Sony Charges Third-Parties for Selling DLC

[scotth266]

Ouch.

I mean, Microsoft is no angel on this and takes a cut from sales but at least they're up-front about it, not, "Surprise! Extra charge!" And that PSN is ending up more expensive than Live for developers just when the PS3's titles are ramping up nicely...

I repeat, ouch.

-- Steve

You know, this just seems bizarre.
Sony is a business, out to make money. No doubt. But is this really good business practice? And that's a legitimate question! Does Microsoft charge like this?
With no price drop on the PS3, this charging of developers, and that harder-to-use-then-the-norm development tool-set, you wonder what the heck Sony is doing? I'm not a fanboy. The PS3 is a fine system. But this just seems like a slow, but sure, alienation of customers and developers.

Exactly my feelings on this. MS is honest in their dealings with LIVE, always have been. This seems like a kick in the nuts to PS3 devs, big time. A 160k difference (JUST FOR DEMOS!?!?) will be a big discourager to devs from making demos, which are a BIG boost in hype for their games.

 

[iTeamKill]

Yeah, less then 5 bucks a month. Man, that's so much money.

that is 5 bucks a month you pay more then I pay to play online pc games... Maybe 5 bucks a month doesn't look like much now... but add up the time you already paid for, the downloaded stuff you spent microsoft points on, and all those accessories.

PC gaming looks kinda cheap when you add up the nickles and dimes...

 

[Jumplion]

Exactly my feelings on this. MS is honest in their dealings with LIVE, always have been. This seems like a kick in the nuts to PS3 devs, big time. A 160k difference (JUST FOR DEMOS!?!?) will be a big discourager to devs from making demos, which are a BIG boost in hype for their games.

Demos are a form of advertising. You pay to advertise your product. Isn't that how it's always been? I won't comment on the priced things though, I hav no idea where the money goes to.

And I don't get how this is Sony being dishonest with...anyone really. I mean, don't the developers already have to negotiate with Sony as to what they're going to put in the store? Unless Sony is secretly billing them the expenses, I don't see how Sony is any less "honest" than Microsoft.

Now I know for sure that people are making a moderately sized hill out of a speed bump. This doesn't exactly affect the consumer if the developers are paying advertising space. At least, if the developers can find out that they're advertising and not selling anything.

 

[scotth266]

Demos are a form of advertising. You pay to advertise your product. Isn't that how it's always been? I won't comment on the priced things though, I hav no idea where the money goes to.

And I don't get how this is Sony being dishonest with...anyone really. I mean, don't the developers already have to negotiate with Sony as to what they're going to put in the store? Unless Sony is secretly billing them the expenses, I don't see how Sony is any less "honest" than Microsoft.

It seems unfair... I mean, the companies so far haven't had to pay to put up demos, and now they have to because Sony says so. This'll mean one of two things: demos costing money (unlikely) or non-exclusive devs getting screwed outta cash (likely).
In case you didn't notice, this wasn't announced widely... it was kept quiet if the threadmaker is correct:

Discretely starting last October,

 

[IceStar100]

Sony "we are digging are grave with TNT."

 

[Jumplion]

Demos are a form of advertising. You pay to advertise your product. Isn't that how it's always been? I won't comment on the priced things though, I hav no idea where the money goes to.

And I don't get how this is Sony being dishonest with...anyone really. I mean, don't the developers already have to negotiate with Sony as to what they're going to put in the store? Unless Sony is secretly billing them the expenses, I don't see how Sony is any less "honest" than Microsoft.

It seems unfair... I mean, the companies so far haven't had to pay to put up demos, and now they have to because Sony says so. This'll mean one of two things: demos costing money (unlikely) or non-exclusive devs getting screwed outta cash (likely).
In case you didn't notice, this wasn't announced widely... it was kept quiet if the threadmaker is correct:

Discretely starting last October,

I do know that for some reason MS payed to have a timed exclusive demo for HAWX and RE5 I believe. I just wanted to drop that info for no reason really, just felt like saying it ;D

I didn't see the "last October" part, so I will give you that Sony were keeping it a secret from the public, but then you didn't see this part;

Free content is charged only during its first 60 days online

So it's not like Sony is continually charging any demos in the store. However they do continually charge for paid items, but again, I won't comment on those because we have no idea where the money earned goes to.

It doesn't affect the consumer unless the developer causes it. We don't pay for the Gigabytes, the developers do, and business is usually kept behind doors unless it's necessary.

Though I would like to know the sources, I always hate it when they say "[so-and-so] reports of [da-la-ba] and they don't liek it!" when we don't even know the sources. I'd feel more comfortable is every god damn developer/publisher would tell us what the hell is going on around here instead of making the focus soley on Sony.

And really, it took those publishers six (6) months to get angry at this? I may not know the ins and outs of business, but the timing is as questionable as patent-trolls lawsuits.

 

[Syphonz]

Is it just me, or does the escapist always seem to have an abundance of these Sony bashing articles coming in week after week?

 

[Zankabo]

So basically, Sony want to close PSN but don't have the balls to admit it, so they're going to price the content makers out of the market. Interesting.

No, basically they want to earn more cash from it but don't want to charge the players for it. It's called 'Looking after your User-Base'

Somehow, I doubt that...

So then why don't they just charge players like Microsoft?

Umm... Onmi.. maybe my ability to read the Xbox site is in error, but from what I have read you get access to the demos and other free content on Xbox Live with the Silver account.. which is free. So.. umm.. Microsoft isn't charging their user base for the bandwidth to get demos.

What Microsoft charges for with the Gold* Membership is use of the multi-player equipment; ie hosted multi-player servers, the matching system, the reporting system to deal with undesirables, and a few other bells and whistles. The upside of this is that you do not need to pay individual game companies for a server to play your multi-player game on. The downside is that you can't just host the game 'on your machine' (like PC users do) and are required to buy the Gold service if you want to play Multi-player on an Xbox. There are all kinds of ups and downs in the PC universe between a server hosting the game and hosting it on your own box, most of which none of you would care about because you are primarily console gamers. Lets just say that $5 a month for access to a service as reliable as Xbox Live is a good deal. Sony might have just as good of a system going for them for free, but in truth this thread has nothing at all to do with the multi-player service. I only bring it up because you, and others, keep bringing the Gold service from Microsoft into the discussion, and you seem to greatly misunderstand what the gold service actually _is_.

What Sony is going to do is charge a developer a bandwidth fee just to make Demos and DLC available. Now, they will stop charging after 60 days for the free stuff, but they will continue to charge for the DLC for as long as it is available. DLC is generally cheap because it lacks the packaging and shipping costs associated with a retail product. This charge starts to chip away at the cheapness of making Digital Content available, and therefor starts to defeat the whole purpose of making it available at all.

Now, bandwidth is not cheap, so I am certain that Microsoft has a setup with developers to overcome the cost of the DLC distribution. What makes this setup with Sony a bit harsh is that they seem to have simply implemented the system without making it explicitly clear to the developers. This means that the developers were not given the option of removing their DLC to avoid the charges, they simply got a bill for it. This is a rather underhanded thing to do, and not a good way to treat developers who are trying to help your console to succeed. Sony needs these developers a lot more than they need Sony. There are other more successful, easier to develop for, with a wider audience consoles out there. Moves like this make me really wonder if Sony wants the PS3 to succeed, or if they are just trying to milk what they can out of it because they plan on pulling the plug soon.

Six months from now it will be interesting to see what has happened.

*Also, as a note, I know the other part of Gold membership is early access to certain demos and DLC, which means the Gold members appear to be 'paying' the bandwidth cost for this content. But this isn't for all demos and DLC, just some of it. As for the Netflix thing, you pay Netflix for the bandwidth you are using.. and with the explosive growth they have experienced I wonder how much longer they will be able to maintain it at such a cheap price.

 

[scotth266]

Is it just me, or does the escapist always seem to have an abundance of these Sony bashing articles coming in week after week?

It's not just them, most reports on Sony are bashing them, even when there not being bashed, they get bashed in the comments.

As does MS, when the fanboys swoop in from the heavens. Only Nintendo escapes unscathed (for the most part).
But yeah, the feeling seems to be against Sony recently...

STUFF STUFF STUFF

Too much to quote w/o space annoyances, but here's my response:
MS paid those companies to release demos, not the other way round' like this situation.
MS charges for the paid content as well, but I believe free content is free on LIVE for devs. Mebbe I'm wrong, I got no idea.
These extra dollars will mean increased costs to the devs, which means budgeting concerns, which means less game or more price to make the demos. Either way it hits the consumer.
They may not have noticed until the check came in, or at least that's what the bottom of the threader's post made it sound like.

 

[Jumplion]

Too much to quote w/o space annoyances, but here's my response:
MS paid those companies to release demos, not the other way round' like this situation.
MS charges for the paid content as well, but I believe free content is free on LIVE for devs. Mebbe I'm wrong, I got no idea.
These extra dollars will mean increased costs to the devs, which means budgeting concerns, which means less game or more price to make the demos. Either way it hits the consumer.
They may not have noticed until the check came in, or at least that's what the bottom of the threader's post made it sound like.

Here's a general tip, don't put "STUFF STUFF STUFF" if you're going to condense a quote, it makes you look like you're ignoring me. A simple "condense" should suffice. Just a tip

It doesn't hit the consumer unless the developer doesn't put the demo up there. And really? They may not have noticed until th cheque came in? It's a bill, it comes in every month or so, and Sony has to contact the developers and negotiate or they'd get their asses sued for making them pay costs they weren't supposed to. Infact, they said it themselves;

"Appreciate the opportunity to jump in here, but we respect the confidentiality of our business agreements with our publishing partners. Of course we work closely with them to bring their amazing content to our growing audience, and we are focused on ensuring we, and our publishing partners, have a viable platform for digital distribution. We foresee no change in the high quality or quantity of demos and games available on PSN."

You tell me if thats credible, it may very well be a Sony rep trying to ease the whole situaion, who knows.

The problem is is that pretty much none of us are in any position to go on saying how this is wrong or right or whatever because we have no idea how the business goes on behind the scenes. We don't know where the money goes to, we don't know what developers aren't liking this, we don't know if the developers had any idea about this until now. This is why I'm just asking everyone, what the hell is going on? The publishers/developers are being as secret as Sony is, they're not off the hook here.

 

[scotth266]

Here's a general tip, don't put "STUFF STUFF STUFF" if you're going to condense a quote, it makes you look like you're ignoring me. A simple "condense" should suffice. Just a tip

It doesn't hit the consumer unless the developer doesn't put the demo up there. And really? They may not have noticed until th cheque came in? It's a bill, it comes in every month or so, and Sony has to contact the developers and negotiate or they'd get their asses sued for making them pay costs they weren't supposed to. Infact, they said it themselves;

"Appreciate the opportunity to jump in here, but we respect the confidentiality of our business agreements with our publishing partners. Of course we work closely with them to bring their amazing content to our growing audience, and we are focused on ensuring we, and our publishing partners, have a viable platform for digital distribution. We foresee no change in the high quality or quantity of demos and games available on PSN."

You tell me if thats credible, it may very well be a Sony rep trying to ease the whole situaion, who knows.

The problem is is that pretty much none of us are in any position to go on saying how this is wrong or right or whatever because we have no idea how the business goes on behind the scenes. We don't know where the money goes to, we don't know what developers aren't liking this, we don't know if the developers had any idea about this until now. This is why I'm just asking everyone, what the hell is going on? The publishers/developers are being as secret as Sony is, they're not off the hook here.

Sorry bout the STUFF, I'm just lazy like that I will use your advice in further postage.
We aren't in a position to say much, that's true. I have a prof that works in the industry, perhaps he can shed some light on this for me.

EDIT: That paragraph seems to be corporatespeak anyway, something that looks like it dismisses the real question. Hence I ignored it originally

 

[Jumplion]

Sorry bout the STUFF, I'm just lazy like that I will use your advice in further postage.
We aren't in a position to say much, that's true. I have a prof that works in the industry, perhaps he can shed some light on this for me.

EDIT: That paragraph seems to be corporatespeak anyway, something that looks like it dismisses the real question. Hence I ignored it originally

By all means, go ahead and ask your Professor(?). I just want to state that I am not afraid to lose a debate, I'm just afraid as to what the person will do aferwards

And I always take corporate speak with a grain of salt but with some benefits of doubt. I assume that he's speaking the truth in that they try to stay in touch with their developers and work out agreements but it could just be something that the wanted to get the heat off of.

 

[ChromeAlchemist]

Is it just me, or does the escapist always seem to have an abundance of these Sony bashing articles coming in week after week?

The only thing that doesn't get bashed here constantly is the Xbox 360.

In fact, in order of popularity, it goes:

Christianity/religion
Nintendo Wii
Playstation 3
Gay Marriage.

 

[CAPPINJACK]

So basically, Sony want to close PSN but don't have the balls to admit it, so they're going to price the content makers out of the market. Interesting.

No, basically they want to earn more cash from it but don't want to charge the players for it. It's called 'Looking after your User-Base'

You mean driving away content providers, especially when they can put their wares up on other less costly (after all, $0 is less costly than what sony is offering) services? Yes, ensuring that your user-base has next to nothing to download is surely looking after their best interests. This just sounds like a typical Sony ego trip to me:

Sony Guy 1: We should charge content providers for bandwidth usage!
Sony Guy 2: Um, won't they just go elsewhere? Where it's, y'know, free?
Sony Guy 1: Fuck you're dumb. We're Sony, content providers will be lining up to put their shit up on PSN! Everyone knows how fucking awesome we are.
Sony Guy 2: Yeah, you're right bro-dude! I totally forgot how fucking awesome we are.
*cue fist pump*

Upon initially reading your post I thought you might be a fanboy. But really you're worse than that. You're an apologist. I will never understand this silly sycophantic behavior you people have towards these companies (be it Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, or whatever). They've never cared about you, just your money. Why do they deserve such devotion?

IT'S 16 CENTS PER GIG! that comes to what for some companies? 5 bucks monthly?

So assuming the content is approximately 1 GB in size (some items are obviously larger, some smaller). You're expecting a total of 31.25 people to download it in a month (or that it'll be downloaded 31.25 times)? That'd be abysmal. It may very well start out as a small cost but it can very easily balloon. What if they have 100,000 downloads in a month at ~780MB (this is not impossible, although... this is Sony... so who knows)? That'll come out to roughly $12,187.50/month. Not quite $5. Now, you might expect EA to handle that. What about indie developers or smaller companies? As an example, Braid, sold about 28,000 units in 3 days (in august/08 [http://news.vgchartz.com/news.php?id=1640]). -3- days.

And finally, given the current state of the world economy, this is just not a smart move.

 

[Lord Krunk]

You know, this just seems bizarre.
Sony is a business, out to make money. No doubt. But is this really good business practice? And that's a legitimate question! Does Microsoft charge like this?
With no price drop on the PS3, this charging of developers, and that harder-to-use-then-the-norm development tool-set, you wonder what the heck Sony is doing? I'm not a fanboy. The PS3 is a fine system. But this just seems like a slow, but sure, alienation of customers and developers.

I've said it before and I'll say it again.

Sony, ur doin it rong.

Seriously, everything they did right with the PS2, they are doing wrong with the PS3. Support your devs and your consumers, not yourselves.

 

[jebussaves88]

Whilst it is true that MS charge we the consumer for the online content, you have to admit that it seems unwise to piss off the people who develop for you. That's like taking a piss on a farmers front door, and then wondering why he's provided you with only bent wheat, rotton potatoes, and chickens with learning disabilities.

 

[GloatingSwine]

Is this the reason I don't have my Fallout 3 DLC on my PS3?

It's more likely why there's a new Xbox Live Arcade game every week without fail (more than one, some weeks), and a new PSN game every month or so.

 

[skorpion352]

Whilst it is true that MS charge we the consumer for the online content, you have to admit that it seems unwise to piss off the people who develop for you. That's like taking a piss on a farmers front door, and then wondering why he's provided you with only bent wheat, rotton potatoes, and chickens with learning disabilities.

dont all chickens have learnign disabilities?

also, we dont know what M$ charge for dlc, so until we have that info, saying sony are screwing themselves dont mean anything

 

[fix-the-spade]

Great wall of text

You do remember that a demo is a form of advertising.

The point I was trying to make is that Sony are making it less cost effective than other forms.