In a recent interview, former PlayStation executive Shawn Layden went in against the company’s pivot to focusing on live-service games, which has yet to pay off. For several years, PlayStation’s studios have tried to produce a solid live-service game, but have mostly failed in their quest to do so.
Layden, who departed PlayStation in 2019 due to the creative direction the company was taking, recently criticized the live-service market, explaining how, in his eyes, live-service titles aren’t real games.
Again and Again and Again
In an interview with The Ringer, a variety of indutstry names gave their two cents to answer the question, ‘Why can’t Sony make more multiplayer hits?’
One such name was Shawn Layden, a former PlayStation executive who was at the company for just short of a decade, who has fired shots at the live-service mission on PlayStation’s slate.
A live-service game to me isn’t really a game. It’s a repetitive action engagement device.
For me, a game—because of where I come from—means I need three things. I need a story, I need a character, and I need a world. And Horizon, God of War, and Uncharted have all three of those things.
If you’re doing a live-service game, you just need a repetitive action that most people can get their head around, an ability to communicate in that world with other like-minded people, and the player’s desire to do it again and again and again.
Layden went on to stress that every developer successful in the live-service space found the winning formula ‘five, six years ago’. There was a boom of sorts that saw games like Fortnite skyrocket in popularity, and since then, everyone with a multiplayer offering seems to have jumped on the seasonal operating model.
These days, it’s very rare to succeed with a new live-service game, Layden insists:
It’s like a mirage on the top of a sand dune. You pursue it. You can’t quite get there. Or if you do get there, what you brought to the party no one wants to play anyway.
Do you think live-service games should be abandoned by developers in favor of an alternate operating model? Let me know what you’re thinking on the Insider Gaming Discord server.
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