License and registration, please

The day wouldn’t be complete without a spot of controversy to send social network tyrants into a 140 character fury, and Sony has certainly offered that up on a silver platter this evening. Fresh from the backlash pertaining to DriveClub’s less than ideal framerate, the format holder has now outlined the exclusive racer’s PlayStation Plus upgrade path – and it’s got a bit of a catch.

While we already know that the cunningly labelled DriveClub PS Plus Edition will come with less content than its full-price counterpart, the platform holder has come good on its promise to allow you to upgrade for a discounted fee. However, stumping up the £42.99/$49.99 will only let you keep hold of the remainder of the content if you have an active PlayStation Plus membership.

This is confusing, so let’s run a little example: you download the Instant Game Collection edition of the game, and purchase the full version because you’re having fun. A week later, your PlayStation Plus subscription expires. In this instance, you’ll lose access to the entire title, until you stump up for a new membership, at which point you’ll be able to pick up exactly where you left off.

While there’s been some serious melodrama regarding this online – seriously, we bet that the platform holder wishes that it never promised the giveaway in the first place – we reckon that this is more a case of oversight rather than malice. The firm’s clearly treating the full game unlock as DLC, as this is the way that things would work with any other PlayStation Plus title with add-on packs.

Of course, when you’re paying a substantial sum to upgrade your game, the expectations probably change. This isn’t a £3.99/$4.99 expansion pack, but a serious chunk of cash, and we can understand why people would want to continue playing whether they have an active premium membership or not.

As such, we wouldn’t be surprised if the firm changed its stance on this over the coming days. In the meantime, we can look forward to several other DriveClub updates this week, as developer Evolution Studios aims to explain the game’s ‘Clubs’ system and dynamic challenges mechanic. Also, check out the neat animated trailer embedded below.

[source blog.eu.playstation.com]