A game developer has taken umbrage in a statement Sony president Jim Ryan made in the ongoing FTC federal case vs the Microsoft Activision deal.
Just to review, this is the third suit filed vs the deal in the US, and the second one filed by the FTC. It is the one which had a temporary restraining order successfully approved to temporarily block the deal. Now, the parties involved are in San Francisco District Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley’s courtroom, to argue on whether she should also approve a preliminary injunction to stop the deal completely.
Jim Ryan is one of many high profile witnesses being brought to the stand in regards to this case. Now, Jim did not personally appear in court. Instead, his appearance came video deposition.
Now, what we learned from this deposition is something else on its own. Jim revealed he was in email communication with Xbox head Phil Spencer from August 2022. Jim did not elaborate what he read, but something from those communications raised red flags that turned him against the deal.
Now, as live tweeted by Stephen Totilo during the trial, Ryan revealed he was afraid that Call of Duty would be ‘degraded’ on PlayStation in some way. For example, in terms of release date, release quality, or the number of bugs.
And here is where Respawn Entertainment’s Senior Encounter Designer Patrick Wren came in. Quoting Ryan’s statement from Totilo, he had this to say in response:
“No game dev willingly tries to put out an inferior release with less quality and more bugs. No one would do that. We want to make things that people enjoy and will always try to ship the best product despite any circumstances.
For Jim Ryan to suggest otherwise that is asinine.”
Patrick’s response definitely goes into the heart of grievances that game developers have among their own community of gamers and fans.
While gamers are right to deride this thread, there is a real harm when the game developers get attacked for it. It is even more harmful that the president of PlayStation, of all people, is helping spread this perception. Patrick was definitely not the only lower ranked member of the industry who saw that statement, and thought to themselves, that this would just encourage gamers to harass and attack developers more.
In 2023, the industry does deserve better than that. Jim’s seeming frankness suggests he actually believes this too. That is so sad to think about, given how many other developers fall under his leadership, not to mention third party developers, like Patrick Wren himself.
We don’t know if Jim would apologize or take this back, given that he made the statement in court, but it’s just not a good look overall.
