Sony's Unfortunate Westward Turn

Sony’s Westward Turn is an unfortunate instance of overcoding and territorialization, the exemplar for which we have deemed in the past “anthropocentric”. As Sony winds down support/marketing for first part Japanese development and the creators of lauded IPs (like Toyama) depart to pursue creative freedom elsewhere, the publisher appears poised for a total orientation toward GOW 2018/TLOU2-style “blockbuster” experiences. This is unfortunate on two fronts:

• [OVERCODING & UGLINESS] Beauty is weird, essentially diverse; a work is beautiful in proportion to its capacity to instantiate polyvalent being-as-appetible. The overcoding or homogenization of new works in the medium [whereby they are “centered, unified or finalized” (Deleuze, Thousand Plateaus 39) into a homogenous form] induces univocity and ugliness, while

• [TERRITORIALIZATION & FINANCIAL FAILURE] The rigid consolidation of a genre “territory”, resultant from corporate perception that data & financial drift exhibit “given” predictors of success [false, in that “blockbuster” is not a given form or “manifest image”, the likes of which can be imitated and measured. It is a reification or being of reason, applied as an adjective or property to things]. This tends to result in financial failure (Lawbreakers, Anthem, Fallout 76, the graveyard of World of Warcraft clones) more often than success. Meanwhile, individually-concocted, low-budget “deterritorializations” or de-then-remakings of conventional forms can precipitate wild financial success (see also Counter Strike, Demons Souls, God of War OG).