PS Plus Members Bemused by Potential God of War Inclusion Across Multiple Tiers

Sony did something similar with TLOU Remastered when TLOU II was around the corner, maybe we'll get some Ragnarok news or a standalone State Of Play date announced at this week's SoP!

It's only disappointing because it's the flagship game this month, leaving anyone who has access via any other avenue without anything of value from this month's Essential tier offering.

While it is lame for a game to be offered across every single tier in PS+, diminishing the overall value, there is a group the inclusion of God of War on the Essential tier will satisfy because they don't have the higher tiers of PS+ or a PS5. Even for those that have access to the game via other means (higher PS+ tiers or via PS5), giving away the game on the Essential tier is effectively giving you your own copy available forever as long as you subscribe.

I already own the game, so I get absolutely nothing out of its inclusion in PS+ except the comfort in knowing this is surely being done to drum up excitement for the impending sequel!

It's just Sony being Sony. Is anyone really surprised anymore? I went back to just buying and enjoying games as intended (having paid for Game Pass Ultimate for over a year).

Seems like we had this issue with Days Gone last year too. I have access to it through two different sources.

There definitely is a watering down of the PS+ offerings over recent months. It’s beginning to feel like the Xbox Games with Gold service that we’ve been saying for a while “well at least this month is better than what GwG gave out….” And now here we are — in the same boat.

with each passing day ps plus becomes less and less worth subscribing to

Games With Gold have also been subject to repeat territory recently with games like Hydro Thunder Hurricane and Super Meat Boy. At least with the PS+ situation, GoW 2018 strongly hints at GoW Ragnarok news.

Of course the inverse of that is also true: if the best games are given away for free to Essential tier customers, what's the value of Extra? And what's the value of Premium beyond streaming (which was why Now never did very well)?

My plan is still up upgrade the rest of my subscription to Extra until it runs out at the start of December, possibly even upgrade again to Premium for November, but if the games routinely come to Essential, that's where I'll end up when my subscription lapses. Previously I'd been assuming I'll end up on Extra for most of the year, upgrading to Premium for a month or two at the end of each sub.

I haven't downloaded a single PS Plus game this year. That won't change this month.

A very bad call from Sony. I think that the PS+ Collection shoud have been for all PS4 and PS5 users.

The only way this is worth it is if they're planning to remove God of War from the extra tier, because only the essential tier let's you keep games for the entire duration of your subscription.

@Hypoman eh, the collection makes sense as a lure for people buying a PS5, because there aren't really enough current gen only games to entice people right now. It's a value-add for your £450 or whatever it costs in your region.

@get2sammyb "because Sony could use your justification to effectively pool from the list of Extra/Premium games to give Essential members something to play — basically rendering that tier pointless for members of the higher ones."

Of course it's pointless. The point is that you get access to a great number of games that Extra/Premium tiers offer.

Sony's quality of first party games is inversely proportional to the quality of their subscription service.

@Hypoman the collection was always ment for ps5 , either to buy one or for new playstation users that never played those games.

It's almost as if, I don't know, simply buying a game and enjoying it is too much to ask these days.

Sony PR team are big fans of Lee Dixon.

When he scored an own goal he went BIG. Epic own goals. When Sony get it wrong they love to go big and do it in style.

Doing this first month of service is so Sony. 😂

I have it in the Collection (not that I’m going to play it), but to have them double (triple) up so that those paying for the top tier get repeat offerings…that’s just not on. It was bad enough when they used to duplicate games across plus and now. Surely they can’t reduce the value of the premium tier even further by doing this.

Lazy and stupid, doubtfully greed as I just expect this is incompetence.

@theheadofabroom
Well…. I know. But i think that strategy is failing because of the shortage of PS5 ‘s, Sony is messing up by deviding Playstation fans. (Sorry for my bad English)

@get2sammyb Sony will reach peak Sony when soon after this they announce you get God of War as a pre-order bonus with GoW Ragnarok on PSN. 😂

A lot of players will only sub to the Essential tier, so this is a nice offer.

20M PS5 + 20M copies sold of GoW, lets pretend not a single PS5 owner bought GoW, then its 40M total. 115+M PS4's sold, which leaves plenty of ppl that didn't get GoW and i doubt they all going to Sub to Extra / Premium. And ppl call Sony greedy 😂 I already bought the game and have access to the PS+ Collection, but happy for other ppl who will get to experience this masterpiece.

@Victor_Meldrew tell us how you really feel, why won't ya?

The name speaks for itself "PS Plus Essential". Meaning it's an essential service if you want to play online, the "free" game's are a bonus. Even if all four essential games are on Extra/ Primium, 1) you would have to pay extra to upgrade. 2) you are definitely not subing to Extra just for them four games. 3) People subing to Primium are subing for PS1/2/3 game's.

I honestly don't get the complaints. It would be like me subing to Extra then complaining I own most of the game's.

LoL - this is a hilarious take. A company moves a title to their lowest version to attract more potential to the service as well as the pending sequel and you find a way to complain that it devalues the service of hundreds and hundreds of more games that people are paying just a few dollars for more a month.

Mental gymnastics gold medal here. Haha.

Clearly PS Plus Extra is totes different from PS Now, lol.

Not that many people that were interested in the game didn't otherwise have access to the game. Giving this out at this point probably costs them less sales than the Godfall demo edition.

@get2sammyb "Sometimes I think Sony is so disconnected that one department has no idea what the other is doing "

That was pretty much confirmed both by the story of the PS5 chassis designer having no idea he designed something too big with the original bigger draft, and also Ryan going with that statement on the lines of downplaying their future involvement in VR until some other company makes it big, 2 days before the hardware group announced PSVR2....

Meh, great game for more people to play 🤷🏻

Move along.

@uptownsoul Yup.

@rjejr You're missing the Sony opportunity of selling GoW next-gen remaster, only bundled with the $100 Ragnarok LE.

@NEStalgia as long as they don't change the actor and models for Kratos?

Obviously Sony is just teasing every God of War fan and some PS4 gamers who still don’t own one can now avail it if they subscribe on any of the PS Plus Tiers.well if the rumor is really true.

This looks like one of few months, when I won't grab anything. ...still need to Slay the Spire...

Surely there can't be that many PS4-only players who (1) haven't already purchased GoW and/or (2) haven't found someone with a PS5 to grant them access to the Plus Collection. This is to say nothing of the watering down of higher, more costly tiers by releasing it to Essential.

Far from Sony's worst move but definitely consistent with their usual bizarre behavior. Bout like Nintendo at this point.

@theheadofabroom The voice will remain Chris Judge, but the model and character design will be replaced with a Jackie Chan look-alike to more closely fit with his live action portrayal from the movies.

Who doesn't own the game at this point

The questions we want answers to, but we all know Sony won't bother

Everything going on with PS+ recently had made me realize that I just really want to be able play my own games online without all this. I get that PlayStation want to keep that behind a paywall. I can live with that but let me get online pay for $30 a year, I'll buy my own games ...

‘Interesting!’ Typical troll phrase.
Push surfing on pointless negativity. I remember when the negative spin was to have a tantrum because no AAA in PS+. What a surprise. 😎
Oh go on mob.
🙄

Again a lot of hullabaloo about nothing.

If this means essential users will be getting got soon I'm all for it

Oh Word.God of g.o.a.t 🐐 👑. Cant wait for another masterpiece in god of war ragnarok.word up son

I honestly fail to see the problem here. On the one hand, higher tiers come with enough of a truckload to make the content of standard IGC offerings feel like a footnote if you sign up for them. On the other hand, the PS Now/Game Pass DNA of these tiers comes with the risk of lineup rotations, so every Extra title temporarily also offered on Essential is a title you have a month-long opportunity to "secure" on your sub rather than leave it at Sony's mercy. Where are the downsides, exactly?

This is only a negative if you already have God of War, I'm guessing? I would've been in the minority of those who hadn't played it yet if I didn't have a PS5. That was the first time I got to play God of War (I did play two of the games on PS2, but didn't vibe enough to care anymore on the series until recently). In 2018 I was too busy with the other good games that came out to where God of War fell in the bottom list, which likely happened to others who didn't experience it yet.

It's not the first time PS+ has offered a game that "everyone" supposedly buys and owns in its history. Very confusing on how this is seen as the trend for PS+ lowering in quality when it already supposedly began when PS3/PSP titles got dropped and now they're expected to return (sorta). There's only so many high quality titles to offer in a month without repeating the same ones now, just happens to be God of War's turn.

@nhSnork Everybody who has a PS5 and PS+ already has this game as part of the Plus Collection

That's the main issue

@TheCollector316 This game being in the PS5 Plus collection already means that you have access to the game as long as your subbed

@get2sammyb Great point!

@TrickyDicky99
Right. If you have a PS5, that is.

If the leak is true might change to Xbox cause these are a joke not been disrespectful but come on PSN still waiting for games that I don't have

@TheCollector316 And at some point, most PS4 owners will buy a PS5

@TrickyDicky99 but last time I checked, that one already had quite a few games that used to be on IGC prior. What's one more? And that only applies to the lucky PS5 owners (besides some folks who arranged their account to be temporarily assigned to another person's PS5😄), whereas the current majority of subscribers can still be safely assumed to remain on PS4 for the oft-discussed variety of reasons.

GOW is too cheap, at current prices, to entice gamers to higher tiers. If 4 year old games (albeit a masterpiece) is the best they can do, I'm afraid they've failed before they even started. Plus most Sony fans have played this already. It's still sitting on my game shelf.

@nhSnork the issue is that God of War was like one of the five titles Sony originally used to hype the extra tier, and now it's becoming free on the lowest tier before the higher tiers even get launched (in most of the world).

I can’t believe Sony. Is doing gow on its first month ! It’s been on psnow forever. Now they are going to replace the psnow games with “big titles” that most of us have already played. I enjoyed games like everyone gone to rapture and other smaller titles but now they will recycle the same games we already own

There is only like one guy in the world who hasn’t played god of war before! It’s likeThe main reason you buy a PlayStation 4. Now Sony expects us to be happy but most of its core base finished it 2 years aho

God of War was one of the most overrated games of recent times. I mean it wasn’t as catastrophically garbage as say, Assassins Creed games but it was pretty goddamn average. Again, games trying desperately to be films… boring.

@uptownsoul which is what they are going to do slowly but surely....

@get2sammyb you really don't like sony

@Milktastrophe I've already commented on why having another option on the lower tier is a good thing due to the comparative distribution specifics. On the other hand, this said option will be gone two weeks after the higher tier's launch, so those it somehow rubs against the fur don't have much to "endure". Although I also don't quite see the point of using five specific games to advertise a tier whose primarily selling point is about offering dozens at a time.

When they announced the new service (the merge between Plus and Now) I was glad that we would not have any more overlap between the 2 services, nope guess I was wrong! SMH...