After struggling to reposition itself for service games, failure in Concord Sony now repositions its development approach. PlayStation head Hermann Hulst lays out a new approach that managed risk but at the same encouraged studio creativity.
A New Attitude towards Failure and Risk
According to Hulst, it turns out to be not about the number of games that the company can churn out in its new model but about creating diversity and community around its titles. Adopted by this model, Sony can cancel a project at whatever stage of development. The key, in the words of Hulst, is to ensure failures happen early to limit financial loss.
He said this is meant to relieve pressure from development teams, which ultimately means that they could take risks creatively without the burden of fear of making a big and expensive failure.
"I don't want our teams to be cautious all the time, but I would like to make sure that if we failed, it would be early and cheap," stated Hulst.
He believes that people learn from their failures: "[People learn] control's really important."
Changes in the Internal Development Process
With the challenges brought on by Concord, Sony has now established new internal rules and procedures:
- Rigorous and Frequent Testing: Group testing is now made frequent and rigorous; specific to the early stages of game development.
- Enhanced Inter-team Communication: Increased freedom is granted for different studios and teams to communicate with each other.
- Manager Testers: Managers have to now playtest their games at hundreds of hours for feedback and to test their project with other teams.
In Light of Future
The designed strategy aims at preventing future occurrences of colossal failures like that of Concord and also safeguarding the company's investments in the service game segment. The efficacy of this new internal control system, together with the newly revamped philosophy, will be determined with time regarding releases in the future.
Source: Financial Times.
