Neon Doctrine co-founder Iain Garner recently posted a tweet about Platform X, identifying it as "the operator of a very successful console without Game Pass."
The developer criticized not just the lack of promotion it gave indie developers and publishers for their titles, but also the choices it made that minimize their ability to move the needle on their own.
The wishlists on Platform X are irrelevant, so your marketing efforts will be useless. The only thing that matters is their evaluation. How are they evaluated? I don't know, and neither do they share the value they ascribe to my game."
In addition, Garner criticized an unclear process for getting an account manager (a prerequisite for submitting trailers and blog posts for promotion on the platform), the inability to control launch discounts, and the $25,000 minimum spend for a game to be featured on the store.
Platform X now has an awesome hardware product, but the backend and processes [are] straight out of the early 2000s, They have no idea how to succeed on this platform, and they won't tell me. Even if I succeed, they may screw me anyway...
Independent developers and publishers have echoed Garner's frustrations, confirming that Sony is the platform in question.
Matthew White, Whitethorn Games CEO, posted the below pie chart in a tweet thread, noting that "less than 3% of our sales are on [Platform X]," the voice actor for Nathan Drake in Uncharted.
According to White, email communications with the platform are returned in months rather than days or weeks, the process of obtaining sales reports is arduous and outdated, and it does not have a marketing, analytics, or advertising assessment tool for developers.
White said DRM-free platforms, such as Itch, also perform poorly. "Last month, we made more from Google Admob than from [Platform X]."
Garner's original post was retweeted by Ragnar T*rnquist of RedThread Games, who said, "This thread mirrors our own experiences exactly." Draugen has been out for over a year on consoles. When was the last time it was discounted? It's not for lack of trying. It's disheartening.
I have no clue who to even contact to make console sales happen, even though we are a well-established developer with a proven track record. It's like trying to be heard in a vacuum."
"PlayStation stinks for indie devs. We've sold like trash on it compared [to] the other big consoles. Also, I'm pretty sure we sell more on Itch alone than on [PlayStation] by itself."
Apparently directed toward Mike Rose, founder of HypnoSpace Outlaw publisher No More Robots, Tholen ended his tweet by saying, "Mike, I'll delete this if you want lol."
As Rose said earlier, "There's a thread going around recently that lots of people are sharing. The reason you don't see more threads like it is because devs aren't comfortable saying it publicly, but I guarantee you the vast majority of developers are reading that thread."

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