Indies Criticize PlayStation Over Charges, Policies, and More - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 02 September 2021 / 4,469 Views
Neon Doctrine co-founder Iain Garner in a Twitter thread criticized "Platform X," which he did not name specifically. However, he did say it is the "operator of a very successful console and does not have Games Pass!"
Garner said that "Platform X gives developers no ability to manage their games." In order to be promoted developers have to jump through hoops and beg for even a small amount of promotion.
"Platform X gives developers no ability to manage their games," said Garner. "In order to get promotion you must jump through hoops, beg and plead for any level of promotion. And a blog is not as good as they think it is. If Platform X doesn't like your game, no fanfare no feature no love.
"There is NOTHING you can do to fix this. Wishlists have no effect, so all your personal marketing means nothing to Platform X. All that matters is their evaluation. How is this evaluation done? Dunno, they don't share that, nor will they share the value they ascribe to my game."
Garner added that in order to guarantee to be featured on the PlayStation Store the developer needs to spend at $25,000.
"There is a way to guarantee you get featured! All you need to do is spend a VERY reasonable minimum of 25,000 USD to get featuring," said Garner. "Oh and then 30% of your subsequent earnings....Bargain!
"Now when your game is on the platform, likely without any support from Platform X, you may think, no problem, I can sync up discounts on Platform X with Steam and others... Wrong! Discounts are invite only and invites are also 'very limited.'
"It's been literal years since we could put a title of ours in discount, and I spoke to some other VERY POPULAR devs today and they had the same experience. So even if your game does well at launch and thrives on other platforms, you may still never be invited? Y? who knows?"
Many replies from other indie developers and publishers confirms that Platform X is PlayStation. Whitethorn Games CEO Matthew White in a pie chart revealed that "less than 3% of sales as a company are on [Platform X]." The label for Platform X is "Nolan North" who is the voice actor for Nathan Drake in the Uncharted series. White later in his Twitter thread even mentioned PlayStation 5 by name.
"[Platform X] is our worst performing platform, worse than other well-known plumber or supersoldier related video game systems, and also worse than DRM-free sales platforms like Itch, etc.," said White. "Last month we made more on Google Admob. Marketing, analytics, CPM, etc. tools are nonexistent.
"Average email responses are in months, not days or weeks. We have no visibility or communication with what is happening at [Platform X]. It took us more than eight months to get kits for [Platform X]'s hardware, despite having numerous confirmed IPs on the title.
"We have a full time employee who spends more than half of his time digging through sales reports for PX, as they are sent in excel-driven invoices that require manual invoicing like it's 1928. There is internal chaos with messages coming from random teams at random times.
"We're a company with about 19 full time, 10 part time employees, and I'm honestly not sure life to date we've made more on this platform than they're asking us to pay out of pocket for featuring. We regularly have to 'go over' our AM directly to corporate to get anything done.
"It's impossible to plan launch support, vouchers for Kickstarter backers take months to generate, nobody will answer support emails. We get no store ops opportunities, PS5 featuring and placement is a giant mystery. Our AM regularly says he'll address them and just doesn't."
Hypnospace Outlaw developer Jay Tholen directly mentioned that PlayStation is not good for indies.
"Yeah PlayStation sucks for indie devs," said Tholen. "We've sold like trash on there compared the other big consoles. also we make more sales on itch alone than we do on PS I'm pretty sure."
Mike Rose, founder of publisher No More Robots, added that the reason more threads like this don't happen is that developers are worried of the repercussions of speaking publicly.
"There's a thread going round today that lots of people are sharing," said Rose. "The reason you don't see more threads like it, is because devs are too worried to say it publicly," said Rose. "But trust me when I say that the vast majority of devs are reading that thread, and nodding their heads violently."
OK. I am mad enough to burn some bridges. Because honestly, what's the point of a bridge that I am not allowed to cross.
— Iain Garner (@NeonIain) June 30, 2021
So here is a thread about Platform X. I will not be defining Platform X but it's the operator of a very successful console and does not have Games Pass! pic.twitter.com/OJ2ZJz9BNy
Alright, I'm gonna unfortunately throw my hat in here as well. We **love** our Platform X friends, and I'm former Platform X employee myself, but we cannot move the needle on the platform.
— Matthew White (@matthewmwhite) June 30, 2021
Less than 3% of sales as a company are on PX. https://t.co/WjOTx43OLr pic.twitter.com/yXMsr9srYw
yeah playstation sucks for indie devs. we've sold like trash on there compared the other big consoles. also we make more sales on itch alone than we do on PS I'm pretty sure.
— Jay Tholen ??? (@jaytholen) June 30, 2021
(mike, i'll delete this if you want lol) https://t.co/l9Oz41oo5a
There's a thread going round today that lots of people are sharing
— Mike Rose (@RaveofRavendale) June 30, 2021
The reason you don't see more threads like it, is because devs are too worried to say it publicly. But trust me when I say that the vast majority of devs are reading that thread, and nodding their heads violently
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel dedicated to gaming Let's Plays and tutorials. You can contact the author at wdangelo@vgchartz.com or on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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Big yikes at people defending sony for this.
Sony really are on a roll this gen.
Well they are on a roll, with the better game releases so far.
My what a high bar you have.
Prove me otherwise.
I'm glad Xbox went with the name Series X, had they went with the name Platform X, things would be pretty confusing right now.
This is what happens when Sony gets too cocky with a console that becomes huge. Sadly for them some people are hardcore followers of the Sony brand and it's games to notice this. Hopefully the MS environment is a better one for them.
this is what happends, when your studio is barely one that has any impact at all.
If they where a indie game, that really did something (sales wise), you bet your arse sony would be all about them, and helping their game do even better on their platform. But if you make a tiny cheap game, that majority of playstation users dont really care for... sony isnt going out of their way to promote it.
Rocket league and fall guyz didn't have this issue,
Both featured in ps plus and got loads of sales and players afterwards.
Not all reaches that mountain top but when they don't of course they will talk trash...
Always knew indies are doing better on the Switch, there are ton of exclusive indies in the system, I Have Rico, Ion Fury, Into the dead 2 and many more only available there.
I understand that this Possibly won’t change since PS users don’t really care about indies.
But Mr Ryan really needs to think the strategy of PS regarding indies because there are TON of indie gems out there.
Funny, i have ion fury physical on ps4....
Featuring on the PS Store is not the issue. I go through all the games time after time to see what new things have been released. Most of the indie stuff looks so simple and low grade that I just don't bother with it. Simple as that. Maybe people buy Sony consoles solely for the big games and especially the exclusives. Gamers have different tastes and I'm sure that is reflected in their platform of choice.
That said, interacting and doing business with Sony should function properly and conveniently no matter who you are.
Ooooo Shuhei Yoshida is going to be in trouble. I thought PlayStation <3 Indies????
I think the truth of the matter, is sony loves indies that sell in big numbers. If you make a indie game that barely does anything (sales wise).... sony just doesnt care for you. Also alot of playstation users, love big narrative games.... small cheap indie pixel art, dungeon runners... arnt why you get a playstation. Thus they do much better on Switch (where there is a crowd that loves dungeon runners ect)
Maybe “arrogant Sony” really is back
Yeah, it also reminds me on the PS3 launch times...
Maybe?
Sony thinks they're hot shit again and don't need indies. I guess they will just go to the Switch.
Is there a huge list of indie devs that agree with this? I just need to know if this is actually a big deal if its just a small handful of indies talking loudly with the internet amplifying it.
Playstation easily has the most frequent releases of any of the 3 platforms and has accumalated a crazy software library and software sales. Although Switch is a great indie machine due to its portability, its also lucky if it gets even 1 retail release per month... Xbox also has way less diversity than Playstation. The most saturated platform is naturally the hardest to find visibility, so if your game doesn't rise above the competition it makes sense that its harder to succeed on the platform. The solution is not simply for Playstation to promote your game because you asked, but there are other things:
-Give developers more freedom to pricecut (its crazy that they don't have control over this).
-Put indie game pricecuts above all of the microtransaction and DLC item deals (character, weapons etc)
-Have a dedicated indie deals section throughout the year (currently its on rotation)
-Feature more indie games in PS+ freebie's (both devs who boasted of their xbox success were on gamepass)
-Have a most anticipated indie section for upcoming indie releases based of wishlists (and some critically selected features). Allowing organic interest to translate into promotion versus everything being based on PS internal staff tastes.
All the backend stuff I can't comment on but of course sony should give as much support and streamline the process as much as they can. One developer did comment on a devkit taking 8months to arrive, if its a PS5 dev kit then honestly I think thats understandable considering the current chip shortage.
Good indie game developers should be supported, but there are many horrible ones. [ not speaking about the one in the article never player their games ] But to blame the platform alone is a bad take, there are many other factors involved with sales. He sounds like a mad Youtuber.
How much of this is lack of promotion and just different tastes on different platforms though? They all mention that their games "sell like trash on Platform X", but they sell better on other platforms.
How much are they selling overall? That one chart compares Platform X with what I can conclude is Steam, both platforms have a swarm of releases every single week and some release outside of a set schedule. I can understand the frustration, but companies need to have a little more realistic understanding of the marketplace.
But kudos to them for having the courage to speak out.
He should have had the courage to tell us that it was in fact the Switch he was taking aim at . and the chart was just demonstrating it's failure to not having reached 75 % of total sales?
What's the point of saying I'm mad enough to burn bridges and then do it in the most round about way possible, it's like me holding up a PlayStation 4 and saying they made this but I'm not going to name them talk about mixed messages it looks like it was done in a blender. and also leaves me thinking that the spectre of game pass lies just under the surface of this messaging even if it's just subconsciously.
Besides learning that their PSN sales are weak and they blame Sony for those weak sales, the possibility that other factors like Game Pass or Switches popularity and form factor are behind us seeing Indie titles favouring them and driving those sales differentials, aren't explored it would also help explain why PlayStation and Steam are similar in the chart supplied from a different developer .
Since we don't have anything to give us a comparison of similar games on the same platform in terms of there genre, pricing ratings platform release date etc , we end up not knowing if those sales are indicative of poor good or great sales when it comes to PlayStation, now that doesn't excuse Sony from doing better and there is room for improvement in regards to their indie program both now and going forward , but rather than venting about not being heard and focusing on just your own circumstances via tweets ,that time and energy would be better spent by organising a meeting of their representative body and coming up with a document addressing what are industry problems rather than a piecemeal approach just targeting one player.
There is a lot of crap out there. They don't make games like limbo anymore.
Wasn't Sony the company that pumped millions into Hello Games, so much so that they got prominently displayed at multiple E3 presentations as an ongoing feature of the brand?
I'm sure there's plenty of truth to this, but I'm also pretty sure there's a lot more we don't possibly understand because their comments aren't really that congruent with what we're seeing happen most of the time.
So going by the start of the complain they are complaining Playstation only promotes the games they like? Why would they promote games they don't like? And well any marketing is based on payment.
Sounds like hes complaining about haveing to spend to get sony to market his games? Why not just market it yourself then? though other ways than sony?
If you read through the thread, you see that Sony has archaic hurdles built to publish and promote. You can't connect external promotion with the shop. You can't even do sales of your game yourself. Mails are not answered for months. All this is circumvented by paying an absurd sum. So this isn't just about putting marketing on Sony, it is that Indies are treated second class.
Indie devs, that make tiny cheap games, barely get sales, and going to gamepass is a success for them.
Meanwhile Switch, seems to be for people that love these budget dungeon runners, pixle art style games (indie type games). On PS5, alot of people buy it for the big games, and basically ignore all the smaller indie stuff.
Except 'one minute' was 8 years ago when the PS4 launched.
you mean 8 years ago?
except these lines are from the indies, what you mentioned aren't from them, and both can be true.
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