In February 2025, the Dutch consumer rights organization Stichting Massaschade & Consument filed a class action lawsuit against Sony's gaming division. A year and a half later, the authors of Stop Killing Games — an initiative for the preservation of games — agreed to join the case.
To recall, the plaintiffs accused Sony of artificially inflating the prices of products in the PlayStation Store. They conducted a special study and found that games in the store are on average 47% more expensive than physical editions. For this reason, gamers in the Netherlands allegedly overpaid 435 million euros since 2013.
Stop Killing Games supported Stichting Massaschade & Consument and called the markups in the PlayStation Store an illegal "Sony tax."
According to the authors of the initiative, the situation is exacerbated by the fact that starting in 2028, Sony will stop printing game discs. They pointed out that as a result, the PlayStation Store will remain the only place to purchase games for the company’s consoles. Activists believe this will lead to the formation of a full-fledged monopoly.
Now, the authors of Stop Killing Games, together with Stichting Massaschade & Consument, are demanding that Sony compensate affected gamers and establish "fair" prices in the PlayStation Store. They also want to achieve the emergence of real alternatives to this store on the market.