It's even worse than that. The execs at these companies don't just not make games, they don't play games, either. They fundamentally cannot understand what makes a good game because they don't engage with the medium, and do not care to.
Probably not a popular take, but it's fairly common to have CEO's for big company who where never part of the production of one of the product they company sells. The idea is that at some point, your business is so large and oversee too many projects. Intuition, and experience doesn't cut it. Big firm want rationalization. This is why management become obsess with metrics, KPI and such. It rationalizes business decision.
This won't be business that innovate, but that's not what their investor wants. Shareholders at EA want predictable reasonable growth, and governance match that. You don't get brought up by EA, Microsoft, Activision, etc, and then act surprise that management want you to produce "generic AAA game with a coat of paint based on X popular franchise".<p>Innovation and risk taking is something that smaller business do.
On the other hand, FromSoftware, creators of games such as dark souls, bloodborne, and elden ring, placed their main director as CEO. He still directs their main games, and admits to focus more on games than on business.<p>The trend has been they focus on quality, rarely compromising their vision, which started as niche gameplay ideas that are now a new genre, adopted in many new games. And the effect has been that they got a reputation for quality, and sell more and more games with each new release, with elden ring selling like 36M copies.
FromSoft has less than 500 employees. They are a big studio, but still a studio. They are not a publisher with a large portfolio like EA or Activision, MS, etc. Different business, different governance. FromSoft is owned by kadokawa, who's current CEO is an MBA dude.
That business model is at odds with any creative enterprise. It's one thing to scale a business that has a successful product that needs very little improvement over time other than efficiency gains which can be handled by a management class whose only involvement needs to be ensuring the core model is maintained and not degraded while improving operational efficiency. It's a very different thing to having to constantly innovate and create new and better products especially when those products need their own artistic merit to stand on. If you're just making the next FIFA game you'll be fine but anything that requires a plot will go over like a lead balloon.
Yes, it's the industrialization of culture. The music and movie industry shows us exactly how that works out. Big major and big studio don't innovate, they sell you well known name, reinforce it with marketing, and buy up the latest trend from smaller studio. Nothing new under the sun. Company like EA or Activision will continue to buy smaller studio that managed to get a few decent game going, will milk the franchise while its popular, then get rid of it.
That's true. They've discovered that strategy works since they can use their strengths (concentrated capital, business knowledge, lawyers, distribution system) to profit off of their competition and destroy them at the same time. It's a pretty terrible outcome for players since it destroys small studios which in the past would have used the funds from their previous success to develop more ambitious creative projects. Now those future products get managed to death and are less artistically interesting because they can't rock the boat.
There is very few companies where the executives don't engage with their own product. Imaging a film studio where the CEO has never watched a movie, or a publishing house where the CEO doesn't read books.
I don't think you need to enjoy the product personally but you do need to engage with the medium at the very least to be able to understand what you are selling and to whom you should listen for feedback.
Yes, but in the interview he was talking about creating games, not consuming. I am pretty sure that CEO at those big companies probably have played game in their life. They might not be hardcore gamer who fire up Dota 2 after work, but they likely engage with the medium. I mean, the current EA CEO has had a long career being involved in the sport division of EA.
There are examples like back in February when Chris Kempczinski posted his infamous sampling of a McDonald's meal (even though he apparently does eat McDonalds regularly, he didn't put on a very good show of it). Steve Jobs famously not letting his kids use iPads. Howard Moskowitz initially refusing to drink soda during an interview and saying "I'm not a soda drinker. It's not good for your teeth." and then when persuaded to do so describing it as terrible and overwhelming. The most relevant one would be Strauss Zelnick who said in a 2025 interview "I'm not a gamer. I don't play videogames at all. I'm not the Consumer-in-Chief." justifying it by saying that his job is to hire talented developers and let them make the decisions but I would question whether you can choose the right talent if you don't understand the audience for the products they'll make.<p>It's very easy for executives and management to be so disconnected from the people who make up the market they are serving. When success is determined by innovation that serves that market, detachment can be a fatal flaw.
I think Innovation in big companies does happen, but often it get's stiffled by the bean counters before something comes by it, but that is also a good thing. Small businesses should always have the potential to bring the goliath to its knees if the big business has outlived is usefulness to society as a whole.
Hey, everybody (who matters) knows that an MBA can successfully manage any kind of firm; there is no field-specific knowledge required, nosirree.
But that brings up important point, is this complaint about execs in any way specific to games industry? It is very common across businesses that execs haven't actually done grassroots work in their companies field?
As an MBA, I can confirm. We might not necessarily do it well, but we can do it:D
MBAs are the best, Plato knew this
Not defending execs but having worked in games for nearly a decade, it is difficult for even the most passionate game studios to really understand what makes a good game. Creative processes are difficult; and for every BioWare or hot indie darling there are probably 10 or more studios who've failed and that you've never heard of.
It's much worse than they havent played games at all. They would probably object and say that they do play games, they've played some mario cart that one time, and they play mario party and some monopoly game with their children. They almost certainly have played at least a few brief moments of their flagship games at a show or something.<p>They assume their own experience is more or less what everyone else has, including their players. A sort of dabbling, disinterested experience, flowing from one piece of content to another.<p>It is worse than not having played games at all because when people around them take on the task of making games with intensity and zeal and solemnity and great care, they can roll their eyes and think "it's not that serious, nobody <i>really</i> cares about this stuff". When people have passionate arguments about creative direction they feel they can see the bigger picture and rise above the petty squabbles by saying that the artistic direction doesn't matter. They know it doesn't matter, because it doesn't matter to them, and to all the other people who, presumably, are like them.<p>I think that they are wrong, but I think the task of explaining to them why they are wrong is like trying to teach a devout atheist why religion matters. It will be a long and hard uphill battle and in many cases likely utterly impossible.
<p><pre><code> > They assume their own experience is more or less what everyone else has, including their players. A sort of dabbling, disinterested experience, flowing from one piece of content to another.
</code></pre>
Actually with games this is a huge problem that players and even creators have.
Due to the different play styles and player types it seems very hard for people to understand that there are other player types. This is one of the main drivers for conflict in the gaming space. People think all players experience games the same, they are not.
One classic example is in MMO's like WOW where you have a clear distinction between the PVP and PVE playertypes, PVP players are usually "Killers" while PVE players are usually "Explorers". (Bartle taxonomy of player types)<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartle_taxonomy_of_player_types" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartle_taxonomy_of_player_type...</a><p>You can extend this to the amount of interest in games, casual vs competitive gamers.
"If you try to please everyone, you'll end up pleasing no one"<p>This isn't to say that games (and other media) should always be laser focused on one type of person but you do have to use good judgement to decide who your audience is, what they like and what you should leave out of the game. MMOs show some natural segregation of players when they have private servers, you end up with many PvP only or PvE only servers along with many other variations of things the game mechanics and mods allow e.g. strict role play servers.<p>There's even terminology directly related to your quote, casual gamers vs hardcore gamers and it should be well known by now that if you make compromises in your game to suit both you'll end up being disliked by both. It's better to lean in to one play style a measured amount. If you're making a game with PvP as a core mechanic make sure the PvP experience is good but not so hardcore that it alienates people who are new to PvP. Don't sacrifice important parts of the gameplay because you might also want to attract PvE only players.
Okay, devil's advocate:<p>Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War (2020) cost over $700 million to make.<p>I can't imagine anyone qualified to run billion dollar projects has much time for any interests other than running billion dollar projects.<p>These projects wouldn't be sustainable without an audience of gamers rewarding it with purchases and microtransactions.
and I'm OK with most of that.<p>The business side is more critical than the development side - so business folks should be running what is a business. If the business goes down, it'll take the down game, however great it is.<p>The big but though, is that to be a successful business you need to feed, nurture and protect the creative side. The creative side in turn has a responsibility to the business - if you've burnt through a hundred million and decide you need to start-over, that's on you.<p>My completely uninformed opinion is that once the business screws with dev ("Let's turn this thoughful narrative game, into a free-to-play-shooter!") dev probably just check out, do what they're told, and take the pay-cheque until it stops. I'm not a game dev, but I've had dumb corporate overlords.<p>Basically EA can burn in hell - but the development side is rarely faultless.<p>I don't think Indie games "are better" - but I think they tend to better deliver on a coherent vision. Most crash and burn, but the few that make it to my Steam account are wonderful. Not because they're all perfect - but because I heard a voice in it.