Blockbuster video games are a ‘death sentence’ for gaming says ex-PlayStation boss --[Reported by Umva mag]

Former PlayStation America boss Shawn Layden has been dropping truth bombs again, as he decries the death of AA games development.

When Shawn Layden was head of PlayStation America, between 2014 and 2019, he didn’t particularly stand out – he just seemed to be another platitude-spouting exec that you only saw at E3 and never paid much attention to.

Ever since leaving Sony though it’s become obvious that he has a deep passion for, and understanding of, the games industry, which he’s able to talk about freely now that he doesn’t work at PlayStation anymore.

Recently he’s spoken about how publishers need to make shorter and less graphically intensive games and now, he’s talked about ‘a collapse of creativity in games today [with] studio consolidation and the high cost of production.’

Layden was speaking at the Gamescom Asia event in Singapore, as part of a ‘fireside chat’ with Gordon Van Dyke, co-founder of indie publisher Raw Fury.

‘The entry costs for making a AAA game is in triple digit millions now. I think naturally, risk tolerance drops. And you’re [looking] at sequels, you’re looking at copycats, because the finance guys who draw the line say, ‘Well, if Fortnite made this much money in this amount of time, my Fortnite knockoff can make this in that amount of time,’ said Layden, according to GamesIndustry.biz.

Many have been saying the same thing for a while now but it’s refreshing to hear it from someone that held such a senior position at PlayStation, even if you now can’t help but wish he was still there. Although we’re especially impressed that he knows who former British publishers Gremlin and Ocean are…

‘In the gaming business you have Call of Duty, Grand Theft Auto, indie stuff. But then that middle piece, that middle layer that used to be where Interplay, Gremlin, Ocean, THQ, all those companies, made their money… That middle piece is gone,’ he said.

‘If you [can become] AAA, you survive, or if you do something interesting in the indie space, you could. But AA is gone. I think that’s a threat to the ecosystem, if you will.’

Layden spoke about indie games and the inherent problem that no matter how good they are it’s often difficult for them to get noticed, by both customers and press.

‘If we can just get a bit more interest and excitement and exposure for these lower budget, but super creative and super unusual [type] of games… I’d like to see more of that. Because if we’re just going to rely on the blockbusters to get us through, I think that’s a death sentence,’ said Layden.

The whole speech is worth reading and it’s hard to argue with anything that he says. It’s equally hard to imagine any major publisher taking any notice of him.

Even with multiple high-profile flops recently, there’s no sign that publishers have given up their obsession with live service games or that they’re going to do anything to try and reduce game budgets.

As the crisis in video games continues the only thing any publisher seems to want to do is cut jobs, rather than face the fact that their entire outlook for the industry is deeply flawed.

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