Sony tests dynamic pricing on the PlayStation Store across 68 countries

Sony appears to be running a large-scale experiment across around sixty countries. On the PlayStation Store, game prices would vary depending on the user.

Dynamic pricing is nothing new and already exists in many markets. The most familiar example is travel, where the cost of an airline ticket can change from one person to the next. Could the same approach be creeping into video games? That is, at least, what PSprices says it is seeing.

What PSprices observed on the Sony PlayStation Store

PSprices closely monitors the pricing Sony applies on the PlayStation Store. Since last November, the site has reported something unusual: the prices of games sold on the PS5’s digital shop appear to differ between users. According to PSprices, this pattern has been found across more than 150 games and in 68 countries.

A difference of 5.3% to 17.6%

In practical terms, some players are shown lower prices than others. These amounts are not labelled as special deals, because Sony is not applying any promotion or specific offer: they are simply cheaper.

This would include major Sony Interactive Entertainment releases such as God of War Ragnarok, Gran Turismo 7 and Spider-Man 2. For some users, they drop from 79,99 euros to 69,99 euros. Cheaper titles see similar shifts: Helldivers 2 moves from 39,99 euros to 35 euros. These are sizeable reductions.

Other publishers affected and sale discounts that vary

The situation would not be limited to Sony’s own games. PSprices says it has observed the same behaviour on titles published by 2K, Focus, Rockstar and Deep Silver.

For example, Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 reportedly went from 69,99 euros to 59,57 euros for certain customers, and Red Dead Redemption 2 from 49,99 euros to 44,99 euros. The site also claims that during the most recent sales, the discounts themselves were not identical from one player to another, with Helldivers 2 shown anywhere from -25% to -56%.

No confirmation from Sony, and key questions remain

So far, Sony has not confirmed any dynamic pricing policy; this is only what PSprices says it has documented. The United States and Japan also appear to be excluded, presumably for legal reasons.

Even so, the practice raises obvious questions. Why should some players pay more than others? What would motivate Sony to lower the price of certain titles for certain users? Are occasional players being targeted to encourage them to buy more? Are these prices decided at random? For now, there is no clear answer.

In any case, the prospect of this kind of pricing taking hold in video games is worrying for the future. At a time when playing is becoming increasingly expensive, seeing this sort of inequality widen is bad both for players and for the industry’s image.