PS4, Xbox One: Indie publishing

[Cjail]

Those big name companies work for publishers because they need big financing, and that means the publishers can exercise creative influence ("we'll agree to finance you $xx million as long as we get to make design decisions to improve marketability of our investment"). They may not (Sony has reportedly a very hands-off approach in dealing with development studios), but by definition they are 'in the publisher's pocket'. A true indie is answerable to no-one but themselves, and the final game is always as they decide it because no-one else has any influence. That's why they're called 'independent developers'.

Ok but if we stick to that definition this list grows shorter.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

That's using the business definition of independently owned. Check Wikipedia for "Indie game" and you'll get a different definition.

 

[Gradthrawn]

That's using the business definition of independently owned. Check Wikipedia for "Indie game" and you'll get a different definition.

Sony has their own "definition":

How do you make that determination?

I don't like calling them "indie." I don't like making that distinction.

Usually the way we just say, if you're a digital publisher or a retail publisher, a disc publisher, and that's the main way. For our internal group we have Developer Relations, and they handle all digital publishers, and then we have Publisher Relations, and they handle all the disc publishers. That's kinda the way we break it down.

And studios, if they're small enough and scrappy enough, then they want to be indie. Then they tell us.

 

[ERP]

Self-financed studio or bloke at a computer. As long as they aren't tied financially to someone else (publisher), they have complete project freedom. If you need a publisher, you run the risk of them making demands of changes to your game to improve their ROI.

OK this is the answer I was expecting and the reason I asked the question.
At what point does the guy in a garage stop being an Indie?
When he employs 2 people, 10 people?
If that status confers advantages over none indie developers, you need a concrete test to determine if they qualify, what is it?

If everything is now just games then I absolutely think allowing self publishing is a good thing, I'm not sure conferring additional benefits on indies is.
I get the lets stand up for the little guy mentality, but they should be playing on the same field IMO.

 

[ERP]

Sony are completely revamping though. There was a presentation, GDC I think, showing how SCEA used to have a hundred thousand different steps to getting a game published, and how they've whittled this down to something sane.

There's also how you go about getting an SDK. I've a friend who's worked years in the industry who is now freelance developing content on PS3 who said he couldn't even get a 360 SDK because MS want crazy credentials. A decade of working with known developers in lead roles wasn't enough for them. The Indie channel gave 'home' developers the chance to publish onto a games console without needing satisfy MS's valid developer criteria. As (((interference))) says though, I think Indie has gone Win RT/8/whatever it's called, so MS can push XBox indie developers to making phone and windows content too, which is probably good for everyone.

The submission process is as I understand it getting streamline, but none of the format QA is going away. It's just about removing some of the redundancy in the process to reduce leadtimes.

I've a friend who's worked years in the industry who is now freelance developing content on PS3 who said he couldn't even get a 360 SDK because MS want crazy credentials. A decade of working with known developers in lead roles wasn't enough for them.

Yep I can believe that, been a long time since I went through the process.

 

[Gradthrawn]

The submission process is as I understand it getting streamline, but none of the format QA is going away. It's just about removing some of the redundancy in the process to reduce leadtimes.

That now appears to be entirely optional (if this is talking about the same thing you are):

Tell me about the changes you're making.

We've just changed our whole concept submission process. It used to be two stages, and all this feedback, and now it's just one, and it's optional feedback, so there's no greenlighting process, no voting, no weird stuff.

....

Previously what happened is you would get some feedback that was written by various teams around the globe, and compiled, and sent back to you. And we just found that when we talked directly to developers, and said, "Okay, we required you to respond to that feedback line-by-line, we required everyone to read them."And a lot of time when we talked to bigger teams, and even mid-sized teams, we said, how helpful was that feedback, and as we sat down with them they said, "We're paying 300 people to make a game," or 80 people, or 100 people. "We have a market for it, we have a publishing and marketing team, we do focus testing. Why do we need your feedback?"

EDIT

Forgot the link.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

OK this is the answer I was expecting and the reason I asked the question.
At what point does the guy in a garage stop being an Indie?
When he employs 2 people, 10 people?
If that status confers advantages over none indie developers, you need a concrete test to determine if they qualify, what is it?

If an indie doesn't have publisher financial backing, the distribution service has to be cheaper, at least at launch. But likewise, it has to also lack features that big bucks would get you, like advertising presence. I can see an indie publishing route being $0 up front but a larger cur of sales going to the console owner, whereas a publisher based publishing route would have money up front, options for buying ad space and front-end presence, and less cuts per sales. Or sommat like that.

 

[ERP]

If an indie doesn't have publisher financial backing, the distribution service has to be cheaper, at least at launch. But likewise, it has to also lack features that big bucks would get you, like advertising presence. I can see an indie publishing route being $0 up front but a larger cur of sales going to the console owner, whereas a publisher based publishing route would have money up front, options for buying ad space and front-end presence, and less cuts per sales. Or sommat like that.

My only issue with special rules is that publishers will game the system.
There are stories of publishers for example insisting that developers run a kickstarter campaign etc. because it reduces their risk.

I think anything costing $0 is a mistake, I know developers who think apple should charge a nominal fee say $500 for a submission to get rid of some of the crap in the appstore.

There is also the question of how you finance format QA and the rest of the process. It becomes an issue if the number of game submissions increases dramatically.

I don't think the higher profile indies want a segregated store area, they want to be featured with the big publisher titles, that means reducing the barrier to entry across the board (which I think would be a horrible mistake) or perhaps as you suggest some sort of tiered system with tradeoffs, but you have to do that without introducing backdoors for publishers to exploit and I don't know how practical that is.

As I say I'm all for getting rid of concept approval (if it even still exists) and not requiring a publisher, but I'm not sure I would want to do much more than that.

I don't know what MS/Sony currently charge for a submission if anything at all, I do know MS start charging if you continually fail and they charge for patches beyond the 1st. but I'm only going on what friends who used to deal with the process have moaned about.

 

[Billy Idol]

Interesting read about indie game devin on next gen consoles:

http://www.polygon.com/2013/6/7/438...d-off-next-gen-consoles-and-the-importance-of

 

[Miksu]

Mary Jo Foley has learned that there won't be public Xbox Store. In 2013 at least:

The "gaming" OS (residing in the "exclusive partition") is going to be where Microsoft-sanctioned third-party games will live. But Microsoft is expected to continue to gate which games will integrate with Xbox Live via a certification process, which means a "public" SDK for Xbox One doesn't seem like a 2013 deliverable. If Microsoft creates an app store for indepedent developers for Xbox One, that store won't be open for business in 2013, from what I've heard.

 

[Billy Idol]

Another interesting read:

http://penny-arcade.com/report/arti...bullies-developers-into-signing-with-publishe

I wonder if MS will backpedal in this case as well...

 

[AzBat]

Awesome, looks like Indies get access to everything....

• Developers will not be charged for certification or title updates, and registering your Xbox One as a dev kit will be free. Also, more popular/successful developers will be given registration priority
  
• Anyone registered as a dev will be given access to "all Xbox One features including cloud services, Kinect, achievements, challenges, Xbox Live multiplayer and Game DVR functionality."

http://www.reddit.com/r/xboxone/comments/1kofl0/official_rxboxone_gamescom_event_thread/

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/425345/xbox-one-indies-can-self-publish-without-fees/

Sounds like this is better than XBLIG, but still need details on submission process & the Store details.

Tommy McClain

 

[Jwm]

Awesome, looks like Indies get access to everything....



http://www.reddit.com/r/xboxone/comments/1kofl0/official_rxboxone_gamescom_event_thread/

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/425345/xbox-one-indies-can-self-publish-without-fees/

Sounds like this is better than XBLIG, but still need details on submission process & the Store details.

Tommy McClain

I applied, so will see in 3-5 days what additional info I get from that.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I can report a little on Sony's approach to console development as a huge departure from the old ways. My friend has a PS4 devkit that I saw today (big box earlier devkit, DS4 was lighter than DS3). He hasn't set it up yet as he's not developing for it currently. I asked if he had to sign NDAs, and he said he didn't have to sign anything. I guess as an existing content developer he's somewhat trusted, but he was saying Sony are offering devkits to anyone (accepted for the programme I suppose) for free - he's got a one year loan - because they want the indie's involved. Contrasting this with every gen prior where developers needed experience, a reputation, and a thousand bucks or more to get a platform SDK, the development world has turned on its head. MS's approach is even more open ended if every console is an SDK, although at the moment I guess they have NDA'd current devs into silence.

He also explained that Sony are basically following iOs and Android in allowing in-app purchasing and the like, so devs are going to be provided with completely flexibility handled by the system

Fundamentally though, the software side of the business is completely changed. The ramifications can only be guessed at.

 

[RenegadeRocks]

Are you saying Sony is giving PS4 Devkits for free, after they choose to give you one? That would be incredible ! Any chance an educational institute can get one to get their student's games running on it? (and later published)
What do you mean by "he's got a one year loan"? He got the dev kit for one year from Sony or he got a loan to get the dev kit?

 

[Shifty Geezer]

He's got the devkit free from Sony for a year, after which I guess they reevaluate. If he's done nothing worthwhile with it, they can give it to someone else. At the moment, Indie developers are being directed towards PhyrEngine for development, but Unity support is supposedly coming soon. That'll probably require a Unity license though, which isn't cheap. However, ports of Unity games that have done well on mobile and the like will be easy.

As for schools getting one, they'd have to contact Sony as an interested party in their Indie programme. If the school can prove it's producing games, they may well get one, but there's going to have to be an element of proving to Sony that one is serious. They can't give devkits to all and sundry who asks with no proven track-record, as there's lots of wishful thinkers out there!

 

[Cjail]

Yeah form what Polygon says Sony is loaning devkits but that in a year devs probably will have to pay for them.
Devkits cost $2,500 anyway.

 

[Bigduo209]

While I don't how Sony will implement touchscreen-only functions on previous titles for PSV-TV, I can see it working well for future games. Especially for Indie titles releasing on the PS4 where accounting for the DS4 will work in the devices' favor, just tweak that existing dynamic for the Vita TV to make it work.

 

[RenegadeRocks]

Yeah form what Polygon says Sony is loaning devkits but that in a year devs probably will have to pay for them.
Devkits cost $2,500 anyway.

Thats not too much if you are serious about making a game. We ended up spending quite a lot making an iPad game too. We had to buy a mac mini, two iPad 2s and 2 iPods. Add to that two years of Appe's dev license and a license for iOS publisihng from Unity.

He's got the devkit free from Sony for a year, after which I guess they reevaluate. If he's done nothing worthwhile with it, they can give it to someone else. At the moment, Indie developers are being directed towards PhyrEngine for development, but Unity support is supposedly coming soon. That'll probably require a Unity license though, which isn't cheap. However, ports of Unity games that have done well on mobile and the like will be easy.

As for schools getting one, they'd have to contact Sony as an interested party in their Indie programme. If the school can prove it's producing games, they may well get one, but there's going to have to be an element of proving to Sony that one is serious. They can't give devkits to all and sundry who asks with no proven track-record, as there's lots of wishful thinkers out there!

Don't know how much a PS4 publishing license costs in Unity, but going by what people are saying, Phyregine isn't bad at all this time around.

So, what happens if your friend does end up making something promising? Will he have to pay for the dev kit eventually?

As for schools/colleges, I think we can start the kids with buying a Vita and letting them code over that. If kids come up with something good, it would be easier to convince Sony to let them port it over to PS4 too. What is going on with the Vita's $99 license which was planned last year? Did Sony roll it out finally? We also made some simple stuff with it last year but our plans changed and I sold it off, but I am not hearing of any games flooding the Vita like the iOS.

 

[Scott_Arm]

Wouldn't it be easiest to teach game programming on iOS, Android, Windows or OSX? Pretty much every student is going to have one if not several of those already.