Former Sony Interactive Entertainment Head Shawn Layden Weighs In On ‘Ghost Of Yōtei’ Discourse: “If You Don’t Like It, Don’t Buy It”
The currently raging discourse surrounding the upcoming Ghost of Tsushima sequel Ghost of Yōtei has drawn a frank response from former Sony Interactive Entertainment boss Shawn Layden.
Announced during Sony’s September 24th State of Play presentation, Ghost of Yōtei will see its historical setting propelled over 350 years in the future ahead of its predecessor, in doing so leaving behind the shores of the titular island circa 1247 for the mountains of Hokkaido in the year 1603.
As a result of this time shift making it physically impossible for Ghost of Tsushima protagonist Jin Sakai to still be alive, developer Sucker Punch has chosen to temporarily take a break from his story in favor of new protagonist Atsu, a female samurai.
Unsurprisingly, this change has sparked a wave of discourse across social media, with those who have been burned by the industry’s recent turn to activism taking Atsu’s introduction as a blatant case of ‘male character replacement’ while others have urged caution in light of the fact that absolutely nothing is yet known about the game’s narrative direction.
(Of course, the vocally left-leaning social media presence of Atsu’s motion capture and voice actor, Erika Ishii, has done little to calm tensions.)
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Ostensibly keeping eye on social media’s reactions to the game, MightyKeef eventually caught sight of a post from YouTuber Endymion wherein the latter lamented, “They can’t help themselves until every franchise that was built on masculinity is replaced by women” and affirmed that he was “so sick of the forced girlboss narrative”.
In response, MightKeef mocked, “Man what an absolute loser.”
Out of left field, soon after its publication, this last tweet would draw the attention of the aforementioned Layden, who previously served as the head of Sony Interactive Entertainment between 2014-2019 and has since gone on to accept an advisory position for China-based developer Tencent Games.
Offering his two cents, Layden began, “1. It’s a game. An entertainment. A story a team of creators believes in. They want to make this.”
“2. It’s a game,” he added. “If you don’t like it, don’t buy it. In fact, why not make the game you want yourself?”
It should be noted that Layden has no current relation to Ghost of Yōtei‘s development, and as such offered this tired rhetoric from his position as an individual consumer.
But while his take on the situation does not reflect Sucker Punch’s personal views (or at least their publicly expressed ones), what it does show is how deep this ‘dismiss the consumer for disagreeing with you’ mentality runs within the larger video game industry.
At current, Ghost of Yōtei has yet to receive an official release date.
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