Publisher complains about Platform X (PlayStation)

[the-pi-guy]

Platform X gives developers no ability to manage their games. 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.

— Iain Garner (@NeonIain) June 30, 2021

So before you launch, you need to
1. Develop the game for Platform X
2. Get through their incredibly difficult lotcheck spread over 3 generations of backend software
3. Submit a Platform X specific trailer
4. Write a Platform X Blog which
5. Submit multiple forms for social media

— Iain Garner (@NeonIain) June 30, 2021

BTW, you cannot even do a launch discount without their approval and it is "very limited"

That's right.... You can't do the thing that ever other platform does meaning the Platform X owners will always get the worst deal!

— Iain Garner (@NeonIain) June 30, 2021

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"

— Iain Garner (@NeonIain) June 30, 2021

In conclusion, Platform X is super successful and awesome hardware but their backend and process if straight out of the early 00s.

I have no idea how to succeed on this platform and they wont tell me. Even if I do succeed, they may screw me anyway...

— Iain Garner (@NeonIain) June 30, 2021

[kitler53]

well now legend needs to comment on this.   don't forget to use the / member tag or whatever it is so you don't burn any bridges yourself.

[the-pi-guy]

I posted this, wanting to hear people's thoughts, as it was posted on Era.

But really these kinds of posts suck, especially on sites like Era.

 Most people don't have any kind of context for what any of this means. Just like that post about cross play, we don't have any idea what the impact of these policies are or if other companies have nearly identical policies.  

Like the $25,000 fee he's talking about for getting featured.  How important is it to get featured (ie, is that the only avenue)? Does that fee ever get waived, does that fee even usually apply? Do other companies have a slightly different but basically equivalent fee?

Saying "Sony asks for $25k for this" isn't the same as "Sony asks for $25k for this, while MS asks for $20k".  

The former sounds absolutely unreasonable, while the latter sounds perfectly reasonable. And of course now that these tweets are posted, hundreds or thousands of people on Era and other websites are complaining about something that they don't have any context for.  

Is this business as usual or is it really bad or is it a little bad? Who knows!?

[Dr. Pezus]

Sounds like communication errors mostly.

[kitler53]

I posted this, wanting to hear people's thoughts, as it was posted on Era.

But really these kinds of posts suck, especially on sites like Era.

 Most people don't have any kind of context for what any of this means. Just like that post about cross play, we don't have any idea what the impact of these policies are or if other companies have nearly identical policies.  

Like the $25,000 fee he's talking about for getting featured.  How important is it to get featured (ie, is that the only avenue)? Does that fee ever get waived, does that fee even usually apply? Do other companies have a slightly different but basically equivalent fee?

Saying "Sony asks for $25k for this" isn't the same as "Sony asks for $25k for this, while MS asks for $20k".  

The former sounds absolutely unreasonable, while the latter sounds perfectly reasonable. And of course now that these tweets are posted, hundreds or thousands of people on Era and other websites are complaining about something that they don't have any context for.  

Is this business as usual or is it really bad or is it a little bad? Who knows!?

yeah, that bit was the weirdest.   sony has thousands of games available and they can't promote them all.   and really, isn't promotion the job of the publisher?  to me that just sounds like an indie dev not understanding they aren't the center of the universe.  sounds very entitled to me.

ditto for the "cross play" thing.   at a 85% multiplier i think it is reasonably fair that if 50% of the people are playing on playstation but only 20% of microtractions were payed for via psn that they'd demand a payment.   that's the fairest way i can think of to support cross platform play that i can think of.   

i do think it is unfair a developer has so little control on price/discounts.   i get sony controlling the sales a bit due to them grouping by "type" but it shouldn't be invitation only.  maybe the developer doesn't get to pick which sale they are included in but they should be able to be included in something.    

[kitler53]

@Legend - we're all waiting for you...

[Legend]

Ok fine I'll post here.

[kitler53]

Ok fine I'll post here.

wow, that was both insightful and damning.  I just might get rid of my ps5 after hearing all that.  

[SWORDF1SH]

wow, that was both insightful and damning.  I just might get rid of my ps5 after hearing all that.  

He definitely burnt his bridges with Sony...I mean, "platform x".

[kitler53]

He definitely burnt his bridges with Sony...I mean, "platform x".

it's just a good thing he put his response into that hidden tag.   oh boy if sony could read that directly...   ...they'd probably come for his first born child.

[the-pi-guy]

At one point I saw that Sony had digitally gifted thousands of copies of our indie game to its employees. Which was terrifying because...you know...revenue as a team depending on that without investors.

— Josh | Pyramid Lake Games (@Pyramid_Lake) July 2, 2021

Lots of talk (and headlines) about Sony charging $25,000 for store placement but that's not what matters. The real story, as I've heard both from indie devs and Sony folks, is that PlayStation's support team for indies is severely understaffed. Their priority is big blockbusters https://t.co/3jWJwWEYtW

— Jason Schreier (@jasonschreier) July 2, 2021

[the-pi-guy]

This is getting a lot of attention now.  A Bloomberg article, a pushsquare article, a few others.  

[the-pi-guy]

PushSquare

Bloomberg

[the-pi-guy]

General views:
- Sony's support is understaffed
- certain things are more difficult (like discounts)
- indies don't know the process
- indies feel like Sony's marketing doesn't help them
- Sony's store makes things difficult

[the-pi-guy]

Honestly Sony needs to work on the PSN store. it has some glaring omissions and some issues.  


I just tried searching for Ghost of Tsushima, first thing was the upgrade and the multiplayer.  No game for the upgrade to go with.

And then pages of matches with the word "of".