PlayStation Stars Rewards Program Shutting Down, Sony Confirms

Sony this generation seem to be allergic to taking any Ws, what a disappointment this has been so far, yet another anti consumer choice that’s most likely on the eve before raising game prices, they probably realised they’d give more points than they wanted with £80 digital games and didn’t want to lose out on the profits, laughable to the core.

If it wasn’t for DS2, Ghost of Yotei and Intergalactic as well as my existing game library I’d probably have fully emigrated to PC this gen after great experiences with the Steam Deck, too many clanger own goals from Sony, need to get their act together and go back to what made the PS4 generation such a home run.

@DonJorginho my thoughts exactly if my partner didn't convince me to go digital game library id fully go pc myself

It was nice to get some kind of reward bonus for spending lots of money on their store! But the campaigns were terrible and it wasn't exactly implemented well unless you already use the app. Not surprised they don't want to cost themselves a teeny tiny percentage of profits on digital game sales after they wasted a bunch of money in the last few years on those types of game that shall not be named though!

Lmao I knew it, Sony really is terrible with any type of Rewards system but at least I got around $15 from it

@Ajfennell77 it stinks as I’ve been a Sony console owner since the PS2 launch, never wanted to play anywhere else but I fear these anti consumer choices will only become more frequent and severe as we move into new territory.

Can’t even reward people who spend alot on their platform with the occasional $5 reward.

Same crap that Nintendo just pulled as well when they got rid of the gold coins you could use towards eShop purchases. These companies just refuse to give their customers any kind of benefits.

Fantastic, they’re both being as cheap as possible while raising prices. This is ridiculous.
It was nice get some extra money every so often.

Shame as i got a lot of free money out of this.

I wish I joined from the beginning, guess I should just pre order any game i was gonna buy to rack up those few points to go towards something

Just once I’d like to come here and see good news from Sony.

I'm yet another step closer to quitting current/next-gen gaming to focus exclusively on my PS3, PSVITA, and retro backlog

For me, the only things worth getting with the points were the wallet funds. And since I stopped renewing my PS+ subscription, I don't earn points anymore. I just don't think essential is that worth to me and I'd rather use that $80 towards a new game or BP in gacha games that I play.

Nintendo recently did the same as well with the removal of gold points and scrapping of the two games for £84 voucher. Seems everyone wants to cut out anyway for the consumer to save money.

"This version" is stated multiple times, suggesting there is or may be an alternative version in the works.

Hopefully Sony do the smart thing and launch an alternative, stripped down version that focuses on the core experience of spend money or complete campaigns to earn rewards, removing all of the other fluff that wasn't useful.

It's bizarre that this generation Xbox has been the least successful of the 3, yet has been far more consumer friendly than either PlayStation or Nintendo.

Hope there are some nice discounts during State of Play, so i can get the points im missing for another €5 store credit. You save more money by buying games physically anyway.

We just can't have good things , can't we

Could this decision come from the fact that the used game sale industry is dead and Sony themselves have realized they have no need to incentivize consumers to buy digital only since they now own the market...

Well that’s a shame, I got almost £150 out of it.

What they learned is that people will just take their standard points for existing activities, get free PSN credit, and never engage with their crappy digital collectibles or buy games at a massively overinflated price with their points. That’s why they are dropping it, it didn’t make them money.

I’m a bit sad as I’ll be losing about £20 a year, but oh well.

The absolute embarrassment of it all.

Whoever is in charge of these decisions needs to be replaced already.

I never used it anyway, so no big loss for me. Sorry for those who did

I havent had PSN for a couple of years, so its been pretty irrelevant for me. I had £25 from it though

PS Stars was a neat idea that was incredibly poorly executed.

As an avid trophy hunter completionist, I avoided stars like the plague. The idea of being forced to play a game I may otherwise have zero interest in, a game that may have glitched trophies or trophies that are too tedious/time consuming/difficult in order to obtain some ps stars trinket is instantly Dead-On-Arrival. Add to that the time sensitive nature of how they handled the stars rewards, that ‘get it now or you’ll miss your chance and it’s done forever’—it’s highly distasteful.

Sony's gen 9 in a nutshell

the hell... I've collected so many games on Switch... Hope Sony won't cancel my Balatro licence bought thru PS Stars points...

That's a shame, as I enjoyed occasionally finding I had enough points to get myself a little store credit for doing things that I was going to do anyway.
I think its a bit unfair of PlayStation to blame poor engagement with the system when they half-arsed the implementation. If it had been properly integrated into the consoles I'm sure it would have seen much higher up take by players.

I didn't mind it. I got point here and there from sales and the digital collectibles were okay. The Eve one was pretty cool.

The biggest problem with stars is that they stopped allowing ps+ renewal to earn points.

I got £20 out of it.
But it’s a shame as £20 is £20 so there is another little bonus gone.

Well if they are in the cancelling mood.
Let’s cancel a few more life service GAAS games and get on with those usually amazing single play campaign games.

@SMJ It's really not. Microsoft are in last place and are doing anything they can to make up lost ground.

That said, I wouldn't call their €70 for FH5 (a four year old game) + €30 DLC, or barely any data on their PS5 discs consumer friendly by any stretch.

Sad to hear this. I got lots of discounts from the points there, even used to get my PS+ renew this year. Gaming is becoming more and more expensive.

PS Stars was one of the reasons I'm somewhat still being PS games. Have saved up 21 usd, so will spend them on Ghost of Yotei.

Interesting to see if we'll see MS change rewards soon or in the near future

@OldGamer999 Yeah that's what they've done...

@DonkeyFantasy 😂 I had that one too. To be fair, jumping flash was also one of the first ps1 games I owned, so I did chuckle every so often at the rabbit/robot thing.

Another fail from Sony. All those digital rewards are gone I guess

Unfortunate. Getting five or ten bucks every several months for a bunch of stuff I’d do anyway (play X game) was nice.

This is a bummer. I actively used this system, and I checked on it regularly. Oh well.

Riot doing that with hextech chests, and Nintendo with gold points.

Now Sony!

Oh no people get a small reward every now and then. We're gonna go bankrupt!

That statement is corpo speak for 'we don't want you getting any discounts on games, we're gonna find a way to screw you out of it while still forging the path to a digital only future'

It was a free little bonus we got for doing practically nothing, you could pretty much get enough points for the £5 reward just by loading up one of the essential and extra games per month. Sad to see it being removed but can't be angry at it's closure.

It's definitely a money thing which makes thos sad

@UltimateOtaku91 The vouchers are still a thing, just not for Switch 2.

Maybe its because I haven't played much PS recently but I forgot this was a thing tbh.
Still feel bad for those who used and enjoyed this service though.

@Foxhound I did this very thing at the beginning of this year and have not regretted it one bit. Problem one backlog was getting so large I would never be able to complete and I'm only mid 40's. Problem two, I refuse to give into corporate greed and refuse to go digital. So I decided to go back and only do ps4 and have been concentrating on retro. So many games I missed as a kid and teen. Finally beat Chrono Trigger, and beat a bunch of NES games. I get physicals and manuals and maps all for about 80 dollars and if I don't like I can sell. I do not mind games being 80 dollars actually that's what they should be compared to 1980's prices. What I refuse to give into is paying 80 to get less.

Welp. I have 5132 Stars. Pulling my $20 right now!

@emj2010 They change it up every other month that makes it harder to collect them. They nerf the system more often than they do updating the user interface with new features.

I might be wrong but are Sony with playststion making more profit than ever?

If so us gamers just keep getting mugged off.

So,after having previously removed earning points by PS Plus subscription renewals,(the SAME PS Plus Essential sub that no longer gets ANY Days of Play, EOFY,Black Friday discounts since being removed from Bricks & mortar retail,mind you!),Playstation Ivory towers decide to axe PS Stars altogether without anything more than vague promises?🤯🙄

Not forgetting when talking of PSN Services launching the multi tier PS Plus Deluxe it would be coming with monthly releases of PS1,PS2 & PSP classics games too...which have largely failed in acquiring third party (& limited first party),AAA Classics support!
Meantime just to contrast Good Old Games GOG Store managed all the "classic" RE 1-3 Games,Dino Crisis 1 & 2,& even recently Breath of Fire IV from Capcom off the back of their user wishlist/request voting system! Who'd guess?!😕

When Sony tried to abruptly kill the legacy PSN Store,(& sadly we still see a number of PS3 locked first party games to this day),with the lack of PS1/2 Classics on modern gens at the time even the tone deaf Jim Ryan was forced to make a rare Blog Post & admit they got it wrong....

Current management that seemed obsessed with price gouging non U.S. PS regions with hardware & PSN subscription price hikes have truly lost touch if they think axing the current loyalty program,on top of previous cheapskate broken commitments to PS Plus content won't have consequences by the time the PS6 is due if they think this word salad of empty promises is anything to go by!🙄

R.I.P. Stars.. Sony saw that mostly people are using as 4% Cashback and are terminating this. Was nice till it lasted

@DonJorginho I agree I'm more fearing gta6 release and what price it increases to as if rockstar charge £100 Sony will follow suit...

That sucks.
I just checked, I redeemed Cards worth of 135 Euro since October 2022. The privilege ends soon...

What an embarrassment. It wasn’t even a good loyalty program but it’s better than nothing.

@EYEBALL yeah guess it's the way it goes

I never liked its dependence on the App. Hopefully their next loyalty project will be console-bound.

@SoulChimera and now you know why they are shutting it down lol

I had a feeling it was going to go a way sooner than later. Now we know. I just used my points to buy Hell Divers 2 credits for the War Bounds mainly.

Sony continuing its trend of giving nothing back to the community, and increasing prices soon no doubt. They are just one giant L this gen, they truly are.

Not surprising in the least bit. The only things worth getting out of it were either free PS Store credit or free games. Both of which took forever and an eternity, respectively, to earn. Just have to make sure I cash out before it runs out

We probably getting something new next year before it shut down always doom and gloom

I easily got at least £100 out of it.

Another common L for Sony this gen.

I always enjoyed getting the odd £5 voucher back, but was often frustrated that new campaigns didn't trigger if you had already purchased some of the titles on the list. Seemed a bit unfair as you can't (or don't want to) really repurchase titles!

@SMJ ive had £910 from Microsoft Rewards and £15 from PlayStation stars despite spending more money on PlayStation. I know which reward scheme i prefer

It was mainly used for cashback, and not even good cashback.

Though I did managed to get some games with a hefty discount by Stars and some cashback from my bank, I did not recommend this service to anyone I knew because the rewards weren't good enough.

Garbage a$$ generation just continues to get worse. Its pathetic that they never even implemented the display case in the PS5 UI. I guess its no surprise with how bad the main trophy UI has looked since launch. Worst generation HANDS down!!

Microsoft rewards was so much better you dont even have to spend money to earn points.

it bought me my PS5 cheers Microsoft

Sony is the most anti-consumer corporation in the entertainment industry out there. Absolutely horrendous, so glad I gradually switched to PC

@DennisReynolds you didn’t buy anything to get the points?

Playstation Stars?
I had never heard of it until now.

I remember signing up and then immediately regret it coz I couldn't figure out how to remove it from my profile.

I mean, I got a couple free games out of it. Unlike Nintendo, though, Sony has been increasing prices without any evidence of improvements to features, infrastructure, etc so this stings a bit more.

A wee bit of hidden inflation, stop rewarding people with discounts

Those digital trophies will be completely annihilated. Hopefully nobody redeemed points for any of those because they are absolutely worthless!!

At least I just got enough to redeem for $10 towards The Witch and The Hundred Knight 2. A bummer, but they're being pretty upfront about planning an alternative (which even Nintendo's gold point cashback has yet to receive any mention of), so time will tell what they may have in store (no pun intended).

@ATaco there was a meatier notification mail shared on Reddit earlier, and it states that all the redeemed digital collectibles are here to stay.

I've always thought it was a pretty poor rewards system, pretty much leaving anybody who doesn't buy everything digitally out in the cold. Same goes if you don't buy games day 1, so I rarely got the rewards points you would get for playing games either.

All in all, a perfect example of PlayStation this generation. I've still enjoyed my PS5, but even the rewards system that could've easily been more useful for more people if they let it was severely flawed, and that goes hand in hand with this generation as a whole.

What an embarrassment for Sony. Can't even follow through to reward your loyal customers.

I bought a pc at the begining of the year and have not looked back. Still have my ps5 but don't use it.

I have to be honest I think i will be sticking with pc gaming from now on. The games are so much cheaper plus more variety. Epic online store is doing 20% back on your purchases until 31st august
There is a new game out tomorrow on ps5 from konami which is £25. On epic it's free. It's a proper retail release called deliver at all costs.

I feel console manufacturers like sony and Nintendo are becoming worse as time goes on.

My ps5 is the last console I will ever buy

@Illyrian even worse than nintendo? lol, yeah right

Does Sony have the Google problem of just not putting enough effort or waiting around long enough or something?

Better marketing would help, what they offer to players, what they have to do to earn them.

Like they need to think about it not have it for a few months then give up. Pathetic.

I'm not into loyalty programs but come on. This is pathetic effort and marketing on Sony's part.

They could expand it to Sony products or just better design it but nope they go eh we tried, moving on or don't have enough interest to do so.

In terms of money to benefit them sure they clearly are picky but otherwise it's on them.

I’ll try to be optimistic about it and expect that whatever sequel version to this program will be even better. They’re right— most of the campaigns and tasks I didn’t bother doing, and sometimes I’d even be cheated from getting points for a purchase because I didn’t initiate the campaign. The program was better than nothing but could be a lot better.

They squeezing us like a lemon. Can’t even get five bucks

Idiotic program that I'll be glad to forget. Just give people buying overpriced PSN games a 2-3% credit and that'd be fine

Well, at least sony could say they had a better loyalty program than Nintendo for a couple of months.

I was looking at the PS5 section at Walmart when I got the email about the program ending earlier this evening.

This generation of PlayStation has been a massive wet fart. There’s a few exceptions, sure, but those are months and months between one another. I also feel that it has to do with going into my 30s at the start of the PS5’s launch, work and just life keeping me from playing or even sinking my teeth into a game like I could in my 20s. Change of priorities and everything else.

Plus, the push from too many publishers to have the next Fortnite has ruined a lot of modern gaming. The suits in charge want that so badly at the cost of unraveling the industry and the developers who work within it.

What a massive shame, I really like PS stars. Feels like they bungled the roll out and the changes a few months ago and never really got behind it

Well there goes my piggy bank. Oh well at least I've got £20 store credit to cash in.

Shame on Sony. Xbox gamepass is looking more appealing everyday.

I only got a couple of digital collectibles which is useless for me. But i never get points to get store credits from buying / playing specific games because Sony never include my country for the program. Soooo nothing lost for me.

@MrPeanutbutterz I think he mainly meant the Rewards program, and the Game Pass Quests. Making it super easy to get free stuff.

The last one to offer a reward program and bailing in it already.

I've not had the most out of it, just checked, £65. It was handy to pair with cheap PSN vouchers to take the cost of games down but overall was pretty poor.

Always used to annoy me when I would buy a game and a few days later it would be on a campaign that would get points, happened recently with Clair Obscur. Not a huge deal, not like it was a great rewards program anyway but still, was better than nothing.

Watching how console manufacturers are carrying on at the moment is making me feel like I'm no longer the target customer type for them however, and although the removal of a poor rewards program doesn't seem like a massive issue in the grand scheme, it's another little thing that will ultimately force me out of this gaming space.

Thats just how these corporations act. When they are on top and having record profits they give 0 f’s about consumers. When they struggle against the competition they try to present a consumer friendly profile.

Pathetic from Sony, just when you thought they were giving us a chance of some well deserved freebies, they rip it back, total cnuts!

@HOWARDSROCK Thanks for the reply. What you said is very encouraging. I'll be joining you soon if this trend carries on, which will definitely happen...

Another L for Sony. This generation has been awful.