The direction of the gaming industry today is confusing. After forced inclusivity and political expression gradually faded away, the industry did not return to creation itself. Instead, it became more obsessed with maximizing profits, while ignoring the core value of games-fun.
Former Sony PlayStation executive Sean Lydon recently expressed his opinion on this. He believes that the industry should focus on making more "fun games" instead of blindly pursuing "profit" and "user value", because this will lead to a decline in game quality.
Leyden said that when people sell games to him now, they focus on how to make money, how big the market is, and how to design the incentive mechanism. "They would start their pitch by saying, 'This is how we make money, how we're going to capture the entire target market,'" he said. "I had to interrupt them and say, 'Wait, where's the fun part of the game?'"
Leyden said he would ask them what is the fun of the game? While business considerations are important, creativity and experience are equally crucial. The current gaming industry overemphasizes the economic model but ignores whether the game content itself is truly outstanding.
Nowadays, many studios are obsessed with producing ultra-long games of 80-100 hours in order to pursue higher player stickiness. In contrast, 20-25 hours of more compact paced works are more reasonable and more conducive to controlling development costs to tens of millions of dollars rather than hundreds of millions of dollars.
Many players agree with Leyden's point of view, because too many games have lost their original fun. However, some studios are still committed to developing excellent works, such as "Death Stranding 2", "Light and Shadow: Expedition 33", "Two Shadows" and so on.