Sony Loves Indie Studios Again
By: Bryan Finck
Tags: Gaming, PlayStation, Games, Features, Startups

Sony Loves Indie Studios Again

Will it last this time?

In early November of 2019, Sony announced a major shakeup in the Sony Interactive Entertainment leadership ranks. Hermen Hulst, head of Sony first-party studio Guerilla Games, would become the Chairman of Sony Worldwide Studios. At the same time, Shuhei Yoshida would move on from his role as President of Worldwide Studios. Yoshida was being tapped to lead a new initiative with Sony’s external, indie development studios. Many people called it a demotion, but was that really true?

There is no more famous or popular figure in the Sony hierarchy than Shuhei Yoshida. He has a cult of personality among developers, journalists and fans alike. He’s also known to have a keen eye for games, coming up as he did in the executive producer role for games including Gran Turismo, Ape Escape and The Legend of Dragoon. So why then would he be demoted, after years at the helm when Sony had the best-selling console two generations in a row? He wouldn’t be, and the reality is that Sony needed him to do what he has always done best, which is to nurture developers to do their best work.

Yoshida’s new role appears, at least in part, to be a reaction to reports that indie devs felt left behind by Sony over the last few years.

Back in 2013, as the sun was setting on the PS3, Sony was all in on the indie game scene, having established what was called the “PlayStation Pub Fund”. Instead of just supporting and publishing games from indie devs, Sony was actually putting it’s money where it’s mouth was. The publishing giant would pay the developers as soon as the game went gold, then take on the burden of selling the title with the goal of recouping their investment. The studio was free to move on to the next title, having already been compensated for their work.

The Pub Fund led to some of the most well-received indie games on the PS4 platform, with Guacamelee, Hotline Miami, Spelunky, Blacklight: Retribution and Luftrausers either being made for PS4 or ported over from other editions. As late as 2016, Sony was still talking about Pub Fund, with additional games like Axiom Verge and Salt and Sanctuary being touted as alumni of the program. These were all well-received and successful titles, but it seems that Sony eventually lost interest in the program.

Conventional wisdom is that they weren’t making enough money on their investments, and turned their attention to other matters. Sony was heading into the early phases of the generational switch, and had many huge AAA titles in the pipeline, so it’s not hard to guess that the the bloom was off the indie-rose for many of the people making the decisions. Thus the indie studios didn’t feel the love coming from Sony, so that part of Sony’s library languished somewhat in the years that followed.

Hotline Miami.

Fast forward to last week, when it became clear exactly what the goal of Yoshida’s new position would be. Sony announced the PlayStation Indies initiative, with the stated goal of making PlayStation the place where indie devs want to make their games, and gamers want to play them.

This was accompanied by the announcement of 9 games throughout that day, and one guesses they will get a lot of pop from the mothership throughout their development and subsequent release. Of these 9 games, only one was a title and studio that was immediately recognizable, the new Worms game from Team 17. Back in 2013, though, no one had heard of DrinkBox Studios either, so it’s hard to know which studio will be the next big star in Sony’s constellation.

The real question is, will Sony stick with the initiative this time? There seems to be no reason they would abandon it as they did with the Pub Fund, mainly because they aren’t fronting the money this time around. They are providing support, but it only appears to be logistical, not financial, so they have much less at risk. From Yoshida’s statements, Sony seems to also understand that the skyrocketing costs and time required for AAA titles are no longer sustainable.

It only makes sense to shift some of the eggs into the indie basket, especially with those studios becoming more prominent and putting out more well-regarded titles every year.

One can hope that Sony will do itself and the new initiative some favors, starting with a redesign of the PlayStation Store. With so many games on the service, they need to take steps to make these indie gems easier to find. They have also gone away from the wildly popular PlayStation Blog feature called “The Drop”, which highlighted all the games coming out in a particular week. This was a key vehicle for gamers to learn about new smaller titles that would otherwise be lost in the forest of games available for purchase, and it’s removal is already being felt by fans who have no idea what comes out each week.

With the star power of Yoshida at the helm, less inherent risk and a higher profile product, we should expect Sony to keep tooting the indie horn for the foreseeable next-gen future. No matter how they go about it, it only benefits the publisher to support as many good studios as possible, making the best games for your console, whether they are true or timed exclusives. Time will tell what the outcome shall be, but it should be fun to watch (and play) to see how it goes.