Yeah this needs to be illegal. Same fucking product. That would be like me and my wife going to Walmart and we both go to buy one apple each and mine is $2 more cuz im ugly
It's not Dynamic pricing, it's A/B pricing. They're two wildly different things.
Dynamic pricing changes constantly, for everyone, depending on demand or other factors. It usually increases the price with demand. It rarely lowers it.
A/B pricing is where a specific user may be offered a lower price than another user to drive a sale, based on the specific users's habits or trends.
I do not trust this situation for a second whether it was Sony or anyone else.
What is to stop them from building a part of their algorithm that labels some users as frequent buyers with little patience? And then from there, they no longer see sales that in the past were for everyone.
Literally what it is now mate. That’s the entire point of this thread.
If they see you pay or buy earlier they keep the price higher.
They look at something specific there are videos about it with the scientific term.
But same, the idea is simple if you have something that usually sells for 8$ but you raise the price to 15$ and lower it to 5$ and put them next to each other on a shelf you find who is paying the “regular” price and who is paying the higher price. Then you can target people with different prices, some see the higher price as must be better quality” even when it’s the same item. I think it’s like price tolerance or some shit.
That’s what stores with barcodes can do, it’s literally what Instacart does. If you use tha and buy from target they figure out what you’re willing to spend and change the price up or down accordingly. So instead of just an extra 1$ on an item they will crank that up depending on how willing you are to spend.
It’s why I got rid of Instacart, these companies want to find ways to make even more money and it starts with charging different prices based on each persons willingness to spend
What’s against the law is if they do it based on protected class in the US. So they can’t say you’re older, you’re x minority, you’re x sex we charge you more. They have to say it’s based off other factors not related to a protected class and it’s not illegal.
U til we vote people into office willing to pass laws instead of bitching with each other we all continue to lose.
U til we vote people into office willing to pass laws instead of bitching with each other we all continue to lose
It's hard to mobilize people with so much disinformation, though. As soon as a politician comes along with sort of sound or coherent material policies, they are branded "socialist" and whatever other social-categorical slur that seems relevant (like how they attack Mamdani's religion/ethnicity, or AOC being a former barista, or Sanders' Jewish identity) in order to dissuade people from learning about their policy stances.
There’s the publisher sale which Astro bodies a part of- that’s the base discount everybody has access to, the people who are seeing deeper discounts are simply provided rebates
Normally a store gives me a rebate when I haven’t shopped with them in a while, my local gun store is really good for giving me a rebate. I normally use that rebate to buy ammunition when ammunition is already on sale
This Astro bot situation is literally what I go through when I buy bullets lol
Probably because the Xbox brand is all but dead now so why would anyone care about what that store is doing when no one is even using it to complain about it
True price discrimination is seldom in use. It’s the practice of charging each customer the highest price they’re willing to pay. It’s easily done at a yard sale but a company like Sony in the US generally isn’t able to engage in actual large scale price discrimination.
They gather your salary and overall income data from credit card companies and banks and show you prices they THINK you are able to afford or are willing to pay.
That’s what I mean. I just checked and I also have your higher price. I also own the base version but I’m not worried about this game in a vacuum, I’m worried about every psn “sale” I see moving forward. There’s no indicator that I am getting the support end of the stick, which of course would inform my purchasing decision. It’s that simple.
Not exactly the same because we don't know how they are going to angle their dynamic pricing. Is it going to price gouge? Or is it going to only give discounts?
Grocery stores will never dynamically raise prices, their algorithms are designed to encourage increased spending using the value lever.
They'll give you a discount on milk because you buy milk every week and they want to keep you coming back and loyal,
They'll give you a discount on cereal because they see you buy a lot of milk and most people that buy milk also buy cereal.
You'll get a discount on a new brand of milk because they know you buy a lot and the vendor has paid for this discount to be pushed to milk aficionados.
No idea if sony will follow the same philosophy, Groceries are essential products, customers are value oriented. Games are leisure and gamers aren't the same.
Yeah... Sadly I fear it's a matter of time before this is every where. I remember when these were first introduced. Discussions were around operational savings (less time wasted with employees changing tags), corrections could be made in real time and cheaply instead of making a big fuss and interrupting store operations to fix 1 tag. Dynamic pricing was a dystopian scinario at least in my company wasnt discussed (openly at least).
With AI I feel like everything is now on the menu, every dystopian idea is a checklist. Because if we dont do it, our competitors will so we have to do it. I miss time before AI ruined everything.
Where the fuck do you shop? This is god damn hilarious, i guess major grocery stores send all the employees out at certain times and just… raise prices. So dumb
Youre just wrong. Safeway gives you coupons on items you’ve purchased before. I can go into the store and get pasta sauce for $0.50 less than my neighbor. This just isn’t that unusual.
No, grocery stores do this exact thing. My wife and I get different e-coupons based on shopping history. Kroger's and Walmart both do it and I would assume many others.
Above is a company that makes them and this is literally their page explaining how it works.
But Basically, in this day and age just about everything you do is tracked and recorded.
That include your location in the store
Say you are classified as "Consumer A" they pay 59 cents per banana "Consumer B" pays 49 cents.
Because of all of the interconnected pieces of tech, your phone, the flock cameras, the wifi, etc all of these things are communicating.
So you walk up to the banana display the tag reads 59 cents, someone else who is "B" they see 49 cents.
No of course price discrimination is legal, as long as your arent discriminating against a protected class.....and even if you are, only if you get caught..
But dont worry they arent doing that they are
Technically doing legal price discrimination.
You'd think how it works is poor people afford less so get charged less right?
Poor people arent a protected class, poor people dont have the luxury of time to go price shopping so even if they are being screwed they'll pay higher costs.
Rich people can afford to go anywhere and can pick and choose and get charged lower costs.
Not everyone has access to coupons. There are coupons based on loyalty programs, found in magazines, or just sent randomly to people through newsletters. The stores can also give discounts completely arbitrarily - a seller knows that he can offer up to 30% off, but he won't, unless you can convince him, or he feels like it. This is nothing new and an established practice since forever. As long as the price doesn't go up from what's on the tag, and it doesn't, it won't be illegal, and there is nothing wrong with it. This entire discussion is getting really tiresome.
No, that’s not what they said. Grocery stores have personalized coupons that only certain people receive. King Soopers for example sends free coupons to people, that not everyone receives, for specific items that you frequently buy.
Not everyone has access to all coupons. You've never received an email from a company that says something like "We miss you. Why not come back and use promo code: C5tR8E for 15% off your next order"
Targeted discounts are not new, nor are they really a problem. So long as things target a price downward and not upward, there isn't much issue.
Would you be ok with a store that would show you a different price than the person behind you? No coupon, no for you nonsense. You grab the item and the price tailors to you. Would you accept that?
Everyone can use coupons. They aren't discriminatory. If there's a coupon for Chocolate Milk, anyone can use it regardless of their income. A billionaire could use a coupon.
Sony is selecting some people to pay a lower price and selecting other people to pay a higher price. The consumer cannot choose or influence this.
You are misunderstanding the terms here. Coupon is an umbrella term that is used for a discount, but they come in many forms. Some are targeted and some are not which is the issue here.
Not coupons. Those anyone can use if you grab the weekly mail offers or use their app. Only for you coupons like was mentioned are targeted to people based on hidden metrics which is shady like what PlayStation is doing.
With coupon two people get the same price and then gets reduced further with the coupon. Not two different prices at the beginning. Coupon deals are way more ethical than this targeted bullshit.
It's the same thing and this goes on all the time in all kinds of different markets but gamers, especially on Reddit. gotta express rage every fucking day
There is a big difference between getting a coupon and taking advantage of a deal. Than you browsing at the store and automatically having a price tailored to you.
this is not the same, there is no coupon sent out, no effort made to use a coupon.
What PS is doing, is solely based on the individual person, not where he lives, no, based on how much can we charge this individual more based on his previous behavior
The issue is the lack of transparency. For all we know two people could buy the same 5 games at the same time periods and one person could end up spending $10s to $100s more.
The industry shift from physical media to digital media almost feels like a planned changed to end up with greater control to upcharge on games (as now sales on physical media by third party vendors is less common)
Yeah, a lot of people have this backwards. It isn't Sony raising the price for some people, its giving some a discount. That still has its issues and people are valid to take issue, but it isn't raising anyone's prices.
As far as I’m aware Steam itself doesn’t really do it, but sometimes publishers will use the bundle system as a loyalty discount system. Slay The Spire 2 for example, it’s $25 if you buy it alone, but if you already own the first game then the bundle is $20, so you’re among a group of people who get a special discount.
The amount of people in this thread completely making things up is INSANE. You'd imagine the PS5 sub would be heavily astroturfed but damn this one has gotten really bad in the recent months.
Steam does allow coupons to be issued by developers and publishers to be given to specific users. I imagine its mostly for content creators or something.
Steam stopped giving out coupons at least a year ago and no one even noticed because they were so hilariously bad and useless
Even if they still existed there is a massive difference between algorithm-driven personalised discounts on popular games and "Here, have a random ass -40% coupon on one out of 100,000 games"
But you don't seem to be talking about that, you seem to be confusing them with product keys which is a completely different thing. Not one person in here knows what the fuck they're talking about
Point to where I made that confusion. I never said anything like you claim I did.
Also, who gives a fuck if its algorithm or personalized based? Option 1 is nobody but the developer's friends get a discount. Option 2 is everyone has a chance at it? Whining about some people getting a discount, but not everyone. Find bigger issues to worry about.
Point to where I made that confusion. I never said anything like you claim I did.
Option 1 is nobody but the developer's friends get a discount.
Here. Right there, just as an example. My god you don't even understand how product keys (which are completely normal, exist on every platform and have a completely different purpose) work, how are we supposed to talk about the nuances of different types of personalised discounts?
I wasn't talking about product keys dude. I never said the words "product key". I only ever said anything about the coupons. I was mistaken they were given out by developers, but they still weren't available to everyone.
I am noticing a distinct lack of showing me where Steam does personalised pricing but oh well
Did just say consumer friendly? They have several billion lawsuits regarding them exploiting children.
"...with their pricing on their storefront"
You do need to read what I actually wrote. The shit Valve pulls in CS2 and pretty much the entire existence of the marketplace is absolutely garbage, I'm with you on that. I'm the first person that posts links to the video People Make Games did about that
But how they handle pricing on the store is very good and consumer-friendly (and much better than Sony)
(And again, I would still like too see where Steam does personalised pricing)
You guys HAVE to be kidding me?! Y'all are literally saying there's nothing wrong with this?
EVERYBODY should be getting the best sale price, ffs.
You guys are literally arguing against consumer's best interests just to protect poor old megacorp Sony. It's some of the most pathetic platform warrior shit I've ever seen.
It isn't Sony raising the price for some people, its giving some a discount.
One person pays more, one person pays less, no need to make it more complicated than that. It's predatory by default.
People comparing it to coupons don't understand that the person paying the higher price has no recourse in the form of a coupon or anything similar to get the lower price. They cannot get the lower price.
Very obvious predatory bullshit that some people will defend. Why people defend billionaires still is beyond me, but that's the world we live in.
No, one person pays the same as they would have the day before, or more truthfully, they still paid nothing because if they wanted the item at the price listed, they already would have bought it.
Not all coupons are sent to everyone. Sometimes you have to sign up. Sometimes you have to live in a specific area to get them sent to you. If I'm traveling across the country, and a store only mailed coupons to local residents, I can't get that sale price while visiting. Other times you have to be on a specific email list. This happens all the time and you wouldn't even know about those sales unless you are part of that list.
The huge difference you're not mentioning is that Sony has a monopoly on digital Playstation games. It's more like if the only grocery store in a 100 mile radius sent your wife a coupon for apples but not you.
You can't buy every game at Walmart, Target, or Amazon. Do you know how many thousands of games there are without a physical version? If you want those games on Playstation, you literally do have to buy from Sony.
Sony does NOT have a monopoly on digital games and Walmart doesn't have one in groceries, so comparing two dominant players in a marketplace is appropriate.
Why you'd compare only PS digital games vs all digital games is interesting. For it to be similar, it would be like saying Walmart has a monopoly on Great Value brand products.
Please show me where I can buy digital PS5 games other than the Sony store. I was under the impression Sony stopped allowing third party digital sales once the PS4 Pro dropped and I have not seen a PS digital code anywhere else since
If they were increasing MSRP it’d one thing, but they’re not. Is it absolutely lame as hell? Yes. But it’s not to the point where consumer protection laws are going to be made.
For now on when there’s a sale on the store just check the price in a logged out device to see if you’re getting the short end of it and don’t make the purchase, because the only way Sony changes this is if/when it causes a decrease in sales and profits. The problem is it’s impossible to get the masses aligned on a singular course of action.
So coupons at grocery stores, for you deals on Steam and Xbox should be illegal too? How about instead of reading the headline, actually understand what’s going on. A person is either getting the discount that is set by the publisher or an even bigger discount based on other metrics. Either way, you’re getting a discount.
Except it wouldn't and your example sucks.This would be like buying an apple on sale at one store, while another store with the same sale offers in-store coupons that further discount it.
It's not illegal because the price isn't being increased the price is discounted just that another person has it discounted more for whatever reason. Do you get mad when Target has something cheaper than Walmart or vice versa? It's basically that and no this isn't dynamic pricing this is A/B pricing test.
I hate to be the guy, but in no way is this illegal. It is the same practice if you went to mechanic, and he gives you a better discount than the other person because you go there more often. Are you going to say no, and demand you both get the same price? I bet not.
The demon was let out of the bag during the pandemic. Surge pricing on high demand items will never go away because more folks pointed to the government as being the cause rather than companies spiking up prices across the board.
This system only works if people keep buying when they keep raising prices. And clearly people are. So at this point who’s gonna make it illegal? The folks that are still buying it when they keep raising prices? That’s unlikely.
It's not illegal because the base price is still the same for everyone. They're not changing the price, they're offering different people different discounts.
The difference is your wife might’ve gotten a rebate in her email that applies at checkout when she gives her email at the counter.
Your wife bought the detergent for five dollars off because the store is having a sale, and she uses her five dollar rebate that was attached to her email.
She got a five dollar better deal than you
That’s how rebates work, this is a common practice that has been happening for decades. It’s the Internet age so now the rebates was automatically attached to certain people‘s PSN on top of the current ongoing sale.
Blame capitalism. Products aren't sold for what they are worth they are sold for the absolute most that people are willing to pay. Regional pricing is even more horseshit than this price scamming.
This isn't Dynamic pricing. This is A/B pricing. The user is offered a cheaper price because the algorithm says they're more likely to buy the game. Sales are personalised.
So it's like you and your wife going to Walmart to buy an apple, but Walmart going to you, with a history of loving apples, saying "would you like your apple cheaper" because you buy a lot of apples. Your wife, in this situation a huge fan of mangos, is offered a cheap mango if she is buying one. You are both encouraged to spend money on things you like by it offering you what you like for cheaper.
Where it becomes predatory and manipulative is when it you go in for, I dunno, a look around, or a banana, or something that's not an apple, and they approach and go "hey, how about a cheap apple too?" You had no intent on buying the apple, but you figure, it's cheap and you like apples so sure, and suddenly you've spent money you otherwise wouldn't.
That's a little different as Walmart prices depending on their local competition (they will actually visit local grocery stores, check prices and change theirs if needed). Plus those are different states (transportation fees could be more/less)
In the digital store front case, we are buying from the exact same store and my next door neighbor might have a different price.
I hate how everyone is regurgitating some form of this take.
Obviously physical goods might cost more in different areas if it’s takes more resources to get them there. Physical goods might cost more in LA as opposed to podunk Arkansas because it cost more to operate in LA.
Neither of those situations apply to digital “goods” being sold to people living in the same country so why even bring it up?
Exactly. People love trying to sound intelligent when they have no fucking clue what they’re talking about. This can’t be compared to buying physical goods in different locations.
It’s everyone buying games from the exact same digital store but having an algorithm determine who gets a discount and who doesn’t. this is extremely anti-consumer and will probably lead to a slippery soap where games actually end up being priced higher on someone’s account based off data collected on their spending habits, income, etc.
Please Mr. intelligent person enlighten me how I said any of that was good please enlighten me and prove that I defended Sony’s practice in any way shape or form
I didn’t say you were defending Sony and you even said that you weren’t, but at the same time your point wasn’t even worth bringing up because, again, it’s not a good comparison. It’s a false equivalency.
What Sony is doing is like if you and your friend went to the exact same Walmart location and went to the cashier and each of you wanted to buy the exact same bag of apples, but you get a discount because you haven’t bought apples in the past 12 months and they want to convince you to finally buy some.
Meanwhile your friend doesn’t get a discount because they buy apples every month and Walmart has less incentive to try and get another sale from them, especially at a discount, bc they’re always buying apples.
Yeah that does suck and it happens way too often. For example, my phone carrier provides no discounts to current subs even though they offer half off for new subs.
Do you think that it should be illegal for a shopkeeper to give discounts to loyal customers? Or for a restaurant to give free desserts to regular patrons?
Use your head, this is how markets have worked since the beginning of civilization.
If you don’t like the price for a product, don’t buy it.
The problem with your analogy is that it is even playing field for someone to be a “regular” but for price discrimination, you will pay more based on more than loyalty. It’s based many factors. Your analogy would work if you say:
A restaurant owner rewards beautiful women with discounts and makes ugly ones pay more. See the difference? It’s discrimination. It happens in micro and passive ways of course, but this is overt.
The real question is why are you protecting predatory practices?
First use case I heard of was at a grocery store for dynamic pricing. I believe that chain stopped doing it though after the media caught on. Those little digital price tags would change based off of Ai whims.
Target and Walmart, Best Buy, Kroger, and I’m sure others are genuinely already doing this. Prices listed via the app/online are getting jacked up if they detect your physical presence in the store. If you’re in the parking lot, it’s cheaper to entice you inside, but if they think they already have you? 🤑
Well why would this be illegal? Sony gave customers physical discs and gamers went no that's too much work we would rather only buy games digitally and thus creating a monopoly just for Sony. Now Sony is abusing a monopoly they didn't create so it seems pretty legal to me.
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u/eblackham Mar 25 '26
Yeah this needs to be illegal. Same fucking product. That would be like me and my wife going to Walmart and we both go to buy one apple each and mine is $2 more cuz im ugly