Many years ago, or not that many depending on how you choose to look at it, a cyborg sat on the edge of his existence and remarked out at the state of all he could see. "It's not the end of the world, but you can see it from here." Of course, that 'cyborg' was merely Adam Jensen, star of 'Deus Ex Human Revolution'; but that singular line has always stuck to me like messy elementary school glue binding my fingers in a single mass- I don't want to be stuck with the memory of such a nakedly nihilistic concept, but damn it if I can't be rid of the frustrating little bug. And often you might have noticed my tendency to look at moves and waves within my chosen niche of coverage and speculate in it's part to play in things to come. It's a serious concern of mine, because all it takes is to look at what has already come to see a pattern for what will be splayed across what has been. We've seen it all play out time and time again. Of course, I am no soothsayer, it's not as though the whole world is open and obvious to my eye. Take for instance, the stepping down of Jim Ryan.
Jim Ryan was the head of Playstation for about as long as anyone can remember, because he became CEO in about 2019 and all records of the 'before time' was lost during the great plague that swept all the waking world in it's fiery chaos. So Jim's reign was characterised by moments of great change across the world, and how did he handle it? Well let's just say that our man is pretty much leaving the company office in a golden parachute that will land him anywhere he wants, even in a cushy retirement on a private island if he so chooses. He leaves a heroes wake, albeit if you consider shady corporate machinations that successfully drain life from the paupers, 'heroic': but in the world of business that is what every child strives to achieve so lucky him! But what of the actual humans underneath the corporations? What do they make of his passing? (He's not dead, but he might as well be. We'll never hear of the creep again.)
As it turns out, not a lot of actual gamers cared for the man and are celebrating like Ewoks under the burning Endor Sky, roasting the man's tenure on a pyre. You see, there's this real game of 'us versus them' that has been engendered for many years within and without the gaming industry, basically those outside of gaming tend to look down on those inside of the culture which encourages equal animosity back out, which is probably why someone who clearly has no love for gaming would always kind of get the perception as the 'slick suited interloper'. Of course, usually people in such a position do their best to try and understand the environment they've stepped into in order to encourage mutual respect. But I guess Jim Ryan did not get where he is today by being agreeable or doing the thing that most people would have done in his bland suit.
As Jason Schrier handily records in his Bloomberg article on the man, Ryan won over no fans with his blatant disregarding of backwards compatibility in a time when Xbox was being commended for their apparent committal to the tech. Jim commented about how PS1 and 2 games "Looked ancient... why would anyone play this?" A bit of a give away there. There are more gaffes like that throughout his history, but more so the policies of modern Playstation betray his lack of understanding. I've moaned a lot about one of Playstation's key most policies, the exclusivity windows; my problem is not the games they're keeping off of Xbox, that's just business- I'm confused about the one's they're keeping off of PC. Jim seems deeply confused about the largely non-compatible relationship between PC and console games, and the fact that most PC players would never trade in for an expensive console just to play one game that looks kind of good. Microsoft understand this and have never tried to pull a fast one on PC gamers. Ever since Jim, Sony have been begrudging every step of the way about ports- it's been genuinely upsetting.
So Ryan was not looked on very fondly for his policies but here's the thing: he was a profit generator of insane dividend for the Sony stock. Under his direction the Sony lead on Xbox has extended to such a degree that few believe Xbox will ever have a chance to catch up, and they even prompted Microsoft to consider literally pulling a market monopoly just to wring back some ground. He may have been a scourge to gamers, but Jim Ryan is going to be the model for his successor to follow specifically for the ways in which he was anti-consumer and a detriment to our industry. Which is part of the strange relationship this world has with money, wherein often times the worst and most destructive qualities in a person are lauded as their saving graces. And what does this sort of wake spell for the future? What has it spelled for us already?
Season passes, live services, Microtransactions- all those words you're just as sick of reading as I am of typing, largely objectively bad polices and systems that have caused so much more harm than good for the gaming industry. But still they persist? Why? Because they're profitable. As are giant AAA projects with unsustainable work development loops. As are customer-imprisoning Battle passes which struggle over the limited time every gamer in the world. Now I know I sound like a dirty scum sucking hippie when I say this: but profits are not, in fact, everything. Actually, I would argue that the health of the ecosystem trumps profits in so much that the more healthy the industry is, the longer everyone can sustain themselves off of it. Is that so scandalous to say? Perhaps.
There will come a time when all of the actual 'gamers' who run these big companies of ours find themselves edging into retirement and who do you think will be replacing them? Well it's up to the investors to manipulate the company boards to elect the next CEO, and since they will be looking for someone like Jim, you can bet that's who they'll be looking for. When Phil Spencer is gone, his successor very well might be a Ryan. And what if we take this further down the pecking order? What about Todd Howard's replacement after his retirement in ten years or so? Another Ryan? Sven Vincke's replacement? I'm not too sure about Doug Browser anyway, to be honest, he doesn't strike me as an 'in the know' sort of guy. So what does this mean for the next generation?
Games have to appeal to the audience, and like it or not there's a level of empathy required to make that work. Somewhere along the line you need a decision maker who is a gamer, who knows what a gamer would want and is working for the consumer. That's just the reality of working in entertainment. Whilst we're trending away from that, and forgive me for being the doomsayer, we're moving towards a time when developers are going to fall further and further out of touch with players. And what then? New games start to lose their appeal. AAA, the largest employers, start failing more often. Money imbalance causes a crash and then? Collapse. All under the purview of an army of style-dry suit wearing Ryans.
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