"The juice isn't worth the squeeze" Shawn Layden on day and date PS Studios (single player) games for pc
- Thread starter Jim Ryan
- Start date
the juice isn't worth the squeeze for late ports either...
Helldivers already complicates this idea, since it's neither MMO or free to play. It's obvious if you can practically double your important early sales by launching on PS5+PC, do it. There's no special reason why Helldivers is different from Last of Us 3. Helldivers wouldn't be tearing up their roadmap and aggressively scaling up based on PS5 sales alone. It's exactly what Totoki said, you grow your first party with multiplatforms.
Later in this same interview Layden says it's not a problem if PC players buy PlayStation games and never buy a Playstation, so don't take this one quote in isolation and inject your own beliefs into it. Layden takes credit for initiating the PC strategy at Playstation:
Later in this same interview Layden says it's not a problem if PC players buy PlayStation games and never buy a Playstation, so don't take this one quote in isolation and inject your own beliefs into it. Layden takes credit for initiating the PC strategy at Playstation:
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Helldivers doesn't complicate anything. Layden specifically says in the clip "massive multiplayer games" he most likely includes helldivers in that. Not sure if he even said MMO as i haven't seen the entire podcast.
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Laydens strategy would have been GAAS day one and never for day and date singleplayer.
Thinking anything other then that for laydens strategy is injecting your own beliefs.
Even to this day he holds the same belief. Cause i'm sure even he knows how dumb day and date for singpleyer will be.
Layden lays his whole plan out, that MMO and f2p come out day one, and single player games come out 2-3 years down the after Playstation exclusive sales "flatline".
But yesterday's price is not today's price. That was Laydens plan. Jim Ryan and Hulst have gotten more aggressive. Totoki says he's going to get more aggressive still, proactively seeking out opportunities.
He meant a live service MP game. In another point of the interview he menitoned that it makes sense for Helldivers 2 to go day one on PC.
Also, Helldivers 2 achieved around 900K concurrent players, more than qualifies for MMO.
Yes, there's a big difference: their main business aren't the first party game sales. It's the money they make selling mostly 3rd party games on their platform.
So they need to keep that platform strong, and one of the ways they achieve it is with exclusive games. Which in the case of SP games they are super successful keeping them exclusive there, at least for a couple years.
To put all their games on PC day one (unless they achieve to have there a very successful PC store where they exclusively sell their PC games) very likely would damage or even kill their console and with it they would kill their game business.
Have they though?
They are doing exactly what layden planned for, GAAS day one and singleplayer 2+ years out.
We don't know what that means yet.
It could be just more of sonys back catalogue being ported to PC much more aggressivley like we are seeing right now.
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"In business, margins are the differences between the price of a good or service and the amount of money required to produce it. In financial accounting, margins refer to the same difference between revenue and cost in various stages. In investing, margins refer to situations where an investor buys stocks or other types of assets with a combination of their own money and borrowed funds, with this situation being called buying on margin.The meaning of margins in business, depending on the situation, is:
Simply put, the costs for SOME exclusives are too high and the increase in sales by bringing them to PC are not enough to really increase the ROI significantly.
Several games have shown recently that you can make an excellent, high quality game for well under 100 million... key examples being Ghost of Tsushima, Alan Wake and even R&C Rift Apart was in the 80 million region...
Rift Apart costs seem bloated still and I think sub 60 million would be more fitting.
The simple fact is that costs need to be controlled, cuts need to be made. Not every studio needs social media people on there all day every day. They don't need 10 writers, They don't need 20 managers or producers. They don't need consultants on the social politics they need to include in their game.
They just need the exact minimum number of people to make a great game efficiently.
Then they won't have the pressure to sell 50 million copies... which is unrealistic. When you let costs continuously bloat the sales you need will increase exponentially and you've lost the reason you're even making the game for in the first place.
Margins in business commerce
A company's profit margin is a widely used profitability ratio, and its purpose is assessing how efficient the company is in making a profit. This calculation is an important tool for all for-profit organizations, as it can give managers and entrepreneurs a precise indication of their organization's ability to keep relatively low business expenses and high total sales in order to maximize their profit.The three main elements used to determine margins in business commerce are:- Revenue: This term refers to the income an organization is earning by selling its goods and services.
- Cost of goods sold: This is the sum of all expenses required for making the provided goods and services, such as materials and personnel.
- Gross profit: This is the remaining revenue after paying off the cost of goods sold in its entirety.
Simply put, the costs for SOME exclusives are too high and the increase in sales by bringing them to PC are not enough to really increase the ROI significantly.
Several games have shown recently that you can make an excellent, high quality game for well under 100 million... key examples being Ghost of Tsushima, Alan Wake and even R&C Rift Apart was in the 80 million region...
Rift Apart costs seem bloated still and I think sub 60 million would be more fitting.
The simple fact is that costs need to be controlled, cuts need to be made. Not every studio needs social media people on there all day every day. They don't need 10 writers, They don't need 20 managers or producers. They don't need consultants on the social politics they need to include in their game.
They just need the exact minimum number of people to make a great game efficiently.
Then they won't have the pressure to sell 50 million copies... which is unrealistic. When you let costs continuously bloat the sales you need will increase exponentially and you've lost the reason you're even making the game for in the first place.
Wait @Sircaw was lying.
God damn it I knew that fish is lying SOB. He scammed me 10 millions Euros just like he scammed Nigerian prices. @Gamernyc78 we need justice.
I thought about it long and hard and they're still worth it. What's more, it isn't important what I think, they have all the data that they don't divulge even to the shareholders for making decisions such as this. They weigh all sides and consequences, they also consistently made these decisions up until now so they know how gamers react as well, and they keep doing these single player game ports years after initiatial release on their premium console. Their policy is quite clear and it won't be changing. They are not armchair experts such as yourself.
This is like saying premium brands should just reduce their product prices to have more people buying them.
