Former head of the gaming division Sony Sean Leiden, who left the company in 2019, discussed in an interview with the publication GamesIndustry.biz the current state of the gaming industry. He shared his views and predictions.
In particular, Leiden was critical of the endlessly growing budgets required to produce modern AAA games. He pointed out that in such conditions there is very little room for any competition. The PlayStation veteran also noted that the general console audience has not increased over the past 20 years, but now gamers need to spend more money on their hobby.
“We’re just getting people who are into games to spend even more money on them. With every console generation, the cost of producing games has doubled. [AAA]PS4 projects were at the $ 100-150 million mark, it is reasonable to assume that the games that will be created at the peak of the PS5 will cost more than $ 200 million. In such a space, few people will be able to compete, “explained Sean Leiden.
Previously, Leiden urged gaming companies to diversify their portfolios with shorter games that would cost less to produce and come out faster.… Instead, however, manufacturers simply raised the prices of new items.
From a negative point of view, Leiden also assesses the trend towards general consolidation of the gaming industry. The manager is convinced that the merger of various studios and companies into huge conglomerates will ultimately negatively affect the face of the entire interactive entertainment market.… What is happening can hit diversity, forcing once unique studios to create projects of the same type that serve a specific audience.
“Today we see examples of consolidation much more often. And consolidation is the enemy of diversity. Due to mergers, unique figures disappear from the playing field, they all merge into one large conglomerates. This is how we come to the problem of market diversity.
In terms of profitability, the music industry is probably only one-fifth of the gaming market. But music leaves behind a cultural trace a hundred times greater. Today we are driving ourselves into the framework of certain genres, sequels, specific types of games. Things dear to my heart, like Paraappa the rapper and Vib-Ribbon, do not have the proper chance to declare themselves. Both the industry and the users are suffering from this. Ultimately, if we continue to engage in dialogue with the same audience, offering them the same content, this will all lead to a banal collapse.“, – continued his thought Sean Leiden.
Sean Leiden also spoke about gaming subscription services, streaming technologies and new tools for distributing digital content.
Leiden doubts that a mobile audience not interested in console gaming will suddenly start playing console games, which will increase their reach from 250 million to 500 million people, not to mention the billions that some publishers dream of.…
In addition, the top manager points out that no one has yet come up with an ideal streaming model that would suit the masses.
“People don’t buy themselves new consoles to fill up the living room with unnecessary plastic and iron. People buy consoles because they’re interested in content… If you find the opportunity to stream this content without the accompanying box – in that case, yes. Everyone has their own streaming solution. The most common limitation is the banal availability of a high-speed Internet connection. And no one has yet written a business model that would work perfectly in such a scheme.“.
Based on Leiden’s comments, Xbox Game Pass and xCloud do not seem to him to be ideal tools for quickly reaching hundreds of millions of people and solving all problems.
“It’s very difficult to launch a $ 120 million game on a platform that charges users $ 9 per month… First, you need to wait a bit, build a base of 500 million users, and only then get money from your investments. Therefore, now all that remains is to work in the red, growing the consumer base. However, if you are working with an audience with a total of only 250 million consoles, then there are no 500 million subscribers. How to get past this moment? Nobody has come up with it yet, “concluded Sean Leiden.
It was announced today that Sean Leiden has joined the company Streamline Media Group… There he will look for ways to solve the problems of the industry and interact with different studios and brands, including creating content at the intersection of several types of media.
Previously, PlayStation fans asked Sean Leiden to return to Sony and put things in order…
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