Sony kills concept approval, makes moves to get indies onto PS4
Tonight in San Francisco, Sony announced another indie PlayStation 4 game: Zombie's Studios' Blacklight: Retribution. The company also announced that popular parody fighting game Divekick, new puzzle game Metrico, from Digital Dreams, and Primal Carnage Genesis, from Lukewarm Media, are coming to its platforms. These games all come under its Pub Fund,
This news comes on top of further announcements that the company is making things easier for indie developers and big publishers alike. Sony's Adam Boyes, who heads up its publisher and developer relations teams, talks to Gamasutra about that evolution, why having veteran software developer Mark Cerny as the lead architect for its PlayStation 4 hardware is so important, and how the company might try to compete with a Steam Box.
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.
So is that just for indies, or is that across the board?
Everyone. Everyone, now, basically.
What I did, getting on board, went across the world and listened to feedback -- and said, "What are the biggest complaints, and how do we knock this out?" So that changed, and we continue to work every week on "what else are they complaining about?"
So if it's, hey, these guys are developing content for Vita, and we like the team, so we send them Vita kits as loaners for free. Or waiving patch fees for independent developers, if they need that support, then we're totally behind it.
When you say "pillars," can you give me an idea what pillars are form your perspective?
Unfortunately it's all covered on our license agreement with the different platforms. But for Vita, for example, back touch, front touch, Near support, camera support. So you'd basically have to have one of those integrated into your title.
You've said you've gone to a full policy of waiving patch fees for indies. Do they still have to go through a certification process? Is it a lengthy process?More at the link (http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/189271/Sony_kills_concept_approval_makes_moves_to_get_indies_onto_PS4.php?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+GamasutraNews+%28Gamasutra+News%29)
With the cert process, we're working on -- we'll have an announcement shortly -- the certification timeline. That's been something we've heard a lot of issues being raised about in the past.
They still have to go through the process, but again, if there's any sort of fees associated with it, they can talk to their account managers. And for indies, we understand where they come from. I've done it in my background, a lot of the guys have. Nick, and Shane [Bettenhausen], and Brian [Silva] have been living that since day one. So we're super mindful of it. It's hard to find ones that have paid for it, because we don't see the point, and we want to support them.
With console platforms there is an advantage to reaching the audience, obviously. The audience is very big. Every platform has its advantages and disadvantages, and I'm not really talking about that, because we could debate about it. But in the end, some of the other platforms have advantages like if you're using Steam, it's very easy to patch. If you're using iOS or Android, it's very easy to patch. So if you're trying to attract people who are aware how other platforms work, you have to work on parity there.
Right. We're absolutely trying to. The challenge is that there needs to be certification. If it ties into our storefront, or any of the backend technologies, we have to verify. There actually is a propping process where we have to push it to the store, and stuff like that -- there are always going to be a couple steps we have to do.
If it's server-side, if it's something that's happening on the game side -- if you're tweaking a value, if it's an external server it's pinging, then that stuff can be done with very low touch. It's whenever there has to be a patch applied. Again, if there's a development studio that just wants to turn it, and it's just a bug fix, then we can turn that really quickly.
It’s been quite some time since I’ve been on PlayStation Blog. To reintroduce myself, I am the vice president of publisher and developer relations for SCEA, which is a fancy way of saying that I’m working day-in and day-out with my team here to get the world’s best and brightest developers to bring their great gaming experiences to all of our PlayStation platforms.
Since my last post, I’ve joined SCEA and expanded the incredible team that focuses on fostering relationships with publishers and developers that share our goal of bringing the best games to you, the PlayStation community. With that said, the publisher and developer relations team has exciting news to deliver tonight.
During this year’s Game Developer’s Conference in San Francisco, our team has put a strong focus on independent game developers. This evening, we collaborated with the PlayStation Network team to host a PlayStation Indie Arcade event, where we gave hands-on demos for more than 25 indie games that are coming to all PlayStation platforms. Our goal is to continue to work with the independent developer community to provide fantastic games you can’t find anywhere else.
Here’s a quick list of the upcoming games heading to PlayStation Network:
Blacklight: Retribution – PS4
Primal Carnage: Genesis – PS4
Rain – PS3
Divekick – PS3 and PS Vita
Spelunky – PS3 and PS Vita
Velocity Ultra – PS Vita
Limbo – PS Vita
Metrico – PS Vita
Sportsfriends (including Johann Sebastian Joust, BaraBariBall, Hokra and Super Pole Riders) – PS3
Ibb & Obb – PS3
Guacamelee! – PS3 and PS Vita
Hotline Miami – PS3 and PS Vita
Dragon Fantasy Book II – PS3 and PS Vita
Thomas Was Alone – PS3 and PS Vita
Luftrausers – PS3 and PS Vita
Friend Network App – PS Vita
A Virus Named Tom – PlayStation Mobile
Beatdown in Treachery City – PlayStation Mobile
Crumble – PlayStation Mobile
Crystallon – PlayStation Mobile
Don’t Wake the Bear – PlayStation Mobile
Hermit Crab in Space! – PlayStation Mobile
Oh, Deer! – PlayStation Mobile
Rymndkapsel – PlayStation Mobile
Ten By Eight – PlayStation Mobile
Give me spelunky on vita
I want binding of Isaac also
We’re excited to finally announce our launch date and pricing details for Guacamelee! The game will be released on April 9th in the Americas, and will support Cross-Buy for $14.99. This means you buy the game once and get both the PS3 and PS Vita versions. And that’s not all… there’s also a Platinum Trophy!
With GDC being this week, and the IGF award nomination for “Excellence in Visual Art,” we also thought it would be cool to share some early concept art and video footage of the game, so that you can see for yourself how much things have changed. As you can see, Guacamelee! has really come a long way visually since its inception.
We began working on Guacamelee! in February of 2011. For the first two months, the game existed solely as a PowerPoint presentation and some concept art. Here’s the very first screenshot mock-up of the game from that presentation:
We brought these materials and another game idea with us to GDC to gauge publisher interest in the two titles. Guacamelee! was clearly the more popular of the two ideas, and after returning from GDC we spent some time making a prototype to test out how the combat would work, and also took some time to make a “Target Gameplay” video in Flash:
This video was shown to publishers at E3 in 2011, and was also used as part of the materials that helped us get the Canada Media Fund award and actually have the funding necessary to make the game. You can see that most of the initial ideas for the game’s design have made it all the way through to the final product, with one notable exception being the “World of Nightmares”.
Since then, we’ve worked hard on pushing the game much further visually (going through about four style revisions), which can clearly be seen by comparing to our latest trailer, which you can see at the top of this post!
If you’re going to be at GDC, make sure to stop by the IGF Pavilion and say “Hi” to two of our amazing artists; our Art Director Steph, and animator, Augusto. Without them, Guacamelee! would not look as great as it does!
Vita is on fire :mindblown
QuoteOriginally Posted by LQX:
To me it seems MS was way ahead of them and even dedicated a storefront on consoles to Indie games after pushing XNA. And speaking of XNA. Why does it seem like many some indie developers looked down at that store and are almost pretending it does not exist? Their were some good stuff on there but not really quality stuff you would find on PC. Was it that limiting?
No, but there were some problems due to devs.
The first problem was a lot of devs had dreams about instant wealth and freedom and success and being able to sustain their own company. They saw the AppStore and thought it would be the same. What they failed to recognize is that anywhere in the media, be it games, movies, books or something else, 90 % of the content is a) created at a loss or b) barely makes it into the black. Only 10 % are actual financial successes. With everybody failing to know even the basic principles of economics they were all in for a bad surprise when their (pretty good) first batch of games didn't get anywhere close to the results they'd hoped for.
The second problem was that devs didn't realize they can't just make a game they love and sell it to millions. You have to create a game that your audience loves, even if you hate it. Of course the best case scenario is that you both love the game, because it shows in the amount of polish you put in. And it didn't help either that devs thought it would be a good idea to spam the market with hundreds of one or two stick shooters, a genre that was such a niche even on XBLA that it was no doubt selling even worse on XBLCG.
The third problem was a result of the first two. Devs started blaming Microsoft for the bad market (Microsofts original vision for XBLCG (Xbox Live Community Games, as it was called back then) was to have a public showcase for devs to find publishers and go to XBLA) and customers for the bad sales and decided to make cheap stuff instead. Not cheap as in 80 points games, cheap in "I spent four weeks on this, go have fun". The result was even worse. Now experimental games with gameplay worth ten minutes released on the marketplace. With trials being 20 minutes long it's no surprise stuff didn't sell.
Instead it was the rise of Massage Apps and other apps in general. Those were something new, something you couldn't buy on XBLA in a better version. Game devs were furious, they blocked their games from being visible on the marketplace and bashed Microsoft even more. The sad truth is: The good games always made it to the top. Like RC Copter, probably the first big success for XBLCG, staying at the top of the charts for months and months in a row.
The fourth problem was marketing. Devs don't know shit about connecting to your potential customers. The way they thought about it was "We are in the new arrivals for a couple of days and everybody sees us and buys us. Then we are in best selling and sell even more. BAM." I spent countless hours explaining how you have to advertise your games with blogs, Youtube, Twitter, interviews, ... but most of them didn't want to hear it. Spending even more money on the game? With no guarantee to get that money back? Thanks, but no thanks.
And then the market stayed in limbo for quite some time. It's only after the inclusion of Avatars into XNA that the Indie store became a success. And again, there was stuff that simply wasn't available on XBLA. But now it was gaming stuff. Then came Minecraft and now we have a bazillion clones of the indie store and they all sell surprisingly well and other games do well and it is finally a gaming marketplace thanks to the 1 dollar games.
We could've been there much earlier. The reason why XBLCG took so long to take off was that (like the original Microsoft vision) the posterchild games of the service were taken away to release on XBLA. Of course that makes sense for the dev involved but imagine if Dishwasher or Dust had been released first on the indie store like.
Microsoft took a lot of crap for its indie endeavours but truth is they never promised anything but the ability to create games and release them to other players. It wasn't meant to sustain a large group of indies, it was meant for people that create games as a hobby and want to make some money with it. As such the store always worked great. It's just that the disillusioned game devs that spent thousands on their game and didn't get it back were much more vocal than the rest. And that lead to the public misconception that XBLCG/XBI sucks.
I'm sure the discontinuation of XNA has nothing to do with MS walking away from indies, the implementation of Windows 8 in the next Xbox just makes it so much easier to develop for it that they don't need another framework just for indies. Everybody will use the same tools.
If MS does use the Windows 8 store in the next Xbox, indies will defect to PS4 (and even NINTENDO) in droves. Microsoft's cut of the profits of apps from their storefront (for Phones/Win8) is so fucking huge no one can make money. That's why everyone makes Android and iOS apps instead of Windows Phone apps. For Indies, the PS4/Wii U Shop will be the Android/iOS of consoles.
wait phantom pain is metal gear solid 5 :PP
wait phantom pain is metal gear solid 5 :PP
Those comments
http://www.twitch.tv/gamespot/new (http://www.twitch.tv/gamespot/new)
[size=78%]Salex_: MAH NIGGLET[/size]:rofl
Djventix: Jr.
Nomprenom: pedohpile stream ? i report !!!!!
Kerlean: problems creating black people racism!!
Snarfoogle:
Bangwashi: son of a ***
Sorrano: RASITS
Mett7: gangsta engine xd
Saadnq: dieminion
Scraz526: dat powerpoint
Tackey:
Fellow93: metal gear in da hood
Marnid:
Xuhybrid: Who cares about this ***?
Gold_jacobson: *** Gamespot. Glad i'm hear
Superorez: I hope it's on the WiiU
Ronkyu: u have one job look good
Aerialz51: worst presentation ever
Defiroth: #TeamCG
Drhonker: TRiHard
Enteii_: LOL WIIU
Zylax: metal gear sucks
Drakanos: Superorez go kill yourself
Pastadruid: Was Mogren in the fox engine?
Menu11111: TSM!
Garudapsn: DaBeach| Snake
Screamsinternally: Sure is interesting inforzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Escapee3: 100% moronic chat, including this post
Syshal: Go blow youself Zylax
Vistage: its a developer confrence you fucktards
Kromone: I think this is super interesting
Crunkmaster_joe: idiots this is for Devs, not for *** consumers
[size=78%]Phryemc: xuhybrid, this is actually really important for photorealism [/size]
Those comments
http://www.twitch.tv/gamespot/new (http://www.twitch.tv/gamespot/new)Quote[size=78%]Salex_: MAH NIGGLET[/size]:rofl
Djventix: Jr.
Nomprenom: pedohpile stream ? i report !!!!!
Kerlean: problems creating black people racism!!
Snarfoogle:
Bangwashi: son of a ***
Sorrano: RASITS
Mett7: gangsta engine xd
Saadnq: dieminion
Scraz526: dat powerpoint
Tackey:
Fellow93: metal gear in da hood
Marnid:
Xuhybrid: Who cares about this ***?
Gold_jacobson: *** Gamespot. Glad i'm hear
Superorez: I hope it's on the WiiU
Ronkyu: u have one job look good
Aerialz51: worst presentation ever
Defiroth: #TeamCG
Drhonker: TRiHard
Enteii_: LOL WIIU
Zylax: metal gear sucks
Drakanos: Superorez go kill yourself
Pastadruid: Was Mogren in the fox engine?
Menu11111: TSM!
Garudapsn: DaBeach| Snake
Screamsinternally: Sure is interesting inforzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Escapee3: 100% moronic chat, including this post
Syshal: Go blow youself Zylax
Vistage: its a developer confrence you fucktards
Kromone: I think this is super interesting
Crunkmaster_joe: idiots this is for Devs, not for *** consumers
[size=78%]Phryemc: xuhybrid, this is actually really important for photorealism [/size]
This has to be launching within the next 6 months. Especially if it's not cross gen
The Nintendo Web Framework is a development environment based on WebKit technologies, supporting application development on the Wii U system using HTML5, JavaScript, and CSS. It also supports the Wii U GamePad controller, Wii Remote controllers, and JavaScript extensions such as video playback. With the Nintendo Web Framework, development times will be reduced and Wii U applications can be easily developed using common Web technologies. Combining the handy Wii U GamePad, the TV screen, and the Internet, the potential exists for the services and games you are developing to progress by leaps and bounds.
What about wii u games??
Nintendo put up a form for any developers interested in doing Wii U development with Unity, Javascript, or HTML5.
https://gdc2013.nintendo.com/sign_up.php
They'll contact you after GDC is over.
You can choose whether to make free, commercial, or web applications (or games) for Wii U.
- Wii Street U was one of the first apps created using Nintendo Web Framework
- this framework can help create apps that run on the GamePad, the TV, or both
- it can also be used to port games that were developed using web technology
- the software has the ability to make changes, refresh, and see them reflected on the GamePad or TV screen instantly
- Sketch Battle wad demoed, a simple platformer developed entirely in JavaScript and then ported to the Wii U using Nintendo Web Framework
- you can quickly create new stages using HTML backgrounds
- you also have the option to use the GamePad's camera and accelerometer
- Sketch Battle will be included in the Nintendo Web Framework SDK as a demo
- Nintendo Web Framework's codename was Bamboo
- the Framework SDK will be available for anyone to use free of charge after signing an agreement
- devs will need to purchase a Wii U developer kit
- Nintendo will not require concept approval
- this will allow for use of freemium models in apps developed in the Nintendo Web Framework
The social network will be more deeply integrated with games.
Nintendo is planning updates to Miiverse functionality, including the ability to more deeply integrate the social network with Wii U games.
The Miiverse API will be updated in a future version of the Wii U Software Development Kit to include features to improve interactions within games, producer Kiyoshi Mizuki revealed in his GDC talk.
Players will be able to send and receive comments in-game.
Players will be able to see 'Yeahs' in-game.
They can follow users, and see who users are following in-game.
Users will be able to launch games from Miiverse Posts
Launch buttons on Miiverse posts can contain program arguments, so it will be possible to boot directly to a certain level or menu in a game
Can work with online datastore for additional functionality
Mizuki posited the potential application of level editing and sharing via Miiverse;
envisions a game where users bring the game to life (sounds very LBP)
User Sub-Communities (like Mario Kart 7's) are coming to Miiverse
Can be used to organise and hold tournaments
First game to use them is Wii Fit U
Nintendo is canvassing developers for anything else they'd like to see in the API
Looking forward to $15 versions of 99c iOS games.
Looking forward to $15 versions of 99c iOS games.
Nintendo on firethanks, actually awesome :obama
http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/news/33674 (http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/news/33674)QuoteThe social network will be more deeply integrated with games.
Nintendo is planning updates to Miiverse functionality, including the ability to more deeply integrate the social network with Wii U games.
The Miiverse API will be updated in a future version of the Wii U Software Development Kit to include features to improve interactions within games, producer Kiyoshi Mizuki revealed in his GDC talk.
Players will be able to send and receive comments in-game.
Players will be able to see 'Yeahs' in-game.
They can follow users, and see who users are following in-game.
Users will be able to launch games from Miiverse Posts
Launch buttons on Miiverse posts can contain program arguments, so it will be possible to boot directly to a certain level or menu in a game
Can work with online datastore for additional functionality
Mizuki posited the potential application of level editing and sharing via Miiverse;
envisions a game where users bring the game to life (sounds very LBP)
User Sub-Communities (like Mario Kart 7's) are coming to Miiverse
Can be used to organise and hold tournaments
First game to use them is Wii Fit U
Nintendo is canvassing developers for anything else they'd like to see in the API
:rejoice
Looking forward to $15 versions of 99c iOS games.
I'm generally okay with it when they strip out all the micro-transactions stuff and just give me a functioning game. I have Triple Town on steam and its great, certainly better then whatever iOS must be putting up with (looking at the top in-app purchases). Of course that was $10 (and less 10% or so since I bought it at launch). $15 is pushing it
I'm also looking forward to Kingdom Rush on steam since that passed Greenlight
Nintendo on firethanks actually awesome :obama
http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/news/33674 (http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/news/33674)QuoteThe social network will be more deeply integrated with games.
Nintendo is planning updates to Miiverse functionality, including the ability to more deeply integrate the social network with Wii U games.
The Miiverse API will be updated in a future version of the Wii U Software Development Kit to include features to improve interactions within games, producer Kiyoshi Mizuki revealed in his GDC talk.
Players will be able to send and receive comments in-game.
Players will be able to see 'Yeahs' in-game.
They can follow users, and see who users are following in-game.
Users will be able to launch games from Miiverse Posts
Launch buttons on Miiverse posts can contain program arguments, so it will be possible to boot directly to a certain level or menu in a game
Can work with online datastore for additional functionality
Mizuki posited the potential application of level editing and sharing via Miiverse;
envisions a game where users bring the game to life (sounds very LBP)
User Sub-Communities (like Mario Kart 7's) are coming to Miiverse
Can be used to organise and hold tournaments
First game to use them is Wii Fit U
Nintendo is canvassing developers for anything else they'd like to see in the API
:rejoice
If MS does use the Windows 8 store in the next Xbox, indies will defect to PS4 (and even NINTENDO) in droves. Microsoft's cut of the profits of apps from their storefront (for Phones/Win8) is so fucking huge no one can make money. That's why everyone makes Android and iOS apps instead of Windows Phone apps. For Indies, the PS4/Wii U Shop will be the Android/iOS of consoles.
good lord you couldn't be more clueless if the clue police tasered the remaining clues from your nearly clueless industry poser butthole