In a wide-ranging discussion over the state of the games industry, GI.biz spoke to former Sony Worldwide Studios chairman Shawn Layden, during which his pet hate-topic of Game Pass came up. Layden, who loves nothing more than to profess doom for video games, implied that Game Pass profits could be the result of “financial jiggery-pokery,” then said that developing a game for the subscription service makes developers a “wage slave.”
Layden has being laying into Game Pass for years, repeatedly criticizing the subscription model. Noting ballooning development costs and questioning whether console exclusives are a good thing in the first place, since leaving Sony in 2021 Layden is routinely wheeled out for a good ol’ gripe. But he’s arguably gone further than ever in his latest round of comments.
“They’re not creating value,” said Layden to GI of developers whose games release day-one on Game Pass, continuing that they’re not “putting it in the marketplace, hoping it explodes, and profit sharing, and overages, and all that nice stuff. It’s just, ‘You pay me X dollars an hour, I built you a game, here, go put it on your servers.’” He then described this process as being a “wage slave.”
“I don’t think it’s really inspiring for game developers,” he added.
This odd outburst was all said out of his concern for the health of developers. Appearing to dismiss Microsoft’s recent announcement that Game Pass has made $5 billion in the last year, Layden scoffed, “You can do all kinds of financial jiggery-pokery for any sort of corporate service to make it look profitable if you wanted to.” He went on, “You take enough costs out and say that’s off the balance sheet and, oh look, it’s profitable now. The real issue for me on things like Game Pass is, is it healthy for the developer?”
What blows my mind about this is just how unlikely “all that nice stuff” actually is for so many game developers, facing the terrible gamble of pouring their blood, sweat, and tears into a game that may not actually find an audience, all without any sense of stability or security. In Layden’s idyllic version of events, all the profit sharing and overages all come right after the “hoping it explodes,” the direct equivalent of South Park‘s Underpants Gnomes’ Phase 2 in their profit-making scheme. And for every developer who’s faced the situation where that hope isn’t fulfilled, for the dozens of teams and studios that collapse every year after a game doesn’t hit, they would have given their arm to have had a stronger wage to support them in the aftermath.
The comments are also tone-deaf given…the vast majority of people live off wages! It’s not some abhorrent anomaly, this terrible affront faced by game developers pushed into the miserable situation of having a company pay them up front for their game’s development costs—it’s how most of the world exists. I, right now, am paid for writing this article. I get no profit from its success on the site. And while it sure sounds nice that if a post of mine went huge I’d get a nice extra bundle of cash, I’ll stick with getting paid for my time and effort for all the times they don’t. It’s entirely normal, and in fact often incredibly secure, to get paid for the hours you’re working, not gamble your time against some future pay-off that may never come.
Many developers have reported how being hosted on Game Pass has allowed them to stay in business—GamesRadar reported last year how important the service has been to many indie developers. That’s not to say that it’s a pure force for good, because of course it’s not, and there’s obviously huge debate to be had about whether appearing on Game Pass could sometimes cause a game to ultimately lose out on far greater sales had it stuck to the traditional model. But even this week, a company as big as Remedy made it absolutely clear that the only significant revenue it’s seen so far from FBC: Firebreak has come as a result of day-one Game Pass and PS Plus deals. The idiotic wage slaves.
This idea that all creativity has to begin in a platonic fervor, then perhaps be bestowed with riches upon its culture-changing success, is the poetic disguise of the worst of capitalism. It says to all creatives, “Don’t settle for a wage, work for less, and if you’re lucky we’ll pay you later.” Yes, he’s arguing that in his ideal world, these developers not only get paid by the magic sky fairies that fund all game development, but also recoup the winnings after their game becomes a massive hit. But that’s not the reality in this industry, and implying that those who opt for security today over the slight possibility of riches later are in some way not being “healthy” just seems foolish. And note that it’s (always) being said by someone who is paid a vast salary for their time, and then receives bonuses, dividends, stock windfalls and so much more on top.
Look, I’d love to set humanity free of the need for wages. Obviously universal income should be brought in immediately. I also want to see creatives return to the patron model that drove the creation of art for a thousand years before copyright bullshit broke everything. But these are currently dreams for which we should fight. In the meantime, I kind of like the idea that game developers should embrace the notion that their time and talent is enormously valuable, and they should be fully and properly compensated for their efforts at the time they’re being put in. Yes, definitely give them far more money later should their work become hugely successful and generate vast profits, but that should never be the only model by which they are compensated. For so many teams, it’s vanishingly unlikely. Even if that, for fucks sake, makes them “wage slaves.”
