Sony gets people scratching their heads after region-locking purchases of Horizon Forbidden West, 10 entire months after its initial release

Despite it being a move that’s ‘almost tank your only real live-service success of the year’ unpopular, Sony has region-locked another game a staggering 10 months after its initial release. Picked up by a ResetEra user, Horizon Forbidden West, as per SteamDB, is now unable to be purchased in a list of countries—a list that’s consistent with its PSN availability, despite the game not requiring an account to play.

This is, understandably, causing a great deal of headscratching—with Sony doubling down on a move that has proven historically unpopular and, from a consumer standpoint, seemingly without a proper objective in mind. Horizon Forbidden West has already been available for the better part of a year, and it’s not as if it’ll contribute to PSN user numbers in any meaningful way—so why close the curtains now?

While I’ve reached out to Sony for comment, and will update this article if I receive a response, I can make some educated guesses. To be clear—I’m not attempting to justify Sony’s decision here, I think it’s weird and short-sighted, but I am also cursed with the burden of knowledge and will share what I can to illuminate the situation.

While I’d like to sweep in with a theory that explains everything, the truth of the matter is this whole thing’s bound to be complicated and multifaceted. I’ll deal with the obvious first—some of the countries involved are just straight-up dictatorships, and are thus boycotted. For example, North Korea’s on the list.

This isn’t even a new move. Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine has seen much of the gaming industry refusing to do business with the country. With physical goods, this makes a lot of sense—wartime and governmental corruption makes for easily-pilfered inventory and inconsistent shipping issues—but, as studies mentioned in the article I just linked, digital piracy can be just as prevalent. Typically, it’s just more trouble than it’s worth.

But what about the other countries present? Speaking bluntly, Sony is a company, and it’s not going to make all of its decisions out of the goodness of its heart. Exchange rates are a huge factor. Put simply, games are ‘cheaper’ in other countries if your own country’s currency is worth more.

This is a problem for any publisher making decisions like ‘how much should a game cost’ because of basic economics. If you want to sell anything, you need to balance cost with, well, making sure people can actually afford it. You might need to charge the equivalent of a month’s salary to turn a profit—but at that point, no-one’s gonna bother. For example, in 2023, players from Argentina and Turkey were hit with massive price hikes when Steam decided to stop converting currencies in their territories, as well as 25 other countries.

But why, you ask, is that a problem for digital goods? Generating keys doesn’t cost anything, and you’ve already made the game, so it’s in a publisher’s best interest to get as many customers as possible—even if they’re paying a pittance. Lemme introduce you to the concept of the grey market or, as you probably know them, key resellers.

Grey markets (as opposed to black markets) are, put simply, a consequence of how humans work. If a product is cheap in one country, why not buy and sell it in a country where it’s more expensive? Why not indeed, say the key sellers, who have been doing this sort of thing for a while, sometimes through less-than-scrupulous means.

This isn’t even particularly seedy on the fact of it—a little underhanded, maybe, but it’s sometimes an accepted part of doing business. Back in 2019, Valve actually got in trouble for region-locking certain games, with the EU commissioner stating that “consumers should not be prevented from shopping around between Member States to find the best available deal.”

All of this to say—it’s a massive headache, and it’s entirely possible that Sony has simply had enough of dealing with it, thus limiting its scope to countries it knows it won’t have a hard time with. It’s still a confusing and somewhat anti-consumer decision, don’t get me wrong (that’s why I’ve asked Sony directly). But it’s not entirely mystifying or without precedent.

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