First Apple, Then google, A now SONY is being Sued for their 30% fee on the "Playstation" marketplace

[darknessblade]

 

Summary

Sony PlayStation is being sued for £5bn by nine million claimants amid accusations it "ripped people off" with overpriced games and in-game purchases.

 

Quotes

Quote

Sony PlayStation is being sued for £5bn by nine million claimants amid accusations it "ripped people off" with overpriced games and in-game purchases.

The legal claim is a collective action against the gaming company, brought by consumer rights champion Alex Neill. It accuses the company of breach of competition law by abusing its market power to impose unfair terms and conditions on game developers and publishers, forcing up prices for consumers.

It allegedly "ripped people off" by charging a 30% commission on every digital game and in-game purchase made through the PlayStation Store.

Consumers have been overcharged for their digital gaming purchases by as much as £5bn over the last six years, the legal action states.

 

My thoughts

 This was eventually expected to happen, If this paves a way to cheaper prices in the playstation store, it is nothing but good news.

 

 

Sources

https://news.sky.com/story/sony-playstation-being-sued-for-5-billion-amid-claims-it-ripped-off-nine-million-consumers-12678949

 

[williamcll]

It's a class action lawsuit then? 

[hishnash]

8 minutes ago, darknessblade said:

 This was eventually expected to happen, If this paves a way to cheaper prices in the playstation store, it is nothing but good news.

 

Not for game devs,  Sony has managed to "..somehow..." keep game prices nice and high.

Unlike vendors like Apple and Google who basicly have been actively pushing devs to free + add/in-app nightmare. Sony's model I much better.

Yes you need to pay $80 for a game but that game should give you 40h+ of entertainment, in the rest of the entertainment industry getting 1h of entrapment for 2$ is a very very good deal.. I don't see why charing a reusable price for games is a bad thing. If you want games to be made you need to pay from them just like other software the alternative is free-ware add filled pay to win loot box driven as that it he only other way to make money in the industry (see iOS/Android and many PC titles)..

 

--
Also worth noting that Sony charge 30% regardless of how you buy even if you buy a physical copy.  They have always charge 30% and that is were vendors like Apple and Google got the 30% idea from. 

[CTR640]

And Phony thinks it's fair to keep prices at $70...

[hishnash]

1 minute ago, CTR640 said:

And Phony thinks it's fair to keep prices at $70...

$70 for a game is completely fair.  The alternative is pay to win loot box driven ads (see iOS and Android and lots of new PC titles). 

[CTR640]

Just now, hishnash said:

$70 for a game is completely fair.  The alternative is pay to win loot box driven ads (see iOS and Android and lots of new PC titles). 

Are you trying to justify the prices? There are $70 games and yet they are full of microtransactions and lootboxes like EA, Blizzard and other greedy coorporations does. iOS/Andriod games are also completely different to big games like on PC and consoles.

[hishnash]

3 minutes ago, CTR640 said:

There are $70 games and yet they are full of microtransactions and lootboxes like EA, Blizzard and other greedy coorporations does.

For sure if you charge for a game (even $1) I think is should not have any ads or in-app-pruchases the only legit extra charge could be a real explanation pack style thing that you release a few years later that is more than just a few bits of house armour.


 

 

4 minutes ago, CTR640 said:

iOS/Andriod games are also completely different to big games like on PC and consoles.

They are but they could charge $5 to $30 for them but the platform owners (apple and google) actively push devs to have free (with IAP) models as this helps sell devices (users see all the free games... it was part of apples original pitch of the App Store that there were so many apps/games costly almost nothing) and if your a dev on the platform it is well known that getting featured by Google or Apple on the front page (very important boost) is much harder if you charge up front.

[hishnash]

This how companies that ship hardware should not be permitted to charge rev share style pricing for SDK usage is strange.

Chargin a ref share model for SKD access has been a common aspect of the software industry for years, the idea that due to having a hardware product you sell you are somehow not forbidden from also licensing the SDK is a little fair fetched, would that means that a company that already sells an SDK based on a ref share model (like Epic games Unreal engine) would need to provide this to developers free if epic opted to release thier own console? 

[Rauten]

31 minutes ago, darknessblade said:

My thoughts

 This was eventually expected to happen, If this paves a way to cheaper prices in the playstation store, it is nothing but good news.

Please excuse me, I need to get some tea to choke on.

 

Even if, even if, they win, all they'll achieve is to increase profit margins for the developers instead of Sony.

Why would the developers ever pass on the "savings" on to the consumers, when they could just keep on charging 70 queenerinos and pocket the extra profit?

 

The best they can hope for, if they win, is for a decent payout for each person involved.

[mr moose]

33 minutes ago, Rauten said:

Please excuse me, I need to get some tea to choke on.

 

Even if, even if, they win, all they'll achieve is to increase profit margins for the developers instead of Sony.

Why would the developers ever pass on the "savings" on to the consumers, when they could just keep on charging 70 queenerinos and pocket the extra profit?

 

The best they can hope for, if they win, is for a decent payout for each person involved.

We can also hope that it opens the market which leads to competition which leads to lower prices.  Not everyone can afford all the games (which is a major reason piracy exists) so many consumers will be choosing which store and which game to buy. 

 

Now if markets are opened up and developers have other options to sell software without being tied to exclusive stores with compulsory fees and the prices don't drop,  then we have another issue and we can take up our pitch forks and start demanding answers from developers (or simply not buy their wares).  

[Rauten]

10 minutes ago, mr moose said:

We can also hope that it opens the market which leads to competition which leads to lower prices.

Would be great, but I doubt it.

Look at iOS - and that's a mobile phone, a far, far more important and borderline necessary possession nowadays. 

For a console? Good effin' luck  

[Gamer Schnitzel]

1 hour ago, darknessblade said:

 

If this paves a way to cheaper prices in the playstation store, it is nothing but good news.

 

This is exactly why I only come to this forum to post shit and collect my quarterly ban and leave again. What a ridicilous thing to say. Anyone with half a brain cell knows that if the cut decreased the consumer price would remain the same but instead the developers would get more of the money. Neither Sony or the devs want the consumer sheep to pay less. The only reason why they say it in the lawsuit is because it "sounds good" but their objective is to obtain a higher share of the revenue and not for you to pay less money. But hey dude, good luck with having Riley pick this up for his tech news so your name is shown on a screen... it's kool.

[mr moose]

6 minutes ago, Rauten said:

Would be great, but I doubt it.

Look at iOS - and that's a mobile phone, a far, far more important and borderline necessary possession nowadays. 

For a console? Good effin' luck  

That is the chief argument I have been making in the apple threads regarding the app store and why such exclusive attributes are anti consumer and actually fall foul of the very definition of anti trust.  But, just like trying to get corporations to play fair, it is just as impossible getting some consumers to stop worshiping the ground these companies walk on.

[Ultraforce]

1 hour ago, Rauten said:

Even if, even if, they win, all they'll achieve is to increase profit margins for the developers instead of Sony.

Why would the developers ever pass on the "savings" on to the consumers, when they could just keep on charging 70 queenerinos and pocket the extra profit?

No way does it increase profit margins for developers it will increase profit margins for publishers and I imagine most publishers will simply in the future have contracts where the developers would keep the same percentage they currently have but the publishers get extra.

Personally, if any of these types of things for consoles go through in terms of being allowed to have alternative stores is that Sony will keep the 30% at the PlayStation Store and do something like the Sony seal of approval and just include a warning this game has not been tested by PlayStation to confirm it works on your device would you still like to buy/play it for the other stuff.


 

[Doobeedoo]

Who didn't see this coming? I mean on consoles also it's the most ridiculous situation price wise for games.

Also in general people don't want to pay more than $60 for AAA game in general. While not even every is worth it be it full of bugs micro trash or just a bad game.

[Hungvatly]

The thing is Apple and Google made profits with the operating system and the device they sold. Sony sold playstation with almost no profit, they sold it at a lost with their first batch.

[Obioban]

This is certainly the inevitable conclusion of platform fees being determined to be anti-competitive.  If it's not allowed on phones, the console situation is identical.

 

Hopefully it also spreads to car infotainment systems.

[starsmine]

8 hours ago, CTR640 said:

And Phony thinks it's fair to keep prices at $70...

yes... its fair. Game prices have been getting cheaper over time due to inflation. New games during ps3 was 60 bucks. or 50 during ps2 era. You are kidding everyone if you think 70 dollars in 2022 is too expensive.

MTX in games is a totally different discussion, and honestly, my suggestion to that is stop playing EA sports games/2k then. Its not like you dont have plenty of other games you can play that are not toxic.

As for OP story, I dont see it changing much. Retailers get a 30% cut.
What is weird in terms of this case is the online store front getting 30% ONTOP of the licensing fees publishers already payed sony. In terms of the Game price break down, 10 bucks regardless of who sells the game generally is a license fee to run the game on the console, so double dipping like that is oof, but it doesnt really change anything in terms of the game publisher side of things.

While they may have a point in terms of raising the price for games published by companies that are not anti consumer. This wont do shit for the activisions, EAs, and ubisofts of the world. 

Also as others have pointed out, it wont do much if anything for developers, any money saved will be funneled to the publishers, not Devs, not consumers.

[GhostRoadieBL]

This hasn't come up yet but reading into some other articles it's sounding like a motivation for this was price on the playstation store vs physical and other retailers were not market comparable.

The leg they can probably stand on is diskless console's only store is the playstation store and when the rest of the market has potentially lower prices (can't confirm but expected) for the same product, it can be seen as negatively impacting consumers locked into that method as anti-competitive.

The UK is likely one of the only places a class action like this could happen since the rest of the world is decades behind consumer protection laws.

[ToboRobot]

8 hours ago, darknessblade said:

 

My thoughts

 This was eventually expected to happen, If this paves a way to cheaper prices in the playstation store, it is nothing but good news.

If customers are willing to spend $60 on a game, and suddenly the developer/publisher doesn't have to give up 30% of the revenue, it's highly unlikely that the market will adjust prices lower for consumers, the devs and publishers will just take that money.

If Apple, MS, Sony, don't have this revenue from selling games for their platforms, access to those platforms will get more expensive or other services on the platforms will increase in price to compensate for the lost revenue.  

 

No one wants to make less money.

[Supreme Calamitas]

Valve right now

 

[Zodiark1593]

14 hours ago, hishnash said:

$70 for a game is completely fair.  The alternative is pay to win loot box driven ads (see iOS and Android and lots of new PC titles). 

Or don’t play games that are on the bleeding edge, and pay a hell of a lot less via sales (pc) or used. I never paid over $40 for a single game, and the vast majority of my library has been procured under $15 each. 
 

My $5 Skyrim purchase years back (all DLC included) was definitely one of my best buys, from an playtime/dollar ratio. 

[hishnash]

11 hours ago, hungnguyen said:

The thing is Apple and Google made profits with the operating system and the device they sold. Sony sold playstation with almost no profit, they sold it at a lost with their first batch.

The chose to sell the hardware at a loos is a move to dominate the market nothing forced Sony to do this, the only way that this would stand up in court is if there were legislation forcing Sony to sell at a loss. 

That said I think it is completely fine for Sony (and others) to charge us devs for SDK access and promotion. The expectation that everything is free is just absurd and doing so in fact further entrentese the dominate of existing players as it makes it utterly impossible for a new new comer who does not already have many other products to create revenue. 

[Rauten]

6 hours ago, Marko1600 said:

Valve right now

Valve right now doesn't give a damn; they are not affected by this in any way, shape or form.

 

When you buy a PlayStation, all your game purchases go through Sony one way or another. Within their own ecosystem, they maintain not just market dominance, but full monopoly. Hence why they can be taken to trial.

 

On PC, however, Steam is "merely" the market dominant force, but you can also go to EGS, GOG, itch.io, EA Play, Uplay, the XBox app...
Steam is very far from being a monopoly.

[Kisai]

20 hours ago, Gamer Schnitzel said:

This is exactly why I only come to this forum to post shit and collect my quarterly ban and leave again. What a ridicilous thing to say. Anyone with half a brain cell knows that if the cut decreased the consumer price would remain the same but instead the developers would get more of the money. Neither Sony or the devs want the consumer sheep to pay less. The only reason why they say it in the lawsuit is because it "sounds good" but their objective is to obtain a higher share of the revenue and not for you to pay less money. 

Well obviously. 

 

Just to put it out there. The "cost to distribute" is effectively zero. Charging 30% on the consoles is because you, the developer, agreed to it as part of obtaining the SDK. If you don't want to pay it, well, blame EA, SEGA and Nintendo.  EA basically decided to make their own carts and reverse engineered the SEGA Genesis cart, and basically said "let us do this, or we will ruin you.", Subsequently Nintendo and Sony learned from that and made sure that that wasn't happening again. EA made it's own third party carts without paying SEGA. Meanwhile, for Nintendo (and the reason they stick to carts to date) is to keep control and their fees, even if the game is digitally delivered.

 

So it's been a de-facto business-as-usual even as we switched to digital downloads. For some reason Sony felt that it should still be charging pre-digital prices in an environment that they are no longer producing the media for.

 

Meanwhile, Apple and Google produce a digital-only market that has no physical media, what-so-ever, yet are charging commission fees as though every game is being sent out on DVD's. Unlike Sony however, the entry level price is free.

 

Valve's Steam and Epic have no reason to charge a commission fee at all, you as a game developer are getting nothing from the store. You aren't using anything but their store and effectively-free distribution. The Epic store is also a complete boondoggle as far as comparing it to anyone else store. It's amazing that they have not fixed it's worst problems. 

 

Remember, people are more willing to pay more money when the experience is nice. When the experience is slow, ugly or difficult, it becomes difficult to justify spending money on it, because it shows the developer doesn't understand it's customers.

 

Every time I hear someone go "but customer choice" what I really hear is "I don't want choice, I just want a lower price at any cost, even if the experience is 100x worse" You have the choice of going to the upscale mall and paying 10x the price for the exact same not-made-in-the-USA garbage that Walmart sells, but the item is exactly the same. That's not true of software or games. The game is always exactly the same, but the amount of hurdles you have to leap over to get the software or game working depends on how married it is to the store's or console platform.