Indie game developers claim that their games are selling significantly worse on PlayStation consoles versus other platforms. The conversation was prompted on Twitter by Iain Garner, co-founder of Neon Doctrine. Today, Garner laid out a long thread of grievances with what he called “Platform X.” Garner first said Platform X “does not have Game Pass,” and later stated that the console in question isn’t Nintendo Switch. Garner then proceeded to lay out a number of issues with PlayStation, and how the company forces indie developers to “jump through hoops.” Notably, PlayStation dictates whether a discount can be offered for a game, preventing indie developers from syncing up discounts across platforms. As a result, PlayStation users have to pay more.
Following Garner’s thread, Matthew White, CEO of White Thorn Games chimed in. White shared a pie chart showing that less than 3% of the company’s sales are being made on Platform X. White, however, used some clever names to indicate which console is which, making it more than clear that this is all about PlayStation. According to the chart, Switch sales made up the majority of the company’s profits, with Xbox coming in a close second, then Steam, then PlayStation. That pie chart can be found in the Tweet embedded below.
Alright, I’m gonna unfortunately throw my hat in here as well. We **love** our Platform X friends, and I’m former Platform X employee myself, but we cannot move the needle on the platform.
Less than 3% of sales as a company are on PX. https://t.co/WjOTx43OLr pic.twitter.com/yXMsr9srYw
— Matthew White (@matthewmwhite) June 30, 2021
It stands to reason that these games could perform better on PlayStation if Sony were more willing to promote these games, but Garner claims that developers have to “beg and plead for any level of promotion.” Garner and White are not the first indie developers to cite low sales and difficulty dealing with PlayStation. Last year, Mike Rose of No More Robots claimed that PS4 sales for Nowhere Prophet were just 5% of those on Nintendo Switch. In a new Tweet today following Garner’s thread, Rose made his thoughts on the matter quite clear.
“The reason you don’t see more threads like it, is because devs are too worried to say it publicly,” Rose wrote on Twitter. “But trust me when I say that the vast majority of devs are reading that thread, and nodding their heads violently.”
Considering the sheer number of PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 users, it is a bit alarming that sales for indie games continue to struggle. Garner says he has “no idea how to succeed on this platform.” As more and more developers cite issues such as these, it will be interesting to see whether or not some choose to avoid PlayStation altogether. Clearly, the system Sony has in place isn’t working for indie developers. If those same developers have to pull support for PlayStation as a result, it’s the fans that will end up missing out on the next Hades, Shovel Knight, or Undertale.
Are you a developer that has struggled on PlayStation? What do you think of the situation that Garner, White, and Rose mention? Let us know in the comments or share directly on Twitter at @Marcdachamp to talk all things gaming!
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