The former PlayStation America president speaks of a "collapse in creativity" in video games
, by Thibaut
Shawn Layden, who acted as president of Sony Interactive Entertainment America until 2019, hasn't minced his words when it comes to the current state of affairs in the video game industry.
At a conference at Gamescom Asia this week, the businessman spoke of the sector's creative collapse.
"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 also pointed to the demise of AA games, which he sees as a "threat to the ecosystem" of the industry. From his point of view, these games can build "new things" while being developed faster than AAA.
Finally, Shawn Layden believes that in his day, people were more concerned with whether a game was fun to play than with how much money it could end up making.
Source: gamesindustry.biz