Various independent developers are opposed to the obstacles they must go through to gain attention on the PlayStation Store and their lack of support from Sony.
The dissatisfaction was posted on Twitter. Although none of the developers directly named PlayStation, the platform they discussed was the “X platform” that was quite obvious.
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The conversation is made by Iain Garner of independent publisher Neon Doctrine Who said that the “X platform” without a “game pass” does not provide developers with the ability to manage their games. In order to be promoted, you must “jump over obstacles, begging and begging for any level of promotion.”
“If Platform X doesn’t like your game, there is no fanfare, there is no love without features,” Garner said. “Oh, but don’t worry. There is a way to guarantee you a recommendation! All you need to do is spend a very reasonable minimum of $25,000 to get the feature. Oh, then 30% of your follow-up income.”
Garner went on to say that developers cannot offer discounts without approval, and the discounts are “invited only” and invitees are “very limited.”
Mike Rose from publisher No More Robots (Descenders) and Red Thread Games (Dreamfall Chapters)’s Ragnar Tornquist supported Garner, who added that Garner’s Twitter post fully reflects his company’s experience.
“Draugen has been on consoles for more than a year,” Tornquist says“When was the last time it was discounted or appeared in a promotion? It was definitely not because of lack of experimentation. It was frustrating.
“We are a very mature developer with a good track record, but honestly, I don’t even know who to contact for console sales. It’s like trying to be heard in the vacuum of space.”
Matthew White of WhiteThorn Games (Calico) is a former senior data analyst for PlayStation. When discussing this issue in more detail, he said that the studio seems unable to “move the pointer on the platform” and that as a company, PlayStation’s sales are less than 3%.
“The X platform is our worst performing platform, worse than other well-known plumbers or super soldier related video game systems, and worse than DRM-free sales platforms such as Itch,” White said. “Last month, we made more money on Google Admob. Marketing, analytics, CPM and other tools don’t exist.”
“The average email response is in months, not days or weeks. We don’t have any understanding or communication about what is happening at PX. Although there are many confirmed IPs on the title, it took us more than 8 months It’s time to get the PX hardware kit.
“We are a company with about 19 full-time employees and 10 part-time employees. To be honest, I’m not sure what we have done on this platform so far is more than what they have asked us to pay out of our pocket.”
White went on to say that it is “impossible” to plan to start support, the vouchers for Kickstarter supporters will take several months to be generated, and support emails have not been answered.
Whether this dissatisfaction will prompt Sony to reconsider how to deal with smaller independent developers and publishers remains to be seen.
