Shawn Layden, strategic advisor to Tencent Games and an ex-PlayStation top executive, has voiced his concerns about a downtrend in the gaming industry.
You’ve probably played or at least heard about blockbuster games like “Grand Theft Auto V,” “Call of Duty,” “Battlefield,” and “The Last of Us Part II.” These Triple-A (AAA) games are highly revered in the gaming industry for their ingenuity. But it costs millions of dollars to produce them.
However, in recent times, most AAA games have shunned the innovative aspect of video games and focused on cost and profit, allegedly stagnating the industry. And Shawn Layden is highly concerned about this.
Layden sounded an alarm about the industry’s obsession with AAA games and their budgets. According to him, this fixation on high-cost, high-profit, and high-profile titles spells a “death sentence” for the industry. It is destroying creativity and causing the disappearance of smaller, innovative studios.
Should the casino games industry also listen to his warnings? Let’s find out.
Today’s casino news discusses Shawn Layden’s perspective on gaming operations, which he believes puts the industry at risk.
Shawn Layden: A Leader Who Changed the Face of Gaming
From 1987 to October 2019, Shawn Layden spent more than 30 years at Sony and headed its PlayStation Studios, the video game development division, in the latter part of those years. So, he has experienced the creativity put into smaller games. Indie games (independent video games) and AAA games (high-profile games) are the options that allow for creativity.
According to Shawn Layden, the problem isn’t only that AAA games are expensive. It’s also that the industry now relies on a few blockbuster projects like Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto, which have been exhaustively copied. Five games can exist, and all might be variations on a theme.
For him, the AAA model is a house of cards soon to collapse. He sees it as a self-inflicted wound that hinders the industry’s ability to evolve and innovate, increasing the number of identical games.
“And (now) you are (seeing) sequels, you are 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 (due to) studio consolidation and the high cost of production.”
Shawn Layden revealed, “That middle layer that used to be where Interplay, Gremlin, Ocean, THQ, all those companies, made their money (and so on). That middle piece is gone.” He argued that the same thing is happening in the movie industry. “We’ve seen the same phenomenon in the film industry, right? We’ve come across a place where everything is a blockbuster, Marvel Cinematic Universe, or its Sundance award contender.”
However, there is still hope for mid-tier games, just like in mid-tier movies.
Shawn Layden on Why Bigger Does Not Always Translate to Better
Shawn Layden said, “(In those days) 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’? We asked the simple question: is it fun? Are we having a good time? You’d usually get a green light if you said yes to those questions. You didn’t worry so much about the end piece, for better or worse.”
“Back then, you didn’t make a game for millions (of) dollars. So, your risk tolerance was fairly high. Today, the entry cost for making a AAA game is in triple-digit millions. I think naturally, risk tolerance drops.”
The marginalization of AA games (games that are not as quality as indie or AAA games) is a “death sentence,” according to Layden. “If we can just get a bit more interest, excitement, and exposure for these lower budget but super creative and super unusual (kind of) games, I’d like to see more of that,” he said. “Because if we’re just going to rely on the blockbusters to get us through, I think that’s a death sentence.”
Shawn Layden emphasized that bigger budgets and monetization don’t make it all better and shouldn’t be the main focus of publishers. “If you’re going to pitch me your AA game, and your monetization and revenue subscription scheme is on the first two pages of your deck, I’m out. Your first page has to be ‘This game needs to be made, and here’s why.”
The Legacy of Shawn Layden in the World of Gaming
The only way to revive creativity in the gaming industry may be to return to look beyond the existing AAA games. The focus on big-budget games is causing the industry to miss out on many innovative, low-budget projects.
So, publishers should invest in smaller, more experimental games and allow developers to innovate without the pressure of making up for massive budgets.
Casino software producers can also heed this warning, especially in slots, by not repeatedly producing sequels of successful games. Keeping this fresh by continually being creative is a must. To play a wide variety of online casino games, play at the best online casino.
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