Yeah, I like Square's save data carryover demo policy a lot, it's been great at selling me on games. But I love not having to pay for a game unless I know I want it.
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[Game Developer] Timed game trials are now a requirement for some PlayStation developers [Up: No extra work for devs, done by Sony store team]
- Thread starter --R
- Start date
Yeah, I like Square's save data carryover demo policy a lot, it's been great at selling me on games. But I love not having to pay for a game unless I know I want it.
I'm not sure that matters, M2's games go for 6800-7500¥ retail. They're premium priced releases.
They sell shmups for $70? Seriously? When did that start happening?
Shmups have been expensive for quite a while. Well, big name and/or physical releases anyway.
Since the 1980s? M2, Taito and City Connection all would have packaged releases caught in this.
Not in Japan but $60 isn't even the line on $34 wholesale. You think retailers are making $26 per title? Try $12-15 on a $60 game and that scales down sharply the lower the price.
Realistically this could impact games priced as low as $40.
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We honestly don't have enough info on this. The trial requirement might consider just the cut Sony gets, nor retail ones. We also don't have info if there are regional variances or if they might be ok with some exceptions like this one.
I will say this, while demos were support important back in the 90s, especially for disc based systems (PC, PS, etc), they are still very important now. I know demos aren't trials, but either way, it's something we get to play to go, "Hey, I want to try this out, and if I like it, I'll buy your game." I see this as a way to help the consumer in the end and could lead to more sales.
Even if we use digital price, we're looking at games $50 and up based on the 30% cut. Which also applies still to M2. No one refers to this as wholesale though, those are base platform royalty plus fees.
I would guess Horii, being president of a 3rd party publisher, probably has more insight into this than just an IGN article. But in the end it appears some devs do "give a fuck" at least.
I am shocked that quite a few ppl seem to forget that trials of games....are basically locked versions of the whole game....
How many times has a game needed a whole separate download or install from a trial version....
This can literally be tested right now.
Usually it's a small file that unlocks the whole game.
Also agree with those bringing up it's is been a part of Plus in the past, and for some reason it stopped. All this sounds like is there will be more game trials vs now.
Right now there lots of game trials on PSN. Now....if they all get put behind a pay wall....I can understand being up on arms about that.
How many times has a game needed a whole separate download or install from a trial version....
This can literally be tested right now.
Usually it's a small file that unlocks the whole game.
Also agree with those bringing up it's is been a part of Plus in the past, and for some reason it stopped. All this sounds like is there will be more game trials vs now.
Right now there lots of game trials on PSN. Now....if they all get put behind a pay wall....I can understand being up on arms about that.
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My comments on "devs don't give a fuck" are for people who are actually developing the feature. I didn't say that people on the publisher level like him won't give a fuck. Anyway, it's on him to reach an agreement, as he's part on very small niche who releases small games at $60.
The publishers against this are going to be exposed for what they are. And I drink their crocodile tears.
According to gaikai, Sony initially planned to do this for their streaming services from the start, but had to back down after backlash from big publishers, who rejected it because they'd lose a lot of sales from gamers who didn't like the game.
Sony did announce back in 2012 they bought gaikai specifically to allow the service to instantly trial games on PS4. Today in retrospect, we can see they couldn't afford to lose publishers so close to the PS4 launch. There were other technical reasons, lack of scalability, etc.... but they were also already in a fight with them about used games, publishers were publicly saying used games is theft, it's piracy.
The big publishers spend tens of million on publicity per title, and they milk extremely popular franchises. So this will definitely have a negative impact on sale of bad games or games launching in a shitty state, which sold well mostly because of the IP popularity and amount of publicity. OTOH it can help new IPs and games that punch above their weight in quality (Guardians of the Galaxy is a good example, I would have bought it much sooner if I could have tried it).
He's a dev too, not just some big bad publisher.
Reading the twitter thread I'm guessing M2 will try other options (suggestions included splitting releases at lower pricepoints like R-Type I and II on PCE, lowering prices by packing more of the base release into DLC instead and even doing a free download that charged 100¥ per play like arcades, lol) but the fact remains that this is really an undue burden being placed on the studio. This isn't a policy that can be handwaved for everyone.
This get posted yet? This reliable or nah?
Why can't they offer a time trial? What does that detract from developer other then ... people not liking their games don't want to pay $70+ for them? I still fail to see the issue. You have all kinds of workaround methods that are aiming to prevent customers from not buying a game they didn't like in a short time trial.
Sorry I missed it, what happened?
All I can say is this makes the past day hilarious lmao
because a lot of shmups you can play through in roughly 2 hours? so they're basically forced to give their game away for free.
People who buy shmups don't buy them to do a single run. Who the hell would pay $70 for that?
Regardless of this confirmation, game trials have been a feature for a while now. It is a system-level timed license that would not require any extra work by developers to create a separate demo. Every now and then they do a promo for games where they allow you to play for a few hours.
Here is an example courtesy of GHG from the other side.
Games are software! Even evil adobe let's you try photoshop before you buying it. Why did this stopped being the normality on gaming? Everyone should try a game before they buy.
Although not perfect solution, way better than having to trust hype, opinions and reviews!
Why would devs and publishers are so against this? If you are 100% proud of your final product, nothing to worry about.
I still think this should be universal and not tied to a service but it's better than nothing I guess.
Although not perfect solution, way better than having to trust hype, opinions and reviews!
Why would devs and publishers are so against this? If you are 100% proud of your final product, nothing to worry about.
I still think this should be universal and not tied to a service but it's better than nothing I guess.
The devs don't need to do anything for the trials so people getting mad that Sony is forcing them to "make special" demos look funny.
They can if they want to make special versions but other than that Sony handles the trials.
Trials will reportedly be developed by PlayStation themselves
arsene_P5
NDA be damned,
All people had to do was assume right (based on info we already have!) or wait.
But jumping from more work for devs to it being a shitty refund replacement is cool speculation I guess 🤦♂️🤦♂️
Lol That's why it's always better to wait for the details before all the hot takes and jumping to conclusions.
You sure about that? I was under the impression that NSO Game Trials on Switch are really few and far between. I can only find one active at the moment (DQ Builders 2). Might be wrong though.
They're like time limited promotional things. DQ Builder Game Trial is only avaiable till next week for example.
Sure you're not mixing them up with regular demos that are available to everyone?
This was the exact point that I was making earlier in the thread.
People are going well overboard with 'more work for the devs' when the obvious question is; can Sony really mandate that every game publisher give away two hours of their games for free so that Sony can use them as a perk to sell a new tier of their subscription? And not expect pushback? Exactly as Mat says, "this really seems to be trying to get free content from pubs to serve to subscribers."
Publishers don't like shit like this. They might wanna do trials or demos but they're gonna wanna do that at their own pace as part of their own internal marketing rollouts. What if a publisher doesn't want to give out two hours of their game for free in the first three months? Sony are really gonna say 'well you can't release it on PS5 then'? Really?
I maintain the same thing I said right at the start of the thread. This won't be mandatory. It can't be, it'd be madness! I don't believe the reports, there must be some nuance missing.
Regular demos, but they continually have the game trials and this is similar to that. Either way this is no diffrent than having demos which is most of the concern stuff here when clearly demos have been and are being made across the board In some form or fashion already And Nintendo also has their game trials as a benefit to users Just like what sony is attempting to do here. All this says is game trials are gonna be here across the board.
Its not every publisher though. its pretty much a select group which is wholesale 34 bucks, which is game over 50 bucks. EA already has game trials already so what publishers are we looking at here? Square already does it for many of their games, Capcom does on occasion. So what are we really looking at for pushback here ESP when many major players have some form of it already.
Like every other time, people need to relax when news comes out and wait to get full details instead of showing their ass.
i think devs are compensated for the switch game trials and the xbox gold free play weekends, they are also opt in
Sony can't really mandate anything. Having your games sold on PS is a choice. If you don't like their mandate, you don't sell your title on there. We'll see what happens I guess.
I mean, every platform has hundreds of regular demos. What's that got to do with Nintendo's premium service:
The Game Trials they have are individual promotions done with publishers when their games are on sale and stuff. There aren't 'hundreds of game trials only for nintendo switch online subs'. There's exactly one live right now of a four year old game.
It's not mandated for every game released on Switch to give away two hours of the game to NSO subs. The comparison is way off base.
Again Nintedo is doing it. You all are hung up on a mandate here. Its not a off base comparison when 1. Nintendo offers it as a benefit already. 2. We have several of the larger pubs already doing this for most of their games already in varying forms. So not sure what the hang up here other than aruging for a small amount of large pubs that arent doing this already who sell games over 50 dollars or more. So most of the concern here kind of falls very flat.
So we dont know yet what the compensation would be here then no? While they have this requirement im sure there is more to it Here.
It's good to have confirmation that a custom build or demo isn't required.
From the publisher side, it's certainly fairly ballsy to mandate this for a sub service and then not share rev, if that's the case. I'd have assumed the only way to make more or less universal game trials a thing would be to share any rev from it.
I've no doubt pubs will at least want some kickback from Premium sub revenue for this. But maybe how far you get with that might depend on your negotiating power with Sony.
It's a good question - I think they should get some revenue share on the subs for this.
But - platform holders requiring from publishers certain things or standards for the benefit of consumers or the experience on the platform isn't new territory. Sony (and MS, and Nintendo) require all kinds of things of publishers that they might prefer to opt out of if they could, for the benefit of the platform or the consumer rather than the publisher directly. And yeah, they can do that because their platforms are big markets. I can remember in the past, times when people were crying out for platform holders to use their leverage over publishers to enforce certain standards (when certain standards we take for granted now were far from it).
From the publisher side, it's certainly fairly ballsy to mandate this for a sub service and then not share rev, if that's the case. I'd have assumed the only way to make more or less universal game trials a thing would be to share any rev from it.
I've no doubt pubs will at least want some kickback from Premium sub revenue for this. But maybe how far you get with that might depend on your negotiating power with Sony.
It's a good question - I think they should get some revenue share on the subs for this.
But - platform holders requiring from publishers certain things or standards for the benefit of consumers or the experience on the platform isn't new territory. Sony (and MS, and Nintendo) require all kinds of things of publishers that they might prefer to opt out of if they could, for the benefit of the platform or the consumer rather than the publisher directly. And yeah, they can do that because their platforms are big markets. I can remember in the past, times when people were crying out for platform holders to use their leverage over publishers to enforce certain standards (when certain standards we take for granted now were far from it).
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I Would be shocked if there isn't some kickback for full game buy conversions When a user is using the trial.
Great that they are taking on the burden and it's a big win for consumers.
So just a final gold master PKG. The same thing that everybody downloads from PSN, just with a temporary usage licence.
Hopefully this will not use the same "timer starts when download starts". The service would be unusable for me, I barely get 2MB/s download speed.
Demos barely even exist on Xbox and PS4/5 anymore anyway, so this is a win for consumers. I'd be hard pressed to tell how this is going to be difficult for developers, just plop the game up with a 2 hour timer that's probably going to be built into the dev kit anyway. Most indie games are priced well below the $34 cutoff point anyway, so how is this a lose situation for anyone?$