Playstation is being sued

[Techno]

Alex Neil has launched a €6 billion dollar lawsuit towards Sony for overcharging for digital purchases. His statement is:

"With this legal action I am standing up for the millions of UK people who have been unwittingly overcharged. We believe Sony has abused its position and ripped off its customers."

Read the rest here:

https://www.ign.com/articles/sony-being-sued-for-5-billion-over-playstation-store-prices

[DC]

I don't understand the premise of the lawsuit. My understanding is that Sony's 30% commission is similar to that of Epic, Microsoft, Steam, and all of the other major players. Seems to be an industry standard?

[Shagger]

I'm all for consumer rights and very much against anti-consumer anything, but if this guy Alex Neill is serious about taking this to court, he had better be ready to get crushed. Not just in gaming, but whenever a store sells something, digital or otherwise, that they themselves didn't make, there's commission of some kind on it. Keeping this more indigenous to gaming, though, the only way this guy could have a case is if Sony overcharged on PSN compared the same games sold new elsewhere, but as far as I know the prices are pretty much the same unless somewhere happens to have sale on. So I'm with @DC on this, the fact that this is all apparently based of off Sony's commission (pretty much at the same 30% rate as Steam, GOG, Xbox and Nintendo. Epic is actually significantly lower than the others at 12%) means this suit is doomed to fail. His heart in the right place, but he dove head first into this without a clue how deep it was. Even the comments section of the article is showing little support for him and mostly people struggling to make sense out of this.

Edited August 22, 2022 by Shagger

[Justin11]

To be frank, the video game items sold by Sony is quite expensive more than the normal price they supposed to be. Alex Neil didn't do any bad to sue them, he wants to protect the right of gamers and not overpaying for gaming items that doesn't worth it. 

[Shagger]

1 hour ago, Justin11 said:

To be frank, the video game items sold by Sony is quite expensive more than the normal price they supposed to be. Alex Neil didn't do any bad to sue them, he wants to protect the right of gamers and not overpaying for gaming items that doesn't worth it. 

 

Don't get me wrong, I want him to succeed here, I truly do, but I'm also a realist and thus I believe he is going to fall on his ass because I don't think he fully understands how this works. Whether Sony are right or wrong in this is irrelevant, what matters is that, as far as I can tell, how Sony charges commission is the basis for his whole argument and it doesn't make sense. Not only is that a weak argument to make on behalf of the consumer anyway, is it also pretty much the exact same thing that happens throughout the industry, so either everybody is guilty of this or nobody is. Even retailers selling physical copies of games charge commission, that's how they get a cut.

 

This would make sense if he could prove that Sony was consistently charging more for thier games on PSN then on anywhere else. I decided to test this by looking at how a random game was priced across the board and after just that on game this this theory is already looking shaky. The game I choose was Stray.

 

Here is how much Stray costs on the British PSN Store right now. This is for the PS4 and PS5 version

 

 

And on Steam...

 

 

OK, it's £1 less. And I'll say, I don't think Sony can justify that. They probably would have some sort of bullshit excuse lined up, but it's starting to look like Alex Neill has a case, until you take a look at GAME, the high street retailer that operates in the UK. That's important because that is where this law suit is being filed. (BTW, I have no idea why GAME is still listing this as a pre-order when the game is already out, but I promise you this fresh is a screen snip I just took for this very post.)

 

 

How on earth is Alex going to prove Sony are ripping people off when the country's most prominant video game retailer is charging a full £10 more for the same game? You see, he has not thought this through.

Edited August 22, 2022 by Shagger

[Kane99]

It sounds like it's just customers who are making a fuss, but I don't see this being any different than Microsoft, Steam, Epic, and all these other platforms that sell digital games. If anything I'd argue Nintendo and them rarely lowering their prices is worse lol. Even their physical games stay up there in price. 

But I do get it, digital game prices rarely go down in price. Yeah we get sales often for many platforms, but it sucks to see some of these digital games for the same price they were at release, when the physical version is like $15 used. 

 

Edited August 22, 2022 by Kane99

[Shagger]

4 minutes ago, Kane99 said:

It sounds like it's just customers who are making a fuss, but I don't see this being any different than Microsoft, Steam, Epic, and all these other platforms that sell digital games. If anything I'd argue Nintendo and them rarely lowering their prices is worse lol. Even their physical games stay up there in price. 

But I do get it, digital game prices rarely go down in price. Yeah we get sales often for many platforms, but it sucks to see some of these digital games for the same price they were at release, when the physical version is like $15 used. 

 

 

The thing is this isn't entitled customers making a fuss, were talking about the ex-managing director of one of the largest and most respected independent consumer advice organisations and watchdogs in the United Kingdom, if not the world. This is a guy that should know what he's doing, and yet here I am completely baffled by his process.

[Heatman]

If Alex Neil wasn't famous already, I would have said that he was just looking for fame to be the one who dragged Sony to court but that's obviously not the case. He should have known that better that his case doesn't have much base nor is it going to hold much water in court. 

[The Blackangel]

This lawsuit won't even make it to court. It's as frivolous as they come, and will be dismissed immediately. That is if he doesn't have a mole or some way to get inside information to undeniably confirm and prove that they are intentionally overcharging consumers. Without that kind of rock solid proof, he is only making an ass of himself.

[Heatman]

1 hour ago, The Blackangel said:

This lawsuit won't even make it to court. It's as frivolous as they come, and will be dismissed immediately. That is if he doesn't have a mole or some way to get inside information to undeniably confirm and prove that they are intentionally overcharging consumers. Without that kind of rock solid proof, he is only making an ass of himself.

He's probably just trying to have Sony rattled but I don't think they would give him the attention he's looking for. In the end, he would eventually just succeed in giving himself a bad rep with this acts. 

[Empire]

I don’t understand how they claim this is ripping off consumers. Wouldn’t that mean that games would be more expensive digitally than they would be physically? If anything the 30% take would be a rip off to publishers.

Also they claim Sony has a monopoly on digital PlayStation games because the PlayStation store is the only place to buy them. That’s like saying the Pokemon company has a monopoly on Pikachu.

[Crazycrab]

This is like someone suing a burger van for charging more for a can of Coke than the corner shop does.  Not only this is clearly not going to go anywhere, but it would create a dangerous legal premise for any company that wants to have a digital sale if it does.  The guy has good intentions but he clearly hasn't thought this through.

[killamch89]

He's unlikely to get anywhere with this lawsuit - I must be missing something here but every online platform the developers publish on has some sort of fee which is usually 30%. It's identical to the mobile industry with Google and Apple charging the same rates to developers which affects developers even more in both instances. I also hope he has deep pockets because the amount of money and time this is going to cost, if he loses, he'll have to pay Sony's lawyer fees which aren't cheap for corporations of that size. It just doesn't seem like he thought this through before he executed his plan.

[Heatman]

On 8/24/2022 at 12:13 PM, Empire said:

I don’t understand how they claim this is ripping off consumers. Wouldn’t that mean that games would be more expensive digitally than they would be physically? If anything the 30% take would be a rip off to publishers.

Also they claim Sony has a monopoly on digital PlayStation games because the PlayStation store is the only place to buy them. That’s like saying the Pokemon company has a monopoly on Pikachu.

There's a kind of lawsuit that you would see against you and all you would do is burst into laughter because it's going to be like a joke of the century. I'm very sure that this is exactly what Sony would feel like when this upgrade get passed on their board meeting table. 

[Clasher]

On 8/23/2022 at 12:16 AM, Shagger said:

 

Don't get me wrong, I want him to succeed here, I truly do, but I'm also a realist and thus I believe he is going to fall on his ass because I don't think he fully understands how this works. Whether Sony are right or wrong in this is irrelevant, what matters is that, as far as I can tell, how Sony charges commission is the basis for his whole argument and it doesn't make sense. Not only is that a weak argument to make on behalf of the consumer anyway, is it also pretty much the exact same thing that happens throughout the industry, so either everybody is guilty of this or nobody is. Even retailers selling physical copies of games charge commission, that's how they get a cut.

 

This would make sense if he could prove that Sony was consistently charging more for thier games on PSN then on anywhere else. I decided to test this by looking at how a random game was priced across the board and after just that on game this this theory is already looking shaky. The game I choose was Stray.

 

Here is how much Stray costs on the British PSN Store right now. This is for the PS4 and PS5 version

 

 

And on Steam...

 

 

OK, it's £1 less. And I'll say, I don't think Sony can justify that. They probably would have some sort of bullshit excuse lined up, but it's starting to look like Alex Neill has a case, until you take a look at GAME, the high street retailer that operates in the UK. That's important because that is where this law suit is being filed. (BTW, I have no idea why GAME is still listing this as a pre-order when the game is already out, but I promise you this fresh is a screen snip I just took for this very post.)

 

 

How on earth is Alex going to prove Sony are ripping people off when the country's most prominant video game retailer is charging a full £10 more for the same game? You see, he has not thought this through.

An interesting comment, in general he isn't sueing them Based on a more broader reasons but he is only sueing them Based on Sony's activities in the UK.

I don't think this case is going to go in favor of him but he is fighting for a good purpose and over here the price of the more recent PlayStation 3 , 4 And 5 are really expensive even for the average man we just buy them because we love video games.