In connection with the impending interconnection of PlayStation Now and PlayStation Plus, it is being discussed how Sony will approach the release of individual games for subscribers. Although it has been said that, unlike Microsoft, Sony will not offer its titles free of charge on the day of their scheduled release, this can easily happen with games from other developers and publishers. Especially since it’s happened several times in the past. Examples that we often mention are the games Worms Rumble and Oddworld: Soulstorm, which appeared in the PS Plus offer in 2020, respectively. 2021, but at least the developers from Oddworld Inhabitants will probably still consider whether they will nod again at a similar offer. This was suggested by Oddworld studio founder and game director Lorne Lanning in an interview on the Xbox Expansion Pass, when he described the result of the collaboration with Sony as devastating.
Lanning first admits that offering players a title within a subscription is a double-edged sword. According to him, however, the studio did not have much choice, because the developers needed money to complete the game and through an agreement with Sony, they could get to them relatively quickly. “We encountered several technical problems, bugs multiplied quickly in the game, and suddenly a large company appeared here, which offered us a considerable amount and a solution to our problems,” says Lanning. The deal with Sony was simple – the PlayStation 5 was on the horizon, the console manufacturer wanted to offer players something in addition and Oddworld: Soulstorm seemed like a good gift. For an unspecified, but not a small amount, according to Lenning, the developers promised their Sony title and continued to work to complete everything. But the coronavirus pandemic has adversely affected many industries, and the authors of the Oddworld have not escaped problems. Instead of January, they were not able to deliver the expected title until April, which was crucial, according to Lanning.
When the game came out in April, it became the most downloaded on the PS5. That number, I think, was around less than 4 million. Free, says Lanning.
When Sony made the deal, he calculated that in January – less than two months after the launch of the PS5 – there would not be so many people with the new console, so sales would not suffer as much. In addition, Lanning admitted that, according to his own estimates, they should have sold a maximum of 100,000 units shortly after the game’s launch, but rather only half of that amount, of which they would have less money than Sony offered. They therefore jumped at the opportunity to gain a significant financial boost, not cannibalifying too much sales on the PS4, where Oddworld: Soulstorm officially was not available in PS Plus, and also benefited from the interest of PC gamers, who were also looking forward to the remake of the famous game. However, due to the postponement of the game until April, the number of PS5 owners increased, and Lanning apparently forgot during his deliberation that even players who did not have a new console but paid for a PS4 subscription could eventually activate the game.
“When the game came out in April, it became the most downloaded on the PS5. That number, I think, was around less than 4 million. Free. That was devastating for us, “says Lanning. But his evaluation does not seem to be entirely fair. On the one hand, they knew in advance the amount they would receive for the game in PS Plus, and on the other hand, he admitted that they simply needed the money for the game to work out at all. The game was free of charge – or rather for the price of a subscription – but there was no theft or fraud by Sony. We add, however, that at the end of the block about this incident, Lanning admits that he does not blame anyone and does not blame anyone. It’s also important to note that PS Plus subscribers undoubtedly add all the games to the library every month, not necessarily their favorite genre or the titles they really want to play, so there’s no guarantee that Oddworld: Soulstorm will be able to buy the same a lot of people. Nevertheless, it is a very interesting perspective and insight into how the studio can retrospectively evaluate the presence in the subscription and that even smaller developers may not always be completely inclined to such a partnership.
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