There are more games coming out every day than ever before, but the total number of people playing them hasn’t seemed to grow by nearly the same amount. Former SIE Worldwide Studios Chairman Shawn Layden says that mismatch can’t be fixed just by churning out endless big-budget sequels and more powerful hardware.
“If we’re just going to rely on the blockbusters to get us through, I think that’s a death sentence,” he said during an interview with Gordon Van Dyke, co-founder of the indie publisher Raw Fury, at Gamescom Asia this week, according to Gamesindustry.biz. The ex-PlayStation executive blamed nine-figure development costs for less willingness among big publishers to take risks. The result is games getting greenlit based on how well their revenue can be modeled instead of whether they feel fun and innovative.
“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,’” Layden said. “We’re seeing a collapse of creativity in games today [with] studio consolidation and the high cost of production.”
A ‘hard reset’ on the console arms race
During the event, Layden was also asked by VGC if the incremental improvements recently demonstrated in the controversial $700 PS5 Pro show the limits of new hardware. Despite the sticker shock, the improvements from the new console were hard fans to immediately discern. Even a hands-on demo by The Verge said the differences were barely noticeable at 10 feet away.
“It has plateaued,” Layden told VGC. “We’re at the stage of hardware development that I call ‘only dogs can hear the difference.’ If you’re playing your game and sunlight is coming through your window onto your TV, you’re not seeing any ray tracing. It has to be super optimal…you have to have an 8K monitor in a dark room to see these things.”
The executive said the console power chase has hit a “ceiling” and called for companies to compete on content rather than specs. “It’s time for a real hard reset on the business model, a hard reset on what it is to be a video game,” he told VGC.
This isn’t the first time the former Sony veteran has sounded the alarm about the long-term health of the gaming industry. Layden, who suddenly departed the PlayStation console maker in 2019 followed by a big shakeup of top leadership, has long warned about the unsustainable trajectory of big-budget games with each new hardware cycle, and the stagnation of a medium that brings in more money each year without growing the overall size of its audience.
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“It’s a $250 billion global business but the actual number of players doesn’t grow at the same pace,” Layden said in his Gamescom Asia interview with Gordon Van Dyke. “So we’re getting more money from the same people. You need to get more people playing games. How do you do that? We need to get more people making games.” He suggested companies look to empower up-and-coming developers in growing markets like Indonesia and India.
But even as many bemoan the death of AA gaming, a middle ground between low-budget indies and $200-million blockbusters, it’s clear some studios are still able to find success in that increasingly precarious sweet spot. Last year it was Remnant II, a Dark Souls-infused loot shooter. This year it’s Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2, a shooter attached to a big franchise that nevertheless manages to deliver a great-looking game on a budget that was less than half that of Doom Eternal. Maybe next year it will be Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, a French Impressionist riff on the Final Fantasy turn-based RPG formula that looks great for its surprising $50 price point.
Or maybe low-budget Steam hits are the new AA. Palworld, Manor Lords, and Balatro sold millions even without a massive publishing machine behind them. “AA is gone,” Layden said. “I think that’s a threat to the ecosystem if you will. So I’m looking at indie stuff. With the advent of technologies, like the latest Unreal Engine or what Unity can give you, I think we can all say that the standard quality of video games is pretty high now compared to ten years ago.”
