In an act of continued goodwill toward independent developers, Sony has revealed that it plans to foot the bill for indies showing their games at Tokyo Game Show this year. More specifically, Sony is taking care of exhibition costs for games appearing at the Indie Game Area, which removes a huge barrier of entry for developers hoping to grab some publicity at the event.
Applications are available now to developers looking to take advantage of the IGA (you’re welcome for the incredibly hip acronym, Sony), and interestingly, it’ll be the show’s organizers who choose the final games, not Sony. Presumably this was part of the intial deal between Sony and the Tokyo Game Show in the first place, to ensure the company’s intentions were “pure,” and not just aimed at boosting PlayStation indies.
Still, there are bound to be plenty of great independent titles headed to Sony platforms, and Sony’s own Brad Douglas clarified the company’s stance via Twitter.
I should point out that just because we’re picking up exhibition costs doesn’t mean we have any say in what’s exhibited. That’s all TGS.
— Brad Douglas (@kazamatsuri) May 28, 2014
That said though, we don’t care if the game is on a PlayStation platform or not. The more indie games, the better! Just bring cool stuff!
— Brad Douglas (@kazamatsuri) May 28, 2014
Hear hear! It’s hard not to applaud such an attitude, though it’s also hard not to wonder how and why Sony has free cash to put toward anything. Regardless, it’s a nice precedent to set, and one I’d love to see other companies follow suit on in the future.
[Via: Siliconera]
