Sony has repeatedly prevented indie developers from making discounts on their games in the PS Store

After Sony denied the creator of Return of the Obra Dinn the right to introduce a temporary discount, attention was drawn to the problem on English-language forums and social networks. It turned out that this is not the first time the company does not allow indie developers to arrange sales.Lucas Pope, the creator of the detective indie game Return of the Obra Dine, decided to arrange a sale in honor of the two-year anniversary of the release.

From October 16 to 18, the project was available with a 50% discount on all platforms except PlayStation.

Sony denied my request to discount the game on PS4.

— Lucas Pope (@dukope) October 16, 2020The problem caused a lot of discussion on the ResetEra forum.

A user under the nickname Akumatica published a selection of tweets from other indie developers who faced a similar situation.

• In August, Mike Rose wrote that Sony did not allow a discount on the release of one of his company’s games, because at that time “it was too busy.” Earlier, the head of No More Robots has already spoken about the problem with the visibility of indie games in the PS Store;In 2015, Michael Hicks stated that Sony allowed a discount on his Pillar game only in Europe, but refused to sell it in North America;
• game designer and artist Luc Bernard, known for the games Death Tales and SkullPirates, wrote in 2016 that Sony did not invite him to the sale of games for PS Vita;
• Last year, Fabrice Breton, currently working on the adventure game Brok, told about a similar situation.
• One French indie developer could not participate in the winter sale on PS4, because he simply did not receive a response from Sony Europe.According to Breton, small indie studios receive up to 90% of revenue from sales, and therefore, in light of the current situation, it may not be advisable for them to release games on the Sony platform.

Mike Rose also admitted that sales of one of the No More Robots games on the first weekend on PS4 amounted to only 5% of the number of copies sold on the Nintendo Switch. The developer eventually even hinted that he would no longer release projects on PS4.

A user under the nickname GungJoe stated that Sony simply prefers “group” sales, as they better stimulate sales and attract more buyers. However, the NewDust user noted that the company regularly makes individual discounts on its own games, citing the sale of The Last of Us Part II from October 16 to 20 as an example.

Some users even tried to get a comment from Shuhei Yoshida, who last year began to be responsible for the indie direction of PlayStation. However, he did not react to this in any way.

Also on the topic:

• A number of games for Sony PlayStation 5 will cost $70. Now it’s officialPhil Spencer: Microsoft will be able to beat off a deal to buy Bethesda without selling games on PlayStation
• The case of Epic Games and Apple threatens “serious consequences” for Nintendo, PlayStation and Xbox
• Is there any news?