For people Monday morning quarterbacking PlayStation’s portfolio strategy 1) big non-service games are struggling too, 2) many of the cancelled games were greenlit before it was clear the ladder had been pulled up, and 3) marvel rivals is a new explosively popular live service game.
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The reason the game gained its install base so fast was because of the IP, but as we know with Spider-Man 2, that shit ain’t cheap.
Netease does well with Marvel IP… for now… it is an immediate success for sure.
No one can say for now at least.
(No seriously nobody finishes these games, make them shorter and less bloated.)
Also loved your point about accountable Heads. Game isn't great? Look at the directors, don't drag the whole studio.
Jim Ryan wasn’t making decisions unilaterally, studio heads had input, nobody saw the current market state coming, and nobody knows the way forward right now.
Make fun of Ryan for “crossplay is a threat to the children,” but this is industry-wide.
Do you think Insomniac, ND, Bend, Bluepoint and Guerilla all just happened to want to make GaaS at the same time? This wasn't organically exploring new game design concepts here.
https://youtu.be/h9tLcD1r-6w?si=aIzsQipPZrZ9iDoy
For the last four, how do you know they didn’t want to make service games? Studio heads can be as subject to the financial appeal of big money machines as execs can.
If you think it's a coincidence that as soon as ABK was bought Sony reactively grabbed Bungie and suddenly went on a shopping spree for GaaS games, idk what to tell ya.
Even if Sony were to be successful, they were guaranteed to have a nearly double digit number of flops.
Bluepoint should be fine, as I imagine remasters/remakes are cheaper than creating a new title from scratch.
Bend can be a support studio, but I don’t think Sony will want to invest anything close to another Spider-Man 2-like budget for a new solo game.