It's not "surge", it's not "dynamic", it's not "personalized" pricing... It's price gouging. Look forward to paying more for games during peak times and months. It's never enough for these greedy giant corporations.

Don't buy anything from Sony, got it

Yeah I’m testing out dynamic buying. If it’s too expensive I don’t buy it.

Then I will continue my 20 year Sony boycott.

the PS4 can be jailbroken with a €4 disc from aliexpress nowadays, and it has a great catalog of games. slap a 1tb external hdd on it, download games from archive.org, presto

Fuck dynamic pricing, anyone even considering it should be jailed.

So tired, so tired of these ultra rich finding new and creative ways of squeezing the plebs and we just, again, let them

The dynamic pricing will not affect my static boycott.

Dynamic pricing = unbridled greed

That's nice...

Meanwhile, I am testing piracy: one game - same price on my private torrent tracker.

I'm sure not being able to trust the price does wonders to sales.

This should have been an obvious outcome when digital games weren’t priced any less than their physical release.

It’s not about saving the environment with less plastic. It’s not about saving money for the customer. It’s not about making it more convenient for the customer or the developer.

It was always about more greed. More money in their pockets and more ways to fuck you over as a customer.

Being transparent about stable prices without shady experiments is the first step of trust. Years ago Steam got rid of dynamic prices during sales, where prices during sales for games would change. While not exactly the same thing as Sony does, its still good we got stable and reliable prices.

How do you justify “dynamic pricing” on downloadable content?

I'm not sure I follow the dynamic pricing explanation. This article shows evidence of A/B price testing with different sized discounts, but not specifically dynamic pricing. It seems to be regional at most. If I'm missing anything let me know.

testing if there is a call to boycott or people swallow it I assume

Well, the only game I was looking forward to from them was Ghost of Yotei, budt since they killed the PC port for whatever reason, i don't even want to buy anything

I should be able to use dynamic offers. Ok, today I'm offering 20% less.

These are the people who are about to win the console wars once Microsoft throws in the towel with Xbox.

PC gaming hopefully about to have a third golden age soon! 🤞

More incentive for people to go to PC and chances for Linux gaming to grow. We'll get a Linux GOG client someday and drag EGS kicking and screaming to Linux too. Steam lets devs generate keys for free for deva to sell on other stores with no Valve cut. Bundle sites like Fanatical, Humble Bundle, Digiphile

Closed hardware platforms with closed software distribution loops are destined for enshittification

PS5 will keep being a dust collector for me. Unplugged it once the ROM keys leaked. It may someday be useful as a normal PC

I've always said digital games should be discounted. I saved you the manufacturing, shipping, middle man, and warehousing costs. But I got zero discount, and the digital game can just be taken from you

So what you're saying is never use the Playstation store for any reason whatsoever.

Anyone dealing with Sony in anyway absolutely deserves everthing they get. Fuck Sony ten ways to forever.

It seems as though many people aren't reading the article, Sony was testing lower prices for the test groups, not higher. That sounds like the opposite of price gouging to me.

Dynamic pricing for video games isn't new. Games will charge more or less based on your location.

It's funny how companies brazenly do this, yet there are still swaths of moron saying it's necessary to keep the lights on.

No, dipshits. It's necessary to maximize profit off of your stupid-asses.

No matter how dynamic a pricing model, five-finger discount always makes it free.

Don't we already have a similar thing with regional pricing?

Video games (and pretty much everything else) are sold for less in countries where the local currency is "weaker", to maximize the profits in each market. Selling Slay the Spire 2 for ₱779.00 Philippine Peso means they get this brand new game for half the price Europeans pay for it, only difference to most other goods is that it literally is the same product.

This is justified by claiming gaming is for everyone, it would be unfair to price out entire regions simply because the average worker earns less US $ over there.

Does this not apply within countries, too? Wouldn't it be fairer if they sold games for less in Kansas compared to New York? I get that we do not trust game publishers with this new tool, and fear they just want to get the most money out of us, but then we also need to make the same fuss about how they use the old tool to do the same thing. I for one am closer to the Japanese median income, can I pay their prices then?

I guess I’ll test not buying anything while they keep fucking with that idea.

Aren't they being sued for pricing issues at this very moment?

If they analyze my personal purchase history, they might notice a trend that I’m not buying games from them for more than $40 anymore unless they’re single player, have epic storylines, and are heavily vouched for across the gaming community.

If they know this and start pricing their games around that budget for me, I might start spending more money in their store than I would have otherwise.

Otherwise, when I eventually get a Steam machine, I think the only games I’ll be buying from them will be the big budget single player exclusives. Assuming Sony still wants to make those.

It will be interesting to see how it works. Grocery stores often use dynamic coupons and it's excellent. Could end up with more savings for the more patient buyers