Don’t be surprised if games in the PlayStation Store cost more for you than they do for your friends.
Reports suggest that Sony is currently testing dynamic pricing in the PlayStation Store. This could mean that players see different discounts for the same game.
PlayStation Store: Players Are Apparently Seeing Different Prices
The PlayStation Store regularly hosts sales where numerous games are discounted. Many players naturally take the opportunity to pick up their favorite titles at a lower price. However, a good deal is not the same for everyone, and that appears to be exactly what Sony is experimenting with. Prices for some players in certain regions have apparently been adjusted.
The price tracker PS Prices discovered the tests by comparing data from various games across multiple countries. The result: 139 games in 68 different regions have become part of an A/B test. According to the findings, the base price of certain games varied between 5.3 percent and 17.9 percent. However, the games were not made more expensive, only cheaper. Titles affected include God of War, Spider-Man, and Stellar Blade. Some third-party games also appear to be part of the test, such as Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 and Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2.
However, customers were not only shown different base prices. Players also appear to see different discounts depending on their purchasing behavior. For example, some users were shown that Helldivers 2 was discounted by 25 percent, while others were shown a discount of 56 percent for the same game.
These tests were apparently not conducted in Japan or the United States, but Europe is affected.
Many players are critical of this change. Some fear that Sony could use this system to disadvantage certain users in the store. It also remains unclear what criteria are used to decide who receives lower prices and who does not. If someone is a dedicated gamer who would theoretically be willing to pay more for a game, would that person then receive fewer discounts?
This highlights the fundamental problem with such systems: a lack of transparency. So if you are browsing the PlayStation Store in the future, it might be worth comparing prices beforehand.
