Shawn Layden has been out of PlayStation for 4 years now, however retirement hasn’t stopped him from weighing in on bigger tendencies in gaming. Lengthy frightened about ballooning blockbuster growth budgets, the previous CEO of Sony Laptop Leisure America has added studio consolidation and the state of sport preservation to his warnings for the online game trade.
Final month, Layden shared a few of these issues throughout his keynote speech on the GamesIndustry.biz Funding Summit. “”First, consolidation could be an enemy of creativity,” he mentioned, remarking on an acquisition spree by massive gaming publishers. “I additionally suppose rising prices in gaming are an existential menace to all of us. And the entry of [Google, Netflix, Apple and Amazon] into the sector—in any other case often known as the ‘barbarians on the gate.’”
The life-long Sony veteran, who stepped down in 2019 amid a company reshuffling, expanded on a few of these factors in an interview final week with the Lan Events podcast. Since leaving the PlayStation 5 maker, Layden has, maybe unintentionally, often taken on the function of an off-stage refrain in a Greek tragedy, hinting at the potential for impending doom if sport firms don’t “disrupt” themselves earlier than the market does by discovering broader attraction and extra sustainable enterprise fashions.
A perennial critic of the pattern towards 40-60 hour blockbusters that require a number of years and tons of of thousands and thousands to develop, Layden talked concerning the want for firms to “de-risk” costly initiatives by retreating into sequels and established Hollywood franchises. The latest race to amass studios, with Microsoft, Sony, Embracer, Take-Two, and extra spending billions so as to add to their portfolios, might result in even much less creativity as extra groups are put to work servicing these initiatives.
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“My concern round consolidation is that always it impacts creativity. For example, it takes some sort of small, impartial, wildhorse studios and brings them into a bigger conglomerate and basically time slows down the larger you’re, time slows down,” Layden mentioned. “I’m additionally involved when studios get purchased and as an alternative of enabling a solution to create their sport, they possibly get absorbed into a bigger enterprise that’s making a bigger sport, , what number of studios are concerned in making blockbuster video games that can stagger the thoughts.”
He mentioned that in particular cases, acquisitions can save studios from shutting down and he’s glad to see that, however he stays frightened concerning the lasting impression of the bigger pattern. “I’m simply involved about what it does to the creativity urge inside the studios, and might they maintain that form of impartial creativity alive or do they only get absorbed into the bigger entire? Time will inform, nevertheless it’s a bit regarding. Once you go from tons of of voices to dozens of voices, you lose some voices,” Layden mentioned.
The previous government additionally questioned how a lot gaming can proceed to develop by specializing in current genres which have already did not win folks over. “If we proceed to coalesce across the 4 or 5 genres, then we gained’t get the brand new gamers as a result of these folks have already mentioned we’re not interested by your genres,” Layden mentioned. “Don’t child your self that somebody who’s mentioned ‘no’ to Name of Obligation for the final 15 years goes to start out all of a sudden saying ‘sure’ to Name of Obligation.”
Layden had a considerably harsh appraisal of the trade’s common method to sport preservation as effectively. Backwards compatibility is obtainable on each Xbox Collection X/S and PS5, and Nintendo is flirting with it for the Change 2, however there are nonetheless huge libraries of video games on older {hardware}, together with consoles as latest because the PlayStation 3, which are troublesome if not altogether inconceivable to entry on present platforms. Even PlayStation Plus, which added older PS1 and PSP classics to its subscription library final 12 months, has been gradual so as to add them.
“Preservation is essential,” Layden mentioned. “I’m hoping that extra folks within the trade, definitely the massive gamers, start to appreciate that there’s an obligation and duty. This isn’t throw-away stuff we’re making. That is stuff that ought to be round for a very long time as a result of future generations will take pleasure in it in the identical method that we now have and it’s legal that we’re not doing extra to guard it.”
Whereas firms have been completely happy to remaster older video games or promote new anthologies like this week’s Steel Gear Strong Grasp Assortment, there’s been no bigger unified marketing campaign by publishers and console producers to put money into preserving gaming’s historical past alive and obtainable. As Layden factors out, it hardly ever helps the underside line. Culturally, although, it’s an essential method for one era of gamers to share their ardour with the following. Apart from, a medium untethered from its previous might need a tougher time seeing the place it goes subsequent.
