Featured Image Credit: Sony
Topics: PlayStation, Playstation Plus, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5
PlayStation Plus subscribers could lose access to a wide variety of games, proving the dangers of digital licenses once and for all.
Over the years, physical media has deteriorated. It’s heartbreaking but having your games, music and films digitally installed to your devices is just so damn convenient.
It comes with its own risks though as despite paying the money and owning that media, it can still be unfairly ripped away from you.
While you’re not owning that game outright, PlayStation Plus and other gaming subscription services do grant you a digital license for games, with the caveat obviously being you lose access when your membership expires.
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PlayStation Plus subscriber and Reddit user shannonator96 ran into a bit of a dilemma though, when their subscription to PlayStation Plus and EA Play clashed and removed ownership of one of their games.
They explained that they’d claimed a copy of Mass Effect: Legendary Edition when it was one of the PlayStation Plus Essential games, but lost access when they allowed their membership to expire.
“Years later, when I did not have an active subscription to PS Plus, I was subbed to EA play, which also has Mass Effect: LE. I downloaded and played this game through EA play, and now I thought I’d download and play it again through PlayStation Plus, but I cannot.”
Screenshots of a conversation between the subscriber and one of PlayStation’s Support team were shared, with the support worker being incredibly rude and unhelpful regarding the situation.
What had happened was the EA Play subscription had overwritten the digital license gained through PlayStation Plus, and there’s seemingly no way of getting that access back as Mass Effect: Legendary Edition is no longer a PlayStation Plus Essential game.
Obviously this isn’t the only game that this could happen to, as in theory any game from EA Play and Ubisoft+ that has some crossover with one of the Essential titles could be affected.
This is the fear of digital licences folks; it’s far too easy to lose access and in this case, the subscriber didn’t even know why they’d lost access until talking with a very unhelpful PlayStation representative.
“This is something Sony should have fixed since they've had the Extra and Premium tiers,” read one of the comments on the post.
So be warned when managing multiple subscriptions on your PlayStation and make sure there’s no overlap with your extra subscriptions and one of your PlayStation Plus Essential games.