South of Midnight creative director David Sears would not have funded the action-adventure game had he been in charge of Xbox.
Speaking in an interview with MinnMax, Sears said he was grateful Microsoft backed the Compulsion Games project, but questioned whether the company’s overall spending on games and studios could be sustained. When interviewer Ben Hanson asked the creative director whether he would not have funded South of Midnight himself or would have stopped the funding sooner if he had been running Xbox, he agreed, saying, “Yeah, probably.”
Sears clarified that he wanted to make South of Midnight and was glad it received the support needed to reach release. However, he said he might have cut off the flow of money going to other projects before it reached his own. “I’m not completely selfless,” he said, adding that, in hindsight, the scale of Microsoft’s investment appeared unsustainable.
The creative director said he had worried that the spending spree would eventually end abruptly, with serious consequences for developers. He recalled speaking with other directors during what seemed like a golden period for development and wondering how studios had become so fortunate. His response was always to remember that the situation may not last.
Sears criticized the industry’s reliance on enormous teams and budgets. He said he preferred smaller projects and didn’t want the responsibility of overseeing hundreds of people or a budget so large that a game could threaten Microsoft’s financial health. He argued that games could leave a lasting legacy without requiring huge development costs, especially if they offered distinct experiences.
Despite his reservations about the business model, Sears praised Microsoft’s treatment of studios, describing the company as more humane than the Microsoft he remembered from the 1990s and early 2000s. He also credited it for allowing studios such as Compulsion Games to become independent again.
