Last week, PlayStation was caught using dynamic pricing to do A/B testing on PlayStation Store users around the world. Today, the experiment has come to the US.
PSPrices, who first reported on this issue, updated that 189 games have now been added to this experiment in the US PlayStation store. There is also an IPT_LPM program which involves 104 games that can both increase and decrease in price.
Sony has included their own games in the US experiment, like Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 and God of War Ragnarok. This is noteworthy in light of the rumor that Sony will stop bringing them to PC.
Crusader II Elesar explains where A/B testing comes in in this:
To elaborate as people are confused, A/B testing implies some customers (Group A) see one price, and another set (Group B) are seeing a different price.
And this is central to this controversy. The FTC explains on their own website that price discrimination is a violation of America’s Robinson-Patman Act.
Whether it violates US antitrust laws depends on Sony’s execution, and their silence just makes everything look more suspicious. We now await if FTC takes action – or someone gets ahead of them.