Former PlayStation boss: Modern AAA games all look the same versus to the PS1 and PS2 era
Former PlayStation boss and former SIE president Shawn Layden believes the video game industry has become too homogenous, with many titles feeling like copies of one another. He argues that “we’ve lost a lot of variety in games” released in recent years and directly blames ballooning development budgets.
In a recent interview with the YouTube channel PSI, Layden pointed to a recent awards show as an example of how narrow the creativity of new titles has become. He feels the industry has lost touch with the kind of experimental creativity that once produced games like PaRappa the Rapper or Katamari Damacy. In his own words:
“I was at a game awards show a couple of years ago, and I was disappointed to see that all the games I saw at that presentation were either zombie apocalypse, some kind of space marines, or guys in medieval Europe with really big swords. That was so central to what everyone was building. There were so many games that looked like the game next to them and looked like the game next to them. I’m concerned that in today’s world, quirky games like PaRappa the Rapper don’t get made anymore.”
Layden pointed out that studios and developers are increasingly trying to play it safe by creating sequels and remakes of established IPs, or by greenlighting projects that simply combine two existing ideas.
However, there’s a clear reason for this caution: the cost to develop a AAA video game today can easily exceed a hundred million dollars. During the heyday of the PS1, a game could be developed and shipped for $5 to $6 million, which allowed developers and studios to experiment and see what resonated with players. Layden candidly explained:
“We had so many crazy games on the PS1 because the cost-to-risk ratio was manageable. You could literally throw away $6 to $7 million on a project that didn’t work and still say, ‘Well, at least we learned something.’ Now, if every throw of the dice is in the triple-digit millions, then risk tolerance goes to about zero. As long as we judge games solely on revenue projections, then, again, your risk tolerance goes to zero.”
If a project flopped and failed to stick with players, the loss was manageable back then. Today, however, that kind of failure is far harder to absorb when, according to Layden, a single AAA project can exceed $300 million.
In a prior conversation, Layden also reflected on the PS2 era, when executives felt freer to voice their opinions and ask, “Why not make a bet and see what happens?”
To give readers a concrete example of what “playing it safe” looks like today, Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced was a relatively low-risk but compelling bet for Ubisoft. Remaking one of the franchise’s most popular entries was all but certain to help the company bounce back from its recurring bouts of financial downturns and please fans.
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