Developers complain about Sony: "Don't give a shit about us"

Developers complain about Sony

Every console manufacturer does its own thing, that is a well-known fact. And it is not always made easy for developers, especially from indie teams, to work with the manufacturers of PS5 and PS4, Xbox Series X / S and Xbox One and Nintendo Switch.

Sony seems to be quite a bit to be particularly blatant problem child, as Kotaku has now found out in conversation with various studios. It starts with the fact that the Playstation group lets the studios dig into their pockets if they want their games to be featured prominently in the Playstation Store. According to Kotaku research, triggered by the loud complaint of an indie developer, at least 25,000 dollars are to be paid for this, and the required sum can ultimately be up to 200,000 dollars. Several sources would have confirmed these figures for Kotaku.

Recommended editorial content Here you will find external content from [PLATFORM]. To protect your personal data, external integrations are only displayed if you confirm this by clicking on "Load all external content": Load all external content I agree that external content can be displayed to me. This means that personal data is transmitted to third-party platforms. Read more about our privacy policy . External content More on this in our data protection declaration. But the problems (mainly) of the indies with Sony go far beyond that. A source told the magazine in an interview:

"Yes, well, Nintendo, they support you. Then there is Microsoft who support you too, and finally Sony, who support their own AAA machine and don't give a shit care about the rest. "

Sony, according to Bloomberg in an older report, is focusing solely on blockbusters. This applies not only to first-party studios, but also to third-party manufacturers who approach Sony with their projects. The only important thing for Sony is the Metacritic rating.

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An indie developer tells Kotaku that Sony also interprets the term indie very freely would, namely with projects that would still cost several million dollars. Sony, according to another developer, is aware of the problematic handling of smaller teams, but would also make no move to change the situation. For years, indie devs have been put off again and again and treated badly in the meantime.

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This is also reflected in the numbers. WhiteTornGames' indie developer Matthew Wright shows this with a graph of his studio's income. 60 percent would fall on Nintendo Switch, 30 percent on Xbox consoles, 7 percent on Steam and a paltry 3 percent on Playstation consoles.

Recommended editorial content Here you can find external content from [PLATFORM] . To protect your personal data, external integrations are only displayed if you confirm this by clicking on "Load all external content": Load all external content I agree that external content can be displayed to me. This means that personal data is transmitted to third-party platforms. Read more about our privacy policy . External content More on this in our data protection declaration. In the studio Those Awesome Guys, on the other hand, the PC clearly dominates with over 90 percent, but here, too, Playstation (0.3 percent) would do significantly worse than Nintendo Switch (7.6 percent). Another developer had sold 20,000 digital units of his game on Xbox, 7,000 on Playstation, with DLCs 2,000 Xbox sales compared to 7 (!) Playstation sales.

All these problems would arise, although the studios Would advertise - but not pay the sum that Sony would charge for visibility. There would be no meaningful way to browse for exciting games, but only those to search specifically for individual titles.

There would be just as big problems with sales. It is impossible to even offer offers for your own games; you have to rely on Sony's discount campaigns. And then the studios would have to outdo each other with partially completely uneconomical discounts in order to be allowed to participate and to be featured.

With Nintendo and Xbox, the situation is not perfect either, but much more relaxed, and above all it is much easier to communicate with the companies and to receive information from them.

Manufacturers of high-quality games are sometimes invited to Microsoft for sales, regardless of how successful they have been so far. The Game Pass is also designed in such a way that it is really financially worthwhile for the participating studios. At Sony, on the other hand, many developers do not even know who their direct contact would be if they had problems or questions. And at Nintendo it is entirely up to the developers whether and if so which discounts they would like to offer. Otherwise, only Steam would make it possible.

Sony has not yet wanted to make a statement on the allegations when Kotaku asked.

Source: Kotaku