- cross-posted to:
- games@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- games@lemmy.world
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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.
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
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.
Exactly what i was thinking. A/B testin is the best way to get data.
What worries me more is what they are going to do with that data and if it will lead to predatory business model or not.
It absolutely will be used in the most shitty predatory way. They’re not going to simply delete the data and most digital marketplaces are excited at the prospect of dynamic pricing.
Yes, predatory use is what i fear.
What i can gather from the article at the moment they are testing what is the percentage they can discount the game and make most profit still from it. I dont inherently see any proof they are aiming for full dynamic pricing.
If they give for group A, 50% discount and make 1000 sales from 70€ game they make 35 000€.
But if they give group B, 25% discount from 70€ game they make the same 35 000€ with only 667 sales.
Then they have group C as a control. If the control group will make as much money as the other groups they know for sure discounts are not good busines.
Simple so far.
After the initial numbers they most likely will follow the retention. If i were there i would follow each group weekly and take a note how much money each group generates. At this time it would be best that each group gets the same discounts and adds etc. My hypotesis would be that people who buy only games from big discounts are more unlikely to buy games at full price. Meaning that even if there were more sales there would be less income and the customers have lower CLV. It does not mean they are bad customers per se, but it would mean they are not the core customer group they should focus their effort on.
If they are doing what they are doing to figure out their audience really is, this is not predatory. A/B testing is unfortunaly the best way test it, and to company as big as Sony, the data they collect is unmeasurable in value. Everyone of us had been part if some companys A/B test at some point. Adds, news site headers, youtube videos, hell even telemarketing calls do this all the time.
Im not saying they are not looking into to dynamic pricing, but with what information the article gave me i cant say that they are.
Sorry for the long text. I wanted just to justify why i dont see this for a reason to immediadly jump in to conclusion that Sony is trying to screw everybody up.
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
Yeah I’m testing out dynamic buying. If it’s too expensive I don’t buy it.
I just don’t buy things I can be getting for free anymore. All of the people selling it want to treat me like a piggybank instead of a person, so I don’t treat them as humans either.
This also goes for indie devs. They still do scumbag shit like ending prices in .99 while expecting the community to show goodwill.
Fuck that.
I’ve been doing that for years 🏴☠️
I’ve been going back to all the previous generation games I didn’t play since they’re all very easy to access these days in various forms!
GOG 💪
testing if there is a call to boycott or people swallow it I assume
Doesn’t matter if there is boycott or not. They are letting the cat out of the bag and it’s not going back in.
This is the start of normalizing surge pricing in gaming.
So what you’re saying is never use the Playstation store for any reason whatsoever.
I went there yesterday. The enshittificatiin is out of control. Instead of being able to sift through games, it’s all a bunch of predatory loot box-ish bullshit. Looks like it’s PC master race from here on out.
Dynamic pricing = unbridled greed
Next up: highly personalised dynamic pricing by analyzing your bank account, payment behaviour, your age, gender, location, your app and website interaction patterns, the color of your shit, the time spend on digital media and breathing, your credit score, your biometric data, whether you are white or a terrorist, your political voting behaviour, the number of hairs you have, your likely age of death, your medical and mental health history, your probability of being captivated by addictive patterns anf gambling mechanics, and maybe even your game collection, to maximize squeezing each and every last penny of your barely or even non-existent disposable income.
That’s nice…
Meanwhile, I am testing piracy: one game - same price on my private torrent tracker.
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
THEY’RE A BUSINESS AND THEY NEED TO MAKE MONEY!!!
Stop being fucking poor and serve the people richer than you.
🏴☠️ might be the answer to this conundrum
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.
I might be part of the problem. I bought a PS5 years ago, thinking GTA6 was close to being released.
Turns out no.
But what I’ve discovered is that with how the gaming industry has gone, I don’t see any need to buy games anymore.
I’m sick of games being an online focused experience, which requires subscription costs.
I’m sick of every game needing a multiple deluxe collectors editions that are the only way to play the full game, but cost $200 each and come with cheap plastic junk “collectables” to justify the cost.
“But you won’t get the super rare coin and lapel pin if you don’t get the collectors edition!”
“Thats fine. Just sell me the full game at $60.”
“The full game requires the collectors edition. But it comes with this lapen pin and rare coin!”
“How many copies of the collectors edition are there?”
“About 2 million.”
“So, not exactly rare, is it?”
The term of art is “price discovery”
How do you justify “dynamic pricing” on downloadable content?
It’s nothing new. It’s been done for the past 20 years. Products are priced differently in different countries based on their economy.
You have been able to do this in Steam for decades now. You can/could use VPN along with changing your location in steam, to trick it into thinking you are in that region. You would then get that regions prices.
E.g, lots of Steam games used to be noticeably cheaper if Steam thought you were in Russia as opposed to Germany.
I don’t think this story is about that. It’s about making games more expensive based on how much they think you’ll pay.
This specific study in the article is about making games cheaper to see if that makes people more likely to spend, but you just know they’re going to also make them more expensive if this works out
The former part has been a thing for hundreds of years.
But yeah I suppose they would use it to change the price dynamically on a constant basis based on demand.
Though I’m not sure that’s even legal to this extent in EU. It’s a product for purchase. Not a stock. But you’re right. It does sound bad.
So they aren’t gonna say “loads of people are downloading the same game in the same region, let’s increase the price”? Cause that’s what dynamic pricing means.
Then I will continue my 20 year Sony boycott.
What was it that initially sent you down that path?
Steam and PC gaming if anything. That and changing life priorities in my 30s and 40s. GoG and epic too. Between them I have almost 1000 games I didn’t pay for. Combined with hundreds on steam from humble etc. I probably spend more time trying to decide what to play than playing it.
Valve is also the only company out of these big gaming companies who do lot of Open Source (working on it and funding other projects) and care about Linux. It maybe coincidental, but these care and goals align with my personal interests. No other company in the gaming industry does that to this extend, plus its an open platform. And being a private company brings also lot of freedom to not listen to shareholders.
The only thing is, that Steam itself is not Open Source… and the uncertainty what will happen if one day Gabe will no longer control…
That last note. Ughhh… Don’t put fear in my heart. Every generation it’s “all you have to do to come out on top is not step on your own dick” and every generation these massive companies manage to find at least one way to fuck up spectacularly. Steam ISN’T just doing nothing, but even if they did, it would be a lot better than most of the major players most of the time
Preferring a different option is not a boycott of the one
But refusing to buy from one company specifically is. Just because you buy similar products somewhere else doesn’t mean that you aren’t boycotting the other company.
I refuse to buy from Blizzard, Activision, EA, and Ubisoft. I refuse to buy Sony games so long as they require a PSN account for PC games. Just because I buy indie games doesn’t mean that I’m not boycotting those AAA companies for their actions.
Yes.
But that wasn’t the reasoning that was given.
I don’t buy from A because I prefer B… Is not a boycott.
Not the person you asked, but for me:
- The music CD rootkit
- removing OtherOS from the PlayStation 3
- trying to push various proprietary formats like MemoryStick and MiniDisc
- DRM in ATRAC3
- etc.
Take your pick!
I’m still pissed about the rootkit scandal. That was 21 years ago now, and I haven’t spent a penny on Sony products since.
Omg their stupid ass 4x normal price proprietary memory sticks lmao
Trying to only establish proprietary media in the past, mostly ignoring open standards.
Oops I didn’t fully read, you got it ♥️
Ugh God. I remember that “Magic Gate” bullshit when the PSP launched. They started a trend with the Walkman and they’re trying to get lightning to strike twice. Never could do it though. Good.
Those greedy assholes need to engineer and innovate in other areas.
I should be able to use dynamic offers. Ok, today I’m offering 20% less.
