Arguably the 2nd most common question Canuck Play is asked about the forthcoming Canadian football title, besides ‘Is there a license?’ is – ‘where’s the PS4 version?’ – or at least, some variation of that question. The answer to that is not all that complicated but given that it’s asked so often I thought it best to create a formal explanation of how we arrived where we are, and what we’re going to try for in the future.
This game project’s kickoff occurred in December of 2015 when a former co-worker suggested I contact Microsoft regarding a new program they established to help independent development studios get on the XBox One console. Sheryl Loucks, my partner in all things, and I put together and submitted a business plan shortly after. This plan included a pitch as to why a Canadian football game would be unique in the market, what our proposed budget would be (one that included a pro license and one without), and a prototype. The prototype was something I’d had kicking around for a while and wasn’t really doing anything with, but it existed and it was enough to pique Microsoft’s interest. Within about 30 days we’d signed a publishing agreement as well as a developer agreement which meant Microsoft covered the cost of development kits and software licensing (so they didn’t give us cash, but we didn’t have to spend any on those items either, so it worked out to be the same thing).
It was also around this time that we became clients of the Peterborough Innovation cluster and they have been extremely helpful in covering additional costs such as a small amount of office space, and giving us access to various services.
When April 2016 rolled around and it was obvious there was no movement on the pro license we went back to Microsoft and explained that our budget had essentially been cut by about 99%. They seemed un-phased and agreed that Canuck would just have to take the long way and they were happy to continue to support the project.
So we were covered on the XBox One and we knew the PC was not going to be a problem, so that left only Sony and the PS4. We had reached out to Sony at roughly the same time as we started discussions with Microsoft, but it took until well into June 2016 before we had any replies to any of our enquiries. When we did get a reply their biggest concern was lack of budget and no license. After some back and forth we did eventually sign a publishing agreement in October of 2016. So yes, a really big step, but we’re not quite there yet.
Unfortunately Sony does not have an equivalent to the Independent Developer program. While there are many independent game studios creating content for the PS4, there was at the time (or even now as far as we know) no supportive program. So costs of development kits and any associated software licenses come out of our pocket. PS4 development hardware is very, very expensive. So we have an agreement in place, but it’s up to us to do everything else.
We also ran into a problem of time. There’s just never enough of it.
Every console game must conform to specific platform requirements. This is normally things like making sure the game has achievements and unlockables, any user profile management is dealt with properly and consistently, naming conventions are met (no PS4 button icons showing up on an XBox for example), and various other needs are taken care of. And because each platform uses a completely different way of doing these same things, you have to create a completely different code stream to deal with each platform. Unfortunately, given the late date we got the ball rolling with the Sony agreement, we just simply did not have enough physical time to build for both platforms. Not with the resources we were left with when our license dependent funding wasn’t there any longer.
So where does that leave things. Well, right now the plan is to get the XBox One and PC platforms out the door. They’re the priority. Once that’s done, and there’s some revenue coming in, we can go back and look at the PS4. At the absolute earliest we are looking at some time in the late fall for a PS4 edition, but even that is something that shouldn’t be taken as written in stone.
So the short form of this long answer is Yes, we absolutely agree that the game needs to be on as many platforms as possible. And we’re going to try and do that, it’s just going to take some work from us and support from you.
Thanks
David
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