PSN+ games no longer working, Sony not offering any assistance

kipz

kipz

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The other night I decided to play Stacking which had been offered as a free download for PSN+ members, when it loaded up it was only running in demo mode and prompted me to unlock the full game. I decided to check out some of the other games that I had received for being a PSN+ member and it turns out a large portion of them are not working, either running in demo mode when they start or informing me that the license has expired and I must download it again (at full price). I called Sony as soon as I noticed this and was on the phone with them for about an hour, I was told that the only way this could happen is if I had my service lapse, which I haven't, in fact the only time I haven't made use of it was during PSN's month long downtime. I was told that the representative would be making a refund request for me "which may not go through since all sales are final" and to make a list of all the games that were affected AND get all the transaction numbers for the downloads, so after about two hours of loading all the games and tracking down their transaction numbers in my history I had my list of games, including PSN, PS1 and even PS Minis that had been affected.

Well about twenty minutes ago I received an email stating that my refund request had indeed been denied, since as the representative stated "all sales are final" and offering absolutely no alternative solutions to the issue. Unfortunately, their offices are already closed so I can not call them tonight, I'm going to try Monday but they may be closed for the holiday. I don't know if anyone else had this issue, but I figured I should try to bring it people's attention. I might even suggest checking some of the games if you have a PSN+ membership to see if it affecting other members.

Here's my list of affecting games if you're interested to know.
PSN games
Shatter
Stacking
Critter Crunch
Sam And Max Episode 1 Penal Zone
Lead And Gold: Gangs of the Wild West
Digger HD
Sonic the Hedgehog
Sonic the Hedgehog 2
Comet Crash
Magic the Gathering: Duel of the Planswalker
Streets of Rage 2
Bomberman Ultra
Golden Axe

PS1 games
CTR: Crash Team Racing
Medievil
Oddworld: Abe's Exoddus
Spyro
Spyro 2
Spyro: Year of the Dragon
Lilo and Stitch

PS Minis
Vector TD
A Space Shooter for 2 Bucks
DynoGems
BreakQuest
Pipe Madness
Hero Of Sparta
Karimogi
Let's Golf
Enigmo
Pix'n Love Rush
Duæl Invades
Alien Zombie Death
Me Monstar: Hear Me Roar
Guerrilla War
Babel: The King of the Blocks
The 2D Adventures of Rotating Octopus Action
 
You probably need to re-download the game itself and the unlock key. If you stacked a ps+ subscription the new end date is not modified on the DRM for the game.
 
Actually he had me check that, neither the licenses or even the demos show up in my download history. It seems that anything I got prior to August 2011 is affected, and my initial subscription ended last month but I had applied a 12 month code I got from Amazon back in July.
 
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I did a little googling, and it seems like it goes as follows:

The expiry date of your content gets updated as you launch the game. So, if you launch the game and your PSN+ is set to expire 2/20/12, then your content is set to expire 2/20/12.

So, I imagine if you come to 2/20/12 and don't play the game, wait a week, renew, and then launch the game you've also lost the content. Because you never "updated" its expiry date.

Makes sense?

No.

Fair?

No.

But that's the best I can see. Not sure how you would get it back.....
 
Just a thought... Does it show the shopping bag (indicating that it's been purchased) in the store.
 
[quote name='gpgorbosjr']I did a little googling, and it seems like it goes as follows:

The expiry date of your content gets updated as you launch the game. So, if you launch the game and your PSN+ is set to expire 2/20/12, then your content is set to expire 2/20/12.

So, I imagine if you come to 2/20/12 and don't play the game, wait a week, renew, and then launch the game you've also lost the content. Because you never "updated" its expiry date.

Makes sense?

No.

Fair?

No.

But that's the best I can see. Not sure how you would get it back.....[/QUOTE]

I see what you mean, but doesn't it say when you're downloading a PSN+ free game that you will have it for the life of your membership?


[quote name='mguiddy']Just a thought... Does it show the shopping bag (indicating that it's been purchased) in the store.[/QUOTE]
Yes, that was one of the first things I noticed.
 
[quote name='kipz']I see what you mean, but doesn't it say when you're downloading a PSN+ free game that you will have it for the life of your membership?



Yes, that was one of the first things I noticed.[/QUOTE]

I just got a PS3, so IDK.....but they my construe "life of your membership" as if there is gap in between renewing the life ends.

Basically, if they decide not to work with you on this, they have a lot of legal standing to support their decision imo. Even though it sucks.
 
[quote name='kipz']
Yes, that was one of the first things I noticed.[/QUOTE]
Yes it does show a bag?
If so, another stupid question, did you try seeing what would happen if you tried to buy it again?

I'm figuring that, if you did check that, and if the bag is there, then you did try to see what would happen if you attempted to buy it again, but I figure, just in case. :lol:

I'd post a blog about it here.
Then contacting various PS3 sites and Consumerist about it.

I swear I remember reading a FAQ about PS+ that stated games would work after a lapse once you rejoined, but can't find it now.
If this is how PS+ is meant to be, that just makes it worse.
 
Obviously you got a clueless rep as this is a pretty common problem. Because you entered a new subscription code while the original one was still active the system lost track of the licenses. While the original subscription was still valid you could have fixed the problem by starting the games. But now, any game downloaded under the original sub, and not played after you added the new sub, is expired. It's a bug, and as far as I know there is no workaround.

If you had auto-renewed you would have been OK. Even if you let the sub lapse then renewed there is a way to get back the old content. Unfortunately you hit on the one combination of events where you are totally fucked.
 
[quote name='gpgorbosjr']I just got a PS3, so IDK.....but they my construe "life of your membership" as if there is gap in between renewing the life ends.

Basically, if they decide not to work with you on this, they have a lot of legal standing to support their decision imo. Even though it sucks.[/QUOTE]
There was no gap though so there shouldn't be any issue.

[quote name='mguiddy']Yes it does show a bag?
If so, another stupid question, did you try seeing what would happen if you tried to buy it again?

I'm figuring that, if you did check that, and if the bag is there, then you did try to see what would happen if you attempted to buy it again, but I figure, just in case. :lol:

I'd post a blog about it here.
Then contacting various PS3 sites and Consumerist about it.

I swear I remember reading a FAQ about PS+ that stated games would work after a lapse once you rejoined, but can't find it now.
If this is how PS+ is meant to be, that just makes it worse.[/QUOTE]
Yeah, if the game is available as a demo (Stacking) I can download that again but it accomplishes nothing (just tried it) if it doesn't have a demo (Shatter) all I can do is pay for it.

I actually planned on contacting at least Kotaku if things don't get resolved. It turns out that they actually were open today and the woman I spoke to seemed to understand the issue better (I kind of suspect that the man I spoke to first wanted to go home since it was late when I called and just did the refund request so he could go), but she said that the people that could authorize anything are off weekends and holidays so I can't speak to them until Tuesday.

That does sound familiar to me as well, I should look for it as back up.


[quote name='donkeydrop']Obviously you got a clueless rep as this is a pretty common problem. Because you entered a new subscription code while the original one was still active the system lost track of the licenses. While the original subscription was still valid you could have fixed the problem by starting the games. But now, any game downloaded under the original sub, and not played after you added the new sub, is expired. It's a bug, and as far as I know there is no workaround.

If you had auto-renewed you would have been OK. Even if you let the sub lapse then renewed there is a way to get back the old content. Unfortunately you hit on the one combination of events where you are totally fucked.[/QUOTE]
I'm not gonna accept that answer though. If this really is a common problem it needs to be fixed.
 
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I'm not gonna accept that answer though. If this really is a common problem it needs to be fixed.
Click to expand...

Agreed, they should fix it, but from what I gather there is no technical solution other than to give you new licenses. If they could do that for free I'm sure they would, but they have to pay the publisher per license. So they have decided it is too expensive and they will rely on the weasel wording in the EULA to avoid any legal responsibility.
 
[quote name='donkeydrop']Agreed, they should fix it, but from what I gather there is no technical solution other than to give you new licenses. If they could do that for free I'm sure they would, but they have to pay the publisher per license. So they have decided it is too expensive and they will rely on the weasel wording in the EULA to avoid any legal responsibility.[/QUOTE]
I wouldn't be surprised if they do, but I have a hard time believing that this is even legal. You can't promise something to costumers and then "whoops never mind" when you realize the cost of it. Though for all I know they put something in the EULA to protect them. Regardless, if they aren't going to do anything to settle the issue I will try to contact video game news sites about the issue and try to publicize it.
 
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