"The word of a friend always holds more weight than that of a critic."
Brian Provinciano's Retro City Rampage dropped into the rotation in late December. He said publishers and developers are the ones who choose whether or not to put their game on PS Plus. "It's totally up to us. If a game's on there, it's safe to assume that the publisher or developer was satisfied with the agreement," explained Provinciano.
He said he doesn't have a method of measuring exactly the impact the promotion had, but he knows it had a positive effect, as it got the word out about a new intellectual property that most players had never heard of.
"It has surely helped build the brand," Provinciano said. "Looking at two data points, the number of players and how much they played shows that it's grown the user base and created fans. Over 125,000 additional players gave it a try and despite getting it for free, around 85 percent of them enjoyed it enough to play through most of the game."
That data provided some validation for Provinciano; it showed that people who tried the game actually enjoyed it enough to play it a lot.
What that equates to is "more potential customers with their eyes on what I release next," he said. "Gaining 100,000 additional fans to spread the word is huge, especially in combating some mixed reviews from critics at launch.
"One notable reviewer claimed that the game was too difficult and stopped playing halfway through, scoring it low. However, PS Plus cultivated another 100,000 people who can tell their friends otherwise. The word of a friend always holds more weight than that of a critic."
Provinciano said PS Plus has given him and other developers another way to "keep the tail alive," extending sales. "I admittedly put Retro City Rampage in PS Plus too soon, but there were other factors involved. One being that the XBLA release at the time was uncertain, so I need to make the most of which platforms were. Secondly, I was excited for it to be part of the launch of PS Plus on PS Vita."
So, for the studios who got back with us, it does sound as though "free" does pay off for developers, when it comes to PS Plus. But long-term, there could be a potential, major drawback -- the "I'll get it when it's free" syndrome.
"I won't make every game available for free on PS Plus," Provinciano said. "If players come to expect that every game from a developer will be eventually made available for free, it will eat into day one purchases. I'd determine it on a case-by-case basis."
Foosball 2012's Mikyska added that such promotions could have a market-wide impact on players' pricing expectations. "I think that [PS Plus] has its major advantages, but also some pitfalls that must be avoided. Most importantly -- we mustn't educate our customers that games are for free, like the developers of mobile games did, or we have a problem. But, so far, PS Plus seems to be working well."
|
Printer-Friendly Version
If it works for Steam, it should work here, too.
EDITED TO CLARIFY:
Steams sales are beneficial for the publisher for the same reasons.
I don't use this monthly service feature myself, I've only purchased individual PC titles from them, but it seems somewhat similar to the PS+ feature of assorted games (+ any 1 title of choice) for a service fee. (although at a higher price than PS+)
But outside of the PSVita instant library. I find that there are lots of games on the Instant Library rotation that I would have never bought in the first place. So I guess it is more about building a fanbase...even for the bigger Library releases like Sleeping Dogs--I can tell you that I would have never picked this game up...but it's downloading and I intend to go check it out. Sorry I didn't pay for it--but I wasn't going to anyway.
Games are priced so low that they are practically given away, which is how part of PSN Plus works, with the discounted sales they have. Some have alleged that the low prices hurt the publishers, but this has been refuted, I believe. Publishers are on board with the Steam sales for the same reason they are with PSN Plus, both the free games and the discounted ones.
Eric,
Sleeping Dogs is terrific. Totally worth 60 dollars by itself.
They need to get more coverage on this, because this is the first I'm hearing of it (and I pay way more attention to developments like this than the average gamer).
Anecdotal, to be sure, but so is your statement.
Since Sony seems to be doing so well with this approach, I wonder why Microsoft and Nintendo don't adopt the same approach? I only have so much time to game and with all the games I get through PS+ I hardly have any time to touch my other consoles. PS+ could be a big advantage going into the next console generation so I expect another console maker to try and copy it.
I think it is smart for multiplayer games to go the PS+ route because it help to generate a robust online community for your game.
This is the sort of thing publishers come up with, when they realize that building a loyal customer base is more profitable than treating their developers nicely, because, the developers have to go where the customers are...
"Giving away for free" sounds like you are saying people don't have to pay to receive the content. But they do: $50 a year.
Now, if you meant free from the developer's side, that's another thing. I took it as you meant people were getting the content for free.
Is that what you meant? Clarifying instead of being snide might be a good idea, as well.
That's a rather odd statement, actually. Since they didn't publish the game, of course Sony wouldn't give them money directly. But presumably they gave some to Squenix, who was the publisher and presumably financed the development of the game.
But beyond that, it's really not free for anyone. It's basically like Netflix for games - while you are a member of PS+ for a monthly (or yearly) fee, you can play X amount of games all you want. You stop being a member, no more games.
Does the original creator of those movies Netflix show get anything direct from Netflix? No, of course not, they give money to the people who own the rights to the movies, who may or may not hand out money depending on the contract.
So good to know Devs are getting something out of it. :)
For some unexplained and undiscussed reason that may or may not be interesting We assumed PS Plus is a sideways deal for developers. Those we spoke to all said they were very happy with it with the exception of a single caveat, which is that if you release a hot, popular game for "free," that's probably not a good idea.
The only real interesting nugget is could PS Plus Devalue Games? In general, I am certain we are going to see a dramatic increase in price variety on console in the next gen, but I would expect prices to line up more with Steam (majority are 5-25) than the App store, regardless of the incoming console F2Ps on the horizon. Even if Sony and MS increase indie games by 500% they will be miles away from the mass of crap that is the App Store. Fears about gamers believing games will only be worth $1 seem confused. Already millions of gamers exist who believe NO GAME is worth 20$, or even 1$ (lookin at you, middle class pirates).
Ultimately PS Plus encourages people to play games. The more games you play that you enjoy, the more games you will play in the future. One of the most amazing PS4 promises is the Demo Every Game promise. This terrifies some publishers and developers but this idea works just like PS Plus. I can't tell you how many times I've considered buying Dragon's Dogma, but at this point, unless I get my hands on it and know for sure (or it drops in price to the point of being a negligible cost) I'll never buy it. A PS Plus sale, or demo, could mean a purchase for the developer.