The way Sony’s $7.85 million settlement has finally edged closer to the finish line is almost anticlimactic. The company is getting ready to give modest credits to millions of PlayStation owners after years of legal back-and-forth, two denied approvals, and a San Francisco courtroom that didn’t seem eager to wrap things up. Most of the time, not money. A small bump in the wallet linked to their PSN account.
Compared to some of the games it covers, the lawsuit itself is older. The case, which was filed back when digital storefronts were still viewed as an experimental side business, claimed that Sony was pressuring third-party retailers by gradually discontinuing game-specific coupons. Those coupons used to be a tiny but significant pressure valve on Sony’s pricing power, for anyone who recalls the days of entering a GameStop and grabbing a download code off a wall. After they vanished, the only useful way to access a digital PS library was through the PlayStation Store. The plaintiffs claimed that this caused prices for games like The Last of Us and Madden installments—which most people forgot about after a year—to occasionally rise noticeably.
Sony, on the other hand, disputes everything. In antitrust cases, acknowledging fault is frequently more costly than making the settlement payment. The court has not yet determined whether any laws were truly broken, and it is unlikely that it will in the near future. Instead of litigating the principle, the entire apparatus is now focused on allocating the funds.
It’s difficult to ignore how tiny the individual payouts will probably seem. After deducting up to 25% for legal fees and distributing $7.85 million among the millions of US PlayStation accounts that were active during that four-year period, the figure becomes more like pocket change. Perhaps a few dollars in store credit. Enough for a season pass for a sports game that someone already has three copies of, or enough for a cheap independent game.
However, there is a feeling that the symbolism is more important than the monetary amount. For years, there has been increasing pressure on digital storefronts, such as those of Sony, Apple, Google, and Valve. Legislators in Washington and Brussels have begun to view them more like utilities with excessive power than as impartial marketplaces. Apple recently resolved its own disagreement regarding the features of Apple Intelligence. Apple and Google endured years of legal drama at the hands of Epic. Even though Sony’s settlement is small, it fits into the larger trend of platforms being gradually asked to defend their own seriousness.
As this develops, it’s easy to question whether anything will truly change following the fairness hearing in October. There is no return of the vouchers. There won’t be any new competitors coming to the PlayStation Store. In order to obtain their share, players who have deactivated their accounts will need to locate previous purchase records and send an email to a settlement administrator. This procedure likely eliminates the majority of casual claimants by design.
The more subdued implication is what remains. Digital ownership, in which the buyer owns a license rather than an item, has always been a somewhat awkward arrangement. Sometimes, cases like this one force that arrangement to open, allowing people to see inside. The majority continue to make purchases even though they don’t like what they see. Sony appears to be relying on that, and the wager has held up thus far.
The hearing in October is probably going to be standard. There won’t be much fanfare when the credits roll. Somewhere, a teenager who has never heard of antitrust law will purchase a game on sale with a $4 PSN balance without fully understanding why the money appeared.
