Originally Posted by Bloomberg
[...] The former chief executive officer of PlayStation Worldwide Studios noted that he’d shepherded some of the highest-rated games of the decade, such as Horizon Zero Dawn and God of War. “That seemed like a good time to step off on top and allow another generation to take the PlayStation 5 to market.”
But there was speculation in the gaming press that Layden’s exit was actually the result of a power struggle between him and current boss Jim Ryan, who oversaw the launch of PlayStation 5 last year. Layden wouldn’t get into specifics there. “I think I took my time at the moment I saw best to take it,” Layden said. “And I couldn't be happier.”
Layden’s next big job — his “third act,” as he calls it — is a position on the advisory board at Streamline Media Group, a game services company where he will advise the company on its global strategy for video games and enterprise. [...]
Game development “seems to double in cost every platform,” Layden said, noting that his budgets for recent big PlayStation 4 titles each hit $100 million. “If we can’t stop the cost curve from going up, all we can do is try to de-risk it. That puts you in a place where you’re incentivized toward sequels.” He predicted that PS5 games will cost $200 million to make and that prices will continue to grow exponentially from there.
The result of these higher budgets is an endless cavalcade of stale annual releases in ubiquitous series like Call of Duty and Madden. At the same time, every publisher is chasing the latest billion-dollar trends, from Candy Crush to Fortnite to Roblox. “What happens there is you end up with 3-4 silos of games or game types that continue to exist, and variety is squeezed out,” Layden said. His former company reflects that strategy as well, with a focus on blockbusters above all else.
Yet at PlayStation, Layden was instrumental in the video game industry’s Sisyphean quest for increasingly larger worlds and more beautiful graphics, a role he now downplays. “I think I contributed a part into showing the world what amazing gameplay can look like,” he said when I asked about his own responsibility for the sustainability problem. After all, vast, expensive PS4 games such as Uncharted 4 and Ghost of Tsushima raise the bar for everyone else. Players have grown accustomed to games that are more massive and beautiful every year in part because of PlayStation’s slate of excellent exclusives. [...]
