There are many personalities within the video game industry whose extensive and vast experience makes their voices worth listening to. One of them is precisely Shawn Layden, former head of PlayStation, who has been highly critical of the direction the industry has been taking in recent years. Even before leaving Sony, he warned that budgets for triple-A game development cannot continue to grow at the current pace. Now, his criticism is directed towards the entry of companies like Netflix or Apple into the gaming sector.
At a recent summit organized by GamesIndustry in Seattle, the former head of PlayStation commented that video games have “barbarians at the gates,” referring to non-gaming companies entering the industry. He stated, “Right now, we see everybody going, ‘Oh, games are generating billions of dollars a year? I want to be a part of that.’ And that’s why you have Google, Netflix, Apple, and Amazon all trying to get a piece of the pie and make noise in the industry.”
Layden discussed how Apple entered the music world “and convinced everyone that 99 cents for a song was a good idea,” which is why he warns of the potential dangers this trend might pose to the gaming industry. “I hope games will be the first to figure this out, where we see we don’t need Google or Amazon to completely change the game. We should be smart enough to anticipate these changes and get ready for that moment,” he emphasized.
Layden also emphasized that all these major acquisitions end up “affecting creativity.” When questioned about a peculiarity – neither Sony nor Microsoft were born out of the gaming industry but entered it – the former head of PlayStation responded.
“We weren’t endemic, but I think we incorporated that entertainment piece, one that really helped accelerate PlayStation’s success. Now, 20 years later, these big tech companies have all the infrastructure in the cloud and they say, ‘Let’s make video games. How hard can it be?’ and it turns out, yes, it’s quite difficult,” he concluded.
