...Sony is the reason why you can't play genshin on your PC or phone if you play PS4, aren't they?
Epic lawsuit shows Sony asks publishers for compensation if MTX / playerbase ratio falls below certain amount compared to the cross-platform revenue
- Thread starter eonden
- Start date
Obviously Sony is the only one of the three doing this since Nintendo and Xbox pushed for cross play.
Didn't Epic sell their virtual currency via their side-loadable mobile app at an actual discount?
That would definitely be an incentive to buy currency on a different platform even though someone is playing on a Playstation.
I appreciate this thread's universal disdain for this bit of information and behavior. I usually expect to see a few apologists, but not this time it appears.
Sterling is gonna have fun with this one.
Sterling is gonna have fun with this one.
Eh what? You've had people defending it on every page basically
Some of the excuses we've seen so far
1) lol it's business why wouldn't they do it
2) everybody does it 🤷♂️(spoiler they don't)
3) you don't work so you wouldn't understand (yes this was a rationale provided)
4) sonys the good guy here (also another weird rationale)
5) show me proof of this policy in action or otherwise it ain't true (this policy we didn't know existed until yesterday)
There's been plenty more but those are some of the highlights
Its possible, but i would not be sure.
Irc there was also some strange thing where you couldnt buy ingame stuff for the game on PC if you started the game on Mobile, tho i am not sure if that is still the case.
The game does have crossplay for pc/mobile and playstation.
I've seen little thought given to the consumer impact tbh.
The #2 people have all quietly switched to #1 and that's ok. People have different coping mechanisms imo.
That is what the problem is about, and what many are not realizing. The number of people logging into their Nintendo or Xbox systems to purchase mtx who then use what they purchased mainly on PS is likely very low. It also goes both ways: there could just as easily be people purchasing on PSN while playing on other platforms. Under normal circumstances the ratio should be close to 1 on all platforms.
What Sony wants to avoid is devs/publishers enjoying PS's user base while guiding players to their own store fronts, where Sony wouldn't get their cut. That would set a precedent where the platform holder, and their cut, could be ignored in the process of providing content on said platform to those who play on it.
The deal ensures that revenue losses resulting from opening up are not superior to 85% (edit: 15%, my mistake).
People say this is anti-consumer or hurtful for devs, but so far have failed to provide any significant number of meaningful, concrete examples of that being the case, barring perhaps Genshin Impact.
But only if you bought via Epic's direct payment, which circumvents the platform cut. If Apple still got their 30% of the discounted V-Bucks they wouldn't have banned the app. That means Sony wouldn't be getting their cut from those transactions. This clause would protect them from such a situation.
(Not saying I'm in favor of such deals. I just find it ironic that Epic basically created a system that would force them to pay a penalty fine to Sony if their plan worked out.)
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These restrictions from Sony work against gamer and dev interest, frankly embarrassing how certain portion of posters fall over themselves trying to find ways to excuse this, simply because it's their favourite corporation.
No worries! You're one early bird... or else you have kids! :-D
Yes they are calculated monthly but what I meant is that it is a risk that exist for the lifetime of the product.
For as long as some of these crossplay games have been going on, I suspect it may have costed Microsoft and Nintendo (in a smaller scale) some losses at least in the months when they did not turn a profit via the Xbox live or Nintendo Online.
Vbucks were discounted on PS4 and other consoles as well. I think they still are.
maybe Xbox numbers are not updated, while Fortnite's are?I know play time is another metric but just in terms of marketshare, the Xbox is massively overperforming compared to it's userbase, to the tune of some +35%, while Nintendo and PC underwhelm.
EDIT: Damn okay, seemed fine in the preview.
Also don't take this data as anything more than speculation, we don't really know the actual user split nor the hours played per platform.. Could be that Fortnite is just more popular between Xbox One users than PS4 users as a percentage of the playerbase as well and still play less or spend less.
Okay. Then my initial comment about the discount was off mark but my last reply clarified the situation about Epic's direct payment system which cuts out the middle man where Sony would not see a cent from microtransactions via Epic while players are still playing on a Playstation.
The problem there is you're asking people to prove a negative.
We didn't know this clause existed til yesterday and now you're asking people to point out all the games that could have cross play/progression but didn't because the terms are so onerous. How do you expect people to know this?
The way its worded enables Sony to protect revenue when they are the leading platform and recoup "loses" when another platform has more players and spend on it. With the additional overhead of the bookkeeping and competitor MI they require it's not hard to see why this isn't a good thing for developers or players (on any platform).
It's kids, I'm definitely not a morning person!
Agreed the risk exists across the lifetime of the product but none of the platform holders are really taking a hit with F2P games. Any costs associated with a F2P player on a single games are offset by additional sales (both MTX and other games they may purchase) and the wider 'online play' charge which will also include a percentage to cover F2P game services. It's already accounted for else they wouldn't allow it.
Additionally the 5%/10% = .5 in my example was purposefully generic as there's noting to indicate this is only for F2P games and is a significant barrier to any developer wanting to set up cross-play/progression. It's especially painful if a player base leans towards a different platform, Sony effectively want compensation for a game being successful elsewhere and their own players not spending enough.
Of course I went to the extreme for the initial example but even a 60% player base on Playstation accounting for 50% of the revenue would trigger penalty payments so it's easy for developers and publishers to get punished for their game being successful.
So what information is right in this thread? Did Sony actually ask these things or? Cause I am unsure what is misinformation and what not.
In all fairness it's very hard to read through these posts a lot.
The information is real, it was revealed in the court proceedings.
Originally the known context of the situation was reductive in saying Sony makes devs/publshers pay fees for crossplay. Now it's slightly more refined in saying Sony wants to be compensated by the dev/publisher for any sense of lost revenue to allow crossplay.
I assure you it's very different.
Sony definitely asked for this. Sweeney confirmed it during his court appearance yesterday
Document of the full contract
Full Cross-Play Contract:
That's quite scummy :/. Is this currently still in place or a relic of PS4 era?
Technically nothing is known about how the PS5 version is conducted behind the scenes.
Willing to believe that it's still a thing though.
What was even the context in which this was brought up? It seems a little unrelated.
It's the only platform without that feature, so it makes sense.
MHY probably told them to fuck off, considering how much money Genshin makes.
Tim Sweeney was questioned in court regarding Epic Games & Fornite.
because its not just an Epic contract.....it could and possibly has prevented smaller devs putting titles cross play because of this unknown cost
That's what EPIC is saying which is obvious since all of EPIC Games are more popular on Playstation. Of course MS wouldn't come at them with a similar contract, their playerbase is much smaller and to top that off, they make More Revenue on each player than Sony does lol.
I don't think MS or Nintendo are doing the same practice ( they don't need to ), but just because EPIC is saying "Sony is the only one doing it" does not mean it's the case for every other publisher in existence.
This policy most likely applies to all developers who want to enable cross-play on playstation, and some devs may not be so willing to send their monthly revenue reports and cover the difference, thus, not enabling cross-play/cross-progression on PS.
It affects consumers because certain developers and publishers might opt to not have cross-play because they possibly have to pay Sony quite a significant sum of money due to people on other platforms buying a relatively big amount of microtransactions compared to what PlayStation players buy. As shown in the Month 2 example in the OP, that company would have to give Sony 5.25% of their game's revenue due to the average player on other platforms spending more than the average PlayStation player.
Oh...Ok.
Although i was not thinking about only the EPIC case. Other company's may have this as well.
Fortnite it is massive on all platforms and makes sizeable revenue on all consoles. Putting these terms for fortnite even with the smaller player base shares would net them more money than pretty much every other game that uses cross play aside from maybe cod for Xbox.
So, yeah, reading through clause 4, and I don't think there's any way to defend Sony demanding all that data, every month. My head's swivelling at the idea of compiling all that data for one game, never mind a company like Arc Systemworks that could be forced to file monthly reports on several games. This is 100% the reason why Cross-Play is not standard.
Comparing what the "average player" on each platform does and ignoring that for fortnite 50% of players are on PlayStation isn't how things work at all. If half the hours spent in the game is on PlayStation, but they only see 10% of the money (of the money that goes to platform holders, that is) the discrepancy is too big to ignore. Fortnite is big enough to have a specific negociation and contract, and Epic in particular is known for trying to dodge this type of royalty. Sony's covering their bases and so should the other platform holders. Epic could literally open up a vbucks specific webstore where they're half off and get all the money for themselves, despite using the playerbase and network infrastructure of the platform holders.
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This whole strategy just feels super focused on the short term in such a Sony type of way. Whenever they focus on exploiting a dominant market share, their whole ecosystem collapses. Just look at the crazy PS3 price and every media format they've touched other than DVD.
Sterling's video will be amazing.
Fortnite has a nearly 50% playerbase on Playstation. This was just leaked a few days ago.
but it also impacts the decisions by smaller devs about whether to bring in crossplay
Sony literally wants to get paid for doing nothing even tho someone else is making the money
Yes now consider fortnites total playerbase, now divide that playerbase per the console breakdown then tell me which multiplayer games generate more revenue right now than fortnite does for each of those consoles?
That small slice of fortnite is still bigger than almost every other cross play multiplayer game.
You know what. That could really be the reason Genshin Impact is split that way.
Like you can say that this could possibly just be a very specific deal with Epic because Fortnite is just that big.
But when you consider the general probability about it being a standard clause for crossplay in general, which is implied in the leaked full doc considering GDPA, so much more makes sense.
But when you consider the general probability about it being a standard clause for crossplay in general, which is implied in the leaked full doc considering GDPA, so much more makes sense.
Yep. They make it so much of a hassle that it ends up not being worth it for smaller companies.
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also that confirms that is the cross play policy for all publishers, as it says refers to being part of the GDPA (Global Developer Publisher Agreement) which is the standard agreement to make games for PS4.
It probably will be - if it turns out players want to move between the 2 platforms but perhaps already spend more IOS money on PC/IOS then it is not in their interest to switch it on anymore as it may mean money needs to be paid to Sony.
also that confirms that is the cross play policy for all publishers, as it says refers to being part of the GDPA (Global Developer Publisher Agreement) which is the standard agreement to make games for PS4.
It probably will be - if it turns out players want to move between the 2 platforms but perhaps already spend more IOS money on PC/IOS then it is not in their interest to switch it on anymore as it may mean money needs to be paid to Sony.