Sony wants to rebuild its relationship with indie partners

Sony faced a lot of backlash from its indie partners back in July, which revealed the overbearing challenges small developers deal with to publish their games on PlayStation platforms. There wasn’t a public explanation from Sony about those complaints. But apparently, they’ve been quietly listening since then and have recently charted ways to improve communications and squash issues.

Iain Garner, the co-founder of indie studio Neon Doctrine, sparked the snowballing July discussions on Twitter that exposed glaring complications. There were complex tools and forms, unclear processes, and poor communication from Sony. This led to indie partners never getting answers, guidance, or issues resolved. Discoverability is also an industry-wide problem for indie partners on Sony platforms; making PlayStation a nightmare for indie game sales.

Sony’s response to indie partners

While not a follow-up to the summer discussions, IGN got their hands on the “2021 Global Partner Survey Results.” It went to many Sony indie partners that identified target areas for “continued improvement:”

Reducing complexity is one of the first pledges to improve communication channels. Alongside clarifying who publishers should direct concerns to and giving details about operations so partners can make decisions. Next, Sony wants to grant active publishing and developing partners access to better game sales, engagement, and promotion analytics. Sony hopes it increases discoverability. Last but not least, modernized toolsets and a smoother ticketing system, documentation, and customer service will help diminish issues for smaller teams.

The results were a great resource to nail direct problems, but journalism articles like ours have boosted the effort tenfold. IGN, for example, helped voice indie concerns over the summer, which led to Akupara Games‘ CEO David Logan being contacted right away by his account manager and head of PlayStation creator Greg Rice.

As Logan quotes, “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 discussion” to IGN, which after the articles surfaced, “a huge boost [of] initiatives” rolled out massive changes from Sony.

There’s a long road to trek on both sides regarding demands, but I believe it’s a firm step in the right direction for the little guys detached from major publishers/developers. What do you think? Let us know!

Via: IGN