PlayStation Plus Monthly Games for September: Saints Row, Black Desert – Traveler Edition, Generation Zero 

“Your cancellation is confirmed. The PlayStation Plus Essential: 12 Month Subscription subscription will cancel on 09/07/2024. You can reactivate the subscription anytime before 09/07/2024.”

The culmination of having been a paid member since September 2013, every year without fail. Having been a Playstation console owner since the PS1, having owned MULTIPLE units each generation, having been in the user club that was the precursor to PS Plus (forget what they called it back in the day), having been one of the home beta playtesters during the PS2/PS3 era, and now you’ve gone a bridge too far Sony. I am not paying one. more. red. cent. to be able to play online or get cloud saves, but let me truly illuminate for you, my malicious videogame overlords, the stack of dominoes you’ve set to fall with me.

I own 2 PS5s, one in my bedroom and one in my livingroom. One I’ve had since ALMOST launch (Dec 31, 2020) and when you all said “Games will be $10 more now” I laughed and said “Nope, you all don’t launch complete games day one anyway, I’ll wait six months until it’s all patched, maybe has the DLC released and comes to the store for $30, not one more red cent Sony.” I’ve mostly stuck to that, as Returnal was the only game I bought for $70 at launch and I regret that ever so much. It was a good lesson in patience. Sony is trying to test my FOMO threshold but the FOMO is low with this one, Mr. Ryan.

Then you all came out with this 3 tiered membership rolling the Now into Plus, and I was a bit nervous at the time that it would affect my subscription/pricing for what I was getting. Crisis averted. I stayed on the essential tier yet still somewhat irritated that I was paying $60 a year essentially for cloud saves and online play. Not being an online gamer and having nearly no friends on the Playstation platform I only dabbled in it a bit to play a couple multiplayer games with my wife…who…also…needed a $60 subscription…see where this is headed Sony?

Sure I could afford the extra $20 a year ($40 really, but $160 a year just so my wife and I can play online MP together? Take a hike), and yes part of my begrudging agreement to pay the outrageous ask of $60 per PS Plus account in my household was in maintaining the access to my nearly 200 game PS Plus log of titles I built up over the past 10 years. EVEN SO…This blog post has prompted me to evaluate their true value and the sunk cost fallacy of paying to keep that collection…I reviewed the titles and see maybe 10 I have much interested in checking out…out of nearly 200, so while I was happy to pay the $60 begrudgingly to maintain that catalog, that was my upper limit. My subscription has a year left, 10 titles I want to play, so about 1 a month and I’ll be ok with losing them. Getting onto that. As Jack said in Fight Club “The things you own can end up owning you.” Well I am quite done with Sony trying to own me. A bridge too far, the FOMO is low with this one.

But what else has this prompted in my relationship with Playstation? Well as I said before, the $10 price dis-incentivized me from buying new PS5 games. I have 2 PS5s but the fact you’ve priced the lowest tier of PS Plus out of my range of what I’m willing to pay and paywalled save backups of ANY KIND you’ve dis-incentivized me from buying ANY PS5 game now or multiplatform games on Playstation at all. So now you’ve made it so only one of my PS5s is really of any utility to me so you’ve dis-incentivized me from buying multiple consoles from you in the future for different rooms. Not only that I have a pretty nice gaming laptop I use exclusively for that purpose and a nice shiny Steam account that doesn’t charge me to play online OR to back up my saves on the cloud….oh did I mention I am an Xbox Gold member? So yes the money I can save in migrating away from Playstation Plus could very handily come in useful with a shiny new Game Pass sub (the basic rate of Game Pass would run me about what I pay for Gold and PS Plus now). All that said, if I DID want to break down and buy a first party PS title here and there (after it’s been out several months and on discount, see above my thoughts on launch titles)…well Sony your attempt to sucker $20 out of me is looking much more like a huge loss in business from me, a Playstation player for the past 27 years. Until now my chosen ecosystem. And for what, as Margie says in Fargo, “Just for a little bit of money”.

So no Mr. Ryan, would you kindly take your price hike, fold it in half, and hike it you know where? I’m done.

-Paywalling PS5 save backups behind an $80 subscription is TRASH and makes me not want to buy PS5 games.
-Paywalling GAME DEMOS/TRIALS behind a PREMIUM subscription is TRASH and something I’ve never been suckered into. A game trial is a COMMERCIAL, if you don’t want to convince me to buy your games by letting me sample them FREE that’s YOUR poor marketing, not my loss. I just won’t buy your games.
-Paywalling online multiplayer play behind an $80 subscription is TRASH and most of my friends and family that game are ALL on PC, and I have one of those capable as my PS5.
-Giving out Saints Row ’22 the month you try to fleece your fanbase and saying the price hikes are for being able to “continue to bring you quality offerings” is TRASH. Seriously, nobody wants any of this month’s free titles, it’s broken low reviewed crap shovelware. Mr. Ryan would you kindly take your Saint’s Row and …well you know what to do with it, Jim.

With that I close with just two further comments. First, to take some artistic license with Kratos’ words, “Don’t be Sony….be better.” You have disappointed me Mr. Ryan. After 27 years as a pretty loyal customer your greed to scratch another $20 from me has just snapped the camel’s back and I am tired of feeling defrauded and abused with your anti-consumer crap. the FOMO is low with this one, but the FAFO is high with Playstation. I’m done, I cancel, I am your monster no longer.