You’d think Sony would be all too happy to discount PlayStation Store games at a developer’s request, but we’ve been hearing for a few weeks now that the Japanese giant is being, well, less than helpful in that department. The latest to speak out is Lucas Pope of Return of the Obra Dinn fame, which is currently half-price on practically all platforms – except, you guessed it, the PlayStation 4.
Asked whether Sony’s system would get the discount, here’s what Pope replied:
In isolation, it wouldn’t mean much, but this isn’t the first time we’ve heard stories like this. In fact, one eagle-eyed ResetEra poster has compiled all of the individual complaints of developers who’ve been unable to get their games discounted on the PS Store. It’s, er, staggering really, as we can only imagine promotions like this increase overall sales for developers, which the Japanese giant pockets a cool 30 per cent cut from.
This must be extremely frustrating for teams with their livelihoods on the line, and while PlayStation generally has an install base that’s far too large to ignore – look, it can’t make the PS4 a particularly attractive platform to develop for. Hopefully this is something the manufacturer can rectify swiftly, because it’s unquestionably a bad look from where we're sitting.
Heck, this author would have bought Return of the Obra Dinn at half-price! This is bad news for everyone!
[source twitter.com, via resetera.com]
Comments 72
Oh Sony, what a great company.
Why don’t publishers have full price control? Themed sales are nice and all but I’m fine just tracking my wishlist once a week rather than poring through lists of the same games on sale every week.
I just bought it on sale on Steam today actually. Sony’s loss.
Seconded. Have wanted this game for a minute.
I guess that explains why so many sales have the exact same games
They’ve been doing it for years. It has to be coordinated with the account managers, and if it doesn’t fit the agenda, it doesn’t happen.
@Lonejester the wishlist that's going away for some reason? Or maybe i misread the email.
@zupertramp from what i can tell its being restructured, that can sometimes cause a wipe of things like that
Is this why Perils of Baking is like 70% off right now in HK and EU but only 50% off in US? I'm specifically not buying it because it's cheaper in other regions.
I appreciate the way the PlayStation store does themes sales. The developer should be able to book a slot the next time there type of content goes on sale. The alternative is the switch or steam situation where you have about 1000 games on sale all of which are coming in and going out different times and which are not sorted by category.
@Insightful Sounds like your hoping for that to happen
@DarkLloyd ah, okay. Yeah the way I read it, it sounded like they were getting rid of it altogether. I was worried.
@zupertramp I’m assuming that new UI will have wishlist or similar feature, but yes sounds like we’ll have to recreate our wishlist which is silly.
@zupertramp @darklloyd @lonejester. They are dropping the wishlist entirely. My theory on this is they don’t want people like us putting games on there and waiting for sales.
@Kidfried Thanks mate
@doctommaso so ol' fashioned pen and paper it is then.
If the sale is on elsewhere and someone buys it elsewhere then Sony get 30% of nothing. Their loss I guess.
This is just sad at this point...
@Insightful Xbot fan detected
@get2sammyb Another issue is universal PSN sales...in the indie sale before the current one Timespinner (which had sales on Eshop & Steam),was half price on U.S. PSN but not the EU/Aussie store. Chucklefish/Bodie Lee said on twitter it was out of their hands but they were hoping to sort out the issues with the EU store & get it on sale another time but meantime 2+yrs since its release & no sale if you're tied to the EU psn store!
Another one called STAY similar story Pqube said they were knocked back for the EU PSN/Regions,but U.S. had it on sale.
WayForward of Shantae/River City Girls fame has had numerous Eshop/XB/PC sales but with the current exception of Mummy Demastered PS Prices says their last psn sale was 2-3 years ago on the Shantae titles. No psn sale on River City Girls since launch!
Still waiting on sales for Blazing Chrome (July/Aug. 2019), Cursed Castilla & Super Hydorah (2+yrs since their last psn sale), Castle Crashers Remastered, Battle Princess Madelyn, to even have their first psn discounts.
Pity one can't ask the likes of Shuhei Yoshida or Greg Rice as prominent Playstation Indie reps why?
This has been a wide spread issue on the vita. Lots of devs have complained, and now Sony have removed the ability for devs to even request sales on vita titles. Its baffling.
Starting to see why so many of the exec team that helped make ps4 a success jumped ship...
And look at the end of the day this harms developers. Who in turn wont release their titles on playstation. Which in the end hurts the consumer. Sony have me very worried right now
This is actually serious. Some companies absolutely need these sales to survive. It blows my mind how terrible Sony can be in some departments.
I seriously don't get it.
I have a brave theory that they have some kind of script written for PSStore, where something like one button press automatically discounts all this recycled games in all those recycled (always even named exacly the same) sales
Sony will normally get a minimum of 30% of the sale depending on publisher/developer etc so at £10, that's at least £3 but drops to just £1.50 at £5.
I know that may not sound like a lot, its still a drop in 'their' money. If the Dev is that insistent, I guess they could still let Sony have their £3 and drop the price to £6.50 instead - although I know it doesn't work that way. Its not 'easy' to suddenly change a sale from 30% to a 'fixed' or higher % rate for 1 game. I know this looks bad on Sony but its asking them to also take 'less' money too.
I wonder if they could sell 'codes' to the game - much like CDkeys sell codes?
Its one reason why I refuse to buy a Digital only console and don't buy 'Digital' games unless they are 'throwaway' pocket money sale prices or Expansion passes (although I still prefer to buy games with included expansion passes).
I don't want to be held to ransom - pay this price or go without - especially if other options offer the same game at lower prices (like Physical or as in this case, other platforms). One of the reasons I quite like owning multiple platforms is that I can take advantage of sale prices on games that may not be discounted on the other platform(s)
Yeah, Sony's PS sales are usually pretty bad and always have the same stupid games on sale that I don't want or already have. I would rather developers dictate sales for their games rather than Sony curate them. Sony is terrible at it anyway.
The PS5 looks like a great piece of tech, and Sony always has the best games, but every service they offer really sucks right now.
Maybe sony still busy preparing their new web store so sales request is denied until the web store is ready.
@naruball You know Sony really messed up when not even you are defending them 😁
The Sony sales are usually bad because it's always the same games over and over with the same prices to the point I don't bother checking what's on sale anymore.
@BAMozzy It is still the publisher's product they are selling. If the publisher feels like a sale would boost their sales and make them more money, Sony should give them the tools to make that happen.
I understand limiting the number of titles on a banner sale like the Summer Sale, too many titles would be hard to navigate and people might give up. But telling a dev that they can't lower the price of their game, for any reason, is just silly. Even during a banner sale, they should be able to control their price, just not get the benefits of being on the store page for that banner.
Sony should maintain the rights to shut down bogus "sales", where the game releases at 60 but is never for sale above 20, or other forms of abuse. But an indie dev wanting to generate buzz for their title should be encouraged, not hindered.
@Juanalf I always play Devil's advocate, no matter the person, company etc because you never know. I also find many people online overly negative and close minded. But this is inexcusable.
@graysoncharles https://youtu.be/Qy9OIHP-hV8
They're worse than Yoda on ket.
It's some of the above comments that frankly make the gaming community look ridiculous.
To call a company that employs tens of thousands and has many divisions and under them dozens of departments with many employees who do a fantastic job everyday and to lump that all in with a throw away with typical online comments like arrogant and selfish is exactly why Sony only communicate on their own terms.
No one or any company is 100% perfect and while developers and publishers may have their own problems and future plans so does Sony and as Sony would not be entitled to know their future plans or dealings neither do they have the right to know why Sony does this or that!
If I was so annoyed at a company as some are from the comments I have read over the last few months well i just wouldn't buy their products.
Please choose what you will do today:
Can we admit that the PS4 has made Sony arrogant again.
It was the same story after the PS2. Everytime they have a massive success they go back to doing whatever they want. Knowing full well that the strength of the PS brand will absorb the blows.
Thankfully as a multi platform owner I tend to buy games depending on the sales. Much as this sucks for the dev here, there are other games that were on sale on PS I bought over switch and Xbox. So it all evens out over time I'd say.
The PS store does have very good sales over time, I don't think Sony are really doing anything wrong here and this is just a one off case
@Insightful @NickTheGeek @DarkLloyd @zupertramp @zupertramp
https://psprices.com/region-dk/index
Highly recommended this site even notify you when it's on sale. Psn pc Nintendo xbox. Even some physical sales!
Just can’t figure it out. I doubt Sony has a team calculating if they’ll make more money if a certain game goes on sale or not, that’s almost impossible. I think their PSN infrastructure is so bad that it must take an inordinate amount of effort for them to change prices on hundreds of titles, so decide to only do it at set times. Which is amazingly incompetent.
This difficulty has killed the VITA for me as the games are often too hard to come across physically (which also means physical prices stay high), and we all know Sony doesn’t allow sales on VITA games any more.
It’s all just so bloody ridiculous.
@Kidfried Exactly what you said - I've been making liberal use of the Ignore button for a while now when it comes to trolls and fanboys. It makes the comments sections far more interesting when input like that can be ignored.
Thank feck we can look at each other's comment histories.
@BAMozzy Yeah, this is the most sensible approach I feel. I like to keep my options open, and if Sony won't give me the game at the same price as other platforms, I'll just get a game on other platforms.
I don't get why Sony would block this request though. It's makes no sense to me.
Communication isn't Sony's strong point it never has been that's the biggest issue with them. Give it 24hrs for them to respond saying "We work with 3rd party and 1st party games to make sure that they are happy as well as the customers"
I think indie Devs should have a little more control and Sony should have better communication because it really is poor
Just put what you want on your psprices.com list and wait for the email notifications about sales on the games you want, simple. Have saved a fortune thanks to that site. You can even check out how often and how steep the sales are likely to be on any title, as well as setting a price point that you want to get a notification at
@BAMozzy Same here as long as i have the option i will always go physical.
Microsoft should just buy Sony. 🥳 Merge Xbox and PlayStation.
Sony's management of its storefront is appalling. Has been from day 1. It has a control freak like approach to its store where it's the one approaching developers / publishers with plans to discount their games, not the other way round. Sure the other way round takes more work if you wish to retain control, but why can't publishers control the price of their products themselves? It's just another part of Sony's business approach that needs changing.
Sony are removing PS3, PSP and Vita games from the store (although I don't know if you can still buy via the console) but it does make sense to me regardless of how 'upset' some people may be.
The games don't run on PS4 or PS5 and with the PS5 store not being an App, why have games on it that it can't play to clog it up with. The PS4 doesn't play them either and I really don't know how many actually still play on their PS3 let alone actually still buy games for these - particularly those that they can't find on ebay for example if they really wanted.
MS are in a different position with their Backwards Compatibility. The fact that the XB1 and Series consoles will play [some] 360 games and a few OG Xbox games, it makes sense these remain available to buy at the very least. It also doesn't matter what platform you play on, you can still play across generations - and it seems PS5 will do the same and can even party up with fellow Playstation gamers on PS4. Will be interesting to see if some games offer cross gen MP - especially in competitive modes with 30fps vs 60fps like Destiny
Not everything is 'Black and White' either. Sony may well have a valid reason - not 'money' that discounting that game isn't happening right now - in the middle of building a new store and ensuring its running as expected on PS5.
I really don't know how it works with the digital market place, I know how it works in the Physical market where Publishers sell the games at a 'set' price to a Wholesaler with an RRP in mind. The Wholesaler will sell to Retailers and the 'more' copies the retailer buys, the 'better' price per unit they will get. Hence the 'biggest' retailers will be able to offer a 'better' price. If the Publisher drops the price later, that doesn't mean the retailer has to, they bought the game at a fixed price and have a choice, continue to sell at that price, or reduce it down and can sell for 'less' than they paid but only if they have sold enough at a higher price to have recovered their cost. Buy £40k worth of Stock that can sell for £60k and if they have only made £30k back, that are not going to drop the game much (if at all) until they at least get there £40k back but if they have made £50k, they maybe willing to drop the remaining stock to less than what they actually paid for each and get £2k - also clear space for new stock that can make a bigger profit per unit.
As I said, I don't know so much about digital store but it may not be black and white. There could be numerous reasons why Sony are reluctant right now - even if it makes them appear bad by not telling us what their reason is
@Richnj confirmation bias at its finest
Game price discussions on different platforms have seen a lot of PSA reminders that third party games are priced and discounted by respective third parties rather than the platform holder. This is the first time I've heard of an opposite case, and on PlayStation turf to boot.😕
In case this section is visited by someone in the know (and I mean in the actual know, not a couch lawyer fandoms are so full of) - is this something penned in the distribution contract itself? Or does Sony have a different kind of say in the matter?🤔
@BAMozzy "legacy" games remain purchasable on their respective consoles' storefronts (although I thought PSP PSS app went down ages ago), but the whole redesign topic is irrelevant - we're talking a PS4 game that should be playable on PS5 as well. And the digital market is different from the physical one - the latter usually gets a stock it can't just send back unsold whereas digital stores are basically cloud storage where the concept of "stock" doesn't exist. Discount policies are bound to differ somewhat between these realms, and like I said, I've never heard of the platform owner policing third party discounts before. Least of all Sony whose digital PS4 shelf is seemingly living from sale to sale these days. What are the criteria from their perspective, then?
@Insightful your writing style is like the clown from purexbox. So goodbye kelticdevil you little troll. Again your the perfect reason for there being a ignore button.
I can see a lot of big bad Sony comments on this board. Seems to me that all of the information isn't there to make a judgement. Sony denied them but why? Doesn't say anything about a reason. Some people judge way too quickly which makes me glad I don't know some of them!
If Sony are denying for greed then yeah " F**k you Sony". Until I know why I will reserve my judgement.
@nhSnork I mentioned PS3 as that was mentioned earlier in the chat and its also been seen as a 'controversial' move by Sony and related to the Store. It makes sense that they are only available via legacy platforms as that is the only platforms they will run on.
I know there is a difference between Physical retailers and a Digital store - hence I said I do not know how the digital store operates - whether that's PS4, PS5 or Legacy games. It may not be as simple as it sounds - otherwise why are Sony able to dictate to the Publisher/Developer their pricing. If its as simple as the Publisher dropping the price, then why can't they? Its got little to do with the game storage because the game code only needs 1 copy that 'everyone' can download and install - you are not purchasing the game code at all, just a licence to play it so the unique licence code that allow you to play is what you are buying.
Until we hear from Sony - although we probably won't as that may reveal something they don't want people to know, I am not about to make accusations against Sony - so far we only know that the Devs asked and for whatever reason, their request was turned down. It does 'seem' bad, I am not going to lie, and I could jump on the 'hate Sony' bus over this but until I understand Sony's reason that it was turned down, I am not going to do that.
What we do know is that Sony have been doing a lot of work on the store in recent times in preparation for the PS5 launch and that 'may' of had an impact on their response - it maybe a not at this point we can't/won't but maybe can in the future without needing to be part of a planned sale or discount. We just don't know yet...
@Insightful you are actually a troll and everything that is wrong with gaming. You account for 0.1% of gamers who jump on comments board to s**t talk the competition. Don't worry Xbox will do fine this generation they have been doing their homework and they will take a big chunk of market share. You don't need to come here to try and make anyone feel bad about buying into a brand that last gen sold over 110 million units. They feel pretty good about what they are buying into and everyone's personal choice is their best choice.
You in my opinion just need to ask yourself why you feel the need to waste your time cheering on Xbox and spreading poison about Sony. Are you that desperate? Are you that worried about the performance of Xbox? F**k the "console war" and f**k the fanboys.
I have bought both, will play both and enjoy both. Dont need your petty high-school BS. Run along little one.
Its cause sony is a greedy company. They want the publisher tax so they dont make games go on sale for long periods of time. This is one of the reasons i dont go full digitial on playstation cause ridiculous charging of full price even after three years. Sometimes waiting for physical release is better and i feel sad for people that bought the digital ps5 because you dont have a choice now.
For the Players 😒
What the hell it's happening to Sony. They're having such a bully attitude. I really wish Xbox knock them down from their pedestal. I have played/owned over 800 games across all playstations and yet I understand that this attitude is bad news from everyone. I wish Xbox the best of luck. It's for everyone's benefit.
@Alpha_Pulse very true.
This is an example of what we say goes don't like it don't sign up with us...............Sony are not the only ones like this.
I've always wondered why companies that frequently do sales for older games weren't regularly putting their old Vita games on sale on PSN. I'm guessing this is why.
Why Sony's so dead set on mucking up usability of the PS Store is beyond me. I'm miffed enough of removing PS3/PSP/Vita games' access through the web browser, but even hitting modern releases?
Could they just hire a team of contractors, made up of the folks who've released third-party services like PSDLE and PSPrices, to just clean up their decade-old mess for posterity?
Reports like that remind me why it’s such a shame the PS5 Digital looks far better then the disk based version.... I have to agree I do seem to recall through the PS4’s history it has been the same titles (noticeably first party ones) going on sale under different theme umbrellas. Gotta say on the Xbox they don’t do that and offer other games too. With Gamepass though Sony had better change their tune in the new gen as they possibly may lose some developers to the dark side....
And yet...
Some time ago, I recall reading that Sony doesn't set the prices for the store, the publishers do.
So...?
@Paranoimia my understanding is that the publisher requests a price and Sony authorise it. So essentially both parties must agree to any price change. Sounds like bullsh*t to me
Sony letting the dev make full profit from their games they(sony) feel are still in their prime. What a bad company 🙄
I would buy it as well!!
Its a shame Sony seem to be losing touch with the indies considering they done such a great job of being inclusive with them during the early PS4 days
@ApostateMage what about indifferent? I'm indifferent
It's not a great look to be honest. Sometimes it's better to get both consoles or console and PC so you have flexibility to get the best deals from different platforms.
@Milktastrophe ummm ok. 50% off is a good discount.
@Discol76 Microsoft have a much better history for dealing with indie developers. I am a Sony fan but tbh a lot of their business decisions and extremely poor messaging is very frustrating...
@BansheeNorn I buy about 2 full price games a year and get everything else on sale on PSN. You only need to wait a month or two and stuff comes down to 30-40% off. Except for GTAV which stayed full price for literally years. But who cares it’s GTA.
@deathaxe good points all round. We don’t know what the internal mechanisms are at Sony. As gamers we make a lot of assumptions about greed etc but every platform are likely doing similar things at corporate level.
Look at Nintendo’s retail pricing which almost never gets discounted. WiiU games were still full price after the Switch arrived.
It always boggles my mind how people will bend over backwards to defend a corporation that doesn't care about them or their loyalty unless it generates them cash.
Sony is free to do what it wants. They provide the market. That doesn't mean we should all sympathize with them or somehow divorce the fact that this isn't Sony it's just their management or division. That is still Sony. Sony isn't alive, it's made of divisions and people.
@Richnj..... Your theory does not hold and its full of cracks..... The Ps1 was a massive success and I never once sense Sony being arrogant about it....... You must read up on your Playstation history before going on internet rampages as spreading false information...... Sony were never arrogant during the Ps4 Era..... What happened was that the Ps2 technically was supposed to release in 2008 and not 2006 and only release it on 2006 because the 360 was already out due to the fact that Ms was far richer than Nintendo and Sega so Sony would not have been able to have the Ps2 compete with the 360 like the ps1 competed with the N64 and the Dreamcast(ps1 was actually compete ting with 2 Gens of consoles with the 64bit N64 and the 128bit Dreamcast, they could not do that with the Ps2 because of MS deep pockets).... So the problem with the ps3 was that Sony spent so much time on the hardware that they literary paid little attention to the software side until too late.....resulting in the system being a nightmare to work because of the little time they spent on the software side of the system(i.e. Developing the system tools in conjunction with the devs like they did with the Ps4 and are doing with the Ps5) and hence this resulted in the system taking time to get to grips with to be able to develop games for.
@Arnna It adds up when you buy a lot of games.
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