Axiom Verge 2 launched the other day on PS4, Nintendo Switch and Epic store, and at least as I'm writing this, featuring a launch discount on every store except PlayStation's. And this is nothing new, we've been aware that the procedures for a lot of simple actions, like a launch discount, are needlessly complicated. I think most people here will likely remember some relatively recent tweets from a person that was pretty frustrated with Platform X, but even before that, the issue was highlighted by the Obra Dinn dev. And as far as I remember, both of those situations gathered the support of multiple other devs, and while some were satisfied with the performance of their games on PS, it's a fact that this is not the case for everyone and it especially hurts the smaller games. Actually, at the time I'm writing this, I'm looking at the web front page of the aforementioned stores and Axiom Verge 2 is featured predominantly in Nintendo's and Epic's and I can't see it anywhere in PlayStation's. It's on the second page of new releases instead.
And even outside of this game, I was following two small Japanese games that launched the previous month, Ender Lilies and Fuga: Melodies of Steel, both of which, for whatever reason, had trouble launching in Europe, with the first one taking days to come to certain regions and the second one still missing. While I don't think the fault lies entirely on PlayStation, as multiple other devs manage to launch their games without that kind of issues, I think it goes without saying that the platform holder should be able to support this kind of situations and guarantee that games can launch everywhere without an issue. I'm only speculating of course but it seemed that both devs encountered issues with the procedure and the different regions. And on a smaller note, Ender Lilies, which is a fantastic Metroidvania, launched 5€ more expensive in EU PS Store, compared to other regions or other stores, I can only speculate again on that decision, but considering that the game is completely missing any kind of promotion, maybe there's a reason behind that.
I opened this thread not for the news per se but because I'm also frustrated with this situation as a consumer, I'm someone that prefers to play on PlayStation and I like finding out cool indies, but I'm reminded again and again that maybe PlayStation as a platform, which thrived thanks to the indies at the early PS4 generation, is becoming indifferent, if not hostile, towards a lot of the smaller ones. I think there are undoubtedly some games that are well promoted, in social media, in States of Play and in the store itself, though it seems it's only the titles that have some sort of a marketing deal, Tribes of Midgard comes to mind as a recent title, which was and is everywhere, and did quite well based on the download charts. Everything that doesn't have a specific deal doesn't even seem to get even a twitter post and is lucky if it gets mentioned anywhere. I'm following yosp on twitter and he does a far better job highlighting some of the smaller indie games than the entirety of Sony. And I can't stress enough that this isn't the case with Nintendo or Epic or Steam, a lot of those games are getting promoting nicely there on launch or during sales. And again, you read stuff like that report from 2019 slowly becoming a reality.
In general, I just hope that Sony is aware of the situation and the frustration a lot of the smaller devs have, and it's something that they actually plan to address eventually, though I'm losing hope considering that this only seems to get worse and is going on for years. The focus on AA/AAA isn't bad per se, but you'd expect that a market leader as themselves could continue to expand on that kind of experiences and manage to adequately promote smaller games that come to their platform. And especially when those games are really good, gathering a lot of praise from press and fans despite being niche, you'd assume that even without any promotion before launch, they'd get some recognition post launch. And to go back to Axiom Verge 2, I'm curious to see how the game is going to fare, it's a shame because the PS version might as well be the best version of it.
And even outside of this game, I was following two small Japanese games that launched the previous month, Ender Lilies and Fuga: Melodies of Steel, both of which, for whatever reason, had trouble launching in Europe, with the first one taking days to come to certain regions and the second one still missing. While I don't think the fault lies entirely on PlayStation, as multiple other devs manage to launch their games without that kind of issues, I think it goes without saying that the platform holder should be able to support this kind of situations and guarantee that games can launch everywhere without an issue. I'm only speculating of course but it seemed that both devs encountered issues with the procedure and the different regions. And on a smaller note, Ender Lilies, which is a fantastic Metroidvania, launched 5€ more expensive in EU PS Store, compared to other regions or other stores, I can only speculate again on that decision, but considering that the game is completely missing any kind of promotion, maybe there's a reason behind that.
I opened this thread not for the news per se but because I'm also frustrated with this situation as a consumer, I'm someone that prefers to play on PlayStation and I like finding out cool indies, but I'm reminded again and again that maybe PlayStation as a platform, which thrived thanks to the indies at the early PS4 generation, is becoming indifferent, if not hostile, towards a lot of the smaller ones. I think there are undoubtedly some games that are well promoted, in social media, in States of Play and in the store itself, though it seems it's only the titles that have some sort of a marketing deal, Tribes of Midgard comes to mind as a recent title, which was and is everywhere, and did quite well based on the download charts. Everything that doesn't have a specific deal doesn't even seem to get even a twitter post and is lucky if it gets mentioned anywhere. I'm following yosp on twitter and he does a far better job highlighting some of the smaller indie games than the entirety of Sony. And I can't stress enough that this isn't the case with Nintendo or Epic or Steam, a lot of those games are getting promoting nicely there on launch or during sales. And again, you read stuff like that report from 2019 slowly becoming a reality.
In general, I just hope that Sony is aware of the situation and the frustration a lot of the smaller devs have, and it's something that they actually plan to address eventually, though I'm losing hope considering that this only seems to get worse and is going on for years. The focus on AA/AAA isn't bad per se, but you'd expect that a market leader as themselves could continue to expand on that kind of experiences and manage to adequately promote smaller games that come to their platform. And especially when those games are really good, gathering a lot of praise from press and fans despite being niche, you'd assume that even without any promotion before launch, they'd get some recognition post launch. And to go back to Axiom Verge 2, I'm curious to see how the game is going to fare, it's a shame because the PS version might as well be the best version of it.
