Shawn Layden 曾任SIE Worldwide Studios董事长。此前,他曾担任索尼互动娱乐美国
公司(SIEA)总裁兼执行长、索尼网络娱乐国际公司(SNEI)执行副总裁兼营运长。
Ex-PlayStation Boss Shawn Layden Says ‘Exclusivity Is Your Achilles’ Heel’
if Game Costs Exceed $200 Million
https://reurl.cc/qrAnzN
Video game exclusivity is one of the hottest topics within the industry after
recent moves by both Microsoft and Sony to release their first-party games on
multiple, sometimes rival platforms. This, coupled with rising development
costs and increasingly squeezed margins, has caused some to question whether
the console exclusive has a future.
在微软和索尼最近采取行动在多个(有时是竞争对手的平台)上发布其第一方游戏之后,
游戏独占性成为业界最热门的话题之一。再加上不断上升的开发成本和日益挤压的利润,
让一些人质疑这款游戏机独占游戏是否有未来。
Speaking in an interview with VentureBeat, former president and CEO of Sony
Interactive Entertainment America Shawn Layden said when a video game’s
costs exceed $200 million, “exclusivity is your Achilles’ heel.”
索尼互动娱乐美国公司前总裁兼首席执行官 Shawn Layden 在接受VentureBeat采访时表
示,当一款游戏的成本超过 2 亿美元时,“独占性就是你的致命弱点。”
“It reduces your addressable market,” Layden continued, before citing the
success of Arrowhead’s Helldivers 2, which launched on PlayStation 5 and PC
to explosive success. “Particularly when you’re in the world of live
service gaming or free-to-play. Another platform is just another way of
opening the funnel, getting more people in. In a free-to-play world, as we
know, 95% of those people will never spend a nickel. The business is all
about conversion. You have to improve your odds by cracking the funnel open.
Helldivers 2 has shown that for PlayStation, coming out on PC at the same
time. Again, you get that funnel wider. You get more people in.”
“它减少了你的潜在市场,”Layden 继续说道,然后引用了 Arrowhead 的《
Helldivers 2》的成功,该游戏在 PlayStation 5 和 PC 上推出后取得了爆炸性的成功
。“特别是当你处于即时服务游戏或免费游戏的世界时。另一个平台只是打开管道的另一
种方式,让更多的人加入。正如我们所知,在免费游戏的世界中,95% 的人永远不会花一
分钱。业务的核心就是转化。你必须透过打开漏斗来提高你的胜算。《Helldivers 2》已
经在 PlayStation 上展示了这一点,同时在 PC 上推出。再一次,你会让漏斗变得更宽
。你可以吸引更多的人进来。”
First-party development costs rise with the release of each generation of
consoles, but costs have ballooned in recent years. Last month, Sony boss
Hiroki Totoki offered what he called his “frank impressions” of the
PlayStation business, suggesting its studios can do more to cut development
costs. The release of data stolen from Sony-owned developer Insomniac late
last year also revealed internal concern at the growing cost of the studio’s
games. According to Kotaku's report on the breach, Spider-Man 2 development
costs ran $30 million over the original $270 million budget, and ultimately
needed to sell 7.2 million units to break even. The latest sales figures
suggest Spider-Man 2 has now veered into profitable territory, although Sony
has yet to confirm that itself.
随着每一代游戏机的发布,第一方开发成本都会上升,但近年来成本不断飙升。上个月,
索尼老板 Hiroki Totoki 表达了他对 PlayStation 业务的“坦率印象”,暗示其工作室
可以采取更多措施来削减开发成本。去年年底从索尼旗下开发商 Insomniac 窃取的数据
的发布也暴露了内部对该工作室游戏成本不断上涨的担忧。根据Kotaku关于此次泄漏的报
告,《蜘蛛人 2》的开发成本比最初的 2.7 亿美元预算高出了 3,000 万美元,最终需要
售出 720 万支才能实现收支平衡。最新的销售数据表明,《蜘蛛人 2》现已转向盈利领
域,尽管索尼尚未证实这一点。
Layden said single-player games have a similar audience consideration as
multiplayer games, though not exactly the same. “For single-player games it’
s not the same exigency,” he said. “But if you’re spending $250 million,
you want to be able to sell it to as many people as possible, even if it’s
just 10% more.”
Layden表示,单人游戏与多人游戏有着相似的受众考虑因素,尽管并不完全相同。“对于
单人游戏来说,情况就不一样了,”他说。“但如果你花费 2.5 亿美元,你希望能够将
其卖给尽可能多的人,即使只多出 10%。
Layden’s comments echo those of former Xbox boss Peter Moore, who in a
recent interview with IGN suggested Microsoft will be debating internally
whether to release Xbox poster-child Halo on PlayStation.
Layden言论与 Xbox 前老板彼得摩尔 (Peter Moore) 的言论相呼应,后者在最近接受
IGN 采访时表示,微软将在内部讨论是否在 PlayStation 上发布 Xbox 作品《Halo》。
“If Microsoft says, wait, we're doing $250 million on our own platforms, but
if we then took Halo as, let's call it a third-party, we could do a billion…
You got to think long and hard about that, right?” Moore said. “I mean, you
just got to go, yeah, should it be kept? It's a piece of intellectual
property. It's bigger than just a game. And how do you leverage that? Those
are the conversations that always happen with, how do you leverage it in
everything that we would do?”
“如果微软说,等等,我们在自己的平台上赚了 2.5 亿美元,但如果我们把 Halo 当作
第三方,我们可以赚 10 亿美元……你必须认真思考这一点,正确的?” 摩尔说。“我
的意思是,你必须放开,是的,应该独占它吗?这是一项智慧财产权。它不仅仅是一场游
戏。你如何利用这一点?这些是经常发生的对话,你如何在我们要做的一切事情中利用它
?”