Sony Playstation under fire today for lack of Indie Dev Support

[AbsolutSurgen]

11 hours ago, sblfilms said:

I mean, it isn’t as though there is no promotion of titles on the PlayStation store. The only thing that I don’t understand is limiting when a title can be put on sale.

I think Sony wants to have more thematic sales on their store.  They probably believe that events (even if they are very minor ones) are more effective at driving sales than individual publishers putting things on sale whenever they want.

[XxEvil AshxX]

On 6/30/2021 at 6:48 PM, Remarkableriots said:

PlayStation Indies promotion returns to PlayStation Store

BLOG.PLAYSTATION.COM

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Discover something different with a huge selection of fascinating titles now discounted for a limited time.

Sony just had a huge indie discount at the beginning of this month.

 

Well then they did a poor job of advertising it because I keep my eyes open and still missed it.

[Keyser_Soze]

15 minutes ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

ESPECIALLY the one operated by Tim Epic.

 

#itsjustastorefront

[chakoo]

I personally didn't have a bad/hard time with sony. I will agree that PSN has a lot of problems that sony really needs to get sorted. Yet not knowing your account manager I find silly because even I knew how to get a hold of ours when I was building a shitty VOD app for PS4 (Something even less important to sony than an indie game). I'll also point out I found it interesting he complains about Lotcheck but sony's is actually TRC (nintendo is lotcheck). These Technical requirement sheets are not difficult to get through. They're thorough for a reason because they are to prevent your app from crashing/having issues on the hardware and for the most part they're less complex than they use to be in the PS1/PS2 era.

 

I'm not going to say my experience over the years with Sony & Nintendo will be the same as others but I find a lot of the issues he complained about are issues I found in the indie scene with people expecting everything to be done for you.  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

 

12 hours ago, sblfilms said:

I mean, it isn’t as though there is no promotion of titles on the PlayStation store. The only thing that I don’t understand is limiting when a title can be put on sale.

 

See the eShop. I find it stupidly difficult to check for stuff on sale because every week tons of crap is on sale. Also the idea of a launch sale is kind of BS to begin with. Just make that your actual price in the first place. Hell tons of games that pull this BS on eShop tend to always just be on sale. 

 

There are currently 849 games on sale on switch eShop this week and that is somewhat light (it's often over 1k).
https://www.nintendo.com/en_CA/games/game-guide/#filter/:q=&dFR[generalFilters][0]=Deals&dFR[platform][0]=Nintendo Switch

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

 

 

Schreier needs to ask some more questions, most notably "Were you compensated for those digital copies?" and "Did your contract with Sony specify how many complementary keys could be distributed before compensation provisions kicked in?"

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

PushSquare published their own article on the issue today:

 

Report: How PlayStation Is Failing Indie Developers

WWW.PUSHSQUARE.COM

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PS Store sale exclusion, backend mishaps, and lacking support - As Sony focuses its first-party efforts on delivering a wi...

 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

47 minutes ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

 

 

Schreier needs to ask some more questions, most notably "Were you compensated for those digital copies?" and "Did your contract with Sony specify how many complementary keys could be distributed before compensation provisions kicked in?"

 

Nevermind, the guy wasn't privy to ANY of the relevant information:

 

 

 

[Paperclyp]

5 hours ago, BloodyHell said:

Because those games don't make them money, I would imagine. They have a history of supporting indie games, and im guessing that it didn't make them much money. Anecdotally, most gamers I know personally just don't buy indie games generally. Sometimes there is a huge hit, like Hades, but the vast majority of gamers never look at them otherwise. I love indies, and sure, on a forum like this a lot of people might play them, but we aren't the norm. 90% ignore anything that isn't part of the current zeitgeist.

It has to be sales thing, its the only reason I can see them abandoning what was strong indie support in the ps3/early ps4 era.

I frankly don’t understand what point is even being made anymore with you guys who are in here just saying things like oh, it’s probably just this.  

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

2 minutes ago, Paperclyp said:

I frankly don’t understand what point is even being made anymore with you guys who are in here just saying things like oh, it’s probably just this.  

 

It's truly missing the point entirely which is Sony isn't providing the same level of service that the other two console platform holders (Steam probably doesn't count because of the very different structure) are for what appears to be the same cost to the developer.

[Bacon]

Even if sony did a good job marketing them, sony is like the worst place to buy an indie game. Xbox is far more generous to the consumer in letting games be cross gen. Nintendo is now HH only which is great for indie games. Then on PC you really own games forever. Can't see any reason as a consumer to buy indie games unless all you got is a PS and so I don't see a reason for Sony to care about marketing them. 

[Paperclyp]

1 hour ago, Bacon said:

Even if sony did a good job marketing them, sony is like the worst place to buy an indie game. Xbox is far more generous to the consumer in letting games be cross gen. Nintendo is now HH only which is great for indie games. Then on PC you really own games forever. Can't see any reason as a consumer to buy indie games unless all you got is a PS and so I don't see a reason for Sony to care about marketing them. 

It MuSt NoT mAkE sOnY aNy MoNeY

[Bacon]

8 minutes ago, Paperclyp said:

It MuSt NoT mAkE sOnY aNy MoNeY

If they cared they'd push it. I mean, why doesn't McDonalds start selling Bone-in chicken or Subs? They already sell fish, but rarely promote it outside of specific instances. McDonalds' Fish is Sony's indie game. 

[SaysWho?]

Hopefully some good news comes out of this:

 

 

I remember Boyes and Gio in particular; you saw them every conference and they were gamers at heart who really cared about indie devs. 

[Keyser_Soze]

13 hours ago, Bacon said:

Even if sony did a good job marketing them, sony is like the worst place to buy an indie game. Xbox is far more generous to the consumer in letting games be cross gen. Nintendo is now HH only which is great for indie games. Then on PC you really own games forever. Can't see any reason as a consumer to buy indie games unless all you got is a PS and so I don't see a reason for Sony to care about marketing them. 

 

12 hours ago, Paperclyp said:

It MuSt NoT mAkE sOnY aNy MoNeY

 

If you watched the latest Grubb Snacks he kind of goes into this (well his own opinion of course) Saying Switch and Xbox have a big piece of indie pie and Sony is content with pushing their big budget games.

[Xbob42]

21 hours ago, XxEvil AshxX said:

 

Well then they did a poor job of advertising it because I keep my eyes open and still missed it.

Yeah I didn't see this either.

 

Also why the fuck is Sony running a blog. That's the most antiquated thing I'm seeing out of all this. Yeah I know MS has a blog too but I feel like if you don't follow Sony's blog you have a high chance of missing out on critical info. My PS5 storefront seems like it gives me very little information outside of the biggest titles, which of course need the least amount of promotion.

[Brian]