No, it’s not just doomer gamers who think the gaming industry is in a wasteland of creativity. Even a former PlayStation and Sony executive also has some similar sentiments. Shawn Mendez, one of Sony’s chairmen in the past, has chimed in on the matter. He had quite a lot to say about the state of the game development industry, mainly something along the lines of AA games being dead and overtaken by big AAA studios.
At Gamescom Asia in Singapore, Shawn Layden revealed his thoughts about the AA and AAA gaming studios in a conversation.
We spent a lot more time looking at games and not asking ‘what’s your monetization scheme’, or ‘what’s your recurrent revenue plan’, or ‘what’s your subscription formula’? We asked the simple question: is it fun? Are we having a good time? If you said yes to those questions, you’d usually get a green light. 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.
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.
Simply put, Layden thinks games are becoming increasingly costly to develop and a lot riskier. But the last bit about the lack of creativity resonates quite well these days. Because coincidentally, Sony’s lineup for future and current games is dominated by remakes. Meanwhile, new but risky takes such as Concord, Star Wars: Outlaws, and even Assassin’s Creed: Shadows are spelling doom for their respective studios.
It’s Either Indie or AAA These Days, No Place for AA Games
With the increasing cost to develop games, Shawn Layden also suggests that AA studios and AA games are riskier schemes if they don’t make a profit like AAA games. Everything has to be a blockbuster or a contender. The niche markets will fade into obscurity if they don’t incorporate what sells.
In the gaming business you have Call of Duty, Grand Theft Auto, indie stuff. But then that middle piece, that middle layer that used to be where Interplay, Gremlin, Ocean, THQ, all those companies, made their money… That middle piece is gone. If you [can become] AAA, you survive, or if you do something interesting in the indie space, you could.
But AA is gone. I think that’s a threat to the ecosystem if you will. So I’m looking at indie stuff… With the advent of technologies, like the latest Unreal Engine or what Unity can give you, I think we can all say that the standard quality of video games is pretty high now compared to ten years ago.
In hindsight, Shawn Layden’s sentiments reflect the reality of the games development industry right now. These days the landscape is divided into either AAA (or AAAA) or indie games and not much in between.
However, Shawn Layden sees hope in the indie and the Asian games market where a lot of good, passionate, and small studios are trying to get their big break. Hence his presence in Gamescom Asia.
With the recent success of Asian games in the mainstream market such as Black Myth: Wukong, Once Human, and The First Descendant, the games industry might just receive the shake-up it needs.
