The double-A game market has been the heavily squeezed middle over recent years.

"It doesn't exist any more," said InnoGames' producer Florian Schwarzer.

In his talk at the F2P Summit in London, 'The Lies We Tell: How double-A publishers and developers are killing each other', he argued this was a bad state of affairs.

"Double-A is the place where innovation happens," he said of these games that typically cost $100,000s to low millions of dollars.

The reason has something to do with market conditions, but was also self-inflicted due to what Schwarzer called dishonest business practices.

You show me yours

For double-A gaming to come back stronger, the industry - developers and publishers - have to become more transparent, he added.

One example used was the joint decision of InnoGames and developer Cliff Hanger to cancel Facebook game Blockstreet.

"It was 50 to 75 percent underscoped in terms of development time," Schwarzer said. "We were a blind developer and a gullible publisher."

Digging into the situation, he asked developers why the industry was so bad at scheduling. The answer he got back was, 'It's better to ask for forgiveness [i.e. more time] than not get the contract because another developer undercut you'.

Schwarzer says underlining this is uncertainty about which games will be a hit, combined with constant pressure to make games as cheaply as possible.

"To break the cycle, we need stronger due diligence during production," he said.

"If we say, 'This game is going to be cheap to make', then what we're really saying is 'It's going to be unfinished.'

Then people say 'It's good enough' and ship it.

It's a relationship

This is compounded by the old-style model of publishing contracts which are based on Schwarzer called check-box-based milestone payments.

"We will continue hearing 'It's good enough', unless we change system," he said.

Similarly, most developers use a work-for-hire project to fund their company. They will also have other prototypes or passion projects operating quietly in the background.

This is fine, Schwarzer says, only that most developers only have enough staff for one project.

"Publishers have to realise they need to pay more than just enough to keep the developer afloat," he said.

This can be done with revenue share, completion bonus or a long-term partnership.

"This is really not that difficult," Schwarzer explained. "We're going to have to be more open if we want the double-A market to be a success again."