Jim Ryan – he gives as good as he gets

GameCentral speaks to the boss of PlayStation in Europe, about broken games, day one patches, PSN, and the year to come for PS4.

One of the highlights of the gaming year for us is speaking to Sony Computer Entertainment Europe president and CEO Jim Ryan. We’ve met him five times now (here, here, here, here, and here) and on each of those occasions we’ve complained, criticised, and complimented all aspects of Sony’s PlayStation business. And for his part Ryan has answered our concerns as honestly and openly as he can, with a very minimum of PR fluff.



The problem is that the only chances we usually get to speak to him are at E3 and Gamescom, which are only two months apart. So we thought it would be better to move one of those meetings to the beginning of the year, especially as we had a lot we wanted to discuss following 2014’s annus horribilis.

So when we met him the other week we questioned him about everything from broken games and day one patches, to the PSN outage over Christmas and the madness of GamerGate. And as you can see for yourself he didn’t shirk from addressing any of the issues, although it’s up to you to decide how satisfactory his answers are…


GC: It’s good to see you again. But before I start I want to make it clear that many of these issues I’ll be raising apply equally to Microsoft, indeed the fact that these problems are industry wide is my main point really.

JR: [laughs] Last time we met… I enjoyed the reaction of your readership to my assertion that they were more intelligent than you were. [laughs]

GC: I’m sure they were very generous with their comments.

JR: [laughs]

GC: So… last year was such a terrible year for video games it made me genuinely worried about the future of the industry. There are three main areas I’d like to discuss in detail though: a lack of both quality and quantity in the games released, GamerGate, and the industry apathy over whether new games actually work or not.

JR: That was four!

GC: Well, I’m counting quality and quantity as one, as we’ve touched on that before. But do you accept 2014 was a disappointing year? Because from a hardware sales perspective it was obviously a very good year for Sony. But in every other respect… to me it’s no wonder that smartphone gaming continues to expand given how shambolically the entire industry has handled this latest generational leap.

JR: You got it all off your chest now? [laughs]

GC: [laughs] That’s my precis for the interview. But I’m not singling Sony out here, all that goes for just about everyone.



JR: I know, I know. And I’ve read quite a lot of the stuff that you’ve written on this sort of topic. It’s well argued, it’s cogent… if a bit rabid occasionally.

GC: I rant because I care.

JR: [laughs] I see where you’re coming from, but at the end of the day it is a subjective opinion that you express. And as you’ve pointed out our hardware sales are fantastic and they show no signs of abating. We come into the new year, I think the latest public figure was 18 and a half million sold through, blah, blah, blah.

An awful lot more hardware than we’ve ever sold before, and while you have a certain view on the quality and quantity of the experience that people had last year – and some of it I think is fair, and we’ll come onto that – but at the end of the day people wouldn’t be buying this hardware in such huge numbers if they weren’t enjoying it; if their friends weren’t enjoying it and recommending it to others. Because, as you correctly say, more than ever before the console proposition has to justify the considerable barrier to entry that it has in the form of £349 to buy a PS4 in the UK.

Now that there are viable alternatives, entirely viable alternatives in the form of smartphone and tablet gaming – which don’t have that barrier of entry – we must be doing something right if all these people continue to buy in such massive, unparalleled numbers.


GC: That’s true, and certainly in terms of the hardware itself and the marketing you’ve done very well. But I think ultimately people were just so keen to embrace the new generation that they were happy to jump aboard immediately, many knowing that the first year probably won’t be that great. But I don’t think anyone expected it to be as bad as it was.

JR: …

GC: And just to your earlier point I’m not sure that any of my three concerns really are subjective. The question of quality perhaps, although I’m sure a study of Metacritic will show a consensus that it was not a classic year. The quantity of games was certainly at an all-time low, I remember quoting a retailer survey to that effect in my end of year feature. And then GamerGate was incontrovertibly awful, and so was the situation with broken games.

JR: Yeah, let’s move on from the subjective, because you have a view on that and the vast majority of 18 and a half million people appear to have a different view on that.

GC: Just because they bought the console doesn’t mean they’re happy with any of the things I’m talking about.

JR: Well… true. But we’re now 16 months in, right? And they continue to buy it in numbers that are unparalleled for February, at any point over the last 20 years. You would think that if all of these 18 and a half million people were having such a terrible time they would be telling their mates, they would be telling their children, ‘This is a horrible experience, don’t buy into this!’ But that’s not happening.


GC: Well, let’s drill down to those three main points. The most straightforward perhaps is simply the fact that video games don’t work anymore, and nobody seems to care. And that’s a completely non-partisian point where the prime examples are Driveclub, Halo: The Master Chief Collection, Battlefield 4, and Assassin’s Creed Unity.

JR: Even if your view is expressed with characteristic zeal we’re moving on to an area where we’ll find a bit more common ground. [laughs] Clearly – and this is fact, as you say – there were a number of games before Christmas that had problems that meant that to some great or lesser extent they did not work.

But to your statement that nobody cared, I shouldn’t speak at all for other publisher or platform holders, but just in the context of Driveclub, which as you say did not work correctly at launch, I gotta tell you that everybody in this building [we’re at Sony’s Europe HQ in London, which houses several internal development studios – GC] and in the development community was absolutely distraught that that was the case.

I don’t think anybody should labour under the opinion that there was any feeling of insouciance or anybody being relaxed about that being the case. People were working 24/7, and that’s an expression that’s lightly used but people were working 24/7 trying to fix this.

Now, should the game have worked at launch? Of course. Should people pay £50 for something and expect it to work? Of course.

GC: The problem is you could see it becoming an industry standard just in those few months: release broken game, refuse to admit game is broken, admit problems and promise to fix them, fail to fix problems in timely manner, offer free DLC to make up for it. I believe you when you say people were working on Driveclub 24/7 and that they were upset, but how could Sony not have seen these problems coming? For Driveclub and the other games.

JR: I’ll talk again a little more about Driveclub in a moment. But I think one thing that the industry appears to have misjudged in the generational transition – where there’s a lot spoken about moving to a more straightforward PC architecture that should make it easy for developers to come to terms with next gen and all of that – is I think the massively enhanced online ambitions a lot of developers and publishers have identified as one of the opportunists of next gen, appear to have been way more technically challenging than anyone realised.

And QAing this stuff… a lot of it is load placed on servers, simply due to concurrency. It’s hard. Again, that’s not to excuse publishing something that’s not fit for purpose. In any form of entertainment, in any business… whether it’s a washing machine, whether it’s a book, whether it’s television, whether it’s a video game you shouldn’t put something out until it’s ready.

One would hope, and certainly we’ve learnt an awful lot from the Driveclub experience, that those mistakes, once made, should not be repeated.

GC: Can you talk precisely about what changes occurred after the Driveclub launch? Did you put new QA policies in place? Did you tell third parties to clean up their own act?

JR: We have two roles to play, right? We are a publisher of content in our own right and we are the platform holder who overlays a level of what is called format QA. Obviously the lessons that we learnt in the context of Driveclub were many and painful, and will be applied internally in the context of every first party title that we publish going forward.

GC: In terms of third party though is there anything that you are willing to do? Because it’s not uncommon to hear stories of some indie downloadable title being delayed by a few months because it failed Sony QA, and it’s usually minor things like how their save screen works or something. And you think, ‘Well, that’s a shame but at least it shows that Sony’s QA is fairly rigorous’. But if you can be so pedantic about that sort of thing surely ‘Does it work?’ is the first thing you check for!

JR: It is very hard for us to QA the online expedience of a third party game…

GC: What about Assassin’s Creed Unity then? That’s primarily single-player and its problems were blindingly obvious the second you started playing.

JR: When a third party multiplayer game runs on the servers of that third party publishers, you’ll understand it’s virtually impossible for us to QA that online experience.

GC: Are there any financial penalties you can levy at them? Because it’s your name on the box too you know.

JR: …

GC: From seeing it at a preview it was obvious to me a couple of months out that Unity wasn’t going to be properly finished for its release date, so it should have been obvious to you as well.

JR: You’re straying into the realm of conversations between publisher and platform holder that should remain private.

GC: And presumably that conversation was you saying ‘Does it work?’ and them answering with [starts winking and miming taking a bribe].

JR: No! No, no, no!

GC: Well, what happened then? If everyone reviewing the game noticed these horrendous bugs after just five minutes of playtime how did you miss it? You’re happy to put your foot down with little indie developers but because it was a big publisher apparently those rules are ignored.

JR: [deep breath] Ah, yeah. Well, it wasn’t just offline, there were…

GC: The co-op was a minor part of that game, and was not one of the issues most people were upset about. 10 minutes into Unity and I was controlling a flying apple instead of the main character. There was no way anyone involved in that game didn’t know the state it was in when it shipped. All they cared about was hitting their deadline. And by association you were okay with that, you were part of the conversation that said, ‘Ah, who cares? You can fix it later…’

JR: No! I… I think… let’s move on.

GC: OK, but that’s not an unfair question. I’m not misrepresenting anything there.

JR: It’s not an unfair question. But these games are now so big and complex that to test everything…

GC: I think everyone appreciates that. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t wait until the game works before releasing it.

JR: I’m saying the format holder overlay… if we were to test absolutely everything, it could take months.

GC: Ask me next time and I’ll lend you my review notes!

JR: [laughs]

PR guy: Have you played Driveclub recently?

GC: I don’t really like serious racing games, so I don’t personally have much of an opinion about the game itself.

PR guy: If you play it now it’s really living up to its expectations.

GC: I understand that you did a lot better than some in addressing the situation, but that was still three months. And… is there still going to be the free PlayStation Plus version?

JR: That’s still being looked at.

GC: You can’t guarantee that it will ever happen?

JR: I can’t say anything at this stage.

GC: OK, well let’s move onto some of the other points. There’s no point arguing about the quality of the games last year as we’ve discussed that before, although clearly it was awful.

JR: [sustained laughter]

GC: But the question of quantity also concerns me. We discussed the summer games drought, which was particularly bad last year, at Gamescom and you admitted it was an issue. Have you done anything since then to avoid similar problems this year?

JR: At the end of the day, David, the decision when to release any game is down to the publisher in question.

GC: I’ll take that as a no.

JR: No, c’mon. A platformer holder has absolutely no… I’ll point out that we released The Last Of Us in early August. What else do you want us to do?

GC: You implied you were going to do something at Gamescom. Why doesn’t it worry you that the games industry, from a mainstream consumer’s point of view, only exists for four or five months of the year? I can get the summer games drought to a degree – it’s hot outside and a lot of people are on holiday – but it’s February now, it’s freezing cold out and dark at 4pm, but apart from Evolve we haven’t had a major retail release for coming on three months.

JR: Why don’t you just play all the games that were released in November?

GC: I thought we’d agreed not to talk about the poor quality of last year’s releases?

JR: [laughs]

GC: OK, so next issue. At Christmas both Xbox Live and PSN were attacked by the same people in what seemed to be exactly the same way. But Xbox Live was down for a few hours and PSN was down for three days. That seems a typical example of PSN not being as stable or reliable as its competitor, which I think people accepted when it was free – but that’s no longer the case. Gamers are being made to pay good money for a clearly inferior service.

JR: You say that PlayStation Network was down for three days in December…

GC: Don’t say it like it was three random days, that included Christmas Day and Boxing Day!

JR: What you omit to mention is that it was not working because it was the victim of a malicious criminal attack. It wasn’t because…

GC: I did mention that! And so was Xbox Live.

JR: Look, I dunno. I don’t work for Microsoft, I don’t know how the attack that they were subject to was different to our attack. All I know, again, is that our people worked around the clock to get the network back up. Now, I understand that many people unwrapped their PS4s from under the Christmas tree and were unable to get online and that is upsetting. And many of them tracked me down and emailed me over Christmas, and I was fully aware of their unhappiness and was doing my upmost to get the situation put right.

GC: Okay, but that Xbox Live seemed to suffer less is absolutely in keeping with the perception that PSN is less reliable. People are always writing into me: Why does it go down all the time? Why is it so unreliable? Why is the scheduled maintenance always at such a disruptive time?

JR: Can I go back to the Christmas thing? It was fixed as quickly as possible. We’re very sorry that it occurred, in an ideal world it shouldn’t have occurred but it was a malicious criminal attack and for those, that you’ve rightly pointed out, that have paid money for that service that they didn’t get we’ve extended five free days.

GC: And then there was that 10% discount, the seemed to be cynically scheduled just before payday and just after the sale ended.

JR: That was something else for people that hadn’t paid for the PlayStation Plus membership but had been inconvenienced, you offer something like that and people will always find a reason to complain.

GC: That’s true.

PR guy: You haven’t used the word hack actually, but that’s what galls me. People talk about this being a hack, but it isn’t.

GC: I tried not to use the word, because as I understand it’s always just DDoS attacks. That’s why it seemed fair to assume that Xbox Live had been attacked in exactly the same way.

PR guy: But in the broader context people talk about it being hacked, which is inaccurate. And it’s hard to defend against DDoS.

GC: I get that completely, but it was just a prime example of PSN being less stable than Xbox Live. Would you accept that it has that reputation? And that it’s also missing key features such as friend notifications?

JR: No, I don’t necessarily accept much of that you know. I’d say we’re working constantly…

GC: Would you say it is as reliable as Xbox Live?

JR: [pauses] I’d say we’re constantly working to make it better, we’re introducing new features, such as Share Play… do you see anything else like that elsewhere?

GC: No, it’s a very good feature, but you should have got the foundations right first.

JR: In your opinion. And in your opinion the foundations are not solid, and that’s, again, a subjective opinion.

GC: Well, it’s the opinion of many that will be reading this interview I’m sure.

JR: Well, I look forward to reading their comments.

GC: They’ll be saying, ‘That Jim Ryan doesn’t know what he’s talking about!’

JR: [laughs] I’m used to that, David. I get it all the time at work. [laughs]

GC: Yeah, me too.

All: [laughs]

GC: Well, speaking of gamers. I’m sure publishers were very glad to have been largely left out of GamerGate, and I don’t blame you for an instant for trying to keep your distance. But again I found that whole thing just profoundly depressing. I… [pauses] well, I’m literally lost for words. But it was just shocking to me to see that that level of misogyny existed today. And a whole movement based on the most ludicrous conspiracies, and convinced it’s fighting some great injustice. How was – and is I should say, because it’s still going on – GamerGate viewed by Sony? Did you just sit back and think, ‘Thank god that’s got nothing to do with us’?

JR: What do you mean it’s got nothing to do with us?

GC: Well, in that they weren’t attacking publishers or console manufactures. But it must have greatly damaged the public perception of gamers and gaming in general. All the mainstream coverage… apparently there was even an episode of Law & Order inspired by it last night.

JR: Well, more females are playing games now than ever before. I think the GamerGate thing is absolutely horrible. I agree, I read what you wrote about it, again your language was intemperate – as befits your views on an issue…

GC: Oh c’mon! Never mind games not working, that stuff was beyond the pale.

JR: Yeah, and I share your opinion on much of it.

GC: Did you consider any counter to it, to encourage more female gamers and/or developers? I’m not suggesting it was incumbent for you to do so, but I’m curious if GamerGate led to any positive new initiates?

JR: I don’t think you can or should discriminate one way or the other. Quotas in boardrooms, quotas in sporting teams, I personally don’t believe that these are the right way to achieve a world where discrimination is not prevalent. I think if you talk about this organisation, I think all that I should do is to set an example at the top. And indicate that any behaviour that is remotely inappropriate in this area will not be tolerated.

GC: The one thing that does make me laugh about GamerGate is their assumption that any publisher would bother to bribe a journalist. Nobody listens to reviews, they never have and never will. Which makes me curious as to how does Sony view the specialist media nowadays, especially now with the rise of YouTube celebrities?

JR: I wouldn’t be… I was going to say the word wasting [laughs]. I wouldn’t be spending my time here…

GC: You’re only here in the hope of more free Dundee Cake. [We bribed him with some free cake last time we met – GC].

JR: [laughs] You are one important conduit for communication between me, or my company or the industry, and people who buy video games.

GC: But are we? If they never listen to us?

JR: I think they do listen to you.

GC: You wouldn’t guess it to look at the sales charts.

JR: You know, I wouldn’t get too depressed to it.

GC: [laughs] Right, well I better wrap up here I guess.

JR: You had enough? Getting bored?

GC: No, no. I could go on for ages, if you’re happy to. And since you’ve offered….

JR: [laughs]

GC: Another thing I remember from when we first met, at the unveiling of the PS4, was a promise to improve the speed of updating and patching, which you identified as a problem with the PS3. But if anything things have gotten worse. And again I wonder what casual gamers must think when the time between inserting a game disc and starting to play it can be anything up to half an hour. Do you not feel day one patches have gotten out of hand?

JR: Yeah, I do…

GC: Come back in two hours kids and maybe you can play the game… maybe play some smartphone game until then.

JR: [laughs] Are you finished?

PR guy: This is like therapy for you, isn’t?

GC: Perhaps, but here I’m not ranting to a fellow journo, I’m talking to someone that can actually do something about these issues. You could go into a meeting today and make it a part of QA policy that you can’t have a day one patch bigger than whatever MB. That would instantly improve the gaming experience of everyone that uses a PS4. There’s no way of denying that.

JR: Yeah, it could also result in certain games being delayed for, let’s say, three or four months.

GC: Good! It might also result in games being delayed to the point where they actually work and have a degree of polish to them.

JR: What you’re talking about is an industry phenomenon, right?

GC: Oh, absolutely. But I’m talking to you as an industry leader, with an important role at the leading console manufacture in the industry.

JR: I think patching has a reasonable role to play, when it’s used to address bugs that are found at the last minute, right? You don’t disagree?

GC: No, no. That’s perfectly reasonable.

JR: But as a surrogate, or a safety net, for a proper QA process I agree that things are maybe swinging too far in that direction. And certainly, as regards our own games, we’re gonna tighten up.

GC: So something definitely has changed since last year?

JR: Yeah.

GC: Why can’t you do something about third parties as well? You force other standards on them, as we discussed.

JR: Would you rather the game was delayed six months?

GC: Yes. Or, I’d rather they gave it a realistic release date in the first place.

JR: Again, you’re expressing a personal opinion. There are many people who would be… who are quite happy to wait a small period of time while a patch downloads, rather than wait six months for the game to appear.

GC: But if you think it’s a bad thing for your games why don’t you think it’s a good thing to enforce for third party games? If you have strong opinions on save screens why don’t you have strong opinions on games working?

JR: You’ve got to be clear minded about the responsibilities of the publisher and the responsibilities of the platform holder. This is not some sort of nanny state and I don’t think anybody would want that to be the case. And if publisher X chooses to go down a road of persistent, massive day one patches then ultimately publisher X will reap the consequences of that.

GC: That’s always been my hope, but it doesn’t seem to be the case.

JR: Well, might that not be an indication that consumers are not that bothered by it?

GC: Well, you wouldn’t think it given how much they complain to me about it. And you seemed to think it was an issue worth addressing before the launch of the PS4. But okay, just to close…

JR: You always say that and then you ask five more questions!

GC: You just goaded me into carrying on!

JR: [laughs]

GC: Well, my last point is that you could see the Xbox One beginning to close the gap somewhat at the end of last year, at least in the US and UK. And I think many people feel that Sony has somewhat squandered its lead since launch. You’ve released no exclusives of note, you didn’t announce any more new retail games than seemed to be the bare minimum… if the reasons for your success are so intangible how can you hope to maintain your lead?

JR: PlayStation means different things to different people. For me, one of the great joys of my middle-aged life is sitting with my eight-year-old daughter playing Knack on a Saturday.

GC: Oh, had she been bad or something?

JR: [laughs] Well, that’s just your opinion coming through again! But on another morning it’ll be LittleBigPlanet, and millions of people think similarly.

GC: But in your dotage, when you look back at your whole career at Sony, are you really going to pick out Knack as a highlight? Will you be thinking fondly of anything that’s happened in the last year and a half?

JR: I won’t, but she might.

GC: You should’ve bought her a Wii U.

JR: [laughs]

GC: But you see my point? I don’t think anything you or Microsoft has done since the launch of your consoles has been in anyway notable, and that worries and frustrates me. When people are compiling best of generation lists in five years time this whole period is going to be completely ignored.

JR: I think time has to tell on that. You get so close to these things and you get so angry…

GC: Well I have to play them, if that’s what you mean.

JR: [laughs]

GC: At what point do you think – because as you know I was very impressed by Sony’s Gamescom conference last year – the PS4 will be at a point where I, and anyone with similar tastes, will be satisfied with what’s being released?

JR: I’m confident that we could have a meeting later on this year and you might not be quite so angry.

GC: [laughs] I’m not angry, I’m just disappointed. And I’m sure you understand what I’m frustrated about, and that there’s a reasonable percentage of other gamers that feel the same way.

JR: I understand completely. And I do absolutely get that you represent a reasonable point of view. And like I say, I’m hopeful that we can have a nice peaceful, calm chat at either E3 or Gamescom.

GC: Okay, well you could’ve said next year and that would’ve been fine. So you genuinely think it’ll be this year, with I guess Uncharted 4 as your lead?

JR: Yeah, yep.

GC: Well, I hope so. I hope so. OK, well I really will stop there, but you’ve been a great sport as always. I really appreciate your time.

JR: Not a problem, you know I always enjoy our little chats.

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