For years, buying digital games on PS4 and PS5 has been the comfortable option for millions of players, but in the United Kingdom that comfort is brushing up against the judicial system. A British court is examining whether Sony has taken advantage of its absolute control over PlayStation Store to charge users commissions that the plaintiffs consider abusive. The case has progressed and there are developments, with the worst of all being that Sony is risking £2 billion.

According to the BBC, the lawsuit in question has been driven by consumer advocate Alex Neill since 2022 and is structured as a collective action with automatic inclusion of those affected. This means that any user in the United Kingdom who has purchased games or digital content on the PlayStation Store in the last ten years is automatically inside the case, with no need to sign up for anything. The plaintiffs’ lawyers calculate that up to 12.2 million people could receive an average of £162 each if the court rules in their favor.

A Historic Lawsuit Against Sony

The argument is that Sony would have passed on to final prices a commission of up to 30% that developers pay to distribute in the store. The new development is that the Competition Appeal Tribunal has already begun to examine the case and the arguments are on the table. Lawyer Robert Palmer said at the trial that Sony not only charges a high commission, but has also organized everything so that players have no other option. According to the lawsuit, the conditions the company imposes on studios mean that PlayStation digital games can only be sold through PS Store, so users are ‘trapped’ in that ecosystem. To this must be added Sony‘s push toward digital, since of the three PS5 models, only one has a disc reader, meaning more and more people depend solely on PS Store to buy games, and physical sales decrease every quarter. What remains to be resolved in the coming weeks is whether the court considers that Sony has acted as a monopoly that has actively harmed players, or whether its commercial conditions are simply the usual rules of digital platforms. Additionally, this same court has open similar cases against Valve for its practices on Steam, and the precedent set by Apple, which was criticized for its 30% commissions on the App Store.

Source: 3djuegos