previous playstation President Shawn Layden said that in the early days of PlayStation, Sony's marketing team tried to promote game developers the same way the music industry was platformed rock bands. Over the years, PlayStation has continued to leverage the popularity of developers to market their games, with large studios like Insomniac and Naughty Dog becoming virtually household names.
Developers have always been at the center of great games, but they haven't always been in the spotlight. By 2025, it will be very common for the average gamer to know which developers are behind their favorite titles. Part of this is due to the widespread media coverage games receive these days, and part of this is due to brand awareness. Sony has been investing a lot of time developing PlayStation exclusive titles and there are certain expectations for these games.
PlayStation built its current reputation by producing many narrative-heavy single-player action-adventure titles, including: god of war, Ghost of Yoteiand unknown. But while all of these titles exist under the PlayStation umbrella, the developers themselves have garnered a lot of attention. It's hard to imagine how audiences would react if PlayStation suddenly announced their next game. Marvel's Spider-Man The title was to be developed by a company other than Insomniac. According to what Shawn Layden revealed, this was all by design.
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Shawn Layden says game developers selling at Sony love rock bands.
In a recent appearance on Game Rant's Character Select, former PlayStation president Shawn Layden recalled the early days of PlayStation and how Sony approached the gaming industry. Layden revealed that a significant portion of the original PlayStation team was made up of people who migrated from the music industry, which at the time came with its own marketing strategy. Talking about the industry and PlayStation's strategy, Layden said, “At the time, advertising for games was very common. Here you see the gameplay and how much it costs, and there's a happy kid playing the game with a controller.” Anyone familiar with the early days of the game probably remembers those ads or magazine ads. This was the trend at the time, but those who moved from Sony's music business to the games industry had their own ideas.
Discussing how Sony's music experts wanted to approach selling the game, Layden said, “They wanted to market the platform and market the developers and the games like a rock band.” According to Layden, this was an attempt to make consumers more interested in the actual creation behind the game. With this strategy, the team felt they could make players more interested in the developers themselves, their vision, and future projects. Layden continued, “It wasn't a PlayStation game per se, but it was a Naughty Dog game, it was a Bandai game, it was a Koei game.” Regarding individual developers who have actually become rock stars, Raiden said, “I'm looking at Mr. Kojima.”
Hideo Kojima has made a huge name for himself in the world of entertainment, but especially in the world of gaming. After years of building metal gear After the franchise, Kojima left Konami and started Kojima Productions. The company's first games include: death strandingIt is a new property that has since received a sequel and has had several adaptations in the works. PlayStation's original strategy of turning developers into rock stars appears to have been a huge success. That's because many developers have taken advantage of the attention and publicity they received to continue creating titles that showcase their unique vision. With so many talented developers working in the industry today, it seems like gamers have a lot to look forward to in the future.
