Sony risks losing the support of third party developers if it fails to compensate them for the ongoing PlayStation Network down time and the resulting lost sales.
That's according to Dylan Cuthbert, founder of PixelJunk maker Q-Games, who told IndustryGamers:
Cuthbert also said he's expecting to hear from Sony soon. "At the moment I think they are running around patching holes etc., and in a week or two they'll have something more concrete to say."
Major third party publishers Activision and Capcom have also said they're hoping for a quick resumption of the PSN.
In its latest update, posted last night, Sony said the service outage will most likely continue for "at least a few more days".
Comments
21 comments so far...
meh2allfanboys on 11 May '11 said:
MEH
El Mag on 11 May '11 said:
We'll have 6 more weeks of winter and 4 more news stories mentioning PSN today, happy groundhog day to all.
http://www.chromaluna.com/content/holidays/groundhog/GroundhogDay5.gif
kirankara on 11 May '11 said:
Anyone else think these devs are now just trying to take sony to cleaners? Like we meant to believe Capcom has lost hundreds of thousands of pounds from streetfighter costumes, or that theres a huge number of people who would have bought pixel junk shooter 2, but now wont?
I can see why they doing it, cause they can. They threaten to pull support unless compensated, and it's win win. They sell games and dlc anyway, and get money off Sony.
Sony will probably tell them, they can keep all revenue off sales on current psn store stuff, rather than compensate actual money im guessing.
MissSouthampton on 11 May '11 said:
Noooo I love Q-Games. I can't live without my Pixel Junk! I think this is costing Sony enough money a little more of a backhander to devs won't hurt! :p
fps_d0minat0r on 11 May '11 said:
their talking as if their doing sony a big favour by putting their game on PSN.
but theres no reason why sony should.
its a two way deal, if you want to sell your game to the 70m (or however many) PSN accounts there are, you overlook this situation.
and its not exactly a loss as their making it out to be, they never had the money in the first place. those who wanted their game will buy it after PSN comes back anyway.
but yeah...it would be nice if every game on PSN got discounted
meh2allfanboys on 11 May '11 said:
Every psn game iv played is s**t so i couldn't give a rats ass if sony ditch every psn game and just keep making uncharted games
Janovilas on 11 May '11 said:
I suspect that the developers are concerned that people will have lost faith in the security of the PSN and will therefore be less willing to use credit cards or debit cards to make payments for content. My understanding is that PSN, as with XBL, has content which cannot be bought offline. If I was a developer of software or DLC that can only be purchased online via the PSN, I would be worried about the effect that this would have on my sales - not just for the sales lost during the period that PSN has been down, but mainly for the effect on future sales... Smaller developers will be hard pressed to cope with any loss of revenue, but this would obviously be of concern to the bigger companies too.
Whilst it may seem petty and money grabbing on face value, I think they do have some legitimate concerns... What may be better for us gamers (but not Sony or Microsoft) is if some of these previously exclusive developers (both on PSN & XBL) become cross platform developers in order to limit their dependence on a single platform or their exposure to another hack or outage like the current one...
g_marrs on 11 May '11 said:
Nope, I think that when you asked for companies to invest in your network as a medium, and your medium disappears overnight and for a considerable period of time, those invests are obviously a considerable loss. Those companies can't tell the teams responsible for those titles that they will pay them their salaries when Sony get PSN up and running. All the resources that go into PSN titles still have to be paid for and at the moment there is simply no income from the network to pay for them.
If you're a small company then chances are you have little diversity to pull you through this period until the network is back. Considering that both PSN and Xbox Live were specifically aimed to attract small developers, small development teams and indies, then this downtime threatens their livelihood in very real terms.
To suggest that they are trying to "take Sony to the cleaners" is a very short-sighted and ignorant stance. Might I suggest you try running a business for a month or so with no income from a major part of it?
kirankara on 11 May '11 said:
ermmm, so u think that capcom haven't paid their staffs wages this last month or so as they couldn't afford it then???
Even small companies will have paid their staff wages and will be looking further at long term returns on their product, otherwise with small titles , their staff could be waiting a long time for their wages otherwise .
What if their product wasn't selling well anyway?? How would their company run then?? Ur short sighted in ur vision of businesses and how they run. Many businesses , especially smaller ones , run at a loss for fireable future, and only over time make money back.
All these companies are there for long term , and won't even be counting on one title for substantial returns, rather looking to build up sales over time and through word of mouth , as they lack the advertising of big titles and backing of publishers, furthermore, they will be looking to build up long term relationships with consumers and their development house.
I agree however that Long term this ordeal may affect customer confidence in their service, having a knock on effect on devs, but the big ones like capacom will remain safe, and as someone else pointed out, the service benefits these devs as much as Sony. They could withdraw their products , but they then narrow their consumer base, so unlikely to do so.
Most people will return to using psn as they did before , knowing their details are more secure now, and let's be honest, no system is hack proof, so if hackers had the will, they could hack any company . Theres been reports suggesting that sony's security wasn't actually that bad or out of date, and realistically , why would they be expecting hackers on psn?? If we say, it's because anonymous were angry with them, well, anonymous denied being involved, so who else has a vendetta? Ultimately hackers are reposnble and I'm sure Sony will have some sort of insurance and willcompensate in some manner, but there estimations of losses seem highly exaggerated if u ask me, and it seems they are leveraging a better deal for themselves with a window of opportunity before them.
martinawatson on 11 May '11 said:
Download savage moon and you will change your mind.
They should make this one of the free games , i already have it, but unselfishly i ask Sony to promote this little gem.
MAG should be free , should of been free from the start, with DLC maps as the profit and development money for them.
The Bossman on 11 May '11 said:
Any of the companies trying to claim against Sony are just wrong. It's not their fault this happened, they don't have to spend billions just to make the precious developers feel happy again. f**k em,they'll get over it. Most of them are probably rolling around in cash anyway.
kmcroc on 11 May '11 said:
@Janovilas bravo well said .
g_marrs on 11 May '11 said:
Hmm, what has Capcom got to do with small companies? My point has been that staff wages and resources for other games are based on running revenue. May I point out your inability in being unable to read my statement "If you're a small company then chances are you have little diversity to pull you through this period until the network is back. "
"What if their product wasn't selling well, anyway?" I believe there is an established model for that in the business world for entry companies. What was it again? Oh yeah, the company goes bust. Initial start-ups do budget initially for a loss in their risk assessment when seeking investment and loans, you're partially right in your skewed view of it. However, few ever budget or consider the possibility of the shops selling their product suddenly disappearing. The PSN problem is the shop disappearing for many small businesses (see how I'm helping you read by putting an important word in bold).
Indie developers and new start-ups, i.e. those most likely to be reliant on PSN will in many instances be counting on a single product. However, if they have other titles, and let's say they're a Sony exclusive developer due to the limited resources one might expect a small company to have, they can clearly make money off them as people go to buy those on the PSN... Oh wait, they can't because the PSN network is down. So all their products not bringing in money. Add to this, the consumer confidence issue, as you say, and simply speaking the future is bleak for these small start-ups as a result of lost capital.
A month down lowers revenue and places companies at a loss. It's a nice idea that everyone has been waiting to make a month's worth of purchases however with the loss of confidence in Sony that simply will not be the case. These companies are seeing that problem as well. They want the lost earnings because they are in the process of damage limitation and that will simply mean tightening belts and / or changing distribution networks (i.e. developing for a different format), yet another additional cost in retraining.
It's nice to say that it's not Sony's fault. However, tough luck. Sony has a responsibility to those that develop for their distribution network. These people bought Sony development kits and registered with Sony to develop and sell titles on the PSN. There is a contractual relationship between Sony and the developers. The developers claim their losses from Sony just as it's Sony's right to claim their losses from those that caused the damage.
And there are reports that it was extremely negligent in the basics of security however those are the stuff of official investigations and so should be left until the final outcomes. Why would they be expecting hackers? Because hackers told them 2-3 months before this incident that they were able to get into the PSN network and that the holes needed to be fixed.
alan666 on 11 May '11 said:
it's the small developers that only market games on PSN that will be hit hard, don't forget that some of them may be counting on the money coming in from sales the previous week to pay peoples wages, this downtime makes little difference to Capcom & EA etc because they have the money to absorb problems like this, & they have other revenue streams.
developers won't be able to sue Sony or anything because Sony will just say it's not there fault.
voodoo341 on 11 May '11 said:
They'll find their revenues dropping even more if Sony don't secure their network and people stop buying games on it totally because of it.
RandyChimp on 11 May '11 said:
ungrateful wankers. Without Sony, MS and Ninty, these asshats wouldn't have any platforms to sell their s**t for. Stop whinging, you pathetic blobs of crap.
BTW, before anyone says, I know the three companies I mentioned aren't the only companies to make consoles, but they're the three major platforms atm.
ricflair on 11 May '11 said:
And conversely the console companies would be f**ked if no third parties made games for their consoles...
If these devs are really relying on the money from one week to pay the wages for the next week, it's really not sustainable anyway. I don't know the system, but I doubt Sony send them a chunk of cash every week for the games sold the week before. The Pixeljunk games are pretty popular anyway aren't they?
I can totally understand them being p**sed though, and they haven't, and neither did Capcom, slag off Sony - they're just saying things as they see it, especially someone who makes a lot of PSN exclusive games.
Regardless of blame, PSN has been down for a long time, so I can understand devs getting a little antsy.
RandyChimp on 11 May '11 said:
So it's a mutual relationship. They still need to stop whinging and moaning and deal with it, Sony have got a lot of s**t going on at the moment, they're probably suffering more than these developers.
g_marrs on 11 May '11 said:
http://www.motifake.com/image/demotivational-poster/small/0911/fanatic-fanatic-crazy-churchill-demotivational-poster-1257637573.jpg
Barca Azul on 11 May '11 said:
I have pixel junk racer hoping it would play like super sprint, it doesn't...... Very disappointing.
Activision can just do one, no one cares for their "pain".
I've always used the network scratch cards and got 50 euros to spend if and when it returns.
TheLastDodo on 11 May '11 said:
Not a fan of any of the Pixel Junk games so I wouldn't be fussed if they stopped developing games for PS3, however if Sony lost Housemarque (Super Stardust, Dead Nation, Outland), thatgamecompany (flOW, Flower, The Journey) or Double Fine (Costume Quest, Stacking) then I'd be p**sed.