Yeah and because every popamole corridor shooter had 150 people working on it.
His comparison is to games that were made with (literally) 3 people. He even starts off saying "In the last century it was anywhere from one nerd, to “big” teams of 15 to 30 pizza-eating individuals in a garage". I'll repeat that again: 30 people was a big team for a AAA game back in the good old days.
But then he goes on and spends a few more paragraphs talking about
how things are easier now. He even gives an example:
Yes, graphics and animations are getting more and more complex and you need more people to work on them, so it costs more money, but not that much. And yes, some of the games are so big, that they must be made by hundreds of people, but most of today’s development is just wrong. Fifteen years ago, when you needed to model a wooden box, it was just a box with a very small texture. Today it could have thousands of polygons and several huge textures and normal maps. But... Fifteen years ago, there was no Google, ZBrush, digital cameras, CGtextures, Crazybump, 30 inch diplays or Cintiq tablets. When you needed a texture for a medieval wooden box, you had to pick your ass up from the chair, go to a museum, buy a ticket, take a picture with your analog camera, send it to a minilab, wait a day and then scan it, or draw it with your mouse (Hell yeah a DAMN MOUSE!) in Photoshop 4. Today, it took me exactly two minutes to Google for perfect pictures of medieval chests that could be used as reference and for textures. Now think twice before you tell me, that making games is more complicated today.
His point:
Games are actually easier to make today, and therefore you can do a lot more with less people.
Then for shits and giggles he ends with some bonus hype of "clever decisions" and "perfect bulletproof design".
But wait, he even talks about "Special Forces"... People who apparently he can't afford anyway so "we had to bet on some younger, less experienced" people.
So if games are easier to make then they were 15 years ago -
Look at me! I found a box texture online! That's totally why things are simpler! - and 15 years ago 30 people was a big team, why is he calling 40+ people a
small team?
What I saw was an article full of contradictions, hype and mostly bullshit.
The Creative Director directs the creativity. 'dats crucial, son!
I know. Such a demotion too for a clearly talented guy. I mean, he can
write most of the game design, mission design, complete story, most of the dialogues plus design controls and parts of the GUI and HUD. Such a shame to see all that talent wasted on just "directing the creativity".