- Larian Studios CEO highlights RAM crisis impact on game development
- Reports of more 8GB RAM and VRAM configurations suggest harder game development in terms of optimizations
- It could turn out to be a major positive for better PC ports
While the ongoing RAM crisis that has impacted pricing for manufacturers has also affected consumers, it’s not the only knock-on effect that will occur leading into 2026, and a popular game developer’s CEO has spoken up.
In an interview with The GamerLarian Studios CEO, Swen Vincke, stated that the RAM price hikes will impact game development, specifically with extra work required for game optimization on the newly announced Divinity game. It comes shortly after reports suggest we could be seeing more 8GB RAM and VRAM configurations in 2026.
With costs rising for consumers, 8GB of RAM and VRAM (in GPUs) for custom gaming PC setups may become common, as any hardware with higher capacities will likely cost a fortune. This has already started, with some RAM kits costing more than entire consoles. Vincke fears that this will complicate game development, and it’s a reasonable assessment.
“Another [issue Larian is facing] is really the price of RAM and the price of SSDs,” Vincke said. “It’s like, literally, we’ve never had it like this.
“It means that most likely, we already need to do a lot of optimization work in early access that we didn’t necessarily want to do at that point in time.”
It’s a tough pill to swallow for the game developers working on Divinity, and many other games in production across several studios. However, this may turn out to be a massive win for PC gamers.
There’s no denying how poor PC ports (and some console ports) have been over the last few years, with many games launching with performance and optimization woes, and a heavy reliance on upscaling and frame generation from Nvidia or AMD via DLSS and FSR, respectively.
With more 8GB configurations on the way, especially Valve’s Steam Machine, which will launch using 8GB of VRAM, the RAM crisis will force game developers to focus on optimizing games for devices with more limited specs, which in turn will hopefully prevent games from launching in shoddy states along with promises of future patches to fix issues, and using frame interpolation as a band-aid fix.
Analysis: The RAM crisis is awful news for gamers, and this is the only win I can see
The AI boom isn’t slowing down any time soon, by the looks of it, which is the main cause of the RAM crisis. I fear that so far, we haven’t seen the full scale of the impact it will have on PC and console gaming, and the only positive sign that I’m seeing right now is the potential of better game optimization.
Now, there’s always a chance that upscaling and frame generation will be relied on even more once 8GB configurations become the focus for game developers. However, I’ve seen the limits of 8GB VRAM on even the best gaming laptops and other gaming PCs (with discrete desktop GPUs) being maxed out in demanding games, and that’s not going to go down well with gamers.
Better game optimization not only benefits consumers with lower-end hardware, due to steady and stable frame rates, but it’s also a bonus for high-end users, who have spent hundreds on powerful hardware, only to suffer from poor performance due to a lack of optimization.
It will be a move in the right direction for developers and consumers, and perhaps encourage gamers to call out bad PC ports more often.
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