Sony Attempting To Mend Indie Relationships

A report from IGN

has claimed that Sony is currently attempting to mean their relationship with indie developers after several came forward over the summer to complain about the platform. It was stated that Sony charges around $25,000 for meaningful exposure for indie titles, with very few tools in place to help garner exposure such as Game Pass on Xbox, and Indie categories on the Nintendo Switch.

Reporter Rebekah Valentine has since been checking with these indie developers who came forward over the summer both publically and confidentially to see if the situation has since changed. Issues that developers had were long wait times for Sony reps, outdated tools for publishing on the PlayStation Store, as well as additional platform-specific problems.

Publically, Sony has remained tight-lipped since the incident occurred but according to IGN, their indie team, which includes former Double Fine member Greg Rice, has been working hard to mend these fences over the past six months. Several developers stated that their wait times for reps have been cut down significantly, previously taking several months and now taking only a few days.

PlayStation has also apparently implemented a fun for low-income indie’s to fund ports of their games onto PlayStation consoles, as well as inviting more indie titles to participate in games sales. IGN was able to confirm these claims after reviewing a document entitled “2021 Global Partner Survey results,” which did not address the issues that occurred over the summer but did follow a survey sent to publishers and developers that worked with the company.

The takeaway from the survey led to Sony apparently stating that they would be attempting to “reduce complexity” when it came to working with the platform, making sure more developers could participate in sales, as well as modernizing its toolset and ticketing system to make it less obtrusive for developers.

This, by no means, fixes all of the issues that were brought to the forefront during the summer. It also remains to be seen if the changes being implemented will make it easier to work with Sony moving forward. On a personal note, I remember years ago the PlayStation Store had an indie section which was a great place to search for these games until it was removed. Honestly, bringing that back feels like the best place to start.

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