The PlayStation Controversy and Sensationalism
Firstly I want to preface this with a clear opinion. I am not a fan of DRM and believe we should be able to own our purchases. Nothing below should be considered me defending anyone and serves as a commentary on sensationalism and the wider issues of video game preservation and ownership.
The Situation
For context after a PlayStation system update in March users noticed a 30 day timer on some of their games, following some testing from the community it appeared that the console would need to connect to the PlayStation servers at least every 30 days in order to play downloaded games that were purchased after March 2026. This would mean consoles without an internet connection would be unable to play downloaded games purchased after March 2026 after 30 days with no internet connection.
However a Sony spokesperson has stated this is not the intended case and license check-ins are a one time check. 1
The Issues
While the underlying message of constant DRM checking being overbearing and anti consumer is correct the core message appeared to get muddied across social media and some core facts were missed turning a discussion about ownership into a witch hunt.
1. Content Creator Sensationalism
The majority of large content creators immediately hopped online telling the masses to throw out their PlayStations and to jump ship to a different platform. While I welcome pulling a company up on questionable behaviour this quickly turned into a clickbait frenzy without much productivity.
2. The Grass Isn't (all) Greener
While sensationalists called for people to blindly ditch everything PlayStation and move over to PC they seemed to ignore the fact that Denuvo and other DRM technologies act in a very similar way on a number of games on PC requiring a connection to the internet after: a period of time, changing hardware, updating the game and more. While this isn't a situation for all games on PC a large number of big releases use these technologies yet the majority of content seemed to look past this issue to offer a convenient unresearched answer.
It's not that if others do it then Sony should be allowed to but the practice as a whole should be called into question rather than simply moving the problem while fundamentally disagreeing with the practice.
3. The root of the issue being ignored
Some of you may be aware that video game preservation is a growing issue from games themselves depending on servers which get shut down to worrisome DRM like this. Rather than creators calling people to immediately drop a system they've likely invested a lot of money into in order to farm clicks this would have been a great opportunity to educate the masses on the impacts of DRM, the forms of DRM out there and the ways they can avoid DRM such as GOG.
Where Do We Go From Here?
Ultimately whether Sony back peddled because of the discourse or if it was genuinely unintended taking a stand and telling companies we won't tolerate anti consumer practices is a good thing. People with a platform however have a responsibility to understand the issues at hand, get a full picture and further inform their audience on the issues and facts rather than turning into an echo chamber fuelling panic and making misguided calls to action.
For those of us with a small platform if it comes up in conversation we can let people know about the larger issues of video game preservation and encourage them to think about what ownership really means. So when companies appear to be making these changes they know what they think for themselves without making knee jerk reactions based on this weeks content cycle.
For the time being DRM is unfortunately seemingly not going anywhere but in the meantime we can make informed decisions to avoid (or reduce) the level of control DRM has over our games and support those who are fighting for our right to own our purchases.
If you are interested video game preservation, increasing your rights of ownership and pushing back against overbearing DRM here are a few ideas:
- Join the Stop Killing Games campaign
- Purchase physical copies of games where possible
- Purchase games without DRM from sites like GOG
Whether you game on PlayStation, Xbox, PC, Switch or any of the hundreds of other choices of platforms we all deserve to be treated with respect by the companies we support we should continue to speak out when companies cross lines just with a little less panic and a better understanding of the issues at hand.