Yep, it doesn't make sense, it straight fuck any possibility for the game to do well in an already competitive space.
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Nowhere Prophet dev: "Our opening weekend sales on PS4 were 5% of our Switch opening weekend sales"
- Thread starter Lant_War
- Start date
The PlayStation marketing was incredible for the launch of PS4 and absolutely made me feel like I screwed up getting an XB1 at launch. I did eventually end up with a PS4 and hell, I really enjoy many of the PS4 exclusives. The marketing and focus is different now though, which I guess a lot of people are OK with.
It's pretty shit though to be dismissive about things and make ugly comments about a dev based on a fact-based tweet. This is an enthusiast forum and too many people are way too defensive of their platform of choice, it's just the way it is.
This thread is a bunch of fanboy drivel.
The bottom line is people buy what they want. The majority of PS4 either did not know about or did not want this game.
Would a discount from Sony have helped? Maybe, but doubt. I think the issue is NOT that PS4 owners do not have the money, but that you are
fighting for mindshare on a Sony console do to the sheer amount of content.
Now about Sony not having time to apply a discount, that's just dumb on Sony's part.
The bottom line is people buy what they want. The majority of PS4 either did not know about or did not want this game.
Would a discount from Sony have helped? Maybe, but doubt. I think the issue is NOT that PS4 owners do not have the money, but that you are
fighting for mindshare on a Sony console do to the sheer amount of content.
Now about Sony not having time to apply a discount, that's just dumb on Sony's part.
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Except the game didnt flop in other platforms! The publisher is jsut saying "we were told PS4 sales for indies were bad but we didnt expect it to be this bad".
holy fuck the fanboy-ism in this post.
Some of these replies are just gross. "Well it's a phone game!!!"
Cool, why's he airing his dirty laundry like that? Just comes off as really sour grapes or something.
Sounds like it is a hit-and-miss thing with indie games receiving support from Sony. I think they are picking the ball back up in that aspect, especially with Shu's new position. That said there are so many indie games releasing weekly and only so much push Sony can give.
"Commenting" how PlayStation is a bad place for Indies after 3 days on the store is borderline whiny.
Firstly, how much did it sell on the Switch, specifically? For all we know it could be 50 copies. It's been only 3 days and a lot of people haven't even heard of the game.
Secondly who's publishing it? No More Robots. I haven't heard of a single game from this pub. Have they had a spot on any sizzle reel, PS blog post or on any State of Play? That's usually where Sony pushes indies. Maybe go with a different pub with a better presence on that storefront?
Again, forgoing an entire platform because the stars didn't align with your latest release seems rash and smacks of whinging.
This is definitely the weirdest part to me. I feel like it requires a bit more explanation from the publisher.
Like, I would think there'd be more explanation than that.
Maybe, just maybe, the launch window for that game has coincided with the launch of some other games that have more adherence with the platform audience. I don't know if in the last few weeks there has been anything like that on PSN, but perhaps it could help explain the lack of interest from users in this game.
I love how people are completely forgetting that Sony recently came out with a an "Indie initiative":
blog.playstation.com
And I seriously doubt even if they allowed the discount the game wouldn't have sold much more.
Introducing PlayStation Indies and a day of captivating new games
Nine titles debut alongside first details of our new PlayStation Indies initiative.
blog.playstation.com
And I seriously doubt even if they allowed the discount the game wouldn't have sold much more.
People don't want to hear this but indies are dime a dozen nowadays. Unless you have something that truly stands out, you are going to get lost. Switch being a portable helps the sales of these games on that platform as they usually don't rely on the power of the high end consoles. There is a reason Sony moves away from indies at one point and now back again to promote new experiences on ps5. They will stop again in 3 years when big publishers start cranking out ps5/xsx games.
Which is weird, because i remember clearly they waving the indie flag like nobody's business. Actually it was pretty much used as one of the bullet points on how Sony was much better than MS, even though MS was giving exposition to indie games for quite some time.
Obviously very disappointing for this dev but it doesn't surprise me. There's just so much competition on the PS Store these days, and sadly this game doesn't exactly jump out to me. I'd be interested to know, outside of the aforementioned discount, whether he feels there's more Sony could have done to help promote it or if this is just the nature of the beast at this point.
Yep, games release at PSN with discounts all the time. How they could just say "we're busy"?
Somehow I doubt you have 376 games but if you do, damn :P Good luck!
Not sure where you're getting your info, but DMC5 (another big game) got released onto Game Pass a month after its release. The new Yakuza game will be launching directly into Game Pass also (EDIT: might be wrong on this one), and bigger AA and AAA launches will only get more frequent now that Game Pass has 10 million subscribers. They are going to continue investing in both third party AAA as well as first party going day and date, in addition to indies like you said :)
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What fanboyism ?
It's just fact, PS4 gamers are more interested in AAA games (or at least full games) given data because it set software sales record
And indies seems to have poor sales on PS4, and that's sad for the developers
I remember this one and is a curious story: released day and date with Uncharted: The Lost Legacy, after six months of exclusivity on Xbox/PC. I'm not surprised it performed so poorly.
Its success on Switch is phenomenal, however.
I agree on that front, yes. Big indies work, just like shown by Cuphead or Fall Guys this very week; anything under that is ignored by the community.
You should see the eShop or the Xbox Store. There is huge competition for indie games everywhere right now.
Sorry, it sounded like you were mocking indies by saying "who cares, Sony is breaking software sales records!"
This game looks great, but it's going to have to be a Steam buy for me; don't like my switch for this kind of stuff. I'm sorry a whole lot of you have no taste.
Also, LMAO @ "There's nothing else to play on the switch". Are you people blind AND oblivious?
Also, LMAO @ "There's nothing else to play on the switch". Are you people blind AND oblivious?
I would agree on this. No reason for a pub to say no to more games with discounts. Only reason I can think is they missed some deadline for the current sales around or something. But definitely would like to hear an answer
There was a PSBLOG post about the game.
This really looks like a situation of bad timing, the lack of discount(which doesn't make sense on Sony's part), and the store problems for indies.
https://blog.playstation.com/2020/07/09/cross-the-wastes-in-nowhere-prophet-launching-on-july-30/
a lot of big games are on Game Pass.
anyonone saying otherwise has no idea what they talking about
dont waste your time with that poster.
In case the devs are reading this, here is some anecdotal data for you:
I've never heard of the game.
It doesn't look like I'd want to play that on a big screen.
Given those first two, I wouldn't pay $25 without some HEAVY word-of-mouth recommendation.
I've never heard of the game.
It doesn't look like I'd want to play that on a big screen.
Given those first two, I wouldn't pay $25 without some HEAVY word-of-mouth recommendation.
The issue is PS4 is not a good ecosystem for smaller indie developers.
It's not a particularly difficult concept lol. This isn't the first time we are hearing this.
It's also not a big deal, the whole point of having all these systems and ecosystems is so we can have room for a variety of games to succeed.
Xbox pays upfront for a game on GamePass, so you can consider the game "sold" well. There's just a lot of factors here that can prevent this game to sell well on PS4.
We really going with "it did well on X platform becuase thier starved for games" excuse again? Havent heard that since 2017. And it doesnt make sense for the switch either since paper mario just launched too
If you think the publisher just sent a mail to whoever was his counterpart in Sony for the publishing process, and accepted the "no" face lying down, then you've never seen marketing on any company, not only videogames. The marketing team probably pushed a lot at Sony to get the launch discount, beacuse its their freaking job (and it obviously worked on the other consoles).
We may not know the process, but you don't need to have a marketing PhD to know that if the disocunt was successfully applied in two of the three stores, the problem wasn't the marketing team. Sony just doesn't give a damn anymore for indies that aren't big, like Cuphead.
If a game needs a sizzle reel spot, blog post or State of Play to do well on a single platform then that platform is doing something wrong. Other platforms are better at showing new games and they don't need those other outlets to push a game. The PS Store requires digging into menus to find a list of all new releases which hurts those smaller games that can't get bigger store spots.
I'm curious if the actual unit sales are good on Xbox or they referring to payment for Gamepass? I just checked and its $25 on the Playstation Store. That's too expensive for such a simple looking game.
Gamepass on console has at least 83 ID at Xbox titles, on top of that larger games constantly move on and off of it, also they list 360 games as well. Like i said before indies will be the more perm staple with other games like that moving on and off of it.
Are you talking about Yakuza 7?
I thought that wasn't coming to gamepass?
not surprised. this is why switch seems to be the main platform for most indie devs (along with PC).
pretty hilarious.
Honestly commenting on sales like this should be way more common. They also commented that they'd been warned about low PS4 sales from other publishers of indie games and it came to pass. Makes sense that they're considering not going down that avenue again, especially if the PS Store 'didn't have time' to apply a discount as the guy has said.
No More Robots were publishers for Hypnospace Outlaw, Descenders and Not Tonight
Nowhere Prophet received a PS Blog post (and zero coverage on Nintendo's channels)
Wonder if the discount issue could be related to why sales on playstation store have been so bad the past 2 years? Racked up tons of interesting games that I just wait for to go on sale, but they never do.
Could the competition be a factor as well? There just seem to be not as many games to compete its on Nintendo Switch and partly Xbox 1 compared to the ps4.
Could the competition be a factor as well? There just seem to be not as many games to compete its on Nintendo Switch and partly Xbox 1 compared to the ps4.
Of course the 5% ratio is not the normal one. If we take a big indie game like Dead Cells (which recently crossed 3m I think), launch sales were about 4:1 in favor to Switch. Still it was a huge indie release, discoverability is more of an issue with the smaller guns (that needs help from the platform holders to raise awareness).
thats a bit of a stretch, what exactly do you want sony to do for every single indie? they got a PS Blog Post, they have a store section for indies. what else can they do to promote a game? hand the game in peoples hands?
Some of y'all really can't help yourselves
lol The Switch has plenty of indie games that come out weekly and, even now, plenty are buying the likes of Animal Crossing and Paper Mario. Never mind that the game also sold well on the Xbox One, not ever PS4 owner is going to get Ghost of Tsushima or The Last of Us Part 2, and most folk don't just buy a game just to have something to play