South of Midnight's former director says, were he making the call, he would not have funded the game he directed—believing that it was only a matter of time until "Rome burns."

South of Midnight director David Sears says in an interview with MinnMax that he would not have funded the game if he were in charge at Xbox. While thankful for the opportunity, Sears believed that there was a time limit until Microsoft "turned off the tap" and cut funding on the project.

"There’s always a night when Rome burns," Sears told MinnMax host Ben Hanson, "and I didn’t know exactly when it would be, but I was always worried about it."

Sears recalls that, during South of Midnight's development, Xbox leadership had been telling studios like Compulsion that their main goal was to build a portfolio of non-mainstream titles to diversify Xbox's library. While Sears does not name Game Pass as a motivating factor, the timing would coincide with Xbox's push to build a storehouse of games for the service.

The comment is a candid display of a developer stating that the portfolio diversification initiative at Xbox was wobbly and did not have a long-term view. In an interview with Bloomberg, Double Fine studio head Tim Schafer danced around a similar comment, but believed that the games the studio was making would have had some kind of audience, and profitability would not have saved them.

Related: Toshihiro Nagoshi's post-Sega game studio, Nagoshi Studio, shuts down after NetEase funding cuts

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