People should have known sony was crap when they jumped the shark with the ps3. Even the ps2 was the beginning of the buy it online only days, but the ps3 was where they “required” an upgrade to continue to use their console and took away an ability that was promised when sold. Go back a little further and you have the rootkit fiasco.
People didn’t learn then, and they probably won’t now. Sony just marches forward and people keep buying their crap. Same as always.
Of course it didn’t. I don’t think some people understand how completely irrelevant the individual is when it comes to corporate decision making. They don’t care if you’re upset. They’re either going to do something extreme, then dial it back (on purpose) to something worse but not as bad, or they’re going to ignore you. If they keep at it long enough, newer generations just grow up thinking this is all normal.
Look at DLC. Younger people on here probably think that’s normal or good. But older people can remember a time where when a game was released, it was expected to run out the box or you’d immediately refund it because they sold you a broken product. And the game was whole, not locked behind paywalls. Even when PC games got DLC, The Sims still looked absolutely crazy for the sheer cost of all those expansions. To probably well over half of the users here, though, this is the new normal.
My best advice is to support and enjoy indie games that do things right (and can probably run on your PC without costing you a fortune), or start learning to enjoy older games (there’s tons of great ones out there!), most of which can be found easily and played on just about any modern computer. SNES, Sega Genesis, Gamecube, PS2, 3DS, etc. There’s so many good games out there.
And of course, don’t be afraid to find other hobbies. If you really want to make a difference, stop giving any money to these corporations. Video games aren’t a necessity. You can choose not to support Sony gaming, simple as that. Not temporarily, but until their business practices change whennever.
Yea the reason sony is doing this now is because it’s the dead zone of this generation cycle. Console sales are falling, people are cancelling PS Plus subscriptions, and they’re taking the hits deliberately now so it’s ancient history by the time they announce PS6.
Boycotting now means very little. There’s already an natural boycott happening as people have lost interest in console gaming. It’s just a reaction to being upset, rather than a real sacrifice targeted to inflict the pain necessary for Sony to consider changing.
no way 🤣🤣🤣🤣
I think gaming enthusiasts often forget that they are the vast, vast minority of people using any given platform.
Having worked adjacent to the gaming press for a while now I really get the feeling that people playing single player, story driven, or otherwise “traditional” video games truly believe they’re the majority of the market. They are not. A huge percentage of the PlayStation user base either doesn’t know or doesn’t care about Sony’s latest anti-consumer policy (of which there are many). Even if every person who plays and enjoys traditional games and/or cares about preservation/ownership boycotts Sony tomorrow it’ll barely move the needle.
Until the GTA online players, the fortnite players, the roblox players, the latest Call of Duty live service players, Genshin Impact players, etc… care it’s not going to make any sort of a dent.
I have four nephews.
95% of their playtime is like 4 games. Minecraft, Madden, Fortnite, and whatever the most popular multiplaying FPS is (this changes every year or two). Throw in a few more uber popular ones like Mario Kart, Terraria, Stardew, Elden Ring etc. and that’s the other 5%
They rarely play anything else and they think I’m brain damaged because all my games… are not any of those. My games are ‘weird’ to them. If it hasn’t sold 10-20+ million , they don’t know what it is.
I used to want a PS5, what would have been my first PlayStation, but I changed my mind and am sticking with PC. They never saw my money so they don’t know it’s missing. This is why “voting with your wallet” is more nuanced than just “don’t buy Sony things.”
People who buy Sony things need to stop buying Sony things. Money the company is taking for granted needs to dry up. Boycotts only work if the in crowd becomes the out crowd.
Gamers might be the most pushover demographic of all. First they act so angry and threatening, and then they still buy all the consoles and games anyway, no matter the cost. You can do anything with gamers and the companies know.
Who needs enemies with friends like these, right.
If you actually give a shit, delete your sony account and move to pc. I said as much when this boycott was announced, their systems wouldn’t even notice it. If you want to affect their bottom line you have to leave and not come back. Concessions are only gained if you’re willing to walk out entirely. And you have more rights around ownership digitally on pc anyway. I’ve never bought a digital title for a console and that’s the way it will stay. There is 0 reason to be on a closed ecosystem as a gamer. Get your friends to join, set up local learning/gaming sessions, make new friends, own your hardware again, get linux, get drm free games, support indie devs and fuck AAA titles that serve you unfinished slop.
If you actually give a shit, delete your sony account and move to pc.
There’s a reason why Sony announced their digital-only platform around this time. People who bought a PS5 want to play games while not spending the money you’d need for a PC. Now with RAM, graphics cards and storage prices going to the clouds, even less people are able to build/buy a PC. Even if the PS6 costs 799€ (or something around that price range), it will be way cheaper than buying/building a PC, especially since the crisis won’t stop in the near future.
I mean, rumors are that it’ll be $1000-1200 which is wild. But with a company making every choice currently to be as greedy as possible in the gaming space, maybe not that wild lol.
However, you can build a similar unit still for around the same price. It’s not much cheaper (having built several hundred units working in the pc industry myself.) And this explosion in pricing has only brought those numbers closer together. Consoles used to be sold at a loss. That has become less and less true, especally as they exclude components such as 4k blu ray lasers and include only slightly modified silicon based off the same consumer grade pc components, that price delta keeps closing.
You can find countless videos on youtube still being made today of budget pc builds that are targeted to be on par or better than consoles for around the same price. And if you factor in your monthly sub to play online with friends for PS plus and instead funnel that into a better system…well, the math pulls even more in favor of the open ecosystem 🤷♂️
I can’t spend the crazy amount of money it would take to build a new tower right now. I have a 5070 laptop, that’ll have to do I guess. I’ll delete Sony accounts.
✊
Your laptop might be better than my desktop in some regards haha
As much as I agree with you about owning your games and moving to Linux PC, I have to disgree when you say there is 0 reason to be on a closed ecosystem as a gamer.
I’ll probably never buy a Playstation again as I’m in the process of moving my gaming to Linux (Steam Deck for now, gaming rig when the prices go down), but Sony games used to be/are great and everything works perfectly out of the box.
Pc gaming/Linux is becoming better, but it’s not there yet for ease of use.
If everything was already perfect I don’t think we’d be in this situation lol. When trying to affect change, sacrifices have to be made. When workers strike I don’t think they’re expecting a better situation than the status quo lol. It takes courage to stand on principle.
In this case, sacrificing a bit of time to learn and set things up and/or some games that are full of microtransactions and anticheat, like CoD or Valorant, is a pretty easy choice imo compared to an actual strike lol. With Proton and new distros like Bazzite you can even have a console-like experience. Heck, with things like Kazeta you can even have a physical media like experience. Just costs a little time.
I’m ready to make the sacrifice, but a lot of people aren’t because consoles still have advantages.
That’s why I have to react when people are saying that consoles have nothing over PC. It’s true for us, but not for everyone.
I understand, I just think those console advantages aren’t really that far off anymore. I understand the plug and play mentality, but it still requires account creation, sign in, and to play online multiplayer, an additional subscription.
Given that pricing has been on par for a while now with equivalent hardware, like I mentioned, time learning and setting up (honestly, what would take maybe a youtube video or two) and you would have a console-like experience replicated.
So, to me, when I see this it just seems like laziness and apathy rather than a conscious choice. Dead-eyed consumerism basically lol. I’m not even making the arguments of better graphics or using your pc for more than just gaming yet.
The only thing really standing in the way still that I imagine many still feel is anticheat. On two points though I would say that is acceptable. 1st, why would you want any software with kernel level access? Lol. Legitimately, I don’t think it’s worth it, but that is my opinion. The 2nd is that the games with anticheat are, unfortunately, the ones most often making the gaming ecosystem worse overall through their invasive, predatory, and addictive designs. Again, my opinion, and I played way too much league back in the day haha.
So I do understand and that’s why I think it’s on us who understand and who are willing to learn to share that knowledge ans offer it to our friends and communities, to be the jumping off point that helps movements begin.
Another project of my own that I’m working on is building a homelab via NixOS with flakes. Not something I ever thought I would do, but I’m learning the code and learning about alternatives and taking input from friends to see what they’d be interested in using. And then, once my flake is ready, then it can simply be copied and my work and understanding can be a jumping off point for more of my friends in the area to self host and own a lot of differrent services to not be reliant on the giant corporations.
I see this in the same vein. Those of us willing to take the jump (although, I can’t really call it a jump or sacrifice as I see more benefits on this side haha) should also be willing to build and help others join, take control, and spend more time enjoying our hobby instead of worrying about losing access or paying another subscription to play with friends.
This boycot action didn’t make sense even in the beginning.
They announced the end. Everyone is back at playing Playstation as if nothing happened. Well off course not everyone, but the majority.
They had announced the end before they started the boycot so everyone at Sony knew it’s nothing to worry about.
Of course not. It’s all about voting with your wallet. It needs to hurt their bottom line.
100% of the gamers still interested in physical media could stop buying and it still wouldn’t make a dent. It’s just not a large part of the market anymore.
And even if it was, we’re long past the point of voting with your wallet anymore in this age of tech oligopolies. You’re going to have to get politically active if you want this. Plenty of allies to be found in cultural preservation efforts across many different media!
And even if it was, we’re long past the point of voting with your wallet anymore in this age of tech oligopolies.
Respectfully, the hell we are. Telling yourself there’s nothing we can do about it perpetuates the cycle. For one thing, you could probably stick to just the physical media that already exists and never run out of great video games to play, and besides that, depending on what’s important to you, there’s DRM-free games.
Respectfully, they never said there was nothing we can do. They said the method you proffered was ineffective.
The very next sentence they said was “you’re going to have to get politically active”
And that will help as well, but wherever you spend your money, or don’t spend it, is effective. People just like to ignore the times that it’s visibly caused change and focus on the ones where they can’t see it or it hasn’t happened yet.
They’re right, though.
Enshittification makes companies money by being actively consumer hostile. Companies know they will lose customers by making unpopular decisions. But these days, they all know how to keep making more money in spite of/because of it.
Sony knows people hate this move. But the problem is that it saves them way more money than they’d ever lose in sales. They get to have a more captive audience with lending/reselling no longer a thing, no longer have to pay for materials and distribution for discs, no longer need to include a disc drive in the cost of the console, etc.
And they know the gambit will pay off, because what are people going to do otherwise? Pay the cost of a PS5 just for RAM?
Well, once I stop paying for their products I really do not care how shitty of a company they become. I’m already free of them. Enshittify away.
I already outlined two things you could do instead. Casually overheard on the subway, I know the average Joe who just plays NBA 2K is becoming more and more aware of his other options as the one he liked grows to be worse in some way, whether his line in the sand is physical media or not.
Yes, Netflix got worse; buy some Blu Rays instead…you might find that they’re higher quality video than what Netflix has been sending you anyway, and you can get them pretty cheap on sale. PlayStation got worse; play your games somewhere else, even old or low spec ones that run on machines you already have or that you can afford. You won’t be the only one in this predicament, and game developers are going to have to start targeting a lower spec to survive. These companies get you used to a thing and either cut benefits or raise prices or both, but they’re not essential to your survival or happiness, and there are other things you can do in response.
The end-users aren’t who the big names in the industry are responsive to anymore. It’s the shareholders. Alanah Pearce has been banging this drum for a while now; I recommend following her content for more on the topic.
Besides, I didn’t say there’s nothing we can do. I mentioned exactly what you can do. Get politically active. Connect with others working on media preservation. Help with data collection and research to inform good public policy. Advocate and spread the word. Vote for candidates that pledge regulation and anti-trust action. Back the development of new candidates that will if none exist in your districts.
I watch her stuff from time to time, and I’ve heard her beat that drum. But how do shareholders get a return on their investment? Customers have to buy whatever the company is selling. PlayStation already knows choppy waters are ahead with the component crisis, and they’ve told shareholders that their plan for this storm is to focus on further monetizing their existing customers rather than trying to expand, because they don’t think the latter is very likely to happen. What do you think happens to their shareholders if you refuse to be monetized?
I think they’re estimated to b between 10-15% of users. The upcharge they’re going to do after the change is implemented will more than make up for it.
The article says that there’s not enough people mad about it to hurt their bottom line. You’re basically proposing to continue doing something that had 0 effect so far.
They will need to completely get out from the PlayStation echo system for that to work.
As with many things, its a vocal minority amplified by the internet. Everyone is mad when you’re on the enthusiast websites, but most people with playstations etc dont go on the enthusiast website and just keep doing their thing.
Most people just don’t care and the tiny majority that does will just be ignored by Sony. Who cares about a tiny fraction of customers protesting when demand is so high that the PS5 Pros are out of stock everywhere https://www.tomsguide.com/gaming/playstation/ps5-pro-restocks-latest-updates
exactly!
if you want to bitch about it, sell your Sony gear. get out of the shitty ecosystem. never look back.
fuck Sony.
I wouldn’t sell your gear, put it in a closet, or continue using it without purchasing any more in their ecosystem. But if you sell your gear, you’re going to enable someone else who is willing to purchase into the ecosystem. Where if you just closet it or only play with what you have, then they won’t gain anything else from it.
Sure it did! It had a marvelous impact! I have never painted so many minis, never spent more time with the dog, and finally got around to buying elden ring on PC, thanks to the Sony boycott making me remember to spite Sony. The ps5 sits unplugged on a shelf and was going to get hooked up to the TV but then…all these things started happening and I kinda thought “nah fuckem I can wait till they stop hammering their dicks with a hammer” and they just kept at it so I’ve been off PS for the past…2 months? 3?
The blackout and wanting to show solidarity with an issue was the final real push for me. Fuck em.
Dont use playstation, but I want to get a PS2 so I can play this old game, metropolismania. I want it so bad. Dont want to fuck with emulators on the PC. I want a PS2 I can plug into the 2010 TV with the little yellow and red plugs. Turn to channel 3. xD
There is so much content if you work backwards. Im def getting old, but all this tech over reach has me reaching for simplier days as of late.
Composite video used the input channel, RF/coax was the one that made you turn to channel 3 :P
For what it’s worthy, PS2 emulation on PC is in an awesome spot right now. Lots of handhelds that do it well now too! Honestly it’s less hassle than getting composite video working on a newer tv, so definitely keep that 2010 set working while you can.
Keep doing it until they feel it and know! A one time blackout isn’t enough, there needs to be consistency.
Right? What’s stupid idea. Just as stupid as the reddit temporary blackout with third party apps. Should Have just closed out all of their accounts and subs.
Do it again.
