“A collapse of creativity”, this former PlayStation boss does not hold his tongue, he condemns the use of blockbusters

Gaming News “A collapse of creativity”, this former PlayStation boss does not hold his tongue, he condemns the use of blockbusters

Less risk, more profitability

Former Sony Interactive Entertainment America president Shawn Layden recently spoke out about the state of the video game industry. The former Sony executive, who appeared on stage at Gamescom Asia alongside Raw Fury co-founder Gordon Van Dyke, said that video games were experiencing a “creative collapse” and that betting more and more on AAA and its sequels is “a death sentence”. .

Today, the cost of producing a AAA game is in the hundreds of millions. Therefore, I assume that risk tolerance is reduced. So you see sequels, you see copies, because the financial people who set the boundaries say, “So if Fortnite made this much money in this long time, my copy of Fortnite can make this much money in this long time.” We are experiencing a collapse in creativity due to studio consolidation and high production costs.

Killing creativity

Shawn Layden goes one step further and also explains this loss of creativity with the gradual disappearance of more modest video games but with innovative ideas. He believes that it is these projects that bring freshness and inventiveness to video games.

If we could have a little more interest, excitement and exposure for these (projects with) smaller budgets but super creative and unusual games… I’d like to see that more often. Because if we rely solely on Blockbuster, I think it’s a death sentence.

In the end, Layden sharply criticized the constant search for new ways to monetize, which comes at the expense of the creativity and intentions of the developers who decide to produce a video game. In short, the former CEO puts artistic intentions ahead of economic aspects, a vision that is becoming increasingly rare in the video game industry.

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