Former PlayStation boss thinks "we've lost a lot of the variety in games..."

[Deathwing]

https://www.gamesradar.com/games/former-playstation-boss-thinks-weve-lost-a-lot-of-the-variety-in-games-and-we-can-thank-the-rising-cost-of-new-titles-for-that-we-had-so-many-crazy-games-on-ps1/

Not sure if this is allowed like this, sorry in advance.

This guy Shawn Layden was in charge of PS and one who steered the boat away in this direction of safe investments, but it's funny because that's precisely how I feel about PS nowadays. The charm of the PS1 and PS2 is long gone, their experimental and unique games replaced by "yet another over the shoulder third person cinematic game".

The budgets for modern titles are out of this world, so it doesn't surprise me that they want to play it safe. The question is, would people be interested if Sony or any other company kept an experimental studio with a handful of people who could develop titles with PS1 budgets? Would you be happy with last gen or even before type of quality production values? I suppose tools evolved enough to streamline this work.

Thoughts?

 

[SamanthaSamantha's icon]

For me, the whole issue with today's gaming industry is that games are mass-produced and manufactured rather than crafted; they want to play it so safe that they won't set one foot outside the "safe zone", which immediately makes me check out mentally and not care.

Everything is built on THIS ENGINE, based on THESE MECHANICS, rendered with THESE PLUGINS, set to THIS SOUNDTRACK... and what's the point of buying or playing games at that point? All that changes is the name on the box, the number on the sequel, and the year of release. It's like buying yearly sport title releases, but across the whole spectrum.

Oddball games like "Armed & Delirious" and "The Neverhood" were beloved because they were the results of someone's creative vision and it ultimately didn't matter if they made bank (in fact, the latter sunk the studio which made it) and that's where it was at — art is NEVER about playing it safe and, yet, it's all we are doing.

Thank God for indie developers and their punk ways.

 

[Deathwing]

.

Lovely read, I feel that even tho I couldn't write it myself.

Yeah it went from a few nerds in a garage to big companies with pre-defined budgets and sales numbers, last AAA titles which still have a bit of craft in them IMO were probably BG3 and E33. Did you play them? If yes what did you think about it?

 

[PrismRed]

Everything is built on THIS ENGINE, based on THESE MECHANICS, rendered with THESE PLUGINS, set to THIS SOUNDTRACK... and what's the point of buying or playing games at that point? All that changes is the name on the box, the number on the sequel, and the year of release. It's like buying yearly sport title releases, but across the whole spectrum.

This 100%, studios make games with budget and resource at its core instead of the other way around, which is make an idea of a game then throw investment around it.

Games doesn't have to be big or expensive, it has to be FUN. Indies are proof of that.

 

[SamanthaSamantha's icon]

Lovely read, I feel that even tho I couldn't write it myself.

Yeah it went from a few nerds in a garage to big companies with pre-defined budgets and sales numbers, last AAA titles which still have a bit of craft in them IMO were probably BG3 and E33. Did you play them? If yes what did you think about it?

I haven't played them (my "newest" games were MLB: The Show 2019 and GTA V), but I'll check them out!

 

[BrawlMan]

No shit Shawn. Look, I don't mind most of Sony's recent cinematic games, even though I am only interested in a few, but this has been Sony's problem since the 7th generation. Yes, they still had some creative variety, but they too jumped on the real is brown FPS trend and were obsessed with that too with Killzone and Resistance. Now the games vary in quality, but most people tend to favor Killzone 2 or Resistance 3.

Sony's persistent and nonsensical addiction to live-service I find so much worse. They have not learned a damn thing, and I know next generation, they will have nothing but live-service games on PS6. They're killing themselves and they're too stupid, greedy, delusional, and selfish to realize any of this.

 

[4C374552A1CA2638]

I'm also not surprised they want to play it safe since, in light of the Xbox firings, even putting out successful and/or popular games isn't enough anymore. You don't need moderate success, you need a wildfire 'everyone is talking about it for weeks' kind of seller that makes back its budget in hours... then you're boned come the next game because it has to do even better than the last one.

I did a search to find how much of a game's budget was salary and came across this post on Reddit from two years ago. Key comments from KevinDL gives a breakdown in numbers (though people point out how inaccurate they look) and riley_sc points out why this loss in variety happened (the want to spend more on fewer games).

The indie space has its own problem with discoverability. Earlier in the month, I counted nearly 80 games released on Steam in the span of just one day, and I don't know if that's above/below/exactly average. How do you even get noticed in the deluge? Good example is how the devs of Among Us were looking to do a sequel when the first game suddenly exploded overnight because just the right streamer showed the game.

A second, more recent Reddit comment paints an even bleaker picture (DKLancer's second comment breaking down numbers), or SpookiestSzn's link to SteamDB showing that already, there have been as many games added to Steam so far this year as there were in the entirety of 2022.

Well, that's all sunshine and rainbows, innit.

 

[What's His Face]

In the end, only Nintendo & PC will remain. Make of that what you will.