Oddworld creator says PS Plus was ‘devastating’ to Soulstorm sales

Oddworld: Soulstorm was an early success on the PlayStation 5. That was due in part to Sony’s deal that gave the game to PlayStation Plus subscribers on PS5 at no additional cost. But it was likely also because new PS5 owners were ravenous for new content in April 2021. But while that deal enabled developer Oddworld Inhabitants to finish the game with some guaranteed money, studio founder Lorne Lanning told Xbox Expansion Podcast host Luke Lohr that he also sees some downsides.

“It’s kind of a double-edged sword. [With Oddworld: Soulstorm] we — out of necessity to get the project done, and we were hitting a number of late technical debt issues and talent issues. The games industry is emerging fast. Huge companies are [paying developers] fortunes. So it’s harder to retain and harder to contract companies. And Sony was like, ‘hey, why don’t we do a deal.’ And the way we were working out the intention of doing the deal was that we would be free for a month on [PlayStation Plus].”