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I wasn't even going to stack, just add another year as my sub expires in little over a month. But considering I haven't actually downloaded a PS+ game since Virtua Fighter 5 nearly a year ago, and pretty much only use my PS5 for a small handful of exclusives and occasional PS4 BC at this point, the most cost-efficient move would be to treat it like I do Netflix or Disney +, and just grab a monthly Essential sub 2 - 3 times a year as needed - which also keeps my cloud saves safe. Honestly, all things considered, it's best keep spending in the Playstation ecosystem down the absolute minimum.
I thought post like these were done. You are wrong and there are PAGES and PAGES of explanations why this opinion isn't a good one to have
well if you're going to call it a loophole or exploit or trick or whatever its a baseless claim. It makes people who bought a subscription that from the moment the service started could be stacked.
In the release faq they said you would get PS + Premium based on your longest subscription.
So, Yeah...........Fuck those who just bought something and tried to use it as intended.......RIGHT?
post the articles
we will go over each one and see if buying and stacking PS+ is a designed feature that has been accepted since it has begun.
Or if its a loophole. A scam. A trick.
post em
this topic is 35 pages
Passing the blame of Sonys incompetence/greed on to the consumer is absurd
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Is it really much of a leap to extrapolate that the recent things you mentioned on top of this are all damaging goodwill, and your original post was flippant for no reason.
Sony had a ton of different ways to make this service transfer an easy one, and even if you go the "loophole" route it's one they could have had much better messaging about. This thread is like a circular argument, the bulk of the issue here is Sony shutting this off in the backend with no heads up or communication for DAYS, not that they shut the stacking off on its own.
I think it's crazy they haven't backtracked on this yet. I thought for sure they would've by now and given people like a week or something where they could stack, and like a limit of a few years or something. Would stop most people from complaining.
No chance there's a significant number of people who would be taking advantage of this, and there's going to be an even smaller number of people who were going to do it to extreme levels like more than 5 years.
But right now it's another thing on the recent list of decisions they've made that make people think "Sony are doing things that are bad for me this generation, so I won't invest a significant amount of money into their ecosystem". Like I know the obvious counter is that "the audience who cares about this stuff isn't the general consumer, blah blah blah" but each of these decisions reaches a slightly different group, and the number of people they reach eventually becomes significant.
Not really completely relevant, but there's the obvious disadvantage that it means people aren't going to be locked into their ecosystem. The whole reason I'm in the Xbox ecosystem now is because of the similar Game Pass stuff, and I've given them a lot of money and recommended Xbox games/Game Pass to other people because of that. People who otherwise wouldn't be in the PlayStation ecosystem without this deal won't be doing the same thing.
And this is all ignoring the obvious questions of the legality of it. A company says:
1) you can stack codes.
2) your time will be converted to new more expensive subscription based on the time.
The obvious conclusion is to buy as much as possible, that it's the same as the Game Pass deal. It would be fine if they also said:
3) you can't stack codes anymore, so don't buy any.
But they didn't. It was clearly falsely advertised and I don't understand where the people I've seen saying it wasn't are even attempting to come from.
No chance there's a significant number of people who would be taking advantage of this, and there's going to be an even smaller number of people who were going to do it to extreme levels like more than 5 years.
But right now it's another thing on the recent list of decisions they've made that make people think "Sony are doing things that are bad for me this generation, so I won't invest a significant amount of money into their ecosystem". Like I know the obvious counter is that "the audience who cares about this stuff isn't the general consumer, blah blah blah" but each of these decisions reaches a slightly different group, and the number of people they reach eventually becomes significant.
Not really completely relevant, but there's the obvious disadvantage that it means people aren't going to be locked into their ecosystem. The whole reason I'm in the Xbox ecosystem now is because of the similar Game Pass stuff, and I've given them a lot of money and recommended Xbox games/Game Pass to other people because of that. People who otherwise wouldn't be in the PlayStation ecosystem without this deal won't be doing the same thing.
And this is all ignoring the obvious questions of the legality of it. A company says:
1) you can stack codes.
2) your time will be converted to new more expensive subscription based on the time.
The obvious conclusion is to buy as much as possible, that it's the same as the Game Pass deal. It would be fine if they also said:
3) you can't stack codes anymore, so don't buy any.
But they didn't. It was clearly falsely advertised and I don't understand where the people I've seen saying it wasn't are even attempting to come from.
It's probably not a lot of people. But it is a subset of people who spend. The kind of people who can stack are throwing money at multiple codes to STAY in their echo system.
It's amateur hour at Sony.
Sony put out a blog post explaining that if you had both PS+ and PS Now then your PS Premium sub would be which ever one has the longest duration. People saw value in the deal offered in that post and went to extend PS+ to get more premium locked in at that price. They disabled stacking after the blog post and still advertise stacking as a feature on their websites. That's a bait and switch man. Like we bought those codes because the deal in the blog post, but now they have locked us into half the value without any offer of refunds.
I couldn't agree more. Based on the tone of the posts here, I thought Sony had actually done something exploitative.
After further inspection, it seems like all they did is…. align payments and services to an amount after a cutoff date.
If that's all you think they did then you've not read 95% of this thread. The same people have explained what happened over and over and over again, detailed the timeline, pointed out how it left people in a terrible position, and people keep coming in here shrugging shoulders and pretending it didn't go down the way it did.
Except for Sony's own website of course, which explicitly advertises and promotes that PS+ Codes are stackable, something you clearly missed in your Googling.
Without actually telling anyone beforehand...
Nobody would have an issue if Sony gave a warning that the way PS+ code redemptions worked was going to be disabled and reworked to match the new system. It's the fact that Sony put out one set of information, which influenced peoples' purchases, then quietly pulled the rug out from under them.
I don't understand how we're almost a week into this thing and some of you still can't wrap your heads around the actual problem.
Yeah, there isn't really a loophole when they didn't impose a limit like MS. You're also still giving them money for a product that they're selling. In fact, if you stacked 10 years, you effectively gave them a 300-600 dollar advance for nothing other than the promise that the service will be around throughout that whole period; I'm sure that was seen as a positive before they decided to effectively raise the price through their new membership plans.
PS+ is stackable, Sony have just temporarily disabled stacking, to stop people getting a massive unintended discount on PS+ Premium by buying cheap 3 month PSNow codes (the loophole)
It's clear Sony totally missed that people would do that to exploit the cheap price and then reacted by disabling stacking, without warning people first. Not an ideal situation for either side really.
Sony doesn't want to lose money (obviously, it's a corporation which wants our money)
Some people are mad they missed out on a super discount (it's a loophole and it was shut down, so that's just tough luck unfortunately) Their codes will be redeemable again after the new service launches and stack again, just won't get the loophole super discount.
Some are annoyed because they can't renew their sub which might expire before the new service launches (this genuinely sucks)
Sony definitely should have planned for this and communicated this better and they dropped the ball on this one, although overall it's probably just going to be a minor blip and it will be business as usual in a month or two, as people forget this, when the new service rolls out and Sony do a showcase to show off their new games etc.
People really need to stop saying "loophole". A loophole is an oversight in implementation. If Sony had announced it'd be temporarily disabling stacking until the relaunch of PS+ but accidentally left 12-month codes eligible to stack, that would be a loophole. That it abruptly and without warning changed its mind about stacking doesn't retroactively make the fact stacking was possible a loophole.
There was no "abuse" or "exploitation", as Sony made the choice to leave stacking enabled, actively addressed it in its own FAQ, and only temporarily disabled it after deciding that continuing to allow it for the next several weeks would be too generous. The only party at fault here is the multi-billion-dollar corporation that flipped the kill switch on a function of its service and communicated as much only after customer backlash began to grow.
There was no "abuse" or "exploitation", as Sony made the choice to leave stacking enabled, actively addressed it in its own FAQ, and only temporarily disabled it after deciding that continuing to allow it for the next several weeks would be too generous. The only party at fault here is the multi-billion-dollar corporation that flipped the kill switch on a function of its service and communicated as much only after customer backlash began to grow.
You are pulling this into some rational area where their behavior is ok. Or at least justified to a degree.
Let's clear this up real fast. It's not ok to take money and then stay quiet. It's not ok for people to not be able to return the codes. It's not ok. It's not a loophole. It's not an exploit. It's not a trick. It's not a hack.
It's like shitty how you've rationalized Sonys behavior into "Sony gotta Sony and it's ok" "Everyone who bought codes were gaming the system and they will EVENTUALLY……be able to use what they bought"
Sony shit the bed on this. Plain and simple.
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Like I said, I agree they dropped the ball. Just because I'm not outraged and grabbing the pitch fork, doesn't mean I agree with Sony. It's just another example of these big corporations aren't our friend.
It seems that anyone who bought a ps plus card to stack will still be able to do so. So that's not exactly the issue. The cards will work and apparently (afaik) they will stack to ps plus essential. What is clearly a loophole - something Sony did not intend - was for people to buy PsNow and multiple years of ps plus last minute to convert multiple years of ps plus to ps plus premium for no additional cost. I think it's fair to call this a loophole because Sony had stopped selling ps now for a while before the announcement. So people finding them at the 11th hour and then buying multiple years of ps plus is clearly trying to take advantage of what is basically an exploit.
Thank you for perfectly sum it up, they closed an obvious loophole in the shittiest possibile way but yeah, people mad at this are 99% the one who missed the chance of a cheap Premium.
If you only care about having the regular PS Plus until 2099 then you will have plenty of time to do that in the future months.
The only victims are people that had their Plus ending in these days and apparently can't renew with a code, that situation is unacceptable, I think they should have blocked stacks only for people that actually have both Now and Plus, otherwise is just silly, but I guess it was too complicated for them and they preferred block it for everyone and call it a day.
Some people are mad because they went out and purchased multiple years of plus to stack on top of their existing subs based on exactly what PlayStation messaged and a history of plus subs always being able to be stacked for many years... and then couldn't redeem them, refund them or return them. They likely paid over the top for them (I know I never pay over half off for plus, but I might have done if I was looking to get better value on years of premium) so they got doubly screwed.
Yes they will be redeemable, but just as plus or pro rata premium, i.e. half the value they were expecting given exactly what PlayStation had communicated. It might technically be legal thanks to the terms and conditions of these things, but there's nothing good faith about any of this.
Communication first, action later - that's the way to look after your customers. Changing the rules on the fly, keeping queit about it until just before the weekend when the pushback will be diluted, it's just scummy. And all to save an absolute rounding error of a sum of money while middle fingering proper fans who wanted to lock themselves in to a service we don't even know the finer details about. They could not have planned a worse outcome.
This is the same company that just over a year ago gave us some absolute bangers for free - 10 games to everyone with a PSN account with Play at Home and then HZD ffs! PlayStation are industry-leading in many regards, but it seems at times they forget why and go out of their way to self-own.
It's on Sony to get their house in order not the consumer. What was advertised isn't a loophole.
So many people come in here and pass blame onto the consumer and it's pathetic
People couldn't even return those cards.
I'm surprised at the amount of people willing to put Sony above consumer who followed advertised rules.
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Sony: You get converted to PS+ Premium if you have an active PSNow and PS+ subscription.
Costumer: Well, if Sony says so I guess I could stack those before the service launches, then.
Sony: sToP uSiNg ExPlOiTs oMg >:o
How come there are people defending Sony on this one?
Costumer: Well, if Sony says so I guess I could stack those before the service launches, then.
Sony: sToP uSiNg ExPlOiTs oMg >:o
How come there are people defending Sony on this one?
It's eye opening how many people here will twist the situation into ….the consumer used a "loophole"
It's way too many people
Right. That's why I said "temporarily", twice. ;)
Sony would've known unused codes were actively being circulated when announcing the particulars, though, especially considering it stopped generating them all the way back in January.
This isn't true actually; PS+ will be stackable; as of now, it is not despite still being advertised as such.
Let's make it clear here; there was no loophole. Sony communicated two very explicit things:
1. If you have both a PS Now and PS Plus subscription, you'll get the longer of the two.
2. Service subscriptions can be purchased and are stackable.
Extending your service, so that you would get Premium for the longer of the two services, is literally what Sony communicated and advertised.
Sony could have announced that only existing subscriptions will apply to subscriptions up to a certain date (which for any remotely competent data structure should be trivial). They could have communicated the conversion path they followed up with in their blog post. They could have announced they'll be shutting down subscription redemption or subscription extension.
Instead, they did none of that, for days, while their cards were still on sale under the terms advertised on their website with no clear statement that redemption was purposely disabled. This was something they did plan for, as they began limiting the sale of physical cards months ago, so acting like it was a surprise doesn't align with what we explicitly know about both how they began to prepare for the transition and also how they communicated the service. It being a small blip or not is not really relevant to whether people are justifiably annoyed that the terms of the cards they purchased had their terms changed without notice post-sale.
Maybe you call it a 'loophole' to purchase something under the advertised terms, but I call it a totally reasonable consumer expectation.
EDIT: It isn't on customers to 'predict' whether something explicitly advertised is intended or not (particularly when the irony is that the italicised is actually false; locking people into your service who might not otherwise subscribe for years even at a reduced MRR value is incredibly beneficial business model), it's on Sony to make the terms explicit.
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This is precisely what I would have expected from any company of this scale and maturity. The way it was handled and the lack of communication are baffling to me.
No chance Sony missed it. Like what. Lots of people across the whole world would have been aware of the decision that existing subscriptions would convert 1:1 into Premium subscriptions. The natural consequence of something like that is that you can stack to get a good deal. Even if none of them knew you can stack PS+ codes, they would've still thought of it and checked if you could. At least one person would've realised that and put it into an email chain or whatever about this. They actively chose not to communicate how it would work up front, and instead to communicate that everything would work how it worked in the past, resulting in the natural conclusions that literally everybody who thought about it for a second reached. Conveniently this also resulted in Sony selling years of full price PS+ subscriptions to exactly the customer base (those who try to "exploit" a deal) who would never spend that much on PS+ otherwise.
Even if it wasn't intentional that doesn't change anything. If a company designs a product poorly so it doesn't do something they advertise it as doing, then I'd be able to get a refund when it doesn't do that. Their intentions don't matter.
hypothetical Class action lawsuit (not saying there will be one)
Do Sony lawyers use the words "loophole" "trick" or "exploit"? How about "both sides are to blame"?
I'd think not because they would get blasted for such ridiculous claims.
Do Sony lawyers use the words "loophole" "trick" or "exploit"? How about "both sides are to blame"?
I'd think not because they would get blasted for such ridiculous claims.
Ok so let's walk it back.
Do you agree with what I said if you remove the legal part?
That Sony set the rules. Then when things were not working in their favor pulled the plug on the terms. Leaving people with codes that can't be refunded.
Is any part of that worth backing up?
I just don't know if Sony is or is not within their legal rights to do what they did. But I do now think that it was probably wrong of them to act as they did regardless.
They had a relatively pain free out, by just stating that the "match" would only be to the first full year. That way people could still redeem PS+ they've purchased, and would still get Essential after the first year.
Yeah there would have been some pushback as obviously it's changing the initial statement, but blocking sub stacking for months just looks like a blunt hammer to do what you could have done with less real pushback
Yeah there would have been some pushback as obviously it's changing the initial statement, but blocking sub stacking for months just looks like a blunt hammer to do what you could have done with less real pushback
To anyone defending this.
They could have stopped the sale of PS Plus cards a few months ago like they did with PS Now and just said to people buy cash card and renew on PSN.
They could have said we will revamp the system, change the wording on the new cards when the system will update.
And said that all cards/codes already activated can be used.
Instead they chose to continue selling them. Then they indicated how the transition will take place. Then they stopped the ability to redeem those cards like usual WITHOUT saying why. 3 days later told people that those cards could not be redeem until the system change and no longer could be used to their time value written on those cards.
Lots of consumers did not intend to subscribe to premium and only bought the codes because it was a good deal and was comparable to what XBox did. Now those code cannot even be redeemed for the Essential level if people have both subscription now and one of their subcription has a few years stacked.
So in effect those coded now are worth either half their value if all you would have done is Essential given the choice of paying double for Premium OR to hope those codes don't get hacked before your longest subscription expire.
If they didn't want people to do this they could have simply stopped the activation of new codes (like they did with PS Now few months back).
They continued to activate new cards EVEN after when they stopped people from redeeming them WITHOUT informing the public.
There is no legal justification whatsoever.
They could have stopped the sale of PS Plus cards a few months ago like they did with PS Now and just said to people buy cash card and renew on PSN.
They could have said we will revamp the system, change the wording on the new cards when the system will update.
And said that all cards/codes already activated can be used.
Instead they chose to continue selling them. Then they indicated how the transition will take place. Then they stopped the ability to redeem those cards like usual WITHOUT saying why. 3 days later told people that those cards could not be redeem until the system change and no longer could be used to their time value written on those cards.
Lots of consumers did not intend to subscribe to premium and only bought the codes because it was a good deal and was comparable to what XBox did. Now those code cannot even be redeemed for the Essential level if people have both subscription now and one of their subcription has a few years stacked.
So in effect those coded now are worth either half their value if all you would have done is Essential given the choice of paying double for Premium OR to hope those codes don't get hacked before your longest subscription expire.
If they didn't want people to do this they could have simply stopped the activation of new codes (like they did with PS Now few months back).
They continued to activate new cards EVEN after when they stopped people from redeeming them WITHOUT informing the public.
There is no legal justification whatsoever.
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Yeah they went in the complete wrong order. You don't announce how things are going to work and then when people attempt to do things within the parameters (note I didn't erroneously say loopholes or exploits) you yourself just outlined shut everything down and then say "We didn't actually want you to do what we just clearly outlined, so unbeknownst to everyone buying service codes, we shut down your ability to use those codes until a set time in the future when it benefits us and hurts you. Eat shit."
For those those who put quotes around exploit, how much were you going to save on subscription prices before they made the change? Blame the people who were getting half price (or more) for like 15+ years, fuck Sony for making it seem like you could pull it off but let's get real that that those outliers aren't exploitation.
PS Pus had sales often and it was not that rare you could buy it half off...
So people did buy years of PS Plus before to stack in the past when those deals occured.
So paying full price for PS Plus to get the combo half off was well in line with previous sales. And is similar to the dea XBox did with their subcription.
There is not exploit.... This is very in line with what they did before and the competitor did.
As I said before, if they didn't want people to do that they could have anoonuce stacking was no longer allow (until it would be allowed again in month WTF is taht)\ AND STOP SELLING THOSE CODES.
People would still have been able to renew using the PSN cash code. There is not justification for a multi billion company not to make their policies know BEFORE preventing this.
OP
OP
I think it's safe to say that what Sony did is illegal. We all know if we pulled something like that at our own business we would end up paying a hefty fine at least.
Sony - this is how it works
Consumer - oh cool, I'll do what you just outlined
Sony - psych!
Corporation defender - hahaha you tried to screw Sony by doing what they outlined and they screwed you instead. You deserve it.
Sony should have initially announced how current subs will convert and stopped stacking simultaneously.
But I feel like it's not unreasonable that they stopped the bleeding. I feel like any of you in that position would have done the same tbh.
I have a feeling they didn't expect so many ppl to take advantage of it. But it got out of hand. Still their mistake but I get it
But I feel like it's not unreasonable that they stopped the bleeding. I feel like any of you in that position would have done the same tbh.
I have a feeling they didn't expect so many ppl to take advantage of it. But it got out of hand. Still their mistake but I get it
