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Is the Jim Ryan hate really justified?


Sendai-Horatio

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After many people losing their cool over the Horizon Zero Dawn remaster, he seems to be getting a lot of unfair flak in my opinion. The remaster doesn't seem to be taking away resources from a new game since a new multiplayer title was found along side it and there's a new VR title. You've had similar collections in the past like with Uncharted as well.

 

Him throwing a tantrum over the Activision Acquisition seems to be more or less something of an opinion and not a fact. Lots of unrelated companies who are not game platforms also seem concerned about the deal in total. His presentation also didn't seem out of the ordinary when he spoke. Not only that but Sony has been working on it's own FPS for awhile, it's just nobody knows what it's called.

 

The PC ports don't seem to be harmful towards the PS5. But also it's probably wasn't just Jim Ryan who wanted them and the people above him may have also wanted to test the waters with them.

 

It seems most of what's been levied towards him seems to be superficial at most. Especially since sony has been much worse off before under other people.

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3 minutes ago, Dark_Overlord said:

I don't like the bloke.  I've been with the Playstation since day one (PS1/2/3/4 PSP Vita) and everything that I liked about the company is gone.  He doesn't care about games in the slightest, only money.  Compared to the old Sony execs Shawn Layden etc who were genuinely interested in gaming, he just comes across as an empty shell.  Couple that with the censorship and closing of studios, and Sony have gone from a 9/10 company to me to a 2/10 company.

But studios closed under previous CEOs as well. They also open up new studios to replace them. The censorship content rules may not have been him either since that also may have come from someone above him.

Edited by Sendai-Horatio
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1 minute ago, Dark_Overlord said:

 

Yes, but at least there was still variety.  Sony Japan was a great studio.  What do we have now besides the big blockbusters from Sony?  Where are the Tokyo Jungles, the Wild Arms etc

Wild Arms was published by Xseed in many places, it wasn't published under Sony. And well you have other turn based RPGs that have risen up to replace wild arms already that have gone on to do better that also have ties to Sony.

 

Sony is still putting out other games that are by no means large ones either. You had them fund things like Bridge of Spirits for example.

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2 minutes ago, Sendai-Horatio said:

Sony is still putting out other games that are by no means large ones either. You had them fund things like Bridge of Spirits for example.

 

Whereas in previous generations they'd allow their developers to create the games they're throwing money at now.

 

2 minutes ago, DEI2EK said:

Censorship

closing of fan favorite studios

more focus on remakes/remasters than new games

refusal to support full backwards compatibility 

going all in on games as a service 

 

there’s a lot to dislike about Jim Ryan, he’s turning Sony into a third party publisher

 

100% agree

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Jim's a perfect example on why tech companies need people with actual technical experience in leadership roles.

Business backgrounds are critical for sure, but if you don't know the field you're in, you can't make logical business decisions 

Edited by VigilantCrow
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I'd say most people who are in any decision making position in big gaming or tech companies at the moment deserve most of the hate coming their way given the sorry state the industry is in thanks to twats like them. Now whether someone deserves hate for a specific thing depends on whether he was part of that decision or not, though given the sheer number of incredibly stupid and anti consumer decisions going around these days you are very unlikely to hit someone who does not deserve it in some way, especially if you go all the way up to the CEO tier.

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Some of it is, most of it isn't. I don't particularly like the man myself, because of the way he comes across more so than anything specific he's done whilst at PlayStation, but he has been at the company for a long time, so he must be doing something right to still be in a job. And you can dislike him as much as you want to, but numbers don't lie. He has achieved massive success for the company. PlayStation is more successful than it's ever been, which nobody can argue against.

 

I know people don't like some of the decisions and choices being made at the company under his leadership and you're all perfectly entitled to that opinion. I don't agree with a few of the things happening this generation myself. But by and large I think he has set the company up well for the future. Sony is in full growth and profit making mode at this moment in time, unlike Microsoft who are pissing away tens of billions of dollars and massively loss leading in an attempt to claw back some market share. Unfortunately that means that a lot of what Sony is currently doing isn't going to be hugely popular in some sections, because it comes across as greedy, unlike Microsoft who are seen as very consumer-friendly this generation, primarily because they NEED to be. Trust me, if roles were reversed we'd be having this exact same conversation, only regarding Phil Spencer and not Jim Ryan. 

 

Ultimately I think PS5 has been a massive success despite a few hiccups along the way. I don't think that we're "back to the PS3 days" as so many people like to claim. PlayStation is a million miles away from the PS3 days. They haven't been perfect this generation, not by a stretch, but people really need to chill out a little with the hyperbolic comparisons. PlayStation was almost DEAD in the early years of the PS3 gen. There's no comparison. 

 

Jim hasn't helped himself in the past with his comments about old games, recent gaffs involving emails he sent out to staff and a number of other 'interesting' moments, but I think he's also done a lot of good. Just recently we had a story about how it was him who demanded that PlayStation refocus efforts on indie games and partners after a few less than stellar years in that space, and that's what lead to Shuhei's new role (one he does so excellently I might add) at the company as head of indies. But you could be forgiven for not hearing about this, because it's only ever the negatives that get focused on, especially in the gaming press. It is what it is, but I personally don't get the obsession with him to be honest. 

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11 minutes ago, The Alchemist said:

Sony is in full growth and profit making mode at this moment in time,

 

Yes 'At this time' they've captured the audience that like to jump on the new trendy thing (same is happening with anime and manga), but when they move on to the next 'thing' you still have the OG's hanging around (the core fanbase who are your guaranteed income), that is unless you piss them off enough that they go elsewhere, and that is what Jim Ryan is doing IMO.

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I don't think anyone deserves hate. Jim Ryan, at the end of the day, is a guy going to work and trying to do his best at his job. He's someone's son, etc.

As Depeche Mode said in 1984, "I can't understand what makes a man hate another man".

Except for Scrappy Doo. F that guy.

Also, Sony care more about making money than games? I didn't think this was breaking news, but Sony is a big business and all businesses exist solely to make money for their owners. That is the only reason a business exists - because someone has worked out a way to monetise something and make money from it. Sony just happen to sell games as part of their business.

Their employees get paid to make the games, so that they can be sold to make the companies money.

Your enjoyment of the games is simply a by-product and the only reason Sony - or any other games company - really care about that at all, is because the more people enjoy the game they make, the more money they are likely to make from that game. Same with any other media or product.

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In a lot of ways, a CEO's job is to be the public face of big decisions, both good and bad, despite not having a lot of personal control over those decisions. Swap Jim Ryan with literally anyone else, and Sony might be the exact same company, and people would be blaming that person instead.

 

I think a lot of people on these forums underestimate how big of a company SIE is, and think that Jim is singularly making every single decision at the company, and everyone else is just kind of following orders. From experience working at a large company, that's almost definitely not true. Every big decision, from content policies to subscription fees to publisher support, has to be approved by dozens of people across the company before anything meaningful changes to the end user (us). And, what do you know, no one on these forums has ever published any evidence of "this decision we don't like is a direct result of Jim's decisions."

 

The hate isn't justified, but it's inevitable because that's what his job entails.

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I personally don't like him but I wouldn't to go as far as to say I hate him. He has brought much more discord to the company then past CEOs and he unwillingness to let some things try to succeed but instead cut them as soon as he feels they make a slip up is just stupid.

 

But some things like the recent outburst against Activision Purchase I do agree with in his sense.

 

Sony and Nintendo of the three big players where the only ones actively in the top 3 for game companies. Microsoft/Xbox only just reached here by combining with Activision. For better or worse this does show how much power the acquisition of Activision does hold and rightly for any other Company/CEO this is a cause of concern. Especially when their was less resistance in this happening then let's say a foreign company such as Tencent trying the same. I mean look at even the acquisition of Fox by Disney in another area of media. That was even scrutinized and looked into deeply by the government before it was approved.

 

On the flip side it also opens up a potential issue where other companies could try to buy other large companies to consolidate a power that could cause more hurtful unfair competition. Especially if one company keeps targetting the strongest third party players for acquisition.

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