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4 hours ago, Sheikah said:

 

 

 

 

 

Why not? It's what Sony does. You can still buy games from any region's shop you want on PS4. IMO it was extremely useful for Switch as a way to mitigate some of the "Switch tax" common to much of the pricing.

Because Nintendo. Hence why we’ve had DKCR:TF and NSMBWUD (lol) at full price. At least the online is only $20, amirite?

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9 hours ago, Sheikah said:

Why not? It's what Sony does. You can still buy games from any region's shop you want on PS4. IMO it was extremely useful for Switch as a way to mitigate some of the "Switch tax" common to much of the pricing.

Oh well if Sony does it, it must be right?

Just pay developers the full value for their hard work and don't find loopholes to fleece them. It was either raise prices in certain markets or make the Switch no longer region free for everyone, they absolutely made the right choice.

Edited by Ronnie

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Oh well if Sony does it, it must be right?Just pay developers the full value for their hard work and don't find loopholes to fleece them. It was either raise prices in certain markets or make the Switch no longer region free for everyone, they absolutely made the right choice.  

 

Sorry but that is poor reasoning; people were doing this because the games were prohibitively expensive (costing more than physical copies in many cases). It wasn't about paying full whack, it was because the games were priced at more than full whack. As stated above, the eShop prices in these countries are now more expensive than the UK shop. Which makes no sense. And if Sony are doing it, doing so well as they are, at the very least we can say it mustn't have been hurting their bottom line too much or they'd have patched it back in the PS3 days.
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16 minutes ago, Sheikah said:
23 minutes ago, Ronnie said:
Oh well if Sony does it, it must be right?Just pay developers the full value for their hard work and don't find loopholes to fleece them. It was either raise prices in certain markets or make the Switch no longer region free for everyone, they absolutely made the right choice.  

 

 

Sorry but that is poor reasoning; people were doing this because the games were prohibitively expensive (costing more than physical copies in many cases). It wasn't about paying full whack, it was because the games were priced at more than full whack. As stated above, the eShop prices in these countries are now more expensive than the UK shop. Which makes no sense. And if Sony are doing it, doing so well as they are, at the very least we can say it mustn't have been hurting their bottom line too much or they'd have patched it back in the PS3 days.

People are paying the cheapest possible price for eShop games because they can, it has nothing to do with games being more expensive than at retail which only applies to the major titles anyway. It's open for abuse, you only had to look at ResetEra thread about Stardew Valley and how tons of posts were suggesting buying it on the Mexican eShop for like $4 or something. It's a really bad precident to set, especially when the retail value of games is dropping so rapidly. Mobile gaming and free to play games like Fortnite are seeing to that.

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I've played quite a few more games than I would have, if I wasn't able to find them cheaper somewhere. Not because I can't afford the games at "full price" (which is relative to the country you live in and thus not possible to refer to) but because at lower prices I'm more willing to take a risk. Denmark is among the most expensive countries to buy games in (look at savecoins.me - Denmark is always towards the bottom of the list). Norway is cheaper and I sometimes buy from there - which doesn't make sense at all since Norway in general has more expensive goods than Denmark and equivalent paychecks. It's not because I have tons of games on my iPad (I don't, I generally don't want to spend anything on apps on that device), it's simply because the games are unreasonably expensive and I'm not willing to risk wasting my money on something I don't know if I want to play. 

More and better demos would be a way to take away the uncertainty but most of the interesting games don't get one, or it's very bad (mostly set in the beginning of game where things aren't really that fun). 

Regarding bigger games like Nintendo's own, well, they are just priced too high and I want to save the money because I can and it's easy. Making it more cumbersome would make less people inclined to do so.

I also buy stuff from Germany if it is less expensive. My Pro Controller is from Amazon Germany where it was 25 % cheaper. They delivered about two days later than a local retailer could. Why shouldn't I buy it from there? 

Edited by MindFreak
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Not saying you shouldn't buy from there, if the opportunity is available to pay much less than your country's usual price, then go for it. I didn't want to buy Stardew Valley for half the price from the Mexican eShop (as one example), but everyone has different circumstances.

There's three different situations here...

Indie games that are between £5-£20, developed by a small team pouring their heart and soul in a project. There really shouldn't be a loophole where some markets Eshop is half the price of another, on a system that's region free. That's asking for people to abuse it, when more often than not the normal asking price for the game is very fair.

Brand new Nintendo first party games are the same price as other AAA games, the difference is they don't sell at bargain basement prices a couple of months later. Fair enough, Nintendo software sales are absolutely insane and they hold their value.

Ports of older Nintendo games selling for the same price as they did 6 years ago probably shouldn't be happening. I'm not entitled enough to say they should be £15 like some people, but a bit of a discount is called for. The reality is though they can charge full price because the majority of people will have never played them before, and their software is crazy high.

 

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1 hour ago, Ronnie said:

People are paying the cheapest possible price for eShop games because they can, it has nothing to do with games being more expensive than at retail which only applies to the major titles anyway.

Doesn't matter about the motive, my above point still stands - the eShop prices are very often a ripoff, above "full whack" (considerably more than retail in many cases - go look at retail games, which make up the majority of sales on Switch). This workaround was a good way to avoid the all-too-common "Switch tax". There are many games for instance that are multiplatform yet inexplicably cost more on Switch. Their eShop pricing is generally indefensible in this regard. They've also shafted Russians and Mexicans with this move - people who generally earn less money than us now have to pay more for games? Yeah, great move...

Quote

It's open for abuse, you only had to look at ResetEra thread about Stardew Valley and how tons of posts were suggesting buying it on the Mexican eShop for like $4 or something. It's a really bad precident to set, especially when the retail value of games is dropping so rapidly. Mobile gaming and free to play games like Fortnite are seeing to that.

The only times when people were getting insane deals is when Nintendo applied a sale to specific regions (because Stardew Valley is not normally priced $4 in Mexico, as I'm sure you know). So, that's on the developer/Nintendo for only applying sales to specific regions rather than globally. And as said, another company still allows you take advantage of other region's shops, so my original response was that Nintendo didn't exactly need to do this.

Edited by Sheikah
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Also, if the price on one eShop is half the price on another eShop and it sells twice as well on the first eShop because more people can afford it / are more willing to afford it, then the publishers don't really lose money on it.

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16 minutes ago, MindFreak said:

Also, if the price on one eShop is half the price on another eShop and it sells twice as well on the first eShop because more people can afford it / are more willing to afford it, then the publishers don't really lose money on it.

Sure but there's no way of knowing if that's the case, so you have to trust the publisher to price the game at what they think is the right value/would sell the most.

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23 minutes ago, Sheikah said:

Doesn't matter about the motive, my above point still stands - the eShop prices are very often a ripoff, above "full whack" (considerably more than retail in many cases - go look at retail games, which make up the majority of sales on Switch). This workaround was a good way to avoid the all-too-common "Switch tax". There are many games for instance that are multiplatform yet inexplicably cost more on Switch. Their eShop pricing is generally indefensible in this regard. They've also shafted Russians and Mexicans with this move - people who generally earn less money than us now have to pay more for games? Yeah, great move...

Are we talking eShop only games are a rip off? In which case, I disagree. If we're talking games that also have retail releases, welcome to ANY digital storefront on a modern console. Digital prices are always RRP, it's only retail where you can have discounts or in PS4/XBO cases bargain basement prices.

The "Switch tax" is because cartridges cost more than blurays, but that only applies for retail releases obviously.

There's nothing to defend when it comes to their eShop pricing, it's the same across every platform. It's down to third party publishers to price their games more expensive than on PS4/XBO, but that isn't down to Nintendo.

You and I obviously have completely opposite views of the industry so I doubt we'll be convincing each other any time soon.

21 minutes ago, Sheikah said:

The only times when people were getting insane deals is when Nintendo applied a sale to specific regions (because Stardew Valley is not normally priced $4 in Mexico, as I'm sure you know). So, that's on the developer/Nintendo for only applying sales to specific regions rather than globally.

That's not true, at one point games were much cheaper on the Mexican eShop without any sale. Maybe it wasn't $4 exactly but it was around that, 5 or 6 max.

Quote

And as said, another company still allows you take advantage of other region's shops, so my original response was that Nintendo didn't exactly need to do this.

Companies go about things in different ways, just because one does something, doesn't mean the other should as well, as you suggested above. They didn't need to do anything, they chose to do this.

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29 minutes ago, Ronnie said:
Companies go about things in different ways, just because one does something, doesn't mean the other should as well, as you suggested above. They didn't need to do anything, they chose to do this.

Not just cartridges, you look at many multiplatform games on their eShop and they're often more expensive than other digital stores; especially at release. And there's no way the cartridges cost, say, £5-10 more (or more!) than a Blu Day disc.

Also look at ancient games like Skyrim going for £50. Pretty ridiculous if you ask me and I'd have no qualms getting it for less if I saw it going for that on another region eShop.

And you're right, they didn't need to do this, so we agree on that point. I made this point in response to Dcubed who said: "They're not going to just leave an obvious pricing loophole wide open for abuse". Based on that response, it makes it sound like this is the only thing they could do in retaliation, which as we know is simply not true. My mentioning of PS4 was purely proof of concept - to show they didn't have to go the way they did.

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That's not true, at one point games were much cheaper on the Mexican eShop without any sale. Maybe it wasn't $4 exactly but it was around that, 5 or 6 max.

Obviously the prices are not the same across the board at any one time but the extraordinarily cheap prices you are mentioning are the result of regional sales. I know because I look out for these on HotUKDeals and have jumped on several. So yeah, it's a case of Nintendo or the developer in question applying a sale to a specific region. If they applied the sale globally then it wouldn't be anywhere near such a problem.

Edited by Sheikah

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10 minutes ago, Sheikah said:

Also look at ancient games like Skyrim going for £40-50. Pretty ridiculous if you ask me and I'd have no qualms getting it for £20 if I saw it going for that on another region eShop.

I get the impression you think the RRP of games in general across all platforms is too high, so yeah £40-50 for Skyrim will obv be too much for you. That's Bethesda's decision though.

16 minutes ago, Sheikah said:

Not just cartridges, you look at many multiplatform games on their eShop and they're often more expensive than other digital stores; especially at release. And there's no way the cartridges cost, say, £5-10 more (or more!) than a Blu Day disc.

There's no way for us to know the exact cost but I think it absolutely can be that sort of cost difference.

Quote

As highlighted by Eurogamer, it's one of manufacturing cost. Optical media, even Blu-ray discs, are very cheap to mass produce. Cartridges are relatively-speaking much more expensive. They also aren't a set cost.

Regardless of whether you burn 5GB or 40GB to a Blu-ray disc the media costs the same. Switch cartridges on the other hand, escalate in price depending on whether you need 1GB, 2GB, 4GB, 8GB, 16GB or 32GB of storage. They also get more expensive per cartridge the smaller the batch ordered.

But again if we're talking the Switch tax then that means we're talking about third party games, where pricing is set by the publisher.

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19 minutes ago, Ronnie said:

I get the impression you think the RRP of games in general across all platforms is too high, so yeah £40-50 for Skyrim will obv be too much for you. That's Bethesda's decision though.

I feel like you can't hold the points in you long enough to understand the discussion going on here, Ronnie. Either that or you are being deliberately obtuse and getting a kick out of this.

Skyrim is ten quid more on the Nintendo eShop than the PSN Store. This is a pretty common pricing difference between platforms, especially on bigger games. There are no cartridges involved to blame for this price difference. This is the aforementioned Switch tax. The devs/Nintendo (depending on how much Nintendo take from the top) charge more because they can get away with it.

So as I said before, the ability to go to stores of other regions was a nice way of mitigating the Switch tax. Can I understand why Nintendo/devs have done this? Yes. Did they need to do this? No. Still, I am disappointed.

Edited by Sheikah
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1 hour ago, Sheikah said:

I feel like you can't hold the points in you long enough to understand the discussion going on here, Ronnie. Either that or you are being deliberately obtuse and getting a kick out of this.

Skyrim is ten quid more on the Nintendo eShop than the PSN Store. This is a pretty common pricing difference between platforms, especially on bigger games. There are no cartridges involved to blame for this price difference. This is the aforementioned Switch tax. The devs/Nintendo (depending on how much Nintendo take from the top) charge more because they can get away with it.

So as I said before, the ability to go to stores of other regions was a nice way of mitigating the Switch tax. Can I understand why Nintendo/devs have done this? Yes. Did they need to do this? No. Still, I am disappointed.

You want a loophole to save you money on the "Switch tax", even though games like Stardew Valley, Crash N-Sane Trilogy, Firewatch and Hollow Knight are identically priced between Switch and PS4. FIFA 19 is cheaper on Switch than PS4. South Park is £48 on PS4 and £50 on Switch. Same with Dragon Ball Fighterz. Rocket League is £1 cheaper on Switch than PS4. So you can say you're using the loophole to save the extra money on Skyrim, but what's stopping you from doing the same with any of those games that are priced either identically or practicaly the same?

And the "Switch tax" on select games is mitigated a fair amount by a) the hybrid nature of the game and b) Nintendo's loyalty scheme, giving you money off with each game you buy. I wish Sony had any kind of loyalty scheme, let alone one as good as Nintendo's.

And I can understand the discussion fine, thanks very much.

Edited by Ronnie

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36 minutes ago, Ronnie said:

You want a loophole to save you money on the "Switch tax", even though games like Stardew Valley, Crash N-Sane Trilogy, Firewatch and Hollow Knight are identically priced between Switch and PS4. FIFA 19 is cheaper on Switch than PS4. South Park is £48 on PS4 and £50 on Switch. Same with Dragon Ball Fighterz. Rocket League is £1 cheaper on Switch than PS4. So you can say you're using the loophole to save the extra money on Skyrim, but what's stopping you from doing the same with any of those games that are priced either identically or practicaly the same?

And the "Switch tax" on select games is mitigated a fair amount by a) the hybrid nature of the game and b) Nintendo's loyalty scheme, giving you money off with each game you buy. I wish Sony had any kind of loyalty scheme, let alone one as good as Nintendo's.

And I can understand the discussion fine, thanks very much.

I don't deny that there are some games that aren't priced that differently, but there are certainly more big multiplatform retail games more expensive on Switch, and particularly so when they release. One of the most extortionate examples is Doom - 50 quid on Switch and 6.49 on PSN. Diablo 3 Ultimate Evil version (all DLC on PS4) is 35 quid, eternal collection (all DLC on Switch) is 50 quid. Disgaea 5; 35 quid on PSN, 50 on eShop. And Skyrim as mentioned before.There are quite a few more examples actually. These games have been out long enough now on Switch but still these prices stay at the very maximum.

It's worth remembering that there are also numerous sales that happen on big titles on PS4 - and that's generally when you buy your games anyway, so these RRP prices aren't actually very reflective of reality. You very rarely see decent sales on big games on the eShop. In fact, when Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle went on sale for 15 quid on the eShop it was so unheard of that it jumped to one of the most upvoted deals on HotUKDeals - such was the rarity of a reasonable discount on a big retail game on the eShop! When they do go on sale in some region, people jump on the chance to buy it because games on Nintendo's store are very often expensive.

I don't have a problem buying these games cheaper in other eShops, no - after all they are on sale in that region anyway. The developer decided to reduce their game to up sales so the cheap price is a result of their decision. Out of interest Ronnie, if you were in America and saw an iPad for what worked out to be 100 quid less than UK and you had been wanting to buy one, would you pass up on it? I suspect not...

Paying for portability should not even be a point in the case of multiplatform games since those devs had no hand in making the portable console. As I say, the devs that do it do it because they can.

Edited by Sheikah

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22 minutes ago, Sheikah said:

One of the most extortionate examples is Doom - 50 quid on Switch and 6.49 on PSN

You know full well that Doom didn't release at £6.50 on PSN. It's a bargain basement price that's very common on Playstation. You're also comparing games that release at different times, often years apart, which isn't a fair comparison. Let's see what Doom Eternal and the new Wolfenstein will release at on the various digital stores, if they release at the same time, that'll give a better indicator.

22 minutes ago, Sheikah said:

I don't have a problem buying these games cheaper in other eShops, no - after all they are on sale in that region anyway. The developer decided to reduce their game to up sales so the cheap price is a result of their decision.

Don't try and justify it by suggesting the developer wanted you to swap regions. If they wanted to put the game on sale to sell more copies they would have put it at that low price everywhere, but they didn't.

22 minutes ago, Sheikah said:

Out of interest Ronnie, if you were in America and saw an iPad for what worked out to be 100 quid less than UK and you had been wanting to buy one, would you pass up on it? I suspect not...

A giant corporation that make huge profits on every piece of hardware they sell (at extortionate prices) is a little different than the games industry where studios are going out of business left right and centre. Where hardware is either sold at a loss (PS3 and others) or with only a small profit (Nintendo). Where indie teams are having to pack up because they weren't making enough money, or where big AAA franchises are dying because the games ended up not selling. An industry where games are hugely complex and more expensive to make than ever, yet cheaper than ever.

22 minutes ago, Sheikah said:

Paying for portability should not even be a point in the case of multiplatform games since those devs had no hand in making the portable console. As I say, the devs that do it do it because they can.

But they did have a hand in getting it to run on said portable console. They don't just press a button that says "port to Switch handheld" and it's done.

Edited by Ronnie

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@Ronnie In my case it is quite simple - the cheaper price is the difference between me buying and not buying the game. I would never have picked up Mario + Rabbids if it stayed at something like 40 quid; I picked it up when it went to 15 quid. There's no ethical conundrum for me because the developer is now better off for me buying their game - the same can be said for any game I've got on sale via a foreign eShop.

If it wasn't an iPad...say it was a game you were interested in (but not at full price) that you saw for half price abroad...it'd be a no brainer to buy it, surely? Otherwise you are literally spiting yourself! I see it as no different with the eShop - not ethically, not legally. I'd be more inclined to buy if I was in the US purely down to how UK prices tend to do the old "pound and dollar sign switcharoo".

And the argument about the efforts in making it portable...ca'maan. That's no different to saying they program the game to react to each button on a dualshock 4. Or make the touch pad do something. What point are you making, dude? If you're going to say that there's effort porting games to Switch (e.g. reducing graphic fidelity) then there is certainly money spent doing that, but then there are games like Skyrim that are ancient and have no right to be anywhere near 50 quid.

Edited by Sheikah

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2 minutes ago, Sheikah said:

And the argument about the efforts in making it portable...ca'maan. That's no different to saying they program the game to react to each button on a dualshock 4. Or make the touch pad do something. What point are you making, dude?

The Switch runs better in docked mode, concessions and workarounds need to be made to get handheld play to perform as best it can.

If you only ever swap regions to get something cheaper you never had any intention of buying otherwise, then fair enough. If you were going to buy an indie for £10 then switched to Mexico to buy it at £5 instead then that's not cool. IMO.

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4 minutes ago, Ronnie said:

The Switch runs better in docked mode, concessions and workarounds need to be made to get handheld play to perform as best it can.

If you only ever swap regions to get something cheaper you never had any intention of buying otherwise, then fair enough. If you were going to buy an indie for £10 then switched to Mexico to buy it at £5 instead then that's not cool. IMO.

And what about the extra expense of programming/testing games to run well on both base PS4/X1 consoles and the Pro/X1X? The cost of developing games/textures to much higher graphical fidelity? You can easily use the same argument that there should be an additional surcharge for PS4/X1 games that does not apply to Switch.

The extra expense is just because they can get away with it. The Switch is lucrative shit right now.

Edited by Sheikah

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19 minutes ago, Sheikah said:

And what about the extra expense of programming/testing games to run well on both base PS4/X1 consoles and the Pro/X1X? The cost of developing games/textures to much higher graphical fidelity? You can easily use the same argument that there should be an additional surcharge for PS4/X1 games that does not apply to Switch.

One customer will only ever get one version. A PS4 owner isn't going to get the benefit of a Pro owner. A Switch owner gets the benefit of a home console game and a handheld game. It's not a big deal, I'm not saying it's the only reason certain Switch games can cost more then on the other platforms, but it's part of the equation. In addition to things like "its selling like crazy, so they can" like you say.

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One customer will only ever get one version. A PS4 owner isn't going to get the benefit of a Pro owner. A Switch owner gets the benefit of a home console game and a handheld game. It's not a big deal, I'm not saying it's the only reason certain Switch games can cost more then on the other platforms, but it's part of the equation. In addition to things like "its selling like crazy, so they can" like you say.


But that hybrid benefit has no cost to the developer. The fact you are getting a portable version does itself not cost the developer money, so why charge more?

Devs have to make it run well in docked and handheld mode, sure. But then they also have to make games run on base/Pro hardware. And they have to develop games to a higher resolution on the other systems, so it's not like Switch games cost more to make (they will almost certainly be cheaper).

Like I say, it's purely because they can get away with charging more on Switch that they do. And because I can get away with buying from foreign eShips, I do. ;)

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On 1/21/2019 at 2:20 PM, Dcubed said:

What's to stop people from lying about their country of residence in order to get access to the cheaper prices?

 

Back in the days of the Wii Shop Channel, when I was buying games from the US store with a US Wii, I used to lie all the time regarding my residency in order to use the Brazillian eShop (to add funds, since it allowed foreign debit cards), then switching back to the US store in order to actually buy the games I wanted.

 

Allowing that with a region free system is too easily abusable.

I still remember that N-E meet up where you turned up with your U.K Wii and your U.S one, both with different sets of games!

I don't really sell the problem with importing games from another region. It generally means I buy WAY more games than I ordinarily would. It's also worth keeping in mind that only a tiny percentage of the overall Switch market actually do it.

On a different note, looks like the Switch sold like hot cakes over Christmas. Absolutely delighted for the company and the strategic decisions they made. They clearly took a very long, hard look at what went wrong with the Wii brand from mid-2010 to the end of the Wii U's lifecycle and have quite literally done a 180. The Switch feels like a successor to the Gamecube and Gameboy Advance more than anything, especially regards to Nintendo's approach to software. It's great to see so many of my friends who haven't been interested in Nintendo for about a decade playing games like Smash and Zelda again.

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What actually happens when a game goes on sale? Does anyone actually know the breakdown? If the PSN store has a sale on your game, do you have a say in it?

Because you might have agreed to sell your game at £15 assuming you get £3 of it. If the game is suddenly 50% off, are the store obligated to do give you £3, or do you only get half?

I have no idea how this works, but usually if a shop runs a sale, it's only their profit margin that gets eaten into - the manufacturer gets paid the same.

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Not a clue either, but it may be a decision taking together with the developer, or they may sign a contract that allows their game to be sold at a discount without further say.. or it may just be as you say with physical sales, it's the discounter who takes a hit to their margin

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On 22/01/2019 at 7:32 PM, bob said:

What actually happens when a game goes on sale? Does anyone actually know the breakdown? If the PSN store has a sale on your game, do you have a say in it?

Because you might have agreed to sell your game at £15 assuming you get £3 of it. If the game is suddenly 50% off, are the store obligated to do give you £3, or do you only get half?

I have no idea how this works, but usually if a shop runs a sale, it's only their profit margin that gets eaten into - the manufacturer gets paid the same.

I've certainly seen it mentioned in various articles...but can't remember where.  And the multiple meanings of 'sale' isn't helping google.

This article discusses the impact PS Plus has on pricing.  This talks about Steam pricing (in points, it covers more than that).

There will be more out there. Gamasutra tends to having reflective articles from indie devs and it comes up a fair bit in those.

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