12 ms·

Stop Killing Games: It's time to sue Sony, join us

245 points by EDM115 1mo ago

tumidpandora 1mo ago
Going digital was inevitable, i'd rather focus on making digital ownership better than fight to restore discs or game codes to 3rd parties
- hollowturtle 1mo ago
  Why not going with both? Choice is never bad for the consumer, even if the majority or sales is digital. I usually buy both and they just lost me, I won't buy into their dystopian store
  - xfnfnxfn 1mo ago
    [flagged]
    - Joel_Mckay 1mo ago
      Have you seen the Warhammer franchise? lol... Thank you, I will see myself out. Some Bro-flake is burying this thread, but you both made good points. GoG or Steam offer a lot of retro games these days, but the 4k upgrades sometimes come with a gameplay emulation downgrade. =3
    - spillguard 1mo ago
      I’m not sure what your actual objection is here. Are you just taking issue with GP’s use of the word “never”?
- MBCook 1mo ago
  Exactly. This is stupid. Physical is dead, there’s no point in arguing otherwise. And you will not win. Sony never signed a contract with you saying they would keep making physical forever. Hell they could pull an old-school Apple, stop selling the PS5, make a tiny change, call it PS6 and be done with you. They could even announce that digital games for the PS6 are also compatible with the PS5! Wow, aren’t they nice. We need laws providing consumer rights. Nothing else will work.
- mikestew 1mo ago
  That's not what TFA is on about at all, it's about the monopoly Sony has on selling digital games exclusively through their store. Physical discs don't enter into it.
  - glitchc 1mo ago
    It's not a monopoly in the console market. There are two other competitors all of whom have roughly equal market share. And they are all walled gardens so Sony is not doing anything differently from its competitors.
    - aurareturn 1mo ago
      Sony's gaming business is tiny relative to iOS gaming business.
  - kergonath 1mo ago
    I am reading a translation, so I might be off base, but not being a monopoly is not a defense. EU competition regulations are not like American antitrust laws. They do not care about monopoly, and consumer harm is mostly a second-order effect. They care about competition, and punish anticompetitive behaviour and abuse of a dominant market position. "It’s not a monopoly" and "there are alternatives" are true, but that’s not all that relevant.
- ronsor 1mo ago
  People don't focus on improving digital ownership because that requires butchering the sacred cow of copyright and DRM. These are the root of the problems and no one wants to touch them.
  - autoexec 1mo ago
    Plenty of people want to address those problems, but politicians don't since they get bribed not to.
- kulahan 1mo ago
  What’s happening is people are realizing how bad current rights for digital goods currently are, and are revolting at this obviously related scenario. What people don’t realize is that physical != ownership. I remember wanting to pop The Dark Knight on Blu-ray into my ps4 for a date night… except the license on the disc expired, so I had to call WB for a new one??? Go figure. Still, it’s fine if people react this way. If nothing else, it sends a message to lawmakers about priorities.
- tripleee 1mo ago
  I actually feel like Nintendo's game key cards are a reasonable compromise, or at least a step in the right direction. Trade-able, lend-able, sell-able, fully offline with no need to periodically auth with a server as long as you have the game downloaded already. They also let you transfer games peer to peer so you don't even need to get it from their servers. The issue with full digital ownership is I don't see how it can be implemented without totally killing the original owner's sales. Imagine if you could resell games on steam and undercut the developers: no-one would buy from them anymore after the initial round of sales, as there's no practical difference.
EDM115 1mo ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUHyYkPnJv0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUHyYkPnJv0
- xav_authentique 1mo ago
  I expected this to be geohots diss track to Sony (https://youtu.be/9iUvuaChDEg https://youtu.be/9iUvuaChDEg)
notenlish 1mo ago
No english translation?
- mikestew 1mo ago
  The translation feature of Safari on macOS worked well enough for me. I would assume that functionality exists on another browser/OS, maybe yours has it?
deleted 1mo ago
[deleted]
999900000999 1mo ago
Silly idea. I would rather have a right to unlock. Make it law that Sony can't prevent alternatives OS installation. Then when you get Arch running on a PS5 you can install Steam on top
- odo1242 1mo ago
  This would help but doesn’t solve the problem these people want solved (Sony being able to take away games after purchase and reselling games being impossible because the games are all digital)
- hnlmorg 1mo ago
  Even when the PS3 supported Linux, Sony didn’t give OtherOS full access to the GPU. So I doubt you’d get any benefit running Steam on a hypothetical Linux-powered PS5.
  - 999900000999 1mo ago
    A right to unlock would mean that you get full access to your own hardware. No real reason to buy a Sony system anyway, PC will always win in the long run.
    - hnlmorg 1mo ago
      > A right to unlock would mean that you get full access to your own hardware. That very much depends on the wording of such a law. My point is that you can guarantee that console makers will look for a loophole to cripple their “unlocked” hardware. > No real reason to buy a Sony system anyway, PC will always win in the long run. I’m not the one suggesting people should buy consoles to unlock them
- MBCook 1mo ago
  That’s dumb. Why should you have to unlock?
  - 999900000999 1mo ago
thrownawaysz 1mo ago
I'm too small brain to understand the whole monopoly in my own business aspect. Because they are not arguing about game exclusivity, you can buy the same game most of the time on Xbox, Switch, PC (and if not that's an entirely different story) but the fact they want to buy on that platform (Playstation) but from a different store (not Sony). Can't wrap my head around that logic.
- xyzzy_plugh 1mo ago
  Taking Switch as an example, I can buy digital games at Walmart or Amazon. For instance, Amazon might have a sale where their price for a given digital game is ~10% lower than Nintendo's eShop.
  - deleted 1mo ago
    [deleted]
  - MiroslavPokorny 1mo ago
    It wont be long until Nintendo takes over the complete sell process. It seems strange they have let others take their commission for so long.
xyzzy_plugh 1mo ago
Okay so if I understand this correctly they want Sony to compensate (Dutch) customers because Sony no longer sells digital download codes/game keys to third-parties? If they started doing that, would they still have a case? For example, Nintendo does sell digital download codes, so this line of thinking doesn't apply to them? Maybe I'm misunderstanding. Or is this about 3rd party app stores again? There are already class-actions against Sony in the US and UK for what appears to be this exact thing (using their dominant monopoly position to charge high prices) so it's not surprising to see it pop up in other jurisdictions this late in the game.
- braiamp 1mo ago
  I don't know how the specifics would work, but if they reversed course immediately, they would have still caused some harm to some consumers during a specific amount of time.
ltbarcly3 1mo ago
So they want Sony to be required to sell slightly discounted codes to resellers who then sell them to consumers? How does that matter to anyone besides resellers? I guess the resellers could pass some of that discount on to consumers? This seems like a pretty irrelevant concern since Sony is has no state granted or effective monopolies in game sales, they aren't a common carrier, they aren't benefiting from access to public right of ways or other exclusivity that gives them a market advantage that citizens need to be compensated for. I don't think this matters and I don't care about this.
- true_religion 1mo ago
  It matters to consumers because businesses have greater financial power to pressure Sony into reducing prices than individual consumers. Additionally, businesses will not only sell Sony codes. They won't be like car dealerships, tied to 1 manufacturer. Due to this, they'll have even greater incentive and negotiating position to pressure Sony as if Sony doesn't want to play ball, the sellers can start promoting non-Sony products to consumers. With direct sales only, Sony can have perfect vertical integration: they make the console hardware, they make the custom OS, they own the game publishers, they own the developers, and they own the store that sells games too. That's beneficial only to Sony.
  - MBCook 1mo ago
    What prevents Sony from charging the retailers $60 for the code to a $60 game? Congratulations, you can buy anywhere you want. You don’t have to buy from Sony. It just costs more. Yeah, that’s gonna be real great for making games cheaper for you.
  - ltbarcly3 1mo ago
    How do they have any power over Sony at all? Sony is telling them we don't even want to sell you codes at all, we don't want your business, go away. They have 0 leverage, Sony isn't going to negotiate with them. Sony will charge them the max they are allowed so that they can't make a profit and stop trying to resell.
SalaevAl 1mo ago
[dead]
unpopularopp 1mo ago
So McDonald's has a monopoly on the Big Mac? Because you can go to Burger King (Xbox) or KFC (Switch) or Sonic (PC) as well but this group is arguing they want to have a Big Mac but not from McDonald's? Or actually McDonald's doesn't have a monopoly because you can technically buy a Big Mac from Uber Eats or Doordash?
- dabbz 1mo ago
  Your analogy falls apart somewhere for me but I can't pinpoint the exact correction to make your analogy work for me. Either way I agree. If they don't like only being able to buy digital PS games via Sony's platform, go to one where they can. That's not the fight I'd personally focus on. I'd personally focus on them revoking digital access after you've "purchased it". Then again, I don't have a game console and I don't "buy" digital media. I either rent via streaming subscription or own the physical.
  - cwmoore 1mo ago
    I can imagine that BK’s “have it your way” branding does enable the occasional off-menu Big Mac style burger sandwich transaction.
  - stingraycharles 1mo ago
    It’s that there is a large upfront cost (buying a PlayStation) which isn’t in the analogy. Additionally, many of the games are already on different platforms (PC), just not any other consoles. I think the biggest thing is that Sony doesn’t actually make the games (they don’t have the kitchen nor the cooks), they just sell it. So a more apt comparison would be a grocery store, I think.
    - wilg 1mo ago
      The large upfront cost is lower than it would be because its subsidized by buying the games for it! Sony does make the games, they have many excellent first party studios! What are you talking about!
Fraaaank 1mo ago
Announcement post: https://xcancel.com/StopKilingGames/status/2086840514519728597 https://xcancel.com/StopKilingGames/status/20868405145197285...
tonymet 1mo ago
i can think of 3-5 bigger issues hitting the games industry than this. It's a sort of bike-shed issue that everyone can pile onto. I'm sure people have a lot of angst over the decline of games, and this is an easy focal point. But I would like the other issues addressed. Ballooning budgets, unnecessary hardware upgrades, un-skippable cutscenes, low player expectations, distracting or subversive narratives, pathetic mechanics, and so on.
wilg 1mo ago
"Stop Killing Games" is pure gamer slopulism. This idea is even sillier and more pointless than the last couple. There is a ton of competition in the games industry for games, platforms, hardware, etc.
yuerino 1mo ago
While I'm all for sueing Sony, and digital games cost more than physical games sound wrong and shouldn't happen, I feel like they focus on the wrong thing to sue Sony for. Like someone mentions in this thread, this feels like sueing McDonalds for having a monopoly on Big Mac, and only sell Big Mac in their stores. I don't know what the alternative solution to this problem is, but this doesn't feel right to me. For me, I would rather focus on digital rights and access.
- Joel_Mckay 1mo ago
  It is not a new phenomena, and would be illegal in any other physical market. =3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robber_baron_(industrialist) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robber_baron_(industrialist)
  - yuerino 1mo ago
    As a consumer, I agree that something feels wrong and should be illegal. I understand the intention of the case, but wrong execution, as in, what they're sueing for, is a tough case to win, and doesn't actually solve the problem, but maybe I'm just naive, and there's a precedent for this already in Netherlands or EU.
    - Joel_Mckay 1mo ago
      HP was a great company, and released HP48 ROMs into community curated public license at the end of the product life-cycle. To this day I measure every company by that decision to support customers when the company moves on to bigger and better projects. For many years, Apple also had phenomenal customer support years after a sale. OS 7.5.3 could be installed decades after the product EOL. Sony DRM just became Tying with extra steps, as consumers now rarely own what they pay for... especially on upgrades. With the loss of physical media, proof of sale and preserved license terms are now ephemeral. =3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tying_(commerce) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tying_(commerce)
georgehotz 1mo ago
yay suing Sony! I think that countries should start disallowing hardware sales where the user doesn't have the root key. We are not renting the hardware, we are buying it.
anigbrowl 1mo ago
I have mixed feelings about this campaign. Their main ask is that Sony give up exclusivity for the Playstation store, which prevents anyone selling PS games without Sony's approval (and a 30% cut of revenue generated); their main argument is that Sony has total market domination makes it subject to specific EU rules. I would like if there were other options besides the PS store for PS software, because the hardware is very nice and there are a lot of cool things developers could do with it if they didn't have to worry about compliance with Sony's narrow view of what constitutes digital entertainment and how big a company has to be to be an acceptable media partner. For example it would be nice to use a Playstation for non-game activities (math explorer, sci-fi style news dashboards, weird physics simulations) or have the choice to connect to the Criterion Collection and enjoy obscure media curated for other film snobs like myself, or... On the other hand, if any malign software infects individual users' Playstations, or undermines the experience of other users who interact with the first group - eg participants in multiplayer games who are impacted by cheating or some sort of exploit - who is going to get blamed? Of course, it will be Sony. They could say 'well we warned you not to use XYZ app store and the only reason XYZ app store exists is that EUrocrats forced us to allow it on our beautiful platform', but no matter who is actually at fault it would be a huge hit to the Sony brand. Say what you like about the economic and philosophical shortcomings of walled gardens, the reality is that most people find them preferable to a Plants vs Zombies type free-for-all, and I find it hard to blame companies for making a profit by catering to the garden-enjoyers rather than the wilderness-enthusiasts. The latter are after all free to just use some other computing/entertainment platform like Xbox, Steam, etc.; the argument made by campaigners is that they want all the quality of engineering, manufacturing, and access to top games that Sony makes available now, but also the possibility of breaking the hardware and/or the business model that brought it to market. I really think that when it comes to consumer technology, if you don't like the way the company operates you should just not use their products.
- braiamp 1mo ago
  I don't think that potential reputational damage should be used as an excuse for monopolizing software distribution. Sony can have a tightly curated PlayStation Store and build its reputation around it without that necessarily implying that nobody else may sell software for the hardware. "Bad third-party software might exist" (we have examples of that existing on the PS Store anyway, but I digress) is an argument for giving consumers ways to distinguish trusted software from untrusted software, not automatically an argument for eliminating the competing distribution channel altogether.
braiamp 1mo ago
If people actually read the claims... it's about fair business practices, this is why they are suing Sony: > ... In the EU, it is forbidden for large companies to abuse their position to make more profit at the expense of consumers. Yet Sony does not fully abide by these rules. > > If you buy a digital game or in-game content, Sony will only ensure that you can do so through its own PlayStation Store. Sony keeps the market to itself in this way and can keep prices artificially high. This way you pay more, without getting anything extra in return. This is called the “Sony Tax.” This is not a lawsuit about Sony "taking away my discs", it's something like "Sony allegedly used its control over the PlayStation ecosystem to restrict competition in digital distribution, allowing it to keep prices artificially high and harm consumers".
- keoneflick 1mo ago
  > Sony does not fully abide by these rules. If you buy a digital game or in-game content, Sony will only ensure that you can do so through its own PlayStation Store. I have assumed that retail locations will continue to sell game codes, just not game disks, post disks going away. Currently there are games from like Just Dance that only include a game code in the retail box rather than game CD because of the way the game works (you're buying a dlc more than a game). Maybe I'm wrong, but I would be surprised if PlayStation completely goes away from retail, for reasons including anti-trust, but also to encourage stocking the physical PS6 console.
  - axus 1mo ago
    Unlike a disc, you can't use the code without going through the PlayStation Store. And you likely cannot resell it, either. You can't buy a non-Sony PlayStation, I guess they'll argue it's similar.
    - derektank 1mo ago
      It does seem like a reasonable middle ground would be something like selling a dongle that provides PIV attestation of ownership, that could be resold and could even be used across platforms. Of course, there’s no incentive for the console manufacturers to offer this.
excalibur 1mo ago
Viva La Resistance!
selectively 1mo ago
[dead]
lopatin 1mo ago
You can sue whoever you want. But this reads of backpedaling and righteousness to me. The quote below are not my words, but are from a prior comment on HN, which I think are relevant. ``` I in no way mean this to be rude, but I think a big part of why the EU isn't in the same galaxy as the US in the realm of business in general, is in some part, the knee jerk reaction to turn to the government to make products and services better. Governments cannot make you an alternative, they can only make something that already exists, different (usually worse). I have zero interest in creating in the gaming space, however, my gut reaction would be to start down the path of how I could create competition to companies that rug pulled their games. And yes, I get that "just make a competitor" is easier said than done. But at least by going down that road, you end up with more games, better games, and people learning skills throughout the process. And who knows, maybe one is a mega success. Sure, you can stand there pounding your chest for "democracy," but I contend that those who are building their own things are practicing it far more than those who are demanding others make things for them. ``` https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47130596 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47130596
- fladrif 1mo ago
  2 Points; Regulation is not the antithesis of Innovation, Monopolies break the Game. This point keeps coming up, regulation in europe stifles their innovative capacity, with silicon valley's companies brought up as show horses. Outside of tech I'm not sure what other "business" the US is so dominant in. In tech, so much can be attributed to network effects and compounding interest (loosely speaking) that it can't be so trivial to say anyone else with less regulation can mimic it. You can't beat monopolies with innovation. You beat monopolies with regulation, but even then left unchecked monopolies and the entrenched wealth it generates can overcome regulatory bodies and subvert their intentions.
  - aurareturn 1mo ago
    Monopolies break the Game. What monopoly does Sony have?
luciana1u 1mo ago
[flagged]
GuB-42 1mo ago
Why not just stop buying Sony instead? Consoles have been a captive market since after the video game crash of 1983, and that's in part what has help the industry come back on track, by having manufacturers keep crap out of their platforms. They still have that level of control on physical disks, you can't sell a game on a Playstation unless Sony approves it, and always with some kind of DRM / copy protection. A captive online store is just the natural evolution. Many on-disk games today are not completely on the disk, there is an online component somewhere and should it shut down, the game will not survive. The model where you buy a game and can use it and resell it for as long as the console and the media survive is already a thing of the past, pure online sales is just the final nail in this coffin. But there is also a bright side. With the exception of Nintendo games, exclusives are not really a thing anymore. Almost every game come out on the PC, an open platform. It is a market that Steam dominates, but unlike with consoles, no exclusivity here. There are even DRM-free platforms like GOG, so you can put your games on your own media and save them for as long as you want. The manufacturer controlled model of game consoles that Sony and Microsoft represent has served us well since 1983, but it is not the only way anymore, I would even say it is becoming a thing of the past. They are not killing games, they are killing themselves, or maybe dying of old age.
- braiamp 1mo ago
  Nobody is questioning consumer behavior, consumers would buy bread with sawdust if it was cheaper, they don't because we have standards to protect consumers that makes it illegal to sell it. This is the same principle but with a more subtle harm.
  - clhodapp 1mo ago
    Consumers would buy bread with sawdust and then, upon learning about it, expect the sawdust to come out and the price to stay the same
    - braiamp 1mo ago
      So you agree that consumers mostly see the sticker price and don't think much about the quality of the product, therefore there must be protections ensuring that the product is at least fit for purpose.
glitchc 1mo ago
I don't see the point. It's a private, for-profit entity that controls a walled garden platform that they invented, developed and commoditized. It was always a walled garden, never advertised as anything otherwise. All video games have been a license to play since the days of Pong, unless explicitly indicated otherwise. We never owned the actual software and by buying the game, we agreed that our access to the software could change at any point in the future. Does this lawsuit hope to upend ~60 years of contract law?
dyauspitr 1mo ago
I couldn’t care less about this campaign and the waste of resources and attention on it. Might as well sue Lego because I want backwards compatibility with the wooden blocks from 1950 or something.
dpc_01234 1mo ago
I watched the English version video and it seems to have nothing to do with "Stop Killing Games". I wish them well, but ... just stop buying Play Station? I can understand strong consumer protection for food, medicine, healthcare, basic services, utilities. But ... video game consoles? If you don't agree with "Sony tax" ... stop being a stupid sucker and don't buy their products?
tripleee 1mo ago
Just stop buying their consoles. That'll piss them off a lot more than suing them. Get a steam machine and it'll play 99% of the playstation library. It's not like they have a monopoly on gaming

245 points by EDM115 1mo ago

Going digital was inevitable, i'd rather focus on making digital ownership better than fight to restore discs or game codes to 3rd parties

hollowturtle 1mo ago
Why not going with both? Choice is never bad for the consumer, even if the majority or sales is digital. I usually buy both and they just lost me, I won't buy into their dystopian store
- xfnfnxfn 1mo ago
  [flagged]
  - Joel_Mckay 1mo ago
    Have you seen the Warhammer franchise? lol... Thank you, I will see myself out. Some Bro-flake is burying this thread, but you both made good points. GoG or Steam offer a lot of retro games these days, but the 4k upgrades sometimes come with a gameplay emulation downgrade. =3
  - spillguard 1mo ago
    I’m not sure what your actual objection is here. Are you just taking issue with GP’s use of the word “never”?
MBCook 1mo ago
Exactly. This is stupid. Physical is dead, there’s no point in arguing otherwise. And you will not win. Sony never signed a contract with you saying they would keep making physical forever. Hell they could pull an old-school Apple, stop selling the PS5, make a tiny change, call it PS6 and be done with you. They could even announce that digital games for the PS6 are also compatible with the PS5! Wow, aren’t they nice. We need laws providing consumer rights. Nothing else will work.
mikestew 1mo ago
That's not what TFA is on about at all, it's about the monopoly Sony has on selling digital games exclusively through their store. Physical discs don't enter into it.
- glitchc 1mo ago
  It's not a monopoly in the console market. There are two other competitors all of whom have roughly equal market share. And they are all walled gardens so Sony is not doing anything differently from its competitors.
  - aurareturn 1mo ago
    Sony's gaming business is tiny relative to iOS gaming business.
- kergonath 1mo ago
  I am reading a translation, so I might be off base, but not being a monopoly is not a defense. EU competition regulations are not like American antitrust laws. They do not care about monopoly, and consumer harm is mostly a second-order effect. They care about competition, and punish anticompetitive behaviour and abuse of a dominant market position. "It’s not a monopoly" and "there are alternatives" are true, but that’s not all that relevant.
ronsor 1mo ago
People don't focus on improving digital ownership because that requires butchering the sacred cow of copyright and DRM. These are the root of the problems and no one wants to touch them.
- autoexec 1mo ago
  Plenty of people want to address those problems, but politicians don't since they get bribed not to.
kulahan 1mo ago
What’s happening is people are realizing how bad current rights for digital goods currently are, and are revolting at this obviously related scenario. What people don’t realize is that physical != ownership. I remember wanting to pop The Dark Knight on Blu-ray into my ps4 for a date night… except the license on the disc expired, so I had to call WB for a new one??? Go figure. Still, it’s fine if people react this way. If nothing else, it sends a message to lawmakers about priorities.
tripleee 1mo ago
I actually feel like Nintendo's game key cards are a reasonable compromise, or at least a step in the right direction. Trade-able, lend-able, sell-able, fully offline with no need to periodically auth with a server as long as you have the game downloaded already. They also let you transfer games peer to peer so you don't even need to get it from their servers. The issue with full digital ownership is I don't see how it can be implemented without totally killing the original owner's sales. Imagine if you could resell games on steam and undercut the developers: no-one would buy from them anymore after the initial round of sales, as there's no practical difference.

EDM115 1mo ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUHyYkPnJv0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUHyYkPnJv0

xav_authentique 1mo ago
I expected this to be geohots diss track to Sony (https://youtu.be/9iUvuaChDEg https://youtu.be/9iUvuaChDEg)

notenlish 1mo ago

No english translation?

mikestew 1mo ago
The translation feature of Safari on macOS worked well enough for me. I would assume that functionality exists on another browser/OS, maybe yours has it?

deleted 1mo ago

[deleted]

999900000999 1mo ago

Silly idea. I would rather have a right to unlock. Make it law that Sony can't prevent alternatives OS installation. Then when you get Arch running on a PS5 you can install Steam on top

odo1242 1mo ago
This would help but doesn’t solve the problem these people want solved (Sony being able to take away games after purchase and reselling games being impossible because the games are all digital)
hnlmorg 1mo ago
Even when the PS3 supported Linux, Sony didn’t give OtherOS full access to the GPU. So I doubt you’d get any benefit running Steam on a hypothetical Linux-powered PS5.
- 999900000999 1mo ago
  A right to unlock would mean that you get full access to your own hardware. No real reason to buy a Sony system anyway, PC will always win in the long run.
  - hnlmorg 1mo ago
    > A right to unlock would mean that you get full access to your own hardware. That very much depends on the wording of such a law. My point is that you can guarantee that console makers will look for a loophole to cripple their “unlocked” hardware. > No real reason to buy a Sony system anyway, PC will always win in the long run. I’m not the one suggesting people should buy consoles to unlock them
MBCook 1mo ago
That’s dumb. Why should you have to unlock?
- 999900000999 1mo ago

thrownawaysz 1mo ago

I'm too small brain to understand the whole monopoly in my own business aspect. Because they are not arguing about game exclusivity, you can buy the same game most of the time on Xbox, Switch, PC (and if not that's an entirely different story) but the fact they want to buy on that platform (Playstation) but from a different store (not Sony). Can't wrap my head around that logic.

xyzzy_plugh 1mo ago
Taking Switch as an example, I can buy digital games at Walmart or Amazon. For instance, Amazon might have a sale where their price for a given digital game is ~10% lower than Nintendo's eShop.
- deleted 1mo ago
  [deleted]
- MiroslavPokorny 1mo ago
  It wont be long until Nintendo takes over the complete sell process. It seems strange they have let others take their commission for so long.

xyzzy_plugh 1mo ago

Okay so if I understand this correctly they want Sony to compensate (Dutch) customers because Sony no longer sells digital download codes/game keys to third-parties? If they started doing that, would they still have a case? For example, Nintendo does sell digital download codes, so this line of thinking doesn't apply to them? Maybe I'm misunderstanding. Or is this about 3rd party app stores again? There are already class-actions against Sony in the US and UK for what appears to be this exact thing (using their dominant monopoly position to charge high prices) so it's not surprising to see it pop up in other jurisdictions this late in the game.

braiamp 1mo ago
I don't know how the specifics would work, but if they reversed course immediately, they would have still caused some harm to some consumers during a specific amount of time.

ltbarcly3 1mo ago

So they want Sony to be required to sell slightly discounted codes to resellers who then sell them to consumers? How does that matter to anyone besides resellers? I guess the resellers could pass some of that discount on to consumers? This seems like a pretty irrelevant concern since Sony is has no state granted or effective monopolies in game sales, they aren't a common carrier, they aren't benefiting from access to public right of ways or other exclusivity that gives them a market advantage that citizens need to be compensated for. I don't think this matters and I don't care about this.

true_religion 1mo ago
It matters to consumers because businesses have greater financial power to pressure Sony into reducing prices than individual consumers. Additionally, businesses will not only sell Sony codes. They won't be like car dealerships, tied to 1 manufacturer. Due to this, they'll have even greater incentive and negotiating position to pressure Sony as if Sony doesn't want to play ball, the sellers can start promoting non-Sony products to consumers. With direct sales only, Sony can have perfect vertical integration: they make the console hardware, they make the custom OS, they own the game publishers, they own the developers, and they own the store that sells games too. That's beneficial only to Sony.
- MBCook 1mo ago
  What prevents Sony from charging the retailers $60 for the code to a $60 game? Congratulations, you can buy anywhere you want. You don’t have to buy from Sony. It just costs more. Yeah, that’s gonna be real great for making games cheaper for you.
- ltbarcly3 1mo ago
  How do they have any power over Sony at all? Sony is telling them we don't even want to sell you codes at all, we don't want your business, go away. They have 0 leverage, Sony isn't going to negotiate with them. Sony will charge them the max they are allowed so that they can't make a profit and stop trying to resell.

SalaevAl 1mo ago

[dead]

unpopularopp 1mo ago

So McDonald's has a monopoly on the Big Mac? Because you can go to Burger King (Xbox) or KFC (Switch) or Sonic (PC) as well but this group is arguing they want to have a Big Mac but not from McDonald's? Or actually McDonald's doesn't have a monopoly because you can technically buy a Big Mac from Uber Eats or Doordash?

dabbz 1mo ago
Your analogy falls apart somewhere for me but I can't pinpoint the exact correction to make your analogy work for me. Either way I agree. If they don't like only being able to buy digital PS games via Sony's platform, go to one where they can. That's not the fight I'd personally focus on. I'd personally focus on them revoking digital access after you've "purchased it". Then again, I don't have a game console and I don't "buy" digital media. I either rent via streaming subscription or own the physical.
- cwmoore 1mo ago
  I can imagine that BK’s “have it your way” branding does enable the occasional off-menu Big Mac style burger sandwich transaction.
- stingraycharles 1mo ago
  It’s that there is a large upfront cost (buying a PlayStation) which isn’t in the analogy. Additionally, many of the games are already on different platforms (PC), just not any other consoles. I think the biggest thing is that Sony doesn’t actually make the games (they don’t have the kitchen nor the cooks), they just sell it. So a more apt comparison would be a grocery store, I think.
  - wilg 1mo ago
    The large upfront cost is lower than it would be because its subsidized by buying the games for it! Sony does make the games, they have many excellent first party studios! What are you talking about!

Fraaaank 1mo ago

Announcement post: https://xcancel.com/StopKilingGames/status/2086840514519728597 https://xcancel.com/StopKilingGames/status/20868405145197285...

tonymet 1mo ago

i can think of 3-5 bigger issues hitting the games industry than this. It's a sort of bike-shed issue that everyone can pile onto. I'm sure people have a lot of angst over the decline of games, and this is an easy focal point. But I would like the other issues addressed. Ballooning budgets, unnecessary hardware upgrades, un-skippable cutscenes, low player expectations, distracting or subversive narratives, pathetic mechanics, and so on.

wilg 1mo ago

"Stop Killing Games" is pure gamer slopulism. This idea is even sillier and more pointless than the last couple. There is a ton of competition in the games industry for games, platforms, hardware, etc.

yuerino 1mo ago

While I'm all for sueing Sony, and digital games cost more than physical games sound wrong and shouldn't happen, I feel like they focus on the wrong thing to sue Sony for. Like someone mentions in this thread, this feels like sueing McDonalds for having a monopoly on Big Mac, and only sell Big Mac in their stores. I don't know what the alternative solution to this problem is, but this doesn't feel right to me. For me, I would rather focus on digital rights and access.

Joel_Mckay 1mo ago
It is not a new phenomena, and would be illegal in any other physical market. =3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robber_baron_(industrialist) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robber_baron_(industrialist)
- yuerino 1mo ago
  As a consumer, I agree that something feels wrong and should be illegal. I understand the intention of the case, but wrong execution, as in, what they're sueing for, is a tough case to win, and doesn't actually solve the problem, but maybe I'm just naive, and there's a precedent for this already in Netherlands or EU.
  - Joel_Mckay 1mo ago
    HP was a great company, and released HP48 ROMs into community curated public license at the end of the product life-cycle. To this day I measure every company by that decision to support customers when the company moves on to bigger and better projects. For many years, Apple also had phenomenal customer support years after a sale. OS 7.5.3 could be installed decades after the product EOL. Sony DRM just became Tying with extra steps, as consumers now rarely own what they pay for... especially on upgrades. With the loss of physical media, proof of sale and preserved license terms are now ephemeral. =3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tying_(commerce) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tying_(commerce)

georgehotz 1mo ago

yay suing Sony! I think that countries should start disallowing hardware sales where the user doesn't have the root key. We are not renting the hardware, we are buying it.

anigbrowl 1mo ago

I have mixed feelings about this campaign. Their main ask is that Sony give up exclusivity for the Playstation store, which prevents anyone selling PS games without Sony's approval (and a 30% cut of revenue generated); their main argument is that Sony has total market domination makes it subject to specific EU rules. I would like if there were other options besides the PS store for PS software, because the hardware is very nice and there are a lot of cool things developers could do with it if they didn't have to worry about compliance with Sony's narrow view of what constitutes digital entertainment and how big a company has to be to be an acceptable media partner. For example it would be nice to use a Playstation for non-game activities (math explorer, sci-fi style news dashboards, weird physics simulations) or have the choice to connect to the Criterion Collection and enjoy obscure media curated for other film snobs like myself, or... On the other hand, if any malign software infects individual users' Playstations, or undermines the experience of other users who interact with the first group - eg participants in multiplayer games who are impacted by cheating or some sort of exploit - who is going to get blamed? Of course, it will be Sony. They could say 'well we warned you not to use XYZ app store and the only reason XYZ app store exists is that EUrocrats forced us to allow it on our beautiful platform', but no matter who is actually at fault it would be a huge hit to the Sony brand. Say what you like about the economic and philosophical shortcomings of walled gardens, the reality is that most people find them preferable to a Plants vs Zombies type free-for-all, and I find it hard to blame companies for making a profit by catering to the garden-enjoyers rather than the wilderness-enthusiasts. The latter are after all free to just use some other computing/entertainment platform like Xbox, Steam, etc.; the argument made by campaigners is that they want all the quality of engineering, manufacturing, and access to top games that Sony makes available now, but also the possibility of breaking the hardware and/or the business model that brought it to market. I really think that when it comes to consumer technology, if you don't like the way the company operates you should just not use their products.

braiamp 1mo ago
I don't think that potential reputational damage should be used as an excuse for monopolizing software distribution. Sony can have a tightly curated PlayStation Store and build its reputation around it without that necessarily implying that nobody else may sell software for the hardware. "Bad third-party software might exist" (we have examples of that existing on the PS Store anyway, but I digress) is an argument for giving consumers ways to distinguish trusted software from untrusted software, not automatically an argument for eliminating the competing distribution channel altogether.

braiamp 1mo ago

If people actually read the claims... it's about fair business practices, this is why they are suing Sony: > ... In the EU, it is forbidden for large companies to abuse their position to make more profit at the expense of consumers. Yet Sony does not fully abide by these rules. > > If you buy a digital game or in-game content, Sony will only ensure that you can do so through its own PlayStation Store. Sony keeps the market to itself in this way and can keep prices artificially high. This way you pay more, without getting anything extra in return. This is called the “Sony Tax.” This is not a lawsuit about Sony "taking away my discs", it's something like "Sony allegedly used its control over the PlayStation ecosystem to restrict competition in digital distribution, allowing it to keep prices artificially high and harm consumers".

keoneflick 1mo ago
> Sony does not fully abide by these rules. If you buy a digital game or in-game content, Sony will only ensure that you can do so through its own PlayStation Store. I have assumed that retail locations will continue to sell game codes, just not game disks, post disks going away. Currently there are games from like Just Dance that only include a game code in the retail box rather than game CD because of the way the game works (you're buying a dlc more than a game). Maybe I'm wrong, but I would be surprised if PlayStation completely goes away from retail, for reasons including anti-trust, but also to encourage stocking the physical PS6 console.
- axus 1mo ago
  Unlike a disc, you can't use the code without going through the PlayStation Store. And you likely cannot resell it, either. You can't buy a non-Sony PlayStation, I guess they'll argue it's similar.
  - derektank 1mo ago
    It does seem like a reasonable middle ground would be something like selling a dongle that provides PIV attestation of ownership, that could be resold and could even be used across platforms. Of course, there’s no incentive for the console manufacturers to offer this.

excalibur 1mo ago

Viva La Resistance!

selectively 1mo ago

[dead]

lopatin 1mo ago

You can sue whoever you want. But this reads of backpedaling and righteousness to me. The quote below are not my words, but are from a prior comment on HN, which I think are relevant. ``` I in no way mean this to be rude, but I think a big part of why the EU isn't in the same galaxy as the US in the realm of business in general, is in some part, the knee jerk reaction to turn to the government to make products and services better. Governments cannot make you an alternative, they can only make something that already exists, different (usually worse). I have zero interest in creating in the gaming space, however, my gut reaction would be to start down the path of how I could create competition to companies that rug pulled their games. And yes, I get that "just make a competitor" is easier said than done. But at least by going down that road, you end up with more games, better games, and people learning skills throughout the process. And who knows, maybe one is a mega success. Sure, you can stand there pounding your chest for "democracy," but I contend that those who are building their own things are practicing it far more than those who are demanding others make things for them. ``` https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47130596 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47130596

fladrif 1mo ago
2 Points; Regulation is not the antithesis of Innovation, Monopolies break the Game. This point keeps coming up, regulation in europe stifles their innovative capacity, with silicon valley's companies brought up as show horses. Outside of tech I'm not sure what other "business" the US is so dominant in. In tech, so much can be attributed to network effects and compounding interest (loosely speaking) that it can't be so trivial to say anyone else with less regulation can mimic it. You can't beat monopolies with innovation. You beat monopolies with regulation, but even then left unchecked monopolies and the entrenched wealth it generates can overcome regulatory bodies and subvert their intentions.
- aurareturn 1mo ago
  Monopolies break the Game. What monopoly does Sony have?

luciana1u 1mo ago

[flagged]

GuB-42 1mo ago

Why not just stop buying Sony instead? Consoles have been a captive market since after the video game crash of 1983, and that's in part what has help the industry come back on track, by having manufacturers keep crap out of their platforms. They still have that level of control on physical disks, you can't sell a game on a Playstation unless Sony approves it, and always with some kind of DRM / copy protection. A captive online store is just the natural evolution. Many on-disk games today are not completely on the disk, there is an online component somewhere and should it shut down, the game will not survive. The model where you buy a game and can use it and resell it for as long as the console and the media survive is already a thing of the past, pure online sales is just the final nail in this coffin. But there is also a bright side. With the exception of Nintendo games, exclusives are not really a thing anymore. Almost every game come out on the PC, an open platform. It is a market that Steam dominates, but unlike with consoles, no exclusivity here. There are even DRM-free platforms like GOG, so you can put your games on your own media and save them for as long as you want. The manufacturer controlled model of game consoles that Sony and Microsoft represent has served us well since 1983, but it is not the only way anymore, I would even say it is becoming a thing of the past. They are not killing games, they are killing themselves, or maybe dying of old age.

braiamp 1mo ago
Nobody is questioning consumer behavior, consumers would buy bread with sawdust if it was cheaper, they don't because we have standards to protect consumers that makes it illegal to sell it. This is the same principle but with a more subtle harm.
- clhodapp 1mo ago
  Consumers would buy bread with sawdust and then, upon learning about it, expect the sawdust to come out and the price to stay the same
  - braiamp 1mo ago
    So you agree that consumers mostly see the sticker price and don't think much about the quality of the product, therefore there must be protections ensuring that the product is at least fit for purpose.

glitchc 1mo ago

I don't see the point. It's a private, for-profit entity that controls a walled garden platform that they invented, developed and commoditized. It was always a walled garden, never advertised as anything otherwise. All video games have been a license to play since the days of Pong, unless explicitly indicated otherwise. We never owned the actual software and by buying the game, we agreed that our access to the software could change at any point in the future. Does this lawsuit hope to upend ~60 years of contract law?

dyauspitr 1mo ago

I couldn’t care less about this campaign and the waste of resources and attention on it. Might as well sue Lego because I want backwards compatibility with the wooden blocks from 1950 or something.

dpc_01234 1mo ago

I watched the English version video and it seems to have nothing to do with "Stop Killing Games". I wish them well, but ... just stop buying Play Station? I can understand strong consumer protection for food, medicine, healthcare, basic services, utilities. But ... video game consoles? If you don't agree with "Sony tax" ... stop being a stupid sucker and don't buy their products?

tripleee 1mo ago

Just stop buying their consoles. That'll piss them off a lot more than suing them. Get a steam machine and it'll play 99% of the playstation library. It's not like they have a monopoly on gaming