Gamescom Asia opened its doorways to trade attendees in Singapore this morning, kickstarting the day with a fireplace chat with former Sony Interactive Leisure Worldwide Studios chairman Shawn Layden.
In a dialog with Uncooked Fury co-founder and chief publishing officer Gordon Van Dyke, Layden gave his ideas on the disappearance of AA studios, and why that’s a dangerous factor for the trade going ahead.
“[In the past] we spent a lot extra time video games and not asking ‘what’s your monetisation scheme’, or ‘what’s your recurrent income plan’, or ‘what’s your subscription formulation’? We requested the easy query: is it enjoyable? Are we having a good time? Should you mentioned sure to these questions, you’d normally get a inexperienced gentle. You did not fear a lot about the finish piece, for higher or for worse. After all again then you definately did not make a sport for tens of millions [of] {dollars}. So your danger tolerance was pretty excessive.
“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 has been vocal in the previous about his want to return to shorter video games, and the want to rethink spiralling prices throughout the trade. Van Dyke requested the former PlayStation exec whether or not we will discover solace in indies, whether or not they are often seen as a “beacon of hope” when it comes to serious about creativity first, and monetisation second, if in any respect.
“I think you’re right,” Layden answered. “You already know, we have seen the similar phenomenon in the movie trade, proper? We have come throughout to a place the place the whole lot is blockbuster, Marvel Cinematic Universe, or it is Sundance award contender. After which in the centre, that center piece, which used to be Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep [in] Vermont… You may make that film. Folks went to the theatres to see it. However these motion pictures and that sort of content material discovered a place to go. It went to Netflix, went to Amazon, to Apple Plus, all the totally different streaming providers, it had a place to go.
“If we’re just going to rely on the blockbusters to get us through, I think that’s a death sentence”
“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.”
He highlighted that trendy instruments have given video games a sure base stage of high quality, which is a web optimistic, in contrast to ten years in the past when dangerous video games had been merely damaged.
“Now if we can just get a bit more interest and excitement and exposure for these lower budget, but super creative and super unusual [type] of games… I’d like to see more of that. Because if we’re just going to rely on the blockbusters to get us through, I think that’s a death sentence.”
When requested about what technique to undertake for the few AA studios that also exist, and the place these ought to discover their area of interest between the graphic constancy of AAAs and the dangerous progressive method of indies, Layden mentioned AA has a pure area of interest, which is to deliver “the new thing” as opposed to, for instance, “a dollar store version of God of War.”
“Bring something that you sort of challenge yourself to see – the gaming media, this medium, is so flexible, it can do so many different things,” he continued. “So I think your strengths in AA are going to be [that] your time to market should be faster. You know, to get 1,500 developers to do the next [GTA], that’s not the place you need to go for your AA. If you’re a developer, you’ve got to be able to say, ‘I can get something up and running in two to three and a half years’.”
Search distinctive concepts or a totally different spin on one thing you already know, he added, however most significantly: do not lead with monetisation.
“Should you’re going to pitch me your AA sport, and in the first two pages of your deck is your monetisation and income, subscription scheme, I am out. Your first web page has to be ‘This sport wants to be made and here is why’.
“I want to see that fire, I don’t want to see ‘here’s the chief accountant on the team that’s going to explain to you the [game’s monetisation]’.”
“All this excitement about gen AI, I find kind of humorous. […] It’s just a tool, it’s not a saviour”
What’s for certain is that AI is not the magic formulation that’s going to assist the trade via its present challenges, Layden mentioned, stating that individuals who assume AI is going to revolutionise video games are normally not folks in the trade.
“Artificial intelligence has been in gaming since almost the first or second games ever made,” he reminded the viewers. “So all this excitement about gen AI, I find kind of humorous. I do see its applications in certain places for certain things. But it’s just a tool, it’s not a saviour. It’s a tool in the way that Excel is a tool. It just helps speed you along your tasks.”
He talked about sensible purposes in QA for example, to run simulation fashions, as Sony really demonstrated in a latest speak at CEDEC about the way it used machine studying to enhance its testing of Astro’s Playroom.
“I think it helps with ideation,” he added. “You can get a really good pitch deck done fast using AI.”
Picture credit score: Marie Dealessandri
Lastly, Layden additionally touched upon the alternatives that Asia represents for the video games trade.
“I look at Asia, South Asia, this part of the world, as where all the next great opportunities are going to come from – and the level of the game development talent here grows faster than the rest of the world,” he mentioned.
“I believe right here in Asia, the place we have now a lot of small, scrappy studios with good expertise, they simply want to break [through]. It is simply a little bit of luck, to discover the proper IP, or to discover the proper platform. I would additionally like to see extra video games being made in that nation, in that tradition. It is like, ‘if my sport does not promote a lot in California, I am not profitable’. Effectively, California’s not your market. Take a look at the markets right here, they’re rising, the economies are sturdy. There’s extra disposable earnings. You may make a nice sport in Indonesia for that market.
“Don’t think that the Western market is the be-all and end-all of your activity”
“And I believe that’s so vital for the total international gaming system as a result of, the one factor I have been speaking about in my 5 years since I’ve retired is quite simple: we want extra folks taking part in video games. It is a $250 billion international enterprise however the precise variety of gamers does not develop at the similar tempo. So we’re getting extra money from the similar folks. You want to get extra folks taking part in video games. How do you do this? We want to get extra folks making video games.
“More people around the world have to be in the business or the art of making games. Make it for your neighbours. Make it for your friends. Make it for yourself. But don’t think that the Western market is the be-all and end-all of your activity. Build it here, be successful.”
GamesIndustry.biz is a media companion for Gamescom Asia, with organisers offering us with journey and lodging for this 12 months’s occasion.