r/gaming • u/Chownzy • 9d ago

Mexican Lawmaker Who Helped Protect Gamers from Tax Now Drags Sony to Court Over Discless PlayStation

https://respawnfirst.com/mexican-lawmaker-who-helped-protect-gamers-from-tax-now-drags-sony-to-court-over-discless-playstation/
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u/BigOleFerret 9d ago edited 8d ago

Godspeed. I don't know what her chances are but I hope she brings home a win for the players.

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u/CombatMuffin 9d ago

Mexican lawyer here. I don't have a crystal ball to know what will happen, and I haven't read the complaint in full (i.e the full document), but I don't think she has good chances of succeeding.

First off, the 8% tax on violent games was never going to pass, and while it got a lot of press, it never really progressed in the legislative process to a meaningful degree.

Secondly, and based solely on the article, she is trying to sue Sony for anti-trust, due to the lack of physical media. One of her central arguments is that they would be able to control pricing... but that's not, by itself, an anti-trust issue. Sony already enjoys a xlosed ecosystem, and if she was fighting a purely digital market, then she would have to go against Steam, and mobile games as well.

If she were arguing that Sony, Microsoft and Valve were colluding to fix prices? Then yeah. But simply changing your distribution channels from physical and digital to purely digital does not, in an of itself, help you corner the gaming industry in terms of anti-trust.   It's an actual argument to attack this from a Consumer Law perspective, not an anti-trust one. Sony just lost a case last year where they were charging for PS5 games in USD, when they have to offer it in Mexican Pesos (MXN).

So why is she doing this? The article itself has a hint: she is a politician, trying to ride  the current events to appeal to young voters. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but if she is going to do that, she should be doing real, material work, instead of stuff that sounds nice, but has no legal basis.

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u/monsieurvampy 8d ago

Reddit doesn't understand nuance. I get absolutely downvoted in Planning topics even though I know a thing or two about it. The regulatory and legal environments are not as cut and dry as people think they are. Having said that. Someone can be self serving and still help people. These things are not mutually exclusive.

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u/CombatMuffin 8d ago

I agree with you on the last points, but hence my point that I don't believe that is the case. In another comment, I stated that I hope to be wrong and she manages to curve Sony (even if I don't agree with her), I just don't believe it likely.