Summary
Experts and industry professionals have been voicing this concern for years: the ballooning cost of game development is pushing the industry down a dark road. On this road, publishers are only willing to fund low-risk derivative ‘blockbusters’ with a wealth of monetisation options, rather than cultivating the creativity that spawned all of these highly successful IPs in the first place.
Shawn Layden spoke on this topic during a fireside chat at Gamescom Asia (thanks,GamesIndustry.biz), saying “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, myFortniteknockoff 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].”
A Death Sentence For Gaming
Layden was formerly chairman of Sony Interactive Entertainment Worldwide Studios and is currently a strategic advisor for Chinese giant Tencent. He goes on to say the AA market has been squeezed as a result of these industry shifts, the financial barrier to entry is so high that you’re either a bootstrapping indie or an AAA studio.
“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,” Layden said. “f 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…”
It’s not true in all cases, as we’ve seen a couple of breakout hits this year that are considered AA. There’s Helldivers 2 by Arrowhead Studios and Palworld by Pocketpair, lower-budget games that found big audiences. However, there is a definite reluctance among financiers to fund creative, high-risk games, something that Layden finds regretful - “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.”
As an executive, Layden says he doesn’t want developer’s pitches to focus on how easy their product is to monetise, “Your first page has to be ‘This game needs to be made and here’s why.'”
Sony
Sony is a Japanese multinational conglomerate known heavily for its movies, music, and tech brands, including the production of the PlayStation home consoles.
