Analytic Dreamz: Notorious Mass Effect - “EX-PLAYSTATION BOSS HAS A WARNING FOR THE GAMING INDUSTRY”

Episode Date: November 27, 2023

Linktree: https://linktr.ee/AnalyticIn this thought-provoking segment, we delve into the perceptive observations of former PlayStation executive Shawn Layden as he offers his unfiltered views on the ever-changing gaming realm. From skyrocketing development costs to studio mergers and the significance of game preservation, Layden's insights are bound to ignite a dialogue among gamers and industry aficionados alike.Join us as we navigate the gaming industry's most critical topics with Analytic Dreamz and Notorious Mass Effect.Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Former head of PlayStation Worldwide Studios, Sean Layden, has some interesting concerns that even me, myself. I've been thinking about this for quite some time now, as gaming really catapulted off of COVID to the point where almost all of the revenue dollars for gaming has increased, whether it's a streaming lane, whether it's the professional games, gamer lane, whether it's a game developer, well, some of these developing studios are going out of business, but that's another point. So probably not them, but you get what I'm saying. It's a lot of different avenues in the gaming space now to generate a nice living for yourself. So when Sean Layden came and basically pointed out the biggest issues in gaming, I thought it was pretty interesting as he pointed out some very interesting details that I've been thinking about, but I haven't been able to explain it like he did in this clip right here.

So basically, if you don't know, there's a new episode for Lucas Egan, I believe, and it's called the Land Parties Pod, and he had Sean Layden come on to talk about some of the biggest issues for gaming. And then this was a snippet for the episodes. Of course, here's the link. Um, if you want to see the video element, analytic dreams video on my Spotify channel to see the video along with the audio. But there's the link right there and his Twitter page if you want to go to it and click that link. But anyways, here is the snippet for the episode that's already out with Sean Layden. Strangely enough though, in gaming, of course, we have that weird kind of elasticity, elasticity on the, the cost it takes to create a game. but not elasticity on the price you can charge for a game.

So whilst, you know, making a game in PlayStation 1 era, there were really solid sub-million dollar games, and even some of the bigger games in PS1 era, those were five or six million-dollar games. And you could charge $59.99 for it. You come up to today, and you have these enormous, massive narrative experiences or huge scope RPG that go on for, you know,

tens of dozens of hours. which costs in excess of $100 or $150 million to make. And yet you can only charge $59.99 for it. So it doesn't take a whole lot of math to see how eventually you get to the pinch point. In fact, I think we're there where in order to substantiate taking the triple million dollar risk in building a game, you've got to understand. It's incumbent on game producers and particularly in the finance department to do their to de-risk the proposition.

You know, how do we pull some risk out? And some of the risk you take out of it is innovation, because innovation is risk. So you end up seeing a lot of people leaning into sequels because we have the previous iteration of the game. We knew how many it sold. We know there's a captive audience of X million people who will probably buy it if we build it again,

you know, part two, part five, part nine. And that's one way to de-risk it is to go to what... All right. So basically, he pointed out how, the cost of making a game is exponentially larger than the price you could set for set game, which I've been saying as a consumer, called me crazy, but it's almost like looking at something improve, stay at the same price range,

and you're like, you know I will pay more for this type of experience, granted, if you do it right, because to be the devil's advocate, which I got to come up with another word, because, you know, I ain't advocating for the devil. But to argue the other side, I will say a lot of these games nowadays are coming out a buggy mess

to the point where even the price tag that they set is unjustifiable, whether it's a cyberpunk when it first came out, whether it's 2K was asking way more money after the $70 price tag in terms of VC, whereas you can't even play the game, $70 to get $2,000 to get $2,000. basically is just to get the quick play mode because if you want to get into my career you have to pay way more money to even compete with other gamers then there's other games where it just comes out a complete buggy mess already said cyberpunk uh spider-man two i'm sorry i got to throw it in there definitely a buggy mess right now and for that i do believe that there's some leeway or there's some common ground we can get to with the price point set for games versus the price it makes it takes to make a game because I do believe that they should at some point raise the bare minimum price because if you don't know most basically gaming is an expensive hobby it's not a hobby for everybody to enjoy right it's not one of those like oh i need it's not like food or water right you don't need to game so it's an expensive hobby it's a it's a luxury so if you can't afford it then

there's things out there that lends you to be able to afford it like bargain bin deals discounts in-store credit like there's a lot of different games that you can get at a discounted price so that these games when they first come out i feel like the premium price i could see it justifiably being raised as a consumer i know i'll probably sound crazy advocating for companies to increase the price point but hey that's why I'm at as a gamer so anyways he also went on to talk about other things as far as larger game publishers uh hindering creativity because if you don't know if you have a backer who's funding everything and you try to do this creatively but he's like hey i'm paying for this you're going to do this and maybe it's worse but guess what now you got to go with it because he's

already going to fund it so much and he could pull out any second so then you have large conglomerate slowing down a creative process according to Sean Layden. This is also his words. I played the snippet, but the whole interview is out. So I'm getting into all his key points. Then he went into non-endemics, I think that's like I said. Companies like Google, Netflix, Apple, Amazon entering the gaming sector as are viewed as potential disruptors, which kind of makes sense. Gaming, like I said, grew larger.

when COVID happened because entertainment outside stopped completely, of course. So where do people get their entertainment from or the escapeism? Because, you know, you had to be in the house. Like COVID at its peak, it was like, we don't know what this does to your body. So everybody just stay in the house. So what do people when or started to do more of game? So gaming rose to new heights similar to how when Fortnite first came out, a lot of people who never game in general just started to pick up a game just to play with

their friends right that's kind of how gaming blew up in covid it was like a fortnight part two it was like a whole new explosion of new gamers hopefully that makes sense all right so then shan laden went into industry disruption which i talked about that uh studio acquisitions he also uh talked about that as a problem saying that the acquisitions of small independent studios by larger conglomerates definitely will stifle creativity and studios may be absorbed into larger enterprises affecting their independence. And then he talked about how that, you know, just affects the whole console, but not even console. He, I mean, he said Sony and Microsoft are basically the console war going on, how it affects

that and how those two conglomerates are basically racing to acquire the most studios. And he believes, Sean Layden believes that this may lead to less creativity as more teams are focused on servicing blockbuster projects, which I'm not mad at. God of War was pretty solid. Ragnarok, you know, besides the trillion puzzles they put into the game to increase runtime, it was pretty solid as a game as far as gameplay mechanics. Spider-Man 2, I don't care if it was a buggy mess. I still completed it and it was a fire game from start to finish. Last of Us I've never played Last of Us

Not gonna lie Ratching and Claint Straight Fire I'm trying to think I'll launch Horizon Forbidden West Those are just something I'm naming off I'm not gonna name up Off all of them

But basically I like the blockbuster games I feel like if you have a cohesive Unit putting together a game And it turns out like this Then I'm okay with it Like if they was putting out some trash Like if God of War Spider-Man

If all those was like trash games Then I'll be like okay let's try some new IP but I think the route they're going is pretty on on point because if you don't know Sony's by far in the way winning the console war and I'm not even like a Sony pony I mean I have a PlayStation simply because of Spider-Man but that's why PlayStation is winning the race because people are looking at PlayStation like oh I can play these games and I can't play it on Xbox that's why Microsoft like Sean Layton alluded to is out here literally buying whole developing studios like a bungee like an activision they're really going into getting whole

development studios so that they have a plethora of games under their umbrella so really in a long run microsoft could end up being 10 times or having 10 times more exclusives good exclusives than sony but right now it still looks like sony is winning the console race and then sean laden went into importance of preservation saying that the cultural and history historical importance of preserving games for future generations and also call for industry players to realize that their responsibility and preserving gaming content and gaming, if you don't know, has a very horrendous preservation problem because I don't know what it is, but nobody loves to keep the old consoles. They either throw it away. They don't keep, they don't clean it or keep it up

today basically they end up breaking to the point where we don't really have too many retro old consoles and if you do you could probably look on the market and sell it for a nice a pretty penny if you was wanting to but i would definitely it's like stock at this point like not that f tc or whatever f tx whatever that uh scam stuff was i'm talking about actual investing into your old retro consoles and keeping it up to day clean and things of that nature so that in the future you could probably probably sell it like I said for a pretty penny so because I don't know why but gaming is really struggling with preservation issues so but that said Sean Layden also reiterated concerns about the impact of of gaming industries

creatively with the big studios getting involved which I mean that's gonna happen with any form of entertainment if somebody's gonna come to the table realize that you're bringing some creatively so they want to fund it no matter how creative you are if they're funding it they're gonna want you to do certain things that works for them. So if they want you to put out a game and you want to include this character, but they're like, this character is so cool, we got to put this in DOC because that's going to boost sales via Street 5 to 6 and Akuma, then you're going to listen to your investors.

Because one of the biggest things that companies love to do is look at the stakeholders and be like, hey, whatever y'all want, but you're going to do it because you don't want that money. to suddenly disappear. So with that being said, I think Sean Layton is definitely on to something in this podcast. I mean, of course you can listen to it for yourself. I have it up right here

as far as Luke Lucas Egan and Sean Layden. I don't know how long the episode was, but that was just a little snippet that I played for y'all and wanting to get into his overview thoughts, but definitely he goes into more detail as far as all of the points that I highlighted. But at the end of the day,

click my link to my bio. Let me know one of my social medias. think about gaming preservation and also do you think gaming has a problem with Microsoft and Sony racing to acquire game development studios do you think that would be a good thing for gaming or do you think in the long run it would be bad for gamers