Salt and Sacrifice PS5 PlayStation 5 1

Update: Ska Studios has clarified a story claiming Salt and Sacrifice’s pricing was adjusted on Epic Games Store per PlayStation’s demands. According to the developer, the game’s “pricing was always intended to be the same on all storefronts at launch”.

A statement explains: “Storefront pricing was adjusted in various regions ahead of the game’s global PC launch at 9 AM PT on Tuesday, 10th May, 2022. The price has not changed on any storefront or in any region following launch, nor did any platform holder demand any changes to the game’s original pricing.”

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The statement continues: “Developers Ska Studios and Devoured Studios apologise for any confusion regarding the price correction prior to Salt and Sacrifice's launch and, as a two-person development team, remain focused on supporting the game following a successful launch.”

Original Story: Oooft! The bad press keeps a-coming, and while we can kinda understand this one if we squint, Sony’s going to be guilty in the all-important court of public opinion. According to a report by TechRaptor, the price of indie Souls-like Salt and Sacrifice has significantly increased on the Epic Games Store in a number of different countries – and all because PlayStation was p*ssed that Ska Studios was selling it cheaper than on the PS Store.

From what we can infer, Sony has a deal with the game which has resulted in its console exclusive release. The catch is that Ska Studios set the price individually for each country on the Epic Games Store, which meant it was cheaper in some places than others. Co-owner Shane Lynch explained that his company “can't actually control individual prices on Sony, so some of it had to go up or down” on Epic Games Store because of contractual obligations and a demand for parity.

For the UK, that’s good news – it’s actually gone down from £15.99 to £12.99. But for many other countries, like Brazil, the price has rocketed – we’re talking an increase from R$37.99 to R$104.90. That’s a 276 per cent jump! It’s a similar story in Turkey, where the title’s gone up from ₺33 to ₺153. This does make the price a bit more consistent across the various different countries, but obviously it doesn’t account for the differences in earnings et al.

As we said at the top of the article, we do understand how this has happened: Ska Studios has evidently signed a deal with Sony and it can’t be seen to be giving other platforms or storefronts a better deal as a result. However, we’d argue that the onus should be on PlayStation to offer better regional pricing flexibility on the PS Store – and, to be honest, in a period dominated by bad press, the company could do without the negative PR, couldn’t it?

[source techraptor.net, via resetera.com]