarily blaming anyone, he just understands that the entire gaming community as a whole needs to come together in order for things to change. “Publishers, developers, journalists, players, everybody – we all need to work together to push towards a better gaming community. Isn’t that what we all want: better games?”

A Way Out is now available for PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.

So, thoughts on the above words from game director Josef Fares? Do you agree with what he’s saying? Let us know in the comments section below, and as always, stay tuned to Don’t Feed the Gamers for all the latest gaming and entertainment news! Don’t forget to follow DFTG on Twitter for our 24/7 news feed!