Sony: Industry must support indie developers

Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios boss Shuhei Yoshida has said the industry must support digital indie game development in order to sustain innovation.

Yoshida told Develop “the whole industry will stall” if small, creative ‘garage developers’ aren’t encouraged to flourish.

“As an industry, we have to support those smaller teams, and let them try out their ideas,” he said. “Without doing so, the whole industry will stall, in terms of innovation.”

PlayStation Suite, a new Sony platform announced earlier this year, will enable developers to port PlayStation content to Android devices, while the Minis platform is home to a range of 'snackable' titles digitally distributed via the PlayStation Store.

Yoshida said of providing indie developers with digital platforms: “Having the capability to sell their games on the network is key to giving those smaller teams an opportunity to come up with ideas, and sometimes invest their own money to come up with something special and have their projects meet with millions of users.”

Rival platform holder Nintendo hasn’t publicly displayed such an open-arms policy to developers of all shapes and sizes. Back in March, Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime sought to clarify comments he made in which he said Nintendo had no interest in working with small, independent or ‘garage’ developers.

“We’ve been clear that we want to work with independent developers who understand, who have experience in this business,” he said at the time. “That’s different from the person who envisions themselves as a developer, but hasn’t actually created anything. That’s where we draw the line.

“If someone calls us tomorrow who has no experience in the gaming industry, but has passion and a great idea, our perspective would be: ‘Great, but get some experience. Understand your craft, and then come back to us’.”

Source: Develop