Ex-PlayStation boss says games should be shorter because development costs are ‘not sustainable’

Most games that are long are artificially so, with padded out content and grinding to advance. Short excellent games sell well. Huge expensive messes don't.

Just like movies, large blockbuster, high budget content can sell well but does risk sacrificing its soul and purpose. Occasionally one is both excellent technically, artistically and fun too.

Or you can have smaller games with a more specific purpose which won't sell as well. Some low budget games are bad. Some high budget games are bad. Neither is a mark of quality, they are just different ways of making games with different outcomes and purposes.

Games need to turn a profit to be visible, so they should be looking at what's the optimum way to spend their budget and make sales.

As gamers, we should be rewarding good games, and avoiding microtransactions and all the upsells. I don't buy any cosmetics or additional content (unless it's a continuation of the game that makes sense as another chapter). I want to avoid that side of gaming as it doesn't lead to good games. I pay full price at launch for my favourite game series, but not extra content. Other games I purchase later on sale.

Does he think books should be shorter because the years of authors' lives spent composing them are also not sustainable?

I wonder if he's aware that development budgets can be allocated in different ways, like paying good writers to make substantial (and long) stories, or refining the user interface and game mechanics so that they're fun to play for a long time, rather than pushing every new hardware generation to its technical limits.

Length has nothing to do with it. It's all about the bullshit inflated budgets. They're comes a point of diminishing returns with how many staff at working on a game, and how much is spent on marketing.

The playing time isn't sustainable either

Sadge💀