According to Shawn Layden, a live-service game “isn’t really a game.” The former PlayStation executive said in an interview that a live-service game is better described as a “repetitive action engagement device.”
Then what is a game? Speaking to The Ringer, Layden said a game needs three elements. “I need a story, I need a character, and I need a world,” he said. “And Horizon, God of War, and Uncharted have all three of those things,” he said. “If you’re doing a live-service game, you just need a repetitive action that most people can get their head around, an ability to communicate in that world with other like-minded people, and [the player’s] desire to do it again and again and again.”
Layden left Sony in 2019. He hasn’t said exactly why he left, but explained in the interview that live-service was “not my skillset.” At the time, Sony was investing heavily in live-service and was planning to release a dozen live-service games by 2026. Sony later cut that projection in half, and some of the titles it has released, like Concord, failed spectacularly. Others, like Helldivers 2, have been enormously successful.