During a Gamescom Asia panel, former PlayStation boss Shawn Layden spoke about the current state of the gaming industry and how the disappearance of AA studios had contributed to a “collapse of creativity” in modern games. Layden explained how the rise in development costs had led to studios placing a stronger emphasis on post-launch monetization plans and following trends to remain risk-adverse.
“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, Layden said (via GamesIndustry.Biz). “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.”
Layden added that while the quality of indie games had risen, the AA space that had been dominated by companies like Interplay, Gremlin, Ocean, and THQ has seemingly vanished. With the options being either indie games or AAA blockbusters, Layden believes that this is a dangerous situation for the gaming industry to be in right now.
“Now if we can just get a bit more interest and excitement and exposure for these lower-budget, but super-creative and super-unusual [types] 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,” Layden said.
This isn’t the first time that Layden has been vocal about how game development costs have become unsustainable, as back in 2020, he mentioned how the AAA industry needed to return to making more 12- to 15-hour games. Looking at PlayStation’s performance this year, there might be some truth to those words as the company’s big new live-service shooter Concord was taken offline shortly after launch, while its new platformer Astro Bot received an overwhelmingly positive reception. While the sales numbers for Astro Bot haven’t been revealed yet, it’s likely far more than that of Concord, given the circumstances.
Another example of a game with a strong single-player identity finding commercial and critical success would be Warhammer 40K: Space Marine 2, as Saber Interactive chief creative officer Tim Willits recently spoke about how the game can succeed without needing to hit absurdly high sales figures.