Back in July, many independent publishers publicly blamed Sony because it had been blind to the huge challenges faced by small developers releasing games on the PlayStation. Although Sony publicly did not publish an official comment on the complaints at the time, it appears that the company has learned about the problem and has recently begun to take action.
Many indie game developers and publishers say Sony's tools and forms of problem solving are too complex, the process is unclear, and communication with them is poor. They also said that while exposure is a problem for the entire industry, Sony's indifference to these issues, even active opposition, has made PlayStation an extremely challenging platform for indie game sales.
Recently, a document entitled "2021 Global Partner Survey Results" broke out, which has been sent to many of Sony's partner developers and distributors. The report doesn't mention this summer's public complaints, but it identified three target areas for "continuous improvement" based on its findings, directly corresponding to questions raised by indie game developers.
The first is "reducing complexity". Sony is committed to improving communication channels, identifying what publishers should focus on, and ensuring that partners are provided with enough operational details to allow them to make decisions. Second, Sony is committed to providing all active publishing and development partners with better game sales, user stickiness and promotion analysis, as well as increased exposure. Finally, Sony said it would modernize its toolset and improve its ticketing system, documentation and customer service for partner questions.
David Logan, CEO of Akupara Games, said Sony's support response time has indeed improved, with the average response time now reduced to about 5 days, with most of the issues being responded to within 24-48 hours.