Former PlayStation boss Shawn Layden speaking at Gamescom Asia with Raw Fury co-founder and chief publishing officer Gordon Van Dyke, Layden and reported by GamesIndsutry discussed the disappearance of AA games and why that is a bad thing for the gaming industry.
“[In the past] we spent a lot more time looking at games and not asking ‘what’s your monetization scheme,’ or ‘what’s your recurrent revenue plan,’ or ‘what’s your subscription formula?'” said Layden.
“We asked the simple question: is it fun? Are we having a good time? If you said yes to those questions, you’d usually get a green light. You didn’t worry so much about the end piece, for better or for worse. Of course back then you didn’t make a game for millions [of] dollars. So your risk tolerance was fairly high.
“Today, 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.’ We’re seeing a collapse of creativity in games today [with] studio consolidation and the high cost of production.”
He added, “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. 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. 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.”
Layden is worried that if the industry mainly relies on the blockbuster AAA games that could be a “death sentence.”
“Now 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.”
He was asked what strategy the few remaining AA studios could adopt, and he said AA has a natural niche that brings “the new thing” rather than be “a dollar store version of God of War.“
“Bring something that you sort of challenge yourself to see – the gaming media, this medium, is so flexible, it can do so many different things,” he stated. “So, I think your strengths in AA are going to be [that] your time to market should be faster. You know, to get 1,500 developers to do the next [GTA], that’s not the place you need to go for your AA. If you’re a developer, you’ve got to be able to say, ‘I can get something up and running in two to three and a half years.'”
He added, “If you’re going to pitch me your AA game, and in the first two pages of your deck is your monetization and revenue, subscription scheme, I’m out. Your first page has to be ‘This game needs to be made and here’s why.’ I want to see that fire, I don’t want to see ‘here’s the chief accountant on the team that’s going to explain to you the [game’s monetization].'”
Layden doesn’t think artificial intelligence (AI) is going to revolutionize the gaming industry.
“Artificial intelligence has been in gaming since almost the first or second games ever made,” he reminded the audience. “So all this excitement about gen AI, I find kind of humorous. I do see its applications in certain places for certain things. But it’s just a tool, it’s not a saviour. It’s a tool in the way that Excel is a tool. It just helps speed you along your tasks.”
A life-long and avid gamer, William D’Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Twitter @TrunksWD.
Full Article – https://www.vgchartz.com/article/462792/former-playstation-boss-shawn-layden-disappearance-of-aa-games-is-a-threat-to-the-industry/
