Former PlayStation Exec Says Chasing Live-Service Like Fortnite is like a “Mirage” on a “Sand Dune”

While Helldivers 2 has proven to be quite the success for Sony when it comes to the company’s live-service ambitions, there haven’t been too many other success stories since then. Former PlayStation executive Shawn Layden, in an interview with The Ringer, has referred to chasing the live-service game market as a mirage.

He also spoke about his time with the company when it was focusing on single-player titles, and the moves Sony made after his departure. For context, during Layden’s time at Sony as an executive, the company was releasing critically-acclaimed titles like God of War, Ghost of Tsushima and Horizon Zero Dawn.

“It’s like a mirage on the top of a sand dune,” said Layden. “You pursue it. You can’t quite get there. Or if you do get there, what you brought to the party no one wants to play anyway.”

Further in the interview, he discussed the conversations going on at Sony about focusing more on some multiplayer titles, especially with the success of live-service games at the time like Fortnite. Referring to the incredibly-successful battle royale title, Layden described it as being “a classic example of catching lightning in a jar” – something that can’t really be planned or prepared for.

“My view at the time was, ‘We’re super strong on single-player. We have the best narrative in the business.’ It was a case of, ‘I’m doing The Last of Us—that’s where we swim. I’m gonna do Spider-Man‘ … Fortnite is the classic example of catching lightning in a jar, you can’t plan for that,” he said. “You can’t prepare for that. You can’t envision that.”

As for more companies wanting to get their hands on a similar level of live-service success as games like Fortnite and Overwatch see, Layden noted that there have been plenty of attempts at doing just that. He did mention, however, that despite best efforts, most games trying to enter the space don’t really end up as successful.

“The highway is littered with people wanting to take on Fortnite, with people trying to do Overwatch with different skins,” he said. “If you’re trying to go into that space because you have this illusion in your mind of big sacks of money coming every day for the rest of your life, for most it doesn’t happen.”

While Sony might have scaled back on its live-service efforts in light of the failure of Concord last year, the company’s CFO Lin Tao noted during an earnings call back in August that it is still committed to live-service games. Tao also confirmed that 40 percent of the revenue generated by PlayStation in that quarter came from live-service games.

“Last year Concord [shut down], and this year Marathon was postponed, so somewhat negative news has been coming out,” Tao said (via an interpreter) during a Q&A session following the earnings call. “But if we look at the past five years, five years ago live service games were almost non-existent for PlayStation Studios. We [now] have Helldivers 2, MLB The Show and Gran Turismo 7, and Bungie’s Destiny 2, so we have these four live services contributing to sales and profits in a stable manner.”