Epic lawsuit shows Sony asks publishers for compensation if MTX / playerbase ratio falls below certain amount compared to the cross-platform revenue

AmFreak · May 3, 2021

aronmayo said:
From The Verge article:
Gio Corsi, Sony's senior director of developer relations at the time, dismissed the idea of crossplay, noting that "cross-platform play is not a slam dunk no matter the size of the title" — a clear reference to Epic's flex about Fortnite's dominance on PlayStation. "As you know, many companies are exploring this idea and not a single one can explain how cross-console play improves the PlayStation business," said Corsi.

This Corsi guy is an absolute piece of shit who clearly knows nothing about gaming, let alone enough to be the Director of Developer Relations. This is not the Sony from the late-PS3/early-PS4 days, this is ultra arrogant Sony at its absolute worst. Sorry but get the fuck out of here with that shit, Sony. I am fuming 😤

A business guy says a move that won't be beneficial to their business won't be beneficial to their business.
"What an absolute piece of shit who knows nothing about gaming!"
Did you just step out of a Disney movie?
Who do you think these guys are and what do you think these guys are doing?!?

Pai Pai Master · May 3, 2021

Some of you don't even know what to be mad at lol, at least know what Gio Corsi's role was if you're gonna call him a piece of shit

J-Wood · May 3, 2021

This court case is going to be a great reminder that all of these companies (Sony, Microsoft, Epic, Apple, Etc) are companies that are beholden to shareholders to make money. They are not "gamers best friends". They never have been.

They make great products we consume, but anyone who gets pissed at this knowledge is a fool for thinking any of these companies operated in a different manner.

thecaseace · May 3, 2021

Bootador said:
I don't really agree with the "contract", but I also don't really give a shit. This is literally a business to business transaction that has no impact on the end users. Are people still misreading the context of this on accident/purpose?

It has an impact on end users, if you play any game that has a online play, is cross platform and has a relatively small player see your ability to play online 3 years later is ties to the amount of users playing.

Cross play has a direct effect on those user numbers.

Podge293 · May 3, 2021

Lube Man said:
Have we seen any games that prevented/removed crossplay because of this?

I'll ask you a better curious question: Are there any multiplayer, multiplatform games in 2021 where crossplay is not available?

Genuinely curious why no one has said anything about his in the past (and I'm hoping some developers talk in the present).

You do know NDAs exist right? If it wasn't for this court case we wouldn't have been made aware of this document so does that mean that before today it didn't exist?

Deleted member 52190 · May 3, 2021

aronmayo said:
From The Verge article:
Gio Corsi, Sony's senior director of developer relations at the time, dismissed the idea of crossplay, noting that "cross-platform play is not a slam dunk no matter the size of the title" — a clear reference to Epic's flex about Fortnite's dominance on PlayStation. "As you know, many companies are exploring this idea and not a single one can explain how cross-console play improves the PlayStation business," said Corsi.

This Corsi guy is an absolute piece of shit who clearly knows nothing about gaming, let alone enough to be the Director of Developer Relations. This is not the Sony from the late-PS3/early-PS4 days, this is ultra arrogant Sony at its absolute worst. Sorry but get the fuck out of here with that shit, Sony. I am fuming 😤

Funny, because Corsi is actualy a guy from the late ps3-early ps4 days

NinjaScooter · May 3, 2021

aronmayo said:
From The Verge article:
Gio Corsi, Sony's senior director of developer relations at the time, dismissed the idea of crossplay, noting that "cross-platform play is not a slam dunk no matter the size of the title" — a clear reference to Epic's flex about Fortnite's dominance on PlayStation. "As you know, many companies are exploring this idea and not a single one can explain how cross-console play improves the PlayStation business," said Corsi.

This Corsi guy is an absolute piece of shit who clearly knows nothing about gaming, let alone enough to be the Director of Developer Relations. This is not the Sony from the late-PS3/early-PS4 days, this is ultra arrogant Sony at its absolute worst. Sorry but get the fuck out of here with that shit, Sony. I am fuming 😤

lmao
This is why the discourse on this kind of stuff here sucks

Jeffram · May 3, 2021

Brokenlynx said:
It has an impact on end users, if you play any game that has a online play, is cross platform and has a relatively small player see your ability to play online 3 years later is ties to the amount of users playing.

Cross play has a direct effect on those user numbers.

This isn't about cross-play. see the new thread title.

vrcsix · May 3, 2021

If there's one good thing that comes out of all of this, it is that we get to learn more about what goes on behind the industry's closed doors.

Hogendaz85 · May 3, 2021

Fuck you sony, make me ragrets selling my series x.
Seriously though this is dumb

henhowc · May 3, 2021

aronmayo said:
From The Verge article:
Gio Corsi, Sony's senior director of developer relations at the time, dismissed the idea of crossplay, noting that "cross-platform play is not a slam dunk no matter the size of the title" — a clear reference to Epic's flex about Fortnite's dominance on PlayStation. "As you know, many companies are exploring this idea and not a single one can explain how cross-console play improves the PlayStation business," said Corsi.

This Corsi guy is an absolute piece of shit who clearly knows nothing about gaming, let alone enough to be the Director of Developer Relations. This is not the Sony from the late-PS3/early-PS4 days, this is ultra arrogant Sony at its absolute worst. Sorry but get the fuck out of here with that shit, Sony. I am fuming 😤

😬 Lots of people loved this guy for his build the list stuff 🤷🏻‍♂️. This seems to be an extreme reaction.

Bootador · May 3, 2021

Podge293 said:
Even if it only impacts just the 1 game then that's impacting end users

Well not really, it only impacts the end users if there's a game that chooses not to implement cross platform purchases because of this, and this is a feature that is probably more specific to F2P games that anything else (as the likelihood a user will want to purchase a game on multiple platforms when it is already cross play is small you would imagine)

Lube Man · May 3, 2021

Podge293 said:
You do know NDAs exist right? If it wasn't for this court case we wouldn't have been made aware of this document so does that mean that before today it didn't exist?

Not questioning NDA, and not saying this didn't exist.

Just wondering if any developers got personally affected by this, and if so, are they brave enough to speak up.

Also wondering if there exists a game that doesn't have crossplay due to "unknown reasons", and if this could be that unknown reason.

Hogendaz85 said:
Fuck you sony, make me ragrets selling my series x.
Seriously though this is dumb

So sorry you got affected by this.

Podge293 · May 3, 2021

Bootador said:
Well not really, it only impacts the end users if there's a game that chooses not to implement cross platform purchases because of this, and this is a feature that is probably more specific to F2P games that anything else (as the likelihood a user will want to purchase a game on multiple platforms when it is already cross play is small you would imagine)

So you're agreeing that it impacts end users?

AndyD · May 3, 2021

eonden said:
Average $/h accounts for userbase. Thats what the "/h" does

You are right, I missed the /h in your statement. We're on the same page.

Deleted member 8752 · May 3, 2021

Mr_F_Snowman said:
Fucking disgusting practice.

Imagine if other online stores did this. You browse a product too long on Walmart then buy from amazon? Shit now someone has to pay Walmart some compensation! Watched a trailer for a film on youtube but then then purchased that film from the Apple store? Compensate youtube immediately!

Absolute bullshit move from a company acting like a fucking mafia

Eh.. the consumer isn't responsible for compensating the store though. It's the developer in this case. And if the developer does not find the terms reasonable, they're under no obligation to agree to them.

It's to disincentivize a developer from saying from within the game on PS4 "hey, don't buy the content through PSN, instead, log into your PC where we get a higher cut, then log back into PS4 to access the content."

It's not amazing, but I've seen worse.

platocplx · May 3, 2021

NinjaScooter said:
lmao
This is why the discourse on this kind of stuff here sucks

Its always like they shot their dog. lmao. Vs you know like typical things asked as to how this helps their current platform and how quantifiable is it.

Y2Kev · May 3, 2021

[Person] is a piece of shit! The only reasonable outcome here is for [thing] to be obliterated off the face of the earth. [Console] is a total piece of trash and [group] is a bunch of corporate shills. Late stage capitalism!

Podge293 · May 3, 2021

Lube Man said:
Just wondering if any developers got personally affected by this, and if so, are they brave enough to speak up.

A NDA would mean they can't "be brave" and speak up cuz ya know they'd get sued

platocplx · May 3, 2021

Y2Kev said:
[Person] is a piece of shit! The only reasonable outcome here is for [thing] to be obliterated off the face of the earth. [Console] is a total piece of trash and [group] is a bunch of corporate shills. Late stage capitalism!

perfect template.

eonden · May 3, 2021

Podge293 said:
A NDA would mean they can't "be brave" and speak up cuz ya know they'd get sued

And someone breaking an NDA normally means that you are blacklisted in the entire industry.

collige · May 3, 2021

Doesn't Sony need access to all the cross platform revenue and player stats in the first place to come up with this number? Are developers contractually obligated to share their PC/Xbox revenue with Sony or something?

Podge293 · May 3, 2021

collige said:
Doesn't Sony need access to all the cross platform revenue and player stats in the first place to come up with this number? Are developers contractually obligated to share their PC/Xbox revenue with Sony or something?

Yeah it's on the bottom of the slide

Deleted member 35987 · May 3, 2021

Rodelero said:
It's a sensible precaution from Sony and it's been vindicated by Epic's dealings with Apple and Google where they hotpatched in dialogue to persuade users to buy their v-bucks outside of Apple/Google's ecosystems.

Lol.

Bootador · May 3, 2021

Podge293 said:
So you're agreeing that it impacts end users?

If you're being pedantic, it may impact users of F2P games that aren't Fortnite that like buy skins and play on multiple different platforms. But we don't know, we're just speculating.

BobLoblaw · May 3, 2021

Bootador said:
I don't really agree with the "contract", but I also don't really give a shit. This is literally a business to business transaction that has no impact on the end users. Are people still misreading the context of this on accident/purpose?

I'm pretty sure the end users that you're referring to were interested in a cross-play feature that was potentially killed by this extra string being attached.

MrBreada · May 3, 2021

Y2Kev said:
[Person] is a piece of shit! The only reasonable outcome here is for [thing] to be obliterated off the face of the earth. [Console] is a total piece of trash and [group] is a bunch of corporate shills. Late-stage capitalism!

Initial anger is always a thing. It can't be helped. We now possess the knowledge that Sony is doing this, and it'd be unwise to make assumptions about the other two platforms. Is the anger reasonable? I don't know. But it is how it is.

collige · May 3, 2021

Podge293 said:
Yeah it's on the bottom of the slide

Ah, you're right, I totally missed that. It doesn't mention how they would get the 3rd party player numbers too (unless they can figure that out on their own somehow).

Podge293 · May 3, 2021

Bootador said:
If you're being pedantic, it may impact users of F2P games that aren't Fortnite that like buy skins and play on multiple different platforms. But we don't know, we're just speculating.

Your initial post was about how this didn't impact end users and just businesses......

IIFloodyII · May 3, 2021

Lube Man said:
Not questioning NDA, and not saying this didn't exist.

Just wondering if any developers got personally affected by this, and if so, are they brave enough to speak up.

So sorry you got affected by this.

No one still in the industry will talk about this stuff, platform policies is pretty much always a no go, like you aren't even allowed to give platform splits for your game, so just think how off limits stuff like this is. We'd at most get people saying they aren't happy with it, but they probably wouldn't say more.
This seems extremely easy to get around, which is just no cross-progression with currency on PS ( which I think every cross-progression game does), so I doubt it's a big enough problem for anyone to speak out on.

Podge293 · May 3, 2021

collige said:
Ah, you're right, I totally missed that. It doesn't mention how they would get the 3rd party player numbers too (unless they can figure that out on their own somehow).

It also says that they can audit their books if needed so I guess they have to provide accurate figures or sony might pull the trigger on that clause

NediarPT88 · May 3, 2021

aronmayo said:
From The Verge article:
Gio Corsi, Sony's senior director of developer relations at the time, dismissed the idea of crossplay, noting that "cross-platform play is not a slam dunk no matter the size of the title" — a clear reference to Epic's flex about Fortnite's dominance on PlayStation. "As you know, many companies are exploring this idea and not a single one can explain how cross-console play improves the PlayStation business," said Corsi.

This Corsi guy is an absolute piece of shit who clearly knows nothing about gaming, let alone enough to be the Director of Developer Relations. This is not the Sony from the late-PS3/early-PS4 days, this is ultra arrogant Sony at its absolute worst. Sorry but get the fuck out of here with that shit, Sony. I am fuming 😤

😂

Bootador · May 3, 2021

Podge293 said:
Your initial post was about how this didn't impact end users and just businesses......

Fair dos. I mean I don't really consider skins working across platforms of F2P that are already cross play (so why play on multiple different platforms) games a big deal personally, but if that's hill you wanna die on be my guest.

EntelechyFuff · May 3, 2021

The NDA stuff in threads like this is a bit like a get out of jail free card.

The conversation is typically someone making some unsubstantiated statement of harm, another person saying that there's no indication that such a thing is happening/has happened, and then the response is "well of course there's no evidence! The NDAs!"

For sure NDAs exist and limit what people say, but that's a strange basis on which to insist that random statements are certainly true. Very much asking people to prove a negative.

Minarik · May 3, 2021

Oh neat, mods coming to the defense of a multi-billion dollar company when nobody really misunderstood what was going on. Thanks for the hard work.

Lube Man · May 3, 2021

IIFloodyII said:
This seems extremely easy to get around, which is just no cross-progression with currency on PS ( which I think every cross-progression game does), so I doubt it's a big enough problem for anyone to speak out on.

True. Sorry for being so questionable. It's a very vile contract in place, and I personally hope no developer is affected by it, especially small developers who can't fight back.

Podge293 · May 3, 2021

EntelechyFuff said:
The NDA stuff in threads like this is a bit like a get out of jail free card.

The conversation is typically someone making some unsubstantiated statement of harm, another person saying that there's no indication that such a thing is happening/has happened, and then the response is "well of course there's no evidence! The NDAs!"

For sure NDAs exist and limit what people say, but that's a strange basis on which to insist that random statements are certainly true. Very much asking people to prove a negative.

Well this document has definitely existed since I believe 2019.....why has it never been mentioned before?

Wilf Netherton · May 3, 2021

collige said:
Ah, you're right, I totally missed that. It doesn't mention how they would get the 3rd party player numbers too (unless they can figure that out on their own somehow).

The publisher is required to track that information and give it to Sony and Sony is allowed to gain access to the publisher's internal data to perform audits. It's all on the slide.

Zyae · May 3, 2021

DanteMenethil said:
"defenses" lol, the article isn't rethreading defenses, it's explaining what the policy is actually about as a lot of people are misinterpreting it (to quote the article " The way this has been framed on social media has been misleading, with many believing that Sony is charging developers to implement crossplay in the first place. ")

They arent explicitly charging developers for cross play but it is effectively a cross play tax on any game that wants to use cross play with Playstation.

giancarlo123x · May 3, 2021

Y2Kev said:
[Person] is a piece of shit! The only reasonable outcome here is for [thing] to be obliterated off the face of the earth. [Console] is a total piece of trash and [group] is a bunch of corporate shills. Late stage capitalism!

HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL - ATTORNEYS EYES ONLY

Deleted member 1839 · May 3, 2021

Lube Man said:
Have we seen any games that prevented/removed crossplay because of this?

I'll ask you a better curious question: Are there any multiplayer, multiplatform games in 2021 where crossplay is not available?

Mostly fighting games but it's getting better.

Minarik said:
Oh neat, mods coming to the defense of a multi-billion dollar company when nobody really misunderstood what was going on. Thanks for the hard work.

PushSquare being threadmarked for a point of clarity is hilarious considering how notorious they are.

Precious Tritium · May 3, 2021

aronmayo said:
From The Verge article:
Gio Corsi, Sony's senior director of developer relations at the time, dismissed the idea of crossplay, noting that "cross-platform play is not a slam dunk no matter the size of the title" — a clear reference to Epic's flex about Fortnite's dominance on PlayStation. "As you know, many companies are exploring this idea and not a single one can explain how cross-console play improves the PlayStation business," said Corsi.

This Corsi guy is an absolute piece of shit who clearly knows nothing about gaming, let alone enough to be the Director of Developer Relations. This is not the Sony from the late-PS3/early-PS4 days, this is ultra arrogant Sony at its absolute worst. Sorry but get the fuck out of here with that shit, Sony. I am fuming 😤

What a suit

Ogni-XR21 · May 3, 2021

I was wondering about stuff like this for a while now... So I play PSO2 on Steam but buy the in-game currency on the MS store because it's cheaper there for me due to the Dollar/Euro conversion. So there is probably something simillar going on in the background there, otherwise it would not really make sense for it to work this way. And to be honest that's fine by me, why shouldn't Steam get some of that money when I play using their client?

Deleted member 1839 · May 3, 2021

Precious Tritium said:
What a suit

I miss him. The best parts of PSX was him on stage.

Mezoly · May 3, 2021

aronmayo said:
From The Verge article:
Gio Corsi, Sony's senior director of developer relations at the time, dismissed the idea of crossplay, noting that "cross-platform play is not a slam dunk no matter the size of the title" — a clear reference to Epic's flex about Fortnite's dominance on PlayStation. "As you know, many companies are exploring this idea and not a single one can explain how cross-console play improves the PlayStation business," said Corsi.

This Corsi guy is an absolute piece of shit who clearly knows nothing about gaming, let alone enough to be the Director of Developer Relations. This is not the Sony from the late-PS3/early-PS4 days, this is ultra arrogant Sony at its absolute worst. Sorry but get the fuck out of here with that shit, Sony. I am fuming 😤

Are you serious by any chance?
You know GIO Corsi IS Sony from the late-PS3/early-PS4 days. He is the one who brought Yakuza games and was on PSX stage every single year from the early PS4 era. He left Sony 2 years ago.

Sameer Sedlar · May 3, 2021

Passing Assassin said:
Why do people keep saying that? That's wrong based on a pretty basic reading of what's in the OP. This isn't about crossplatform purchases. The terminology used here as "cross-platform revenue" is revenue generated across all platforms, on which Sony applies a ratio regarding the revenue generated through PSN and compares it with the gameplay share. If that ratio falls below 85%, meaning that over 15% of the audience Sony considers theirs makes purchases on other platforms, the publishers/developers pay a fee, because Sony considers them (in an extremely bullshit way) reponsible of where their audience spends money.

Unless there are other files that further detail what kind of games/who is subject to these guidelines, what's in OP applies to every cross-play game.

This is kinda making me go crazy, how is that related to Cross-Play exactly ?, are we talking here about Cross Play as in PS4 players playing with\against Xbox\PC players ?, or is Sony talking about Cross Play in terms of shared play where one can have access to his exact character\items\weapons across different platforms ?, I am a bit confused.

Cels · May 3, 2021

isn't this Sony's safeguard against PSN providing a a larger portion of the playerbase in crossplay games, yet other platforms making more of the revenue? Sony doesn't want its infrastructure to be used out of proportion to its cut of the pie, so to speak.

in the slide's example, in month 1, PSN has 95% of the players and makes 90% of the revenue across all platforms. 90/95 is 94.7%, which is over 85%, so under the agreement, the partner does not have to pay a royalty.
However, in month 2 of the slide, PSN has 95% of the players yet only makes 60% of the revenues across all platforms. 60/95 = 63%, less than 85%, so the partner must pay the royalty to make up the difference, which seems to be 15% of the difference between gameplay share % x revenue and actual PSN revenue

secondly, we don't know whether this has actually been implemented or not.

Deleted member 10560 · May 3, 2021

My first thought immediately goes to Sony not wanting to have to get too concerned with MTX price wars. If other platforms have discounted sales that might cause playerbase to purchase elsewhere, Sony still gets somewhat compensated in ways of a fine penalty and doesn't have to worry about being price competitive. Great business for Sony. Shitty for everyone else involved, end users included.

Bansai · May 3, 2021

EntelechyFuff said:
The NDA stuff in threads like this is a bit like a get out of jail free card.

The conversation is typically someone making some unsubstantiated statement of harm, another person saying that there's no indication that such a thing is happening/has happened, and then the response is "well of course there's no evidence! The NDAs!"

For sure NDAs exist and limit what people say, but that's a strange basis on which to insist that random statements are certainly true. Very much asking people to prove a negative.

If bigger/smaller devs could publish their contracts/business deals with platform holders without any repercussions, I've a feeling at least some of them would do so by now.

Just because there's no evidence of something, doesn't mean it's hard to put 2 and 2 together if there's enough context floating around.

I mean, just look at the screenshot in OP saying "HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL", this obviously isn't the kind of stuff you want to be in the open.

LuvOfThaGame said:
[...] Great business for Sony. Shitty for everyone else involved, end users included.

This is basically what the thread should be about, and yet, here we are, sixteen pages, and three OP title changes later.

Mindwipe · May 3, 2021

Minarik said:
Oh neat, mods coming to the defense of a multi-billion dollar company when nobody really misunderstood what was going on. Thanks for the hard work.

Literally 90% of the posts for the first four pages literally misunderstood the situation.

Epic lawsuit shows Sony asks publishers for compensation if MTX / playerbase ratio falls below certain amount compared to the cross-platform revenue

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