The head of PlayStation Studios has hinted at the decisions underling the mass layoffs at Sony, implying things will never be the same again.
For a long time now, PlayStation has been acting very strangely. Not a single new single-player game has been announced in over two years and no major first party releases are expected for the next 12 months.
Despite the PlayStation 5 continuing to sell extremely well, Sony has refused to communicate with the outside world except when absolutely necessary and while it’s still unclear exactly what triggered this hermit-like attitude, what is certain is that they believe the old way of making video games cannot continue.
After announcing that 900 developers will lose their jobs across multiple studios, PlayStation Studios head Hermen Hulst has given the first hint at the decision-making process going on behind the scenes.
Just like PlayStation president and CEO Jim Ryan, Hulst posted a statement on the layoffs but his goes into more detail about why so many people have been let go.
‘Our goal at PlayStation Studios has always been to make the best games for PlayStation fans, and our global community of studios represent some of the most creative and talented teams within the gaming industry,’ he said.
‘PlayStation 5 is in its fourth year, and we are at a stage where we need to step back and look at what our business needs.
‘At the same time, our industry has experienced continuing and fundamental change which affects how we all create, and play, games.
‘Delivering the immersive, narrative-driven stories that PlayStation Studios is known for, at the quality bar that we aspire to, requires a re-evaluation of how we operate.’
For the last year or so Sony has talked about almost nothing but live service titles, even though it’s never shown any of its internally developed titles in public, let alone released any of them.
It’s assumed that Jim Ryan was championing the concept, and that perhaps his retirement next month may be at least partially as a result of the policy’s apparent failure.
Not only has Sony not managed to release any new games but most other publishers seem to have acknowledged that live service games are too risky a prospect and, like MMOs before them, the market can only support a handful of successful ones at once.
On the other hand, Helldivers 2, which was published by Sony but made by a third party, has been a huge success, which may give PlayStation execs new hope.
Even so, Hulst makes no direct reference to live service games, with the following passage being the closest he gets:
‘Delivering and sustaining social, online experiences – allowing PlayStation gamers to explore our worlds in different ways – as well as launching games on additional devices such as PC and mobile, requires a different approach and different resources.
‘To take on these challenges, PlayStation Studios had to grow. We have brought brilliant and successful studios into our family. We have invested in new technology and partnerships. We have recruited talent from across our industry and beyond.
‘But growth itself is not an ambition. PlayStation Studios is committed to continually discovering ways to work together; collaborating and combining our efforts to ensure that we are able to craft games that push the boundaries of play and deliver what you expect from us.’
It’s all extremely vague, in terms of both the nature of the problem and Sony’s solution to it, and you can read his comments either way, in terms of whether they hint at more or less live service games in the future.
‘Our philosophy has always been to allow creative experimentation. Sometimes, great ideas don’t become great games. Sometimes, a project is started with the best intentions before shifts within the market or industry result in a change of plan,’ he says.
Two or three years ago live service games were the talk of the industry but it’s in the time since then that the difficulties of producing a successful one have become obvious.
Whether that’s what Hulst is talking about in this instance is difficult to say – you could just as easily argue he’s talking about single-player games – but what’s certain is that it’s high time that Sony, Microsoft, and others were more explicit about the problems they’re facing and what it means for their output.
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