The former CEO of PlayStation Worldwide Studios prefers that the trend of larger shorter productions be recovered.
Shawn Layden, former president of SIE Worldwide Studios on PlayStation, reflected on a digital meeting held during Gamelab Live on the current state of the industry as well as market trends in major productions. According to the executive, knowledgeable from a position of responsibility of the last 25 years at Sony, his preference for AAA titles is to recover the tradition of making shorter works and without such high production costs.
The Last of Us as an example of the two sides of the coin
With a The Last of Us Part 2 just released on the market, if there is something that draws attention it is that its duration is around 25 hours; the original, meanwhile, could be completed in 15 hours. This entails not only more adventure time for the player, but much more costs and development processes ostensibly longer in time. “We can make you scream, yell, and be horrified; those are the easiest things to get. If we can make you contemplative, sad, that really hits the emotional response of the video game experience completely, ”Layden begins by saying at the Catalan fair, which is taking place this week.
Shawn Layden during the Sony conference at E3 2015, LA, California | Getty | Christian Petersen
If the first The Last of Us took three years of development, the sequel has taken about six years. “The problem with that model is that it is not sustainable,” he explains.
“Instead of spending five years to make an 80-hour game, what if it’s two or three years old and lasts about 15 hours?”
In the current generation, production averages have been reached with a range of between 80 and 150 million dollars in the AAA segment; all this without including marketing costs, in processes of at least five years.
The Last of Us Part 2, the last major PS4 exclusive released in June 2020.
“I don’t think that in the next generation, you can take those numbers and multiply them by two and think that you can grow,” he says. “I think the industry as a whole needs to sit down and reflect” because “it is difficult for each adventure game to take 50 or 60 hours of gameplay, since it will be much more expensive to achieve it. […] We have to reevaluate it ”so as not to lose talent along the way and not cast aside, he exemplifies, very interesting stories from other creators due to their condition of being more modest in extension.
“Instead of investing five years to make an 80-hour game, what if it’s two or three years old and lasts about 15 hours?” “Personally, as a player and veteran … I would like the return of the AAA from 12 to 15 hours. I would finish more games, that first, and just like a literary work or a well-edited movie, paying attention to this discipline that way could offer us more restrained and convincing content. ”
Track | GamesIndustry
