Stop Killing Games: It's time to sue Sony, join us

Why not just stop buying Sony instead?

Consoles have been a captive market since after the video game crash of 1983, and that's in part what has help the industry come back on track, by having manufacturers keep crap out of their platforms. They still have that level of control on physical disks, you can't sell a game on a Playstation unless Sony approves it, and always with some kind of DRM / copy protection.

A captive online store is just the natural evolution. Many on-disk games today are not completely on the disk, there is an online component somewhere and should it shut down, the game will not survive. The model where you buy a game and can use it and resell it for as long as the console and the media survive is already a thing of the past, pure online sales is just the final nail in this coffin.

But there is also a bright side. With the exception of Nintendo games, exclusives are not really a thing anymore. Almost every game come out on the PC, an open platform. It is a market that Steam dominates, but unlike with consoles, no exclusivity here. There are even DRM-free platforms like GOG, so you can put your games on your own media and save them for as long as you want.

The manufacturer controlled model of game consoles that Sony and Microsoft represent has served us well since 1983, but it is not the only way anymore, I would even say it is becoming a thing of the past. They are not killing games, they are killing themselves, or maybe dying of old age.

If people actually read the claims... it's about fair business practices, this is why they are suing Sony:

> ... In the EU, it is forbidden for large companies to abuse their position to make more profit at the expense of consumers. Yet Sony does not fully abide by these rules. > > If you buy a digital game or in-game content, Sony will only ensure that you can do so through its own PlayStation Store. Sony keeps the market to itself in this way and can keep prices artificially high. This way you pay more, without getting anything extra in return. This is called the “Sony Tax.”

This is not a lawsuit about Sony "taking away my discs", it's something like "Sony allegedly used its control over the PlayStation ecosystem to restrict competition in digital distribution, allowing it to keep prices artificially high and harm consumers".

Going digital was inevitable, i'd rather focus on making digital ownership better than fight to restore discs or game codes to 3rd parties

So McDonald's has a monopoly on the Big Mac? Because you can go to Burger King (Xbox) or KFC (Switch) or Sonic (PC) as well but this group is arguing they want to have a Big Mac but not from McDonald's? Or actually McDonald's doesn't have a monopoly because you can technically buy a Big Mac from Uber Eats or Doordash?

While I'm all for sueing Sony, and digital games cost more than physical games sound wrong and shouldn't happen, I feel like they focus on the wrong thing to sue Sony for. Like someone mentions in this thread, this feels like sueing McDonalds for having a monopoly on Big Mac, and only sell Big Mac in their stores. I don't know what the alternative solution to this problem is, but this doesn't feel right to me. For me, I would rather focus on digital rights and access.

You can sue whoever you want. But this reads of backpedaling and righteousness to me.

The quote below are not my words, but are from a prior comment on HN, which I think are relevant.

``` I in no way mean this to be rude, but I think a big part of why the EU isn't in the same galaxy as the US in the realm of business in general, is in some part, the knee jerk reaction to turn to the government to make products and services better. Governments cannot make you an alternative, they can only make something that already exists, different (usually worse).

I have zero interest in creating in the gaming space, however, my gut reaction would be to start down the path of how I could create competition to companies that rug pulled their games.

And yes, I get that "just make a competitor" is easier said than done. But at least by going down that road, you end up with more games, better games, and people learning skills throughout the process. And who knows, maybe one is a mega success.

Sure, you can stand there pounding your chest for "democracy," but I contend that those who are building their own things are practicing it far more than those who are demanding others make things for them. ```

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47130596

Sony is about to meet a community that's spent 30 years routing around unfair mechanics and doesn't plan to stop now.

I'm too small brain to understand the whole monopoly in my own business aspect. Because they are not arguing about game exclusivity, you can buy the same game most of the time on Xbox, Switch, PC (and if not that's an entirely different story) but the fact they want to buy on that platform (Playstation) but from a different store (not Sony). Can't wrap my head around that logic.

I have mixed feelings about this campaign. Their main ask is that Sony give up exclusivity for the Playstation store, which prevents anyone selling PS games without Sony's approval (and a 30% cut of revenue generated); their main argument is that Sony has total market domination makes it subject to specific EU rules.

I would like if there were other options besides the PS store for PS software, because the hardware is very nice and there are a lot of cool things developers could do with it if they didn't have to worry about compliance with Sony's narrow view of what constitutes digital entertainment and how big a company has to be to be an acceptable media partner. For example it would be nice to use a Playstation for non-game activities (math explorer, sci-fi style news dashboards, weird physics simulations) or have the choice to connect to the Criterion Collection and enjoy obscure media curated for other film snobs like myself, or...

On the other hand, if any malign software infects individual users' Playstations, or undermines the experience of other users who interact with the first group - eg participants in multiplayer games who are impacted by cheating or some sort of exploit - who is going to get blamed? Of course, it will be Sony. They could say 'well we warned you not to use XYZ app store and the only reason XYZ app store exists is that EUrocrats forced us to allow it on our beautiful platform', but no matter who is actually at fault it would be a huge hit to the Sony brand.

Say what you like about the economic and philosophical shortcomings of walled gardens, the reality is that most people find them preferable to a Plants vs Zombies type free-for-all, and I find it hard to blame companies for making a profit by catering to the garden-enjoyers rather than the wilderness-enthusiasts. The latter are after all free to just use some other computing/entertainment platform like Xbox, Steam, etc.; the argument made by campaigners is that they want all the quality of engineering, manufacturing, and access to top games that Sony makes available now, but also the possibility of breaking the hardware and/or the business model that brought it to market. I really think that when it comes to consumer technology, if you don't like the way the company operates you should just not use their products.

yay suing Sony! I think that countries should start disallowing hardware sales where the user doesn't have the root key. We are not renting the hardware, we are buying it.

Okay so if I understand this correctly they want Sony to compensate (Dutch) customers because Sony no longer sells digital download codes/game keys to third-parties? If they started doing that, would they still have a case?

For example, Nintendo does sell digital download codes, so this line of thinking doesn't apply to them? Maybe I'm misunderstanding. Or is this about 3rd party app stores again?

There are already class-actions against Sony in the US and UK for what appears to be this exact thing (using their dominant monopoly position to charge high prices) so it's not surprising to see it pop up in other jurisdictions this late in the game.

Announcement post: https://xcancel.com/StopKilingGames/status/20868405145197285...

Silly idea.

I would rather have a right to unlock. Make it law that Sony can't prevent alternatives OS installation. Then when you get Arch running on a PS5 you can install Steam on top

Viva La Resistance!

No english translation?

So they want Sony to be required to sell slightly discounted codes to resellers who then sell them to consumers? How does that matter to anyone besides resellers? I guess the resellers could pass some of that discount on to consumers? This seems like a pretty irrelevant concern since Sony is has no state granted or effective monopolies in game sales, they aren't a common carrier, they aren't benefiting from access to public right of ways or other exclusivity that gives them a market advantage that citizens need to be compensated for. I don't think this matters and I don't care about this.

i can think of 3-5 bigger issues hitting the games industry than this. It's a sort of bike-shed issue that everyone can pile onto. I'm sure people have a lot of angst over the decline of games, and this is an easy focal point. But I would like the other issues addressed.

Ballooning budgets, unnecessary hardware upgrades, un-skippable cutscenes, low player expectations, distracting or subversive narratives, pathetic mechanics, and so on.

"Stop Killing Games" is pure gamer slopulism. This idea is even sillier and more pointless than the last couple. There is a ton of competition in the games industry for games, platforms, hardware, etc.