In a DM to IGN, Barry Johnson of Lillymo Games says the studio was “by no means warned about the closure of the Vita store.” In fact, Johnson says they just bought a second Vita devkit last month.
“When there was a report that this was happening through the story at TheGamer, we addressed Sony for clarification and got no response. We found out at the same time as the public that we would have to cancel our Vita version of our next game. ”
TheGamer, which initially reported on the PlayStation Store for the closure of legendary Sony consoles, also spoke to several developers working on PS Vita games for future release.
One of the developers is Miguel Sternberg, game designer at Spooky Squid. Sternberg is currently working on a port of their game Russian Subway Dogs and is trying take out the Vita version before the store closes in August.
“I worked on transferring the game to PS4, Xbox One and Vita, switching back and forth every few weeks,” Sternberg said in a message to IGN. ‘It was a serious emotional blow because I was happy about the new improvements I made [to the Vita port] over the weekend, to learn, it may be too late to release the game, and now know it is possible, but only if I can meet the deadline. I miss it for whatever reason, and all the work is free! ”
IGN separately learned what these deadlines for Vita developers look like, thanks to an email PlayStation sent to developers that IGN acquired and independently verified.
According to this email, the last date to submit games at the PS Vita store is July 12th and the last day to release the contents of the PS Vita is July 20th. The last date to submit a game to Sony’s global quality assurance is July 6, though Sony says it can not guarantee the slots for review.
The short window for the developers was incredibly frustrating. Johnson says there have been issues such as their games not appearing in the latest release section in the PS Vita store, but the lack of warning was an even bigger surprise.
‘I did not expect to find out through a news release that the store was closing. I would have hoped to receive something like a year’s warning to complete all projects, ‘Johnson lamented.
Sternberg says he’s in a happier position and is close enough to release the game if he meets the deadline. But the lack of warning added ‘a lot of tension and unpredictability to a fun passion project I was working on while completing ports for the large consoles,’ he says.
“Now I’m throwing the job away and canceling the Vita version, or I’ll make it my priority for the next few months and hope nothing unexpected gets in the way.”
MattTM Kim is IGN’s news editor.