[IGN] Sony Wants to Repair its Relationship With its Indie Partners

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Back in July, a number of indie publishers publicly called out Sony for its apparent ongoing dismissal of the immense challenges facing small developers trying to publish games on PlayStation. While publicly Sony offered no official comment on these complaints at the time, it appears that the company was quietly listening after all -- and has recently begun to take some action.

Looking back at our conversations with these publishers at the time, a number of key issues were brought to light. Sony, indie publishers and developers said, had overly complex tools and forms, unclear processes, and poor communication with its indie partners when it came to getting answers, guidance, or issues resolved. They also expressed that while discoverability was an industry-wide issue, Sony was at best indifferent or at worst actively adversarial to these struggles, making PlayStation a very challenging platform for indie game sales.

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IGN has obtained a copy of a document entitled "2021 Global Partner Survey Results," which was sent out to a number of Sony's partner publishers and developers as a follow-up to a survey that was conducted sometime prior. The findings document is short -- only three pages long -- and does not specifically mention the public complaints from this past summer. But it does identify three target areas for "continued improvement" based on the results of the survey, all of which directly correspond to issues the indie publishers brought up on social media and in articles.

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After viewing this document, IGN followed up with a number of the indies we spoke with over the summer. Based on their responses, it appears that Sony is already taking some actions to improve its communication and partnerships with its smaller publishing partners. Akupara Games CEO David Logan says that both Akupara's account manager and head of PlayStation creators Greg Rice reached out to his company personally following the publication of our original article.

"They were obviously crushed at the news, and it was clear that the account managers at Sony had been working hard for a long time to push through a lot of the ideas the indie developers flagged in our initial discussions," he says. "After the articles, that seemed to give a huge boost to initiatives they had already been planning, because rapidly after Sony started rolling out a bunch of big changes."

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What were those big changes? Logan, who says he's "always had a solid communication frequency" with Akupara's account manager, tells me that his issues with Sony support response times have drastically improved, for one. While previously he had complained of having a support ticket open for nine months, he says now response times are down to an average of about five days, with most responses coming within 24 to 48 hours. Meanwhile, others we spoke to who had previously struggled with Sony's communication, like Whitethorn Digital CEO Matthew White, says that the issue has improved across the board.

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And Logan, White, and Those Awesome Guys project manager Cristian Botea all say they had been invited to more sales recently. That said, both Logan and White add that it's still frustrating to have to be invited to discount their games by Sony, rather than having the option themselves at any time like they can on other platforms. For example, Logan mentioned that Akupara recently held a 5th anniversary sale across several platforms, and while they "would have loved" to also discount their games on PlayStation, they were unable to do so.

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Sony Wants to Repair its Relationship With its Indie Partners - IGN

Back in July, a number of indie publishers publicly called out Sony for its apparent ongoing dismissal of the challenges facing small developers trying to publish games on PlayStation. While publicly Sony offered no official comment on these complaints, it appears that the company was quietly...

www.ign.com

 

[VoltySquirrel]

How can you not read this and not feel some level of schadenfreude? Like obviously I'm glad they're repairing that relationship but it was incredibly disappointing to see what was once a fruitful relationship between Sony and indies just being tossed off because Sony doesn't want to play with you anymore.

 

[AhiKuma]

That's good to hear.

 

[Raigor]

This is why the press and the developers have to speak and not hide because they are scared of platform holders and the AAA publishers.

 

[cw_sasuke]

Probably a good idea before you wanna announce your GamePass competitor - these indie games are probably be the ones you are gonna get Day 1 for the most part.

 

[MegaSackman]

Seems they kinda new about the problem but wasn't a top priority to fix, article gave it the necessary spotlight and thing went into motion.

Good to know.

 

[zombiejames]

The situation shouldn't have devolved to that point to begin with but at least it's being addressed and these developers are happy with the improvements. Maybe this is part of a lead-up to Spartacus?

 

[SunBroDave]

Rebekah Valentine continues to knock it out of the park with actual journalism. What a good get for IGN

 

[Johannes]

I vaguely remember Rami Ismail saying the same thing in Twitter last year. Either way, good that this is happening.

 

[Zep]

How did things change so much from the launch of ps4? If I remember correctly they were killing it with indies at the beginning of that generation.

 

[HStallion]

how can you not read this and not feel some level of schadenfreude

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I'm not sure you're using that term correctly since this all sounds pretty positive. Whose misfortune am I supposed to be enjoying?

 

[Saucycarpdog]

Loud and public criticism gets results.

Where's all the "lol why should Sony care?" people at?

 

[Transistor]

Good

 

[808s & Villainy]

I do find it fascinating how the relative relationships between the Big 3 and indies/publishers seems to change every gen

 

[KtotheRoc]

Nice to see Sony trying to course correct.

 

[Zebesian-X]

Complaining works. I felt like I was going crazy reading some of the stances on here taking Sony's side.

Hope they keep working at it, gotta treat your devs like royalty!

 

[Smash-It Stan]

How did things change so much from the launch of ps4? If I remember correctly they were killing it with indies at the beginning of that generation.

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Ez PR, dirt cheap games, conference time fillers, toss it back in the toy box when you're done with it.

 

[Uzupedro]

"They were obviously crushed at the news, and it was clear that the account managers at Sony had been working hard for a long time to push through a lot of the ideas the indie developers flagged in our initial discussions," he says. "After the articles, that seemed to give a huge boost to initiatives they had already been planning, because rapidly after Sony started rolling out a bunch of big changes."

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So those are changes that were already in the plans but got a big boost in priority after the initial article, makes sense and good to see it happening.
Great article too, Rebekah always does a good work.

 

[Deleted member 13798]

Good move. That could be a powerful thing in their corner if they don't act like asses like they have been.

 

[PSOreo]

Seems crazy to me how much they really championed indie games during the PS4 era then completely dropped the ball in the lead up and execution of PS5.

 

[NinjaScooter]

How did things change so much from the launch of ps4? If I remember correctly they were killing it with indies at the beginning of that generation.

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This isn't really about supporting indie games in terms of using them in showcases or giving them the spotlight. Sony didn't really stop doing that. This is more back end issues that smaller developers and publishers were having re: the storefront, discoverability, communication, ect...

 

[platocplx]

Its almost as if they were planning to repair stuff for a while, and just wanted to time things right. I mean they blew away their whole store for a reason.

They were obviously crushed at the news, and it was clear that the account managers at Sony had been working hard for a long time to push through a lot of the ideas the indie developers flagged in our initial discussions," he says. "After the articles, that seemed to give a huge boost to initiatives they had already been planning, because rapidly after Sony started rolling out a bunch of big changes."

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Just seems like they just didnt time all the changes at the right time. But clearly they were working through a lot of the issues. But its good to see that clearly they were listening.

 

[MeltedDreams]

Good there was article about this to speed up the things. You don't want to ignore indies. There are lots of quality smaller games each year.

 

[Servbot24]

It's one of the big reasons PS4 was so good. They were crazy to take their foot off the gas.

 

[Convasse]

How did things change so much from the launch of ps4? If I remember correctly they were killing it with indies at the beginning of that generation.

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Success often breeds complacency.

Sony needed indies to help establish the PS4 as the console of the masses AND developers. Then PS4 first-party IPs started selling hot and Sony started shifting the PS brand towards the current prestige label.

 

[BabyDontHurtMe]

At the end, the article makes a really good point that none of the three console manufacturers are as good as Steam when it comes to this issue with indie visibility. While it is good to hear Sony is addressing criticisms and making necessary changes to make their platform more developer friendly, Steam's algorithm still remains supreme at promoting indies and allowing small games to flourish. Whenever you log into Steam, you are bound to find something new, and I think that's a goal all three major platform holders should aspire to accomplish.

 

[Firmus_Anguis]

Seems crazy to me how much they really championed indie games during the PS4 era then completely dropped the ball in the lead up and execution of PS5.

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The people in charge of that indie initiative left, so it's not surprising... But it was disappointing.

 

[HStallion]

How did things change so much from the launch of ps4? If I remember correctly they were killing it with indies at the beginning of that generation.

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PS4 needed Indie support a lot more for the early days than the PS5 did. Once the first party games began to dominate on their own I figured Sony didn't see the need to be so supportive of indie titles.

 

[VoltySquirrel]

I'm not sure you're using that term correctly since this all sounds pretty positive. Whose misfortune am I supposed to be enjoying?

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Schadenfreude was the wrong word but I did feel a bit of mirth, since like one of the people quoted in the story pointed out, this feels like just another part of a cycle for Sony. Big titles, especially first-party, is slow right now, so they need to rely on the indies they've neglected for the last few years. I won't see this as an actually positive move until it becomes clear it's an actual trend from them.

 

[crimsonECHIDNA]

How did things change so much from the launch of ps4? If I remember correctly they were killing it with indies at the beginning of that generation.

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I imagine that stuff like the Last of Us and Uncharted garnering so much critical acclaim and commercial success played a major role in shaping their philosophy behind which games they wanted to put all their marketing behind.

 

[BeeDog]

Good to hear it's going in the right direction. Lately, I've noticed many indie games tend to skip the PS consoles in favor of Xbox and/or Switch, so hopefully they can turn it around. The more games available, the better!

 

[BabyDontHurtMe]

The people in charge of that indie initiative left, so it's not surprising... But it was disappointing.

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It looks like Greg Rice and the other new third-party partner leads are correcting the course for PlayStation after Adam Boyes and company left Sony.

 

[Raigor]

How did things change so much from the launch of ps4? If I remember correctly they were killing it with indies at the beginning of that generation.

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At the beginning of the gen they needed indies when their 1st party titles were still ramping up, this is what happened also a lot of the old guard behind the indie initiative left so yes.

 

[headspawn]

Remarkable, they contacted them immediately after the article went up.

 

[Jawbreaker]

Complaining and publicly spotlighting issues gets results, and it gets results fast. This is good to see.

 

[JuniperAndSage]

The problem wasn't just the big 'indie' publishers like Devolver and Anapurna, but the way things worked for much smaller teams (or even individuals).

 

[lazerface]

This is great news, indies are at the core of this industry.

 

[Deleted member 16876]

Good

The way indies were handled was felt in the later half of PS4's run.

 

[NinjaScooter]

I imagine that stuff like the Last of Us and Uncharted garnering so much critical acclaim and commercial success played a major role in shaping their philosophy behind which games they wanted to put all their marketing behind.

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If you read the article this is less about marketing and more about support. These smaller publishers/developers aren't saying "Sony why aren't you featuring our game in a State of Play" its more "Sony why aren't you responding to our support tickets so that we can more effectively sell our game on your storefront". IIRC correctly some of the major complaints as part of that article was developers not being able to put their games on sale when they wanted to. People seem to be conflating two things in this thread.

 

[ghostcrew]

Good to hear! I bet it was pretty nerve racking for those individual devs to publicly call out a platform holder who holds the keys to a whole storefront but presumably got easy the more that people joined in.

Glad to see them making moves to reach out and try to do better in areas where they were lacking. Good news!

 

[modiz]

Great report work by Rebekah and IGN. Hopefully the situation keeps on improving.

The problem wasn't just the big 'indie' publishers like Devolver and Anapurna, but the way things worked for much smaller teams (or even individuals).

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The article also points out an anonymous indie developer that have reported similar improvements as those public figures had, so it seems to be an across the board improvement.
Still a long way to go.

 

[TitlePending]

Probably a good idea before you wanna announce you GamePass competitor - these games are probably be the games you are gonna get Day 1 for the most part.

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That makes a lot of sense.

 

[fourfourfun]

How did things change so much from the launch of ps4? If I remember correctly they were killing it with indies at the beginning of that generation.

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360 led the way as the champion of indie games as digital storefronts launched, PS3 was in catchup and had to put in a huge shift to turn it around, that bled into the PS4 gen. Once Sony romped it, they decided that people only wanted to hear from their top tier titles, so indies got marginalised and sent out to die.

Then Switch became the indie success story platform, followed by Gamepass. After a while, you have to address negative mindshare.

 

[Gavalanche]

How did things change so much from the launch of ps4? If I remember correctly they were killing it with indies at the beginning of that generation.

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It was probably just a change of staff. Adam Boyes and Gio Corsi and others were massive for Indies and general third party, and when they left they probably weren't immediately replaced with people who did care. However, Shu is involved with indies now, and Greg Rice Sony poached to help on the indie front. They have taken a few steps to right the ship, and hopefully it keeps going now.

 

[.exe]

Sounds like discoverability is still no great shakes. Not sure how helping with porting qualifies as an improvement to that either. I mean, that's great but it's not getting your game in front of eyeballs so to speak.

 

[Equanimity]

Good to know.

 

[LCGeek]

The epic lawsuit vs apple made it clear they prioritize their few inner clique devs more than the rest or really want to protect some of their own investments.

You can fix it but it won't be easy. Glad they are trying and not being as prideful as nintendo was post snes about giving a fuck about devs.

 

[JohnnyToonami]

Great, I've far more enjoyed my time with indie games over the last gen then any AAA game.

 

[NinjaScooter]

I did not know they brought in Greg Rice from Double Fine. Seems like a good hire on that front.

 

[psionotic]

Complaining works.

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Exactly. Developers need to complain, publicly if they feel able, to journos if not. Journalists need to report on these complaints and the progress or lack thereof by platform holders. And we consumer-enthusiasts need to keep these stories front page here and circulating on social media.