In short, the gaming community is now telling the publishers what they want to see, not the other way around. I think he plays some more mainstream games as well, but his favourite games are Minecraft and Spelunky.” They’re just the games he’s found that he likes. He’s not been influenced by someone who’s into indie games. He’s not got arty-farty left-wing parents. “I was talking to a friend of mine’s son, who’s 12, maybe 14, and I asked him what games he plays. Hogg continues, with an anecdote to chill the average Activision suit to the bone: In fact, as a result of online gaming culture’s increasing shift towards YouTube, it’s almost impossible to avoid. Perhaps fed by ennui at an over-long passing console generation, perhaps the product of developers’ increasing dissatisfaction with the rigidity of console publishing possibilities, PC gaming has made a major resurgence, and the eclectic mix of gaming that has resulted cannot be ignored by anyone. There’s been a definite shift in the way that even the mainstream perceives games over the last couple of years. Indeed, it does feel like Sony is hitting this stuff at exactly the right time. And it’s about ‘Ah, what’s interesting to watch someone play? Is it Call of Duty, or is it Minecraft and Spelunky?’” “I think the other thing that’s happened over the last couple of years is that the power of large marketing budgets to command attention on games has been neutered somewhat by the ability of people to put Let’s Play videos on Youtube. As Haggett mentions, while we discuss the evolution of gaming culture moving into next-gen: And it’s surely more cost effective, in terms of creating superficial impressions at least, to spend a publishing and marketing budget across a lot of small games to than risk it all on two or three big ones.īut while that may or may not be the case (or part of it, at least), there is an unmistakable sense when talking to the Hohokum team that Sony’s brave new indie world stems from a place of genuine care for video game design, and is part of a progressive overall view on the changing shape of gaming. Sony of course, does not have access to the almost limitless coffers enjoyed by Microsoft, and with several of its divisions in a fair bit of trouble over recent years, it needs to be more frugal about the way it launches a console. Of course, it’s easy for a cynical, world-weary journo to find less altruistic reasons for Sony’s move towards independent developers.
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