Indie Dev Finds Success on Playstation VR 2: "It Was Definitely Worth the Effort"
Porting his game Suicide Guy VR to PSVR 2 was worth it for Fabio Ferrara, despite the many hurdles.
In a recent blog post, Suicide Guy VR Deluxe developer Fabio Ferrara talks about his experience developing for Playstation VR 2 and the game's success:
I can start by saying that it is certainly a new platform on which it is commercially worth developing, since in just a month we already passed the 10.000 units sold of our VR game, and went on top 20 (PSVR2) games on the store for few days. (The launch during the Christmas period and the few titles present on the store, certainly helped sales)
However, not everything went according to plan: Ferrara admits that the porting process was very complex and took eight months instead of the planned three, due to an unexpected number of things that had to be changed when porting from PSVR 1 to PSVR 2.
"For example, we had to improve many aspects of the game such as the frame rate and the quality of interactions in order for the title to be accepted for publication on the PlayStation Store," writes Ferrara.
The game was first released for SteamVR in 2017, and for Meta's PC VR platform in 2021. Ferrara says of the Playstation Store: "It is certainly the store where it has performed best in terms of sales numbers so far, but also the most difficult to publish on."
Development for Playstation VR 2: pros and cons
The game, which was also released for PC and consoles under various titles such as "Sleepin' Guy" or just "The Guy," is described as follows:
"Suicide Guy is a first person action-puzzle game set in a world of dreams. You'll assume the role of a nice big guy unable to wake up from his dreams. Your task is to help him to step out of them."
Despite the game's sales success: Ferrara's statements confirm rather than refute previous reports from other studios about the difficult development of PSVR 2.
However, his success story shows that it can be rewarding for solo developers and small studios to develop for PSVR 2, especially in the early stages of the platform when the game library is still limited and consumers are willing to try unknown, smaller titles.
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