Andrew Parsons, director of publisher and developer relations for SCEE, explained that this new section of the store will provide indie titles with additional exposure, alongside the regular PSN channels.
The "Indie Games" section will appear in the PS Store on both the PS3 and the PS Vita, and allow users to scroll through all the available indie titles on PlayStation without having to wade through the AAA releases too.
Parsons clarified to Gamasutra that "the indie section exposure is in addition to the content being found in its normal slots in the main Store" in the EU store, while Joystiq received confirmation of this fact in the U.S. store.
I don't think a separate channel for indies provides more exposure. It's like "REAL GAMES HERE" (front and center no doubt), or you can go check out the "indie games" in the back.
Why distinguish? That automatically limits the eyeballs on these things. Games should be sorted by player ranking, number of downloads, and amount of revenue generated, like on iOS and Google Play. THAT is how you level the playing field.
If playstation users need a section to tell them a game is indie then they aren't very involved in the medium and probably wont care that much about this.
@Vinicius it's not hard at all to tell the difference between AAA and indie if you're involved with the medium. The fact sony feels they have to tell their users the differnece speaks volumes about their user base.
@Jonathan Ghazarian:
I hope you are right, honestly. Since what happened with Live is well-documented at this point. Sony really can't afford to have management of that second be waisted in a similar matter.
Duvelle, yeah if you read the original post it specifies that nothing changes in the normal channels. The big difference from the Xbox is that they made a system where anyone could put up a game without going through normal approval. While that was a great idea, and really helped a lot of new developers get something out there, it never quite worked that great as an extra marketplace. I think part of that was developers expecting it to be more than it was meant to be. I still think the XBLIG channel was a good thing overall, but it wasn't supported enough.
All that being said, I hope Sony does more, expecially with the PS4 to allow developers to develop without barriers. It sounds like they're on the right path so far.
@Jonathan Ghazarian: I understand that, but I think that the biggest failing that came out of XBLIG is simply this. The lack of moderation was not conducive to the marketplace nor the platform, there as to be some vetting of projects coming into a service like that. The lack of manpower and will to do so is quite noticeable on Microsoft's part. Going forward, I don't expect that to happen twice.
As far as Sony is concerned, We'll see. First off... this is just a marketplace, which is good in my eyes. This doesn't really need to be a part of other initiatives.
Second off, I wonder what Sony does to highlight the market place exists to consumers. Because I am rather interested to see if some games get more exposure than what we have currently.
As for the PS4, I remain highly skeptical of the system as a whole. And to be honest, I don't have all the details over it... So again, we'll see.
EDIT: Originaly I commented on why it would be bad to put Indies on a separate category. But if it is still in the main store and its just an extra place to browse, great! Could not be better, Sony ;D
The story points out very clearly that this is not removing them from the normal store. Any browsing that you once did will still show these games. This ONLY gives them another place where you'll discover these specific games. It does nothing to remove visibility for these games, it only adds. I'm not saying this is good within itself, but it does not remove them from their normal place. They are just like any other PSN game still.
Yeah, it's always difficult when stories like this come out and some misinformation spreads. I think Sony has been doing a great job with handling indies lately.
Why distinguish? That automatically limits the eyeballs on these things. Games should be sorted by player ranking, number of downloads, and amount of revenue generated, like on iOS and Google Play. THAT is how you level the playing field.
The games are highlighted in an indie section and also in their normal area, as well. Not exactly tossed to the back, as you claim.
You know how to differentiate apples from oranges, but it still makes it a lot easier that they're sold separetely.
http://store.steampowered.com/genre/Indie
or Microsoft's:
http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-US/Games/XboxIndieGames
I hope you are right, honestly. Since what happened with Live is well-documented at this point. Sony really can't afford to have management of that second be waisted in a similar matter.
All that being said, I hope Sony does more, expecially with the PS4 to allow developers to develop without barriers. It sounds like they're on the right path so far.
As far as Sony is concerned, We'll see. First off... this is just a marketplace, which is good in my eyes. This doesn't really need to be a part of other initiatives.
Second off, I wonder what Sony does to highlight the market place exists to consumers. Because I am rather interested to see if some games get more exposure than what we have currently.
As for the PS4, I remain highly skeptical of the system as a whole. And to be honest, I don't have all the details over it... So again, we'll see.