Efforts Toward Failure

In the past week PlayStation has:

Revealed a PC port of The Last Of Us 2 remaster. PlayStation Nation didn't show up in thunderous support for it, to say the least.

Revealed a new game from the newly-staffed Naughty Dog. It is new IP, featuring a female lead that is flying a ship dangerously close to an iconic Cowboy Bebop ship and MC energy dangerously close to Travis Touchdown. Druckmann's name is being thrown around like a job nobody wants.

Revealed a lawsuit against them by previous Marathon game director, Chris Barrett, in which it is accused of a sham investigation used to terminate a contract and avoid almost $50 million USD in payouts to Barrett.

Paying a single game director the amount of the entire Dead Island 2 budget sounds like a problem, no matter how it is presented. 

How much is Druckmann being paid to reheat yesterday's dinner and make a PR mess by pushing derivative trailers without any gameplay? 

UPDATE: https://www.finance-monthly.com/2025/01/neil-druckmann-net-worth-the-earnings-of-a-video-game-visionary/

After accounting for all debt, Druckmann's cash-in-hand and assets are worth 10 million. The master of remaster is a millionaire developer. No wonder Barrett is going after 50 million when a director that hasn't made any new content has 10 million lying around.

It is like PlayStation is a leaderless, lawless money sink where no one is held accountable. The Concord release and sudden shutter feels very similar to Ubisoft's X-Defiant. The pandering and derivative nature of Naughty Dog's Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet, a title that immediately calls Fishlab's Chorus to mind, feels very similar to Ubisoft's constant NFT and Blockchain attempts. How long until the financials look like Ubisoft.

PlayStation lacks the soul of a game company. Instead it reminds me of a person experiencing a mid-life crisis. It has forgotten how to not care about being cool and only focus on fun. It tries too much to be respected instead of making people laugh, shout, or just generally feel something not associated with being adult.

The PlayStation brand is becoming worse than bourgeois. It is becoming, perhaps reviving, the idea of the upper middle-class adult that eeks out meaning by mentally flailing in art galleries and opera houses. Beneath that imposter exterior is a person capable of sliding in mud at an EDM show and dancing like no-one is watching. But until it does, PlayStation will continue to wear it's yuppie costume and surround itself with yesterday's Ye yes men.