Former CEO SCEA Shawn Layden: Gaming at a Fork in the Road Indie, AA Must Return chairman of Playstation worldwide studios

The gaming industry, post COVID, has been struggling to find a true identity, and while chatting with us on Theory Unlocked. Former PlayStation CEO Shawn Layden mentioned that he felt that the industry was heading for a fork in the road, with one side leading to oblivion, and not the Elder Scrolls kind.

Shawn explained that one of the biggest issues is that indie developers do not get the support they need, with several of the former big name studios being corporatized, and even admitting Microsoft and Sony’s words on indie games are mainly just lip service. He admitted that during a recent conference for indie game devs, he laid out the truth.

“No one is coming to save you. Stop waiting for someone to save you, you have got to this on your own, or you need to do this in collaboration with others.”

Layton went on to explain that small developers need to create a community to help create cost coverage, share assets, in marketing, QA, influencers among others. Additionally, he lamented the disappearance of the AA market from publishers, like THQ, Midway, Interplay, Gremlin, Ocean, Infogrub among others.

“Some of them ran off to mobile, but that's like running off the end of the Earth. Some of them tried to struggle in the AAA space that is turning out to be bad news for them. Most of the investment dollars out there are making bad decisions in investing in game properties.”

Layton continued by saying that a major issue is that those investing in games are not looking at the right people to pick investments.”

“The venture capital community has like a negative 100% hit ratio in what they have done sponsoring game properties. They have the same founder fetish they have in sponsoring start-ups. If they can find the charismatic founder, they will deliver the great fintech app or great game. Founders are important but it’s teams that make the games.”

Shawn believes there is room for hybrid publishing entities, with him and some friends working on a project. To help teams get back to what an 18–26 hour gaming experience looks like.

“Talk to me about single-player narrative. Talk to me about your single-player narrative game and the story you want to tell and the people you think you can appeal to. As Steve Jobs is quoted as saying ‘Winners Ship.”

Could a revival of an indie and AA market work? It might require developers to maintain control of their IP, which Shawn admits from the publishers' side does not always make sense, but he wants teams to feel like they are building something that is theirs, and it's something they can hold on to.