PlayStation Plus a plus for indie game developer

Klei’s Don’t Starve scores over 1m downloads

Over a million customers have downloaded Don’t Starve and, thanks to its success on the PlayStation 4, independent developer Klei is considering bringing the game to the PlayStation Vita.

Speaking to Edge, Klei’s Corey Rollins explained that being featured on PlayStation Plus was a tremendous boost to the game’s profile and may even have contributed to sales on other platforms.

“Well before the end of 2013 we had over one million Don’t Starve players,” Rollins said.

“With PlayStation Plus, beyond promotion of being a featured game, a lot of people who maybe wouldn’t have tried our game did [try it] and really enjoyed it. Some of those people went on to check out the PC version as well, and would maybe be interested in the upcoming DLC.”

Despite the success of Don’t Starve and the Vancouver studio’s earlier Mark of the Ninja, Rollins says there won’t be a follow up to either games aside from the occasional DLC release.

“To be honest, we really like doing new things. We like to explore new things and challenge ourselves,” he explained.

“We’ve done everything from puzzle games, to 2D brawlers, to stealth, and now survival with Don’t Starve. We feel pretty strongly about not doing sequels unless you have something really new to bring to table. It’s definitely a possibility, but we’ll need to take some time to think about the best way to revisit [Don’t Starve] if we do.”

That doesn’t preclude the possibility of bringing old titles to new platforms, and Klei is looking in to bringing Don’t Starve to the audience of PlayStation Vita owners hungry for more games.

“We’re investigating a proper Vita version at the moment, but we’re not quite sure yet,” he says.

“Currently, a lot of people play Don’t Starve: Console Edition using the PS4′s remote play, and really enjoy it. So we’re looking into a proper Vita release. As for iOS and mobile, that is something we’ve also been investigating and we think might work, but it’s not at the front of our development priorities right now. It’s still on our radar, though.”

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