The big games have become the curse of consoles 🇸🇪

There are few people who can boast of better insight into the industry than former Playstation boss Shawn Layden. He led the PlayStation 4 to success after success, but was succeeded five years ago by Jim Ryan, who many have had all the more views on.

In recent years, Layden has been an outspoken critic of the fact that each new game released must be bigger than its predecessor on every measurable parameter, and also have a whole battery of upsells with subscriptions, microtransactions and others. When I now read his statement today, I can only just nod along.

He points out, among other things, that the costs of game development have skyrocketed completely because of the above. Five years in development time is starting to be on the low side for big games, and there are very few companies that can afford this. The risk is therefore also very high and consequently no risks can be taken. This means that all attempts at innovation disappear, while grinding on in the same old footsteps in game series that are already established.

More specifically, he says that "you're [looking] at sequels, you're looking at copycats, because the finance guys who draw the line say, 'Well, if Fortnite made this much money in this amount of time, my Fortnite knockoff can make this in that amount of time'.", and believes that this has fatal consequences:

"We're seeing a collapse of creativity in games today [with] studio consolidation and the high cost of production."

Big words, again from a person with an extreme understanding of the industry and who himself has worked at the absolute top. Even though Gamereactor's comments section and my feeds on social media like Instagram and Threads (and for that matter forums like Neogaf) are hardly statistically reliable sources, it still seems that a lot of gamers feel the same way.

The so-called AAA games feel a bit tired and not nearly as interesting as they used to be, and a worrying number of bets have also crashed or at least underperformed despite the fact that the ratings weren't really that bad. Surveys also show that gamers actually prefer single-player, despite the fact that every publisher of the rank is now wholeheartedly committed to almost exclusively multiplayer.  

In short, we now have a gaming industry that doesn't make the games the customers (we!) demand, and seems genuinely uninterested in trying to back the band and find the right one again. After so many years, I unfortunately don't think they listen to either opinions or sales figures (the dream of the next Fortnite is strong), but a gentleman like Hawn Layden I think the giants also choose to listen to.

During the Xbox 360 generation, an entire trilogy such as Gears of War, Mass Effect, or Resistance could be released on the same console. Today, entire generations can be skipped without a single game in major leagues. Is that reasonable?