Ex-PlayStation PR Man: Sony Is "Sending Titles Out to Die"

[The Wooster]

Ex-PlayStation PR Man: Sony Is "Sending Titles Out to Die"

Recently laid-off PlayStation rep, Will Powers, calls out his former employer.

Last week, Sony laid off a slew of workers, including PR guy and The Tester winner, Will Powers. As former employees are wont to do, Powers has taken a few pot shots at his former employer's recent decisions, including the one that has left him unemployed.

"You have to wonder what the hell PlayStation was thinking laying off more than half of their software PR team going into the holiday season," he wrote on Twitter. "In typical fashion they're sending titles out to die, because they have no PR support - [Little Big Planet Karting], Sports Champions 2, Wonderbook.

"Worst part it, the PR department was already under-staffed," he continued. "I feel sorry for those that remain there, because their workload just doubled."

While Powers' rant will hardly be conducive to him scoring another PR job, it's hard to disagree with his point. Dropping a sizable portion of your PR team before the run up to Christmas is an odd move on Sony's part. According to Powers' the layoffs were made to save money, but an internal PR department is far more cost effective than outside agencies.

"PR is non-revenue generating, but has a very low operating cost in relative terms to their results. Laying off to cut costs makes no sense," he wrote. "Already, they outsourced entirely too much work to overpriced agencies, so laying off is only going to exacerbate an existing problem."

Powers was working as a waiter and barman before he won the PSN reality show, The Tester, earning himself a not-so-cushy game testing job. At some point he transitioned from testing, which is widely regarded as the most unpleasant job in the industry, to PR. According to Powers, the producer of The Tester has been laid-off as well.

Source: Kotaku [http://kotaku.com/5945936/ex+playstation-spokesman-you-have-to-question-the-priorities-of-the-company-as-a-whole?post=52930923]



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[AzrealMaximillion]

This is another poor decision by Sony this generation.

Though I'm only 21 I have to ask, what the hell happened to the Sony of the PSOne and PS2 eras? How do you dominate 2 generations back to back with record breaking sales to making stupid decisions like this constantly?

 

[l3o2828]

And people laugh at me when i predict another video game industry crash.
Yeah, the numbers might be alright, but the actions speak like the numbers are downright fabrications.

 

[GonzoGamer]

Wellll,
their PR is pretty bad. Probably a good move, we might hear less stupid shit out of them now.

 

[Gladion]

So one guy, who won his job on a game show, is saying a multi-billion Dollar company is making bad decisions and that he knows better? Not trying to offend anybody, but how did his former jobs prepare him any better for knowing about how to run a media company than mine did?

Edit: Oh yeah, maybe Sony fired half of their PR-team because they want to hire new people? Possibly because they want somebody else to give it a shot?
Also: I love how he refers to his former employer as "PlayStation" not "Sony".

 

[Piflik]

PR is seriously overrated. Gamers get their information from magazines and internets and all it takes for them to cover a game, is free copies...

 

[BrotherRool]

The problem is, you can't expect an recently fired employee to be able to accurately gauge how effective his own department is. He's too close to know whether they were doing a good job or not (also of the games he listed, only Little Big Karting has the potential to be a really big hit)

 

[AzrealMaximillion]

This is another poor decision by Sony this generation.

Though I'm only 21 I have to ask, what the hell happened to the Sony of the PSOne and PS2 eras? How do you dominate 2 generations back to back with record breaking sales to making stupid decisions like this constantly?

You dominate the previous two generations by dumb luck and stupid choices by your competition? PSone vs the N64 was the sign for CD based gaming. PS2? DVDs. The problem with today was that not everyone could actually afford the cost of blu-ray because the major difference from this generation from all previous generations was that this was the first generation that had the consoles developed to be MORE advanced than what existed in the standard home.

The only console that actually stayed with the trend was Nintendo. Now that televisions for the most part have HDMI or component it only made sense for the next console to have said technology.

I don't see how the tech made the PS2 the better console, but I can see how it helped the PSOne.
But in both generations the Sony consoles just had a vastly higher quantity of better games overall.

Sony's lackluster performance this generation wasn't due to Blu-Ray. The PS3 was, and still is, sadly the best Blu-Ray player on the market. And Blu-Rays cost about the same when they came out as when DvDs came out, unless you're referring to the costs of development for games.

I personally think that the library of games took a massive nosedive overall from the PS2 to the PS3. Titles are being sent to die. The late, late localization of White Knight Chronicles is a testament to that.

 

[cerebus23]

First jobs to get cut in a recession is the ad budgets. Better indicator than any stock guru.

 

[CrazyBlaze]

PR is seriously overrated. Gamers get their information from magazines and internets and all it takes for them to cover a game, is free copies...

Not everyone who plays or buys games looks up on the internet or in magazines. In fact a parent who bought a PS3 for family use and doesn't frequent sites like this and only plays games like NHL or Madden etc, may see a commercial for Little Big Planet Karting and decide that it might be a good game for their six year old to play. PR also helps get information released, set up interviews, deal with stockholders, negative backlash etc. They focus on a large variety of things that make them useful to companies.

Also they set up conferences were websites and magazines can get sneak peaks at the games being made and create hype for players. Sure they can give out free copies but that only works towards the release of the game and really only for reviews. Sure give it them a few weeks early but that doesn't create as much interest than if the game was teased over the past year.

 

[GAunderrated]

This is another poor decision by Sony this generation.

Though I'm only 21 I have to ask, what the hell happened to the Sony of the PSOne and PS2 eras? How do you dominate 2 generations back to back with record breaking sales to making stupid decisions like this constantly?

There is a video by moviebob that is pretty old and he suggested that Sony was probably never good at systems/gaming department but rather they got lucky by Nintendo making one of the worst decisions of gaming history and rode it for many years. Looking at Sony's decisions these past 7 years I would have to say that I agree with him.


If the video is boring you should probably start at 5:00

 

[VanQ]

I just don't get Sony any more. I love their products and the games they produce but the company is run by morons. Nothing more can be said on the matter. Oh well, at least the Vita is getting some degree of support in Japan. I was kinda hoping to have a strong western developer presence as well but I guess I can give up on that.

 

[Woodsey]

Also: I love how he refers to his former employer as "PlayStation" not "Sony".

Sony sells a bazillion products, it makes sense.

 

[GenGenners]

The hell was The Tester?

Anyway, yeah, Sony needs to replace most of it's higher-ups. Their management still work off a decade old mindset, and every time they try to change, they still drag it with them, kicking and screaming.
They need young, fresh, new blood in the key areas of the company. As it stands now, Sony is starting to show it's age.

 

[AzrealMaximillion]

This is another poor decision by Sony this generation.

Though I'm only 21 I have to ask, what the hell happened to the Sony of the PSOne and PS2 eras? How do you dominate 2 generations back to back with record breaking sales to making stupid decisions like this constantly?

There is a video by moviebob that is pretty old and he suggested that Sony was probably never good at systems/gaming department but rather they got lucky by Nintendo making one of the worst decisions of gaming history and rode it for many years. Looking at Sony's decisions these past 7 years I would have to say that I agree with him.


If the video is boring you should probably start at 5:00

I'd say that Sony got lucky in the beginning. But luck doesn't run 2 full generations. The amount of great games that Sony actually DID have a hand in with the PS1 and PS2 was quite large. The successes of Crash Bandicoot, Twisted Metal, God of War, Sly Cooper, Jak and Daxter, and many others are hard to ignore. To say that Sony had NO idea how to sell games and consoles suggests that you'd have to ignore the successes of a lot of franchises that were created in those 2 console generations.

This generation is different. This is a weird one. Sony doesn't have half, or even a quarter the number of the franchises it had on previous consoles. The sequels it cranked out to certain franchises were mediocre and had no reason to be because they weren't rushed (Genji: Days of the Blade). Other franchises that were well received got no love, for no reason (the guys who made the great Mark of Kri being forced to make the MLB: The Show series...)

Hell, we've been waiting on The Last Guardian for how many years now? And White Knight Chronicles taking years to localize was horrible. Sony was, for a long time, able to create great games and back creative ideas that sold. Even some of the most obscure titles that were backed by Sony's publishing funds reached greatest hits status (The Getaway, Shadow of the Colossus). Bob Chipman's video ignore a massive amount of what made the PS1 & PS2 successful in that video.

 

[CortexReaver]

Sega of late 90s, take two. It seems to happen to every king of the hill, everyone looses market leadership after two generations or so. First these were Atari, Nintendo (SNES falling behind Genesis), Sega (Saturn falling behind PlayStation), now time has come for Sony.

 

[Sylveria]

Sony has the gun pointed squarely at their foot and they will not stop pulling the trigger and somehow they aren't running out of bullets.