Why Indie Games Are Ruining PS Plus

Play: "This month's hot topic sees the Play team debate indie games and whether or not they are ruining PS Plus."

[trywizardo]

just do like I do and don't buy those shit , the only indie games I liked is on mobile and they're limbo and monument valley .

[Bigpappy]

Ah, come on guys. Indies are all great games (the more the merrier). You guys convinced me of that, now you want to backout. Not going let that happen. Indies every month sounds great to me.

[freshslicepizza]

indies are fine but sony shoehorning them in because they don't want to include retail games on the ps4 is not good enough imo. ask yourself what is holding back sony from releasing games like knack?

[Loktai]

Thats nice bro.

[VforVideogames]

indies are not ruining ps+ IMO its what keeping sony alive 2-3 games a month for a year and for 49.99? yes we all know that the online structure sucks but all you have to do is use prepaid cards.

[medman]

It's time launch titles like Killzone ShadowFall and Knack started making their way to psplus. It's been long enough.

[trywizardo]

yeah , I want killzone and infamous and maybe BF4 ...

[uth11]

Sony has to pay for the games it offers.

PS+ costs less than $5 a month. If you divide that by the 6 games it offers, it's less than $0.80 per game. It's even worse than that considering some of the money is used to pay for the network and what not.

So if Sony approaches an Indie and an AAA publisher offering to pay say $0.70 per user for their game, who's going to accept? The Indie who needs the exposure, or the AAA who can easily sell for many times that? Obviously the former!
The only way it's a good deal for the AAA publish is when the game is no longer selling well.

Sony will put out some big names from time to time, but for the most part, it's going to be Indies. The People who expect otherwise need to learn to be realistic or they are going to keep being disappointed.

[mochachino]

I don't think that's how it works.

More likely, Sony has a certain number of annual Plus users, say 10 million to keep things simple. That's $500 mill revenue a year. From that, and subtracting other operating costs, Sony selects a budget to spend on games. If a company projects to sell X amount of games over X amount of months, Sony gives them an offer that equals or exceeds the what they'd get on the market. Or Sony gives them a really low cut from every download.

Sony sets an annual Plus games budget, and buys the rights to give away games. Indies would be cheap because their projected total sales and prices are mostly much lower. And for most games, it's like free advertising for an indie game no one has heard of. Also, the price the indie gets isn't the retail price, it's after Sony gets its cut, making them really cheap to acquire but also guarantees that the dev at least recoups the dev costs and makes some profit no matter what.

We should be getting old AAAs by now though. It wouldn't be hard to predict remaining lifetime sales games like AC Unity, BF4, Shadow of Mordor, etc that sell a couple thousand a week at a highly discounted price. There are a lot of games that would be cheap for Sony to acquire for Plus.

I'd love to know Sony's Plus games budget, and see a breakdown of Plus's revenues and expenses. No way the annual games budget is more than 60 mill, that should mean a lot of profit for Sony, increasing exponentially with an increase in the number of plus users, and about 5 million a month to spend on games.

[uth11]

I'm sure internally Sony & publishers deal with lump sum figures, and they'll pay more for some games than others. They made two separate offers for Rocket League for instance because they really wanted it on PS+

I just broke it down to per/user pricing because it's easier for people to comprehend the relatively small sums available to get games on PS+. It's going to be mostly indies with the occasional larger title, there's no way around that, unless they cut the number of games offered and/or raised the price.

[rainslacker]

Probably more that Sony goes to a dev/pub and says, we'll pay you this much to put your game up on PS+ this month. Publisher accepts because it's more than they're likely to make otherwise(in the case of indies) and they get tons of exposure.

For other games, such as we had on the PS3, pubishers probably approached Sony in order to promote another game in a series, or to try and make money off of DLC, as there would be a sudden surge in active users for the game. This usually happened after these publishers pushed a sale on the game, or the game was past it's selling prime.

The reason we don't see many AAA games right now is due to the fact that most are likely still selling due to the PS4 sales, and it not even being 2 years since the release of the console. Those launch games are still priced pretty high at retail which means there is still demand for them.

I do believe that it's time for Sony to start offering up some AAA games, even if 1st party. Some of the indie games have been great, but over the holidays, people are going to be looking at whether or not to renew their subscription.

For me, I will because they still offer decent Vita/PSP/PS3 titles on there, but for the PS4 only user, I'm not sure many would consider the selection worthwhile, and if they don't care about MP, then there is no real reason to continue paying for it...as there aren't even that many PS4 games released on it worth keeping a sub for.

[the-dragons-bane]

The IGC has really gone downhill :/ it's almost laughable how bad it's become.

[22CobraKing]

In a way it kind of is since we have gotten a lot of indies but most are great games I rather play.

[fermcr]

It's not worth it purchasing indies for the PS4. Sooner or later they will be "offered" with PS+.
Feel sorry for those indie developers but they made their deals with Sony (not paying twice for the same game). I hope at least they are getting reasonably paid by Sony.

[PhoenixUp]

I'd have no issues with indies on PS+ if it didn't outnumber the amount of AAA games on the service.

[frostypants]

How could you logically expect AAA games with big budgets to outnumber indie games?

[PhoenixUp]

You must be very late to the party. AAA games outnumbered indies a lot in the past on PS+.

[Loktai]

They were mostly years old...The ps4 is young and HAS alot of indies thats the current climate

[22CobraKing]

Reason was because it had a bigger library, and the program recently started in 2010. What better way for them to get people to subscribe to their newly program at the time by offering great games.

[PhoenixUp]

I'm mostly talking about the PS3 and Vita. Indies currently outnumber AAA games for those platforms

[jb227]

I think there definitely should be more AAA games on the service but there are upsides to giving indies the soapbox from time to time.

Where do we think the future master developers will come from? Giving indies a platform to catch a wider audience will allow the cream of the crop to rise and become the next AAA developers. The same thing happened w/ the rise of indie films, what was once a niche market has now grown and some of the better directors around today all got their start on these smaller films. The film landscape would be populated entirely by mediocre film school kids & it'd be overrun w/ nepotism otherwise, and the whole medium would suffer for it.

The same could be said for indie music, the whole history of music is filled w/ huge artists who make diet coke versions of ideas that they steal from guys that didn't have the platform the prettier (or in some instances the ones with whiter skin) artists given, but now music is more accessible than ever and the originators of these new sounds are finally able to find listeners & success, which is nothing but a good thing. I see the indie market as a way for lovers of any medium to find creativity from the well spring, the very source of it: other people like yourself who went from just being lovers of a craft to being practicing creators.

[maybelovehate]

I don't think they are ruining PS Plus. I actually think it is better to have Indie games on PS Plus than Older AAA titles. Not because I think they are better games, but because if those AAA title's were any good we most likely already have them. As long as they pick good Indie titles I think it offers good value.

[KentBlake]

This. Bubbles to you.

[kreate]

I rather take old AAA titles. . Thats justme though.

[AngelicIceDiamond]

Wait what's considered "old AAA titles?" Wouldn't you want to DL Killzone Shadowfall, Knack or Infamous? Or any of the third parties from a year or 2 ago?

[stalepie]

I'm sure they'll eventually start including more big budget titles - they did already with Infamous: First Light (although that's a shorter stand-alone DLC game).

PS+ also offers discounts every week or month on many games.

[maybelovehate]

I already have Killzone, Knack and Infamous, which is the point. Although honestly there are many Indie games better than those titles.

[rainslacker]

I'd say most of the indie games they give away are pretty good. Couple of duds in there, but so far all the ones I've played have been enjoyable.

As much as I can enjoy an indie game though, I do enjoy the experience and presentation of a AAA game more. Most of the time anyways.

I do agree, at this point, any good AAA game is likely been purchased by many who would own the system. It's just like that early in a console life. But there are others which would be more mid-tier A games which could make their way there and give them exposure which many likely haven't played. I myself have about 20 retail games for the PS4. 9 brought this year. That still leaves quite a few games I haven't gotten around to either because I gave it no notice, or because it didn't interest me. I have found though, through PS+ on PS3, that some of these games I passed by I really enjoyed...and many of them would be prime candidates for PS+.

[mogwaii]

Its kinda sad cause the market is flooded with these retro pixle art indies all hoping to be the next minecraft, fez or super meatboy, there are just too many of them.

[frostypants]

Because they are easier to develop.

[mogwaii]

Exactly

[StrayaKNT]

I haven't renewed my ps plus subscription since Bloodborne, there's just no point imo

[JonnyBigBoss]

I wouldn't say that there's no point since it's mandatory for online, but I similarly canceled shortly after Bloodborne.

[DualWielding]

I renew to keep my PS3 games... I still have a backlog of PS3 + titles I want to but have not got around to playing... but if it was only for PS4 I wouldn't renew

[aquaticDonut]

I sincerely disagree. Just because the author doesn't like indie games doesn't mean nobody does. There are a lot of great indies that have been offered on PS+, and I have no problem with it staying that way.

[Commodore]

I'd take the Order 1886 over these GD Indie games.

[ZaWarudo]

I would prefer it if they put more retail Vita games on PS+, something like Ys Memories of Celceta or Persona 4 Golden.

[Loktai]

Freedom wars is a good candidate too.

[rainslacker]

I don't recall there being a lot of NISA or Atlus games ever put up on PS+. Would love to see more...even though I typically buy their RPG's day one so it wouldn't matter to me much.

[JonnyBigBoss]

I know I'm in the minority, but I only like to play one indie game every several months. I just prefer bigger games that I can spend a lot of time in. Journey, The Walking Dead: Season 1, and Castle Crashers are the rare exception because they were so good.

[Spotie]

Why is it that some people try to lump indies together as if they're all the same?

There's nothing stopping you from spending more time on an indie game.

Indie is not a genre. It's not a monetary status. It's a developer ownership status. And there's a helluva lot of variety in it. Comments like this are weird.

[freshslicepizza]

are comments about preferring big budget films over indie films weird too? some people prefer high production values in games, nothing wrong with that. many buy new hardware that is needed to play more demanding games. we identify with bigger games like assassins creed more than we do with smaller games. that isn't to say indie games are inferior.

the fact is sony is using indie games to fill the void of retail games on the ps4. it's a known fact. is there any explanation why they refuse to offer knack for example? there is enough retail games to give plus members, they don't need to just mainly offer indie games for free. seems rather ironic that now that the ps4 requires plus the games offered are smaller scale.

[Takwin]

I get my PS+ subscription for $30 each and got 3 years worth.

It is VERY easy to get it for $40.

Anyone who pays $60 is an idiot and surely not a commenter on a site like this.

I have thoroughly enjoyed my PS+ and only need to "hit" on two indies for the entire year to make it pay off that $30. However, I find that I enjoy 1-2 games EACH month and the value is astonishing.

Ironically. I have also used PS+ to remove games from my Steam wishlist - some were great and some I decided I didn't want at all - so this in effect saved me even more money.

[DualWielding]

that used to be the case but last year there weren't any major sales for US PS+ subscriptions... now that subscription is mandatory for online Sony does not feel the need to put the annual subscriptions cards on sale

[Takwin]

I got all of mine for $30 on eBay from a seller called "Buy" (Which goes by Rakuten elsewhere). The $30 sale happened a few times over the past 2 years, but there were MANY sales for $40. Amazon has sold them a few times for $40.

You can set up PriceZombie or camelcamelcamel alerts as well so you know the second they go on sale.

[138]

I regret renewing my sub back in March. I'm essentially just paying to play laggy online multi with the handful of friends I have that use their PS4 often, in the off chance that they didn't already sell whatever game I bought to play with them. Cloud space is too small to hold more than a dozen saves or so, and the IGC offerings typically fall into one of two categories:

1) Bad game unworthy of hard drive space
2) Own the superior version on PC already

I play it fairly loose with my money on things that I like, so it's not a matter of cost. I just feel like I got nothing for what I spent, or at least very little. I did get OlliOlli 2 for my Vita, so there's that. $50 to rent a $15 game. I don't like feeling ripped off when I spend money on my PS4. It makes me less inclined towards future spending.

[Loktai]

I have little to no latency issues , the cloud storage has been increased to 10gb with firmware 3 (im in the beta and the interface is faster too). I feel you on having the game on pc but thats not sonys fault to consider gee lets plan it around 138's steam library... Those games must be ok if you paid for them. I mean im sure nobody expects bloodborne to be free by now the rest is up to publishers to be willing and for that you cant exactly blame SCEA. Just sayin. For what it is and does for 30-50 a year depending on the deal finding skill i find it fine. Its like 3 to 4 bucks a month.

[138]

The PS4 and Vita are the only devices in my house that have latency issues. PCs, Smart TVs, phones, etc. Everything else runs fine. Even my Wii U when I still had it, for all the crap Nintendo takes about their online offerings. Sony really skimps on WiFi in their hardware, and I shouldn't have to route wires through my house for their failures. Everything I own runs flawlessly on WiFi except for their gear.

Man, I feel salty tonight.

[Loktai]

Hm, I can't speak to WiFi on my ps4... my ps3 was fine on WiFi and my vita... I don't use my ps4 on WiFi but two of my friends do and I play with them and haven't heard them complain. Might be just dumb luck on their part. I don't doubt you have lag it's a common problem for a lot of people but I just doubt it's related to the pay service which you aren't saying it is, but brought up the lag while discussing ps plus is all
Have you tried power outlet networking? A lot of people report that works pretty well and might fix at least the ps4 issue if you don't want to run networking cables or anything.

.. I know I know you shouldn't have to but really mentioning a problem without proposing a solution is just whining in the end. Hope you have better luck with it in the future at least.

[zombie78rock]

Free games wow and people complain well If you had plus when it started you would get 10 theme's and some avatars 4-10 and maybe they would let you in on a beta but that's it. The 1st year of plus I didn't receive 1 free game. Oh and I do remembering getting Qore for free also. That hot Asian chick if I could remember her name she was smoking hot.

[DualWielding]

I didn't had plus when it stared and most people didn't... people didn't begin to subscribe to plus until Sony began offering AAA titles and Sony was forced to offer AAA titles because no one was subscribing...

now that they don't have to rely on AAA titles to subscribe because of it being mandatory for online they can use plus as a propaganda machine for indie games

[zombie78rock]

This is my point complaining that is all people do any more complain (people get on the internet to complain) that is what is for to get offended or to complain. Back then there was no complaining we were better than that!!!!

[WillSykes]

I Think that a better question is: Are bad games ruining PS Plus. I don't think that the fact that they are Indie is the problem, it is more the fact that some of them are just not fun games. Some of the Indie games given away are GREAT, additionally, some of the AAA ps3 games given away are BORING. It feels to me like if nothing else, there could be some better quality control on PS Plus