Although Sony wasn’t explicitly named, it’s easy to find out who got flak on Twitter.

 

For instance, let’s quote verbatim what Iain Garner, the co-founder of Neon Doctrine wrote in a thread: „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? 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 [Xbox] Game Pass!

Platform X gives developers no ability to manage their games. To get [any] 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 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.

So before you launch, you need to 1. Develop the game for Platform X. 2. Get through their incredibly difficult lot check spread over 3 generations of backend software. 3. Submit a Platform X specific trailer. 4. Write a Platform X Blog. 5. Submit multiple forms for social media. Oh, for [steps] 3 and 4, you need to go through an account manager. When asked how to get an account manager, we were told „I’m not sure, they are assigned by resources,” and as we now know, there’s no way to know what resource level you have been assigned.

By the way, 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 every other platform does, meaning the Platform X owners will always get the worst deal! Oh, but don’t worry, there is a way to guarantee you get featured! All you need to do is spend a VERY reasonable minimum of 25 thousand dollars to get featured. 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 the 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. Why? Who knows?

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 won’t tell me. Even if I do succeed, they may screw me anyway… So for any gamers who have wandered in here. Next time you’re unhappy about your game never being discounted on Platform X or a game you want not launching on Platform X, please go and complain to Platform X!”, Garner wrote.

We could go and quote another Twitter thread by Matthew White, the CEO of Whitethorn Games, but then, we’d be here for all year. White posted a „totally hypothetical not real revenue breakdown” pie chart in a tweet thread noting that „less than 3% of sales as a company are on Nolan North.” North is the voice behind Nathan Drake from Uncharted, so he talked about Sony (and the PlayStation Store) here.

He added that email communications with the platform are returned in months rather than days or weeks, the process of obtaining sales reports is unnecessarily time-consuming and outdated, and it has no marketing, analytics, or advertising assessment tools for developers: „[Platform X] is our worst performing platform, worse than other well-known plumber or super-soldier related video game systems, and also worse than DRM-free sales platforms like Itch, etc. Last month, we made more on Google Admob,” White wrote.

Ragnar Tørnquist of RedThread Games retweeted Garner’s original post adding „This thread mirrors our experiences exactly. Draugen has been out for over a year on consoles. When was the last time it was discounted or featured in a sale? And it’s not for a lack of trying. It’s disheartening. We’re a pretty established developer with a proven track record, but I honestly have no idea who to even contact to make console sales happen. It’s like trying to be heard in the vacuum of space.”

However, Jay Tholen, the developer of Hypsonspace Outlaw, outright named Sony: „Yeah, PlayStation sucks for indie developers. We’ve sold like trash on there compared [to] the other big consoles. Also, we make more sales on Itch alone than we do on [PlayStation], I’m pretty sure.”

And who knows how many people stay silent about the situation? Also, we indeed rarely see indie games get discounts on the PlayStation Store.

Source: Gamesindustry