AAA Companies Should Learn from Indie Studios, Says Sonic Producer

Small games from small teams succeed more often than multi-million dollar blockbusters.

Takashi Iizuka, producer of the Sonic the Hedgehog series, believes that large gaming companies can learn a lot from independent developers. In his opinion, the situation in the gaming industry today resembles what is happening in cinema, where small projects increasingly succeed alongside expensive blockbusters.

This year, Sonic the Hedgehog celebrates its 35th anniversary. Over decades, the franchise has repeatedly changed and experimented with new formats. One of the latest examples is the Sonic Pico Park project, announced at Summer Game Fest 2026, created with the participation of indie developers.

In an interview with GamesRadar+, Iizuka said that working with small teams allows Sega to look at game development from a different angle. According to him, creating a large project for a well-known franchise requires huge investments and a long production cycle, while independent studios can much faster turn ideas into a finished gaming experience.

The producer noted that large publishers have a lot to learn from the indie scene. He is particularly impressed by the energy of small teams and the speed with which they bring creative ideas to life. Iizuka added that collaboration with such developers is inspiring and helps to re-evaluate the game creation process itself.

He also drew a parallel with the film industry. According to Iizuka, the success of relatively low-budget films like Backrooms and Obsession shows that audiences are willing to support fresh ideas regardless of budget size. A similar trend is observed in the gaming sphere, where the ultimate success of a project is determined not by the volume of investment, but by how interesting it is to the audience.

Iizuka believes that today the industry increasingly faces a situation where creative approach and original ideas are more important than multi-million dollar expenditures, and therefore large studios should pay closer attention to the experience of independent developers.