Live data from Hacker News

PlayStation can delete all your digital games after 3 years of inactivity (EU)

flatpanelshd.com

81–90 of 164 posts

Re: PlayStation can delete all your digital games after 3 years of inactivity (EU)

#81
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apart from steam, I don't think I've heard anything but bad news from modern consoles. Gabe is in his mid 60s, I'm prepared that in the next decade or so there will be a change of guard at Valve and the slow train of enshittification will get moving. P.S. There's been a lot of groupthink and bandwagoning for Valve, ignoring all the dirt under the rug. But at the end of the day, by comparison, they are the best beha…

The company that gave up making games because there was more money to be had from inserting itself as a middleman into a previously open platform does not deserve any adoration.

This is categorically untrue. In addition to the games listed below, they are actively developing "Deadlock" which is a pretty rad game in my opinion.

Re: PlayStation can delete all your digital games after 3 years of inactivity (EU)

#82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The market demanded a middleman. Would you prefer an Epic or Microsoft monopoly?

> The market demanded a middleman Says who?

The market.

If you're an indy game developer, it turns out that just posting .exes on your website gets you a limited reach.

Re: PlayStation can delete all your digital games after 3 years of inactivity (EU)

#83

While Microsoft may not be as bad on this as Sony so far, they have certainly shown a willingness to revoke access to digital games. For example- in an effort to push users to the newer fifa titles with microtransactions, they quietly removed the ability to redownload purchased digital copies of older fifa games. For anyone who might've temporarily uninstalled the game to free up space, there was suddenly no way to g…

That's almost certainly due to EA's licensing agreement with FIFA rather than Microsoft's decision. Similar to how you can no longer purchase older Forza games due to the licensing for use of the cars expiring.

Ultimately it’s the same thing. If it can be taken away, you didn’t buy it.

Re: PlayStation can delete all your digital games after 3 years of inactivity (EU)

#86

I'm not in the EU, but had 2 accounts with Sony/Playstation (I'm pretty sure both sat unused for more than 3 years). I tried to delete one and it seemed impossible. The FAQ said to call support. I called, waiting for 45 minutes, and they said they couldn't help me and hung up before I could respond. While I believe they would delete a user's games, I don't know if they would actually willingly give up holding on to c…

> While I believe they would delete a user's games, I don't know if they would actually willingly give up holding on to customer data. So basically you get worst of both worlds, great.

And on top of that, Sony will probably get hacked again, as has already happened a couple times. That was a primary reason why I actually wanted my account gone, not just inactive.

Re: PlayStation can delete all your digital games after 3 years of inactivity (EU)

#87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Beat me to it. I am still incredibly salty about losing my “lifetime” license to Minecraft. I really am curious to see some of the changes that have happened since I last played (when still owned by Notch), but I refuse to repurchase it.

> I am still incredibly salty about losing my “lifetime” license to Minecraft. I kept my Minecraft license after migrating to a Microsoft account. Unsure how it got messed up for you.

I don’t know what to say. I went to the migration site, entered my information-no dice. Contacted support and got no assistance. There are others with a similar experience.

Microsoft could have gone above and beyond to manage the forced migration. Instead there was a convoluted process which left many cheated. They could have just punted and automatically emailed brand new entitlement codes to all of the original purchase emails. Yes, people who switched emails would have been missed, but that would have covered 95%+ of customers in a single action.

Re: PlayStation can delete all your digital games after 3 years of inactivity (EU)

#88

And consumers will cry about it for about 5 minutes, then go back to reward the company. When HP started making printer cartridges that expired even when they were still full, people complained—then bought more. When Microsoft let the web stagnate with IE6, people complained, then turned around and did the same thing with Chrome. When Apple deliberately put a bug in the iPhone that caused the Home button to fail, pus…

The sad thing is that for many of these examples, people got a better deal out of it.

The HP printer ink subscription makes a lot of sense if you print a certain number of pages each year. Many consumers who only print occasionally are better off with cheap subscriptions for getting their money's worth, even if from an environmental point of view the cartridge DRM is absolute bullcrap.

Adobe switching from making people pay thousands and charging them again for updates was a lot more expensive than the ridiculous yearly subscription they charge (per month, to keep the advertised price down, surprising people who thought they could cancel after a few months).

IE6 was awful at replicating what other browsers did, but it introduced a lot of features that reshaped the web. The XmlHttpRequest that moved the web from static pages to basic interactivity was a Microsoft invention.

Many if these cases didn't work out of course, but for many business decisions that cause outrage on the internet, it's worth reconsidering the options on offer after the outrage has died down. Unpopular decisions aren't often the unbridled conspiratory evil that the internet would like you to believe.

Re: PlayStation can delete all your digital games after 3 years of inactivity (EU)

#89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The market demanded a middleman Says who?

The market. If you're an indy game developer, it turns out that just posting .exes on your website gets you a limited reach.

I understand my question was a bit flippant but truly, this doesn’t answer it.
Post reply on HN