Judge rules UK lawsuit alleging ‘rip off’ prices on PlayStation can move forward

Last year, a consumer rights campaigner spearheaded a lawsuit against Sony in the UK, seeking as much as £5 billion for ‘ripping off' gamers in the UK with inflated prices on the PlayStation Store. As you would expect, Sony argued against the lawsuit, hoping to get it thrown out but now, a judge has ruled that the case can proceed. 

The lawsuit, filed by plaintiff Alex Neill on behalf of millions of UK PlayStation customers, claims that Sony forces excessive prices for games on PlayStation in the UK and points to this as a clear abuse of the company's market position. It is claimed that inflated prices started going into effect from 2016 onwards for digital games and add-ons sold via the PlayStation Store and the lawsuit also takes issue with the 30 percent cut Sony takes for game sales on its platform.

It is worth noting that plenty of other digital platform holders also take a 30 percent cut on digital sales, although these platform taxes have come under a lot of scrutiny in recent years. Most of the uproar has focused on services like Steam on PC, which did make changes to its platform revenue split, as well as mobile stores like the iOS App Store and the Google Play Store on Android.

The reason the lawsuit only accounts for 2016 onwards is due to the fact that it relies on the UK's Consumer Rights Act 2015. Sony's lawyers claimed the lawsuit was flawed from start to finish but now as reported by VGC, the Competitions Appeal Tribunal has ruled that the lawsuit can go forward to trial and won't be thrown out.

A trial date has not yet been set so this will be a lengthy process. If successful, around 8.9 million UK gamers could claim money back based on purchases made on the PlayStation Store between August 2016 and August 2022.

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KitGuru Says: We don't hear about many class action lawsuits like this in the UK, although it is much more common to hear about US-based legal battles. We should get more updates on this in 2024, as both sides prepare to go to trial, assuming a settlement isn't reached before then. 

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