| Hi everyone. Today we're trying to figure out why gamers rooted for the departure of PlayStation boss Jim Ryan, but first... This week's top gaming news: Video-game enthusiasts don't normally care too much about executive shuffling, but news this week of the retirement of Jim Ryan, boss of Sony's PlayStation, evoked an odd reaction from gamers: raucous cheering. When I broke the news of Ryan's departure Wednesday afternoon, I was mildly surprised to see a barrage of celebratory gifs and memes from PlayStation fans declaring that they were thrilled to see him go. After all, he oversaw the successful launch of the PlayStation 5 and the release of hit games such as God of War Ragnarok and Horizon Forbidden West. Wasn't he doing a decent job? Yet Ryan's four-year tenure was also marred by controversy, in part, because of his tendency to lift up his foot and insert it into his mouth. Ryan, a marketing guy who started at Sony in 1994, worked in various roles across the organization, mostly in Europe, before taking the role of president in 2019. In contrast to previous faces of PlayStation, such as the serene Shawn Layden and the video-game-loving Shuhei Yoshida, Ryan came off to many fans as a slick, corporate businessman — that is, when he wasn't racking up embarrassing gaffes. At one point, he infuriated retro game fans and preservationists by saying that old PlayStation 1 and PlayStation 2 games "looked ancient — like why would anybody play this?" Another time, while touting the company's accomplishments in Europe and Asia, Ryan claimed that "people had never played games before PlayStation in the Middle East," which was false. Perhaps his biggest flub came in 2022, just after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Rather than take a stance on abortion rights as some staff had hoped, Ryan wrote that "we owe it to each other and to PlayStation's millions of users to respect differences of opinion among everyone in our internal and external communities." As we reported at the time, he went on to tell a goofy story about his cats and his desire to get a dog.
A corporation abstaining from supporting abortion rights was not a huge surprise, but the lighthearted email came off as tone-deaf to many PlayStation employees, who took to internal channels to express their dismay. Insomniac Games, the PlayStation-owned studio behind Spider-Man, went on to make a $50,000 donation to a women's rights organization but was forbidden from speaking publicly about it. Communication mistakes aside, Ryan's four-year tenure as boss of PlayStation had mixed results. The PlayStation 5 has sold more than 40 million units, more than double the rival Xbox, if not at quite as rapid a clip as the previous PlayStation 4. (The console was hampered for years due to Covid-related supply issues that have now mostly abated.) It has seen a handful of well-reviewed exclusives such as Demon's Souls and Final Fantasy XVI. Although it still doesn't even feel like the "next generation" of video games has really started (despite the fact that we're three years in), the console is undoubtedly a success. But over the last two years, Ryan has overseen a PlayStation shift toward "games as a service," a popular industry buzzword referring to video games, usually multiplayer, that can be monetized over long periods of time. It's been an uncomfortable pivot for some of Sony's studios, which have spent the last decade building out teams of experienced developers to make big, cinematic adventure games that are played solo. Those single-player blockbusters are still in the works (and one, Spider-Man 2, will come to PS5 in just a few weeks). But Sony's stable of game studios, such as Naughty Dog (The Last of Us), Insomniac (Spider-Man) and Guerrilla Games (Horizon), have also been working on multiplayer service games — with mixed levels of success. Most have not been revealed yet. Some have been canceled or overhauled, such as an online game based on The Last of Us. Game-development teams that spend years working together tend to cultivate a certain style. Often, making a drastic pivot from a familiar genre to something brand new can have disastrous results — just ask the developers of Anthem. Games as a service are particularly difficult to create, as they require a formula that gets gamers to consistently play over long periods of time, which is a very different ask than a single story. Early last year, Ryan helmed Sony's acquisition of Destiny-maker Bungie, one of the top service game developers in the world, in hopes of accelerating this pivot. But it took Bungie decades to develop the teams, technology and production pipelines that have made Destiny successful — and even so, they had some serious growing pains along the way. Even Bungie's expertise has not yet been able to turn PlayStation Studios into a service-game factory. A few years ago, service games were the hottest thing in the industry. But now, even the sensation Fortnite isn't making as much money as it once did. This bet on multiplayer games may not pay off the way Ryan and his team had once hoped. Now, with Ryan on his way out, there are a lot of questions to ask about the strategic future of PlayStation. Some insiders are worried about the company's lack of coherent vision, with its seemingly misplaced bets on service games, niche VR headsets and a baffling machine called the PlayStation Portal that allows people to play PS5 games on the go — assuming they're at home, on their own WiFi and streaming from their consoles. It's not yet clear who will succeed Ryan. But whoever it is, they will have a tough task on their hands — and that's before trying to avoid the ire of video-game fans. I'll be checking out Cocoon, a new puzzle game from some of the minds behind the brilliant Limbo and Inside, which many of my colleagues have been raving about. Polygon called it "impossibly good." The most enticing part? Word is, it only takes a few hours to finish. Video-game performers have authorized a strike as they negotiate a new contract. Sega canceled the shooter Hyenas and is expected to lay people off at UK-based Creative Assembly. | 
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