PlayStation Stars, a free rewards program from Sony announced in Julywill be gently rolled out into the whole world—It is currently live in Asiawill reach America on October 5, and Europe, Australia and New Zealand will receive the service on October 13. Not so gently, PlayStation might be urging players to join the program by deciding to prioritize customer service requests from senior members , the Japanese gaming website automatic said.
According to a translation of the site, a feature of “PlayStation Stars is that the status level changes based on activity. Contestants start at Level 1. If you purchase a full game from the PS Store and get a trophy of a higher rarity than normal, you will be promoted to Level 2.” Buy four full price games and earn 128 rare trophies and you will reach Level 4 what goes with what automaticor rather, the translation of it, labeled as “interesting”. “In addition to receiving various digital items, when contacting PlayStation Customer Support, the chat order will be ‘prioritized’. Individuals who gamble will be given priority in responding to inquiries. That’s an interesting mechanism.”
Interesting and a little cheeky. While you can sign up for PlayStation Stars for free, PlayStation says in his blog Announcing the program’s arrival in Asia that levels will be determined both by “the number of uncommon trophies earned for gameplay and by purchasing full games from the PlayStation Store.” So when Level 4’s “priority” customer service feature rolls out internationally, support calls around the world could be ranked according to which user spent more time earning trophies or who threw more money at poor Sony Interactive.
reply to this message, as shared on Twitter by automaticweren’t too thrilled. As VGC reports, one person answered He commented that “customer support needs to be equal”, noting that “there are people who like a few titles and play them, and there are players who can’t afford the money or the time”. while another said “I don’t think prioritizing customer support is a good idea. I bought a PS5 just for FF16!” and dismissed the idea that this makes it acceptable to help them delay in favor of customers who have spent more and played more games.
PlayStation doesn’t go into details about level-based benefits in its announcement blog its US landing page for Stars doesn’t mention levels at all. Instead, it explains some of the other, more anticipated, Stars loyalty perks, including rewards for completing campaigns, “digital collectibles” that thankfully don’t seem to be euphemistic NFTs, and redeemable loyalty points that PlayStation Plus members earn automatically with every purchase in the PS Store (this is the only additional benefit for Plus members).
G/O Media may receive a commission
Back to outrage – PlayStation also wrote in its announcement blog that “once you reach a tier, you stay there for the rest of the calendar year plus an additional 13 months”, so a Level 4 Stars member is guaranteed to have better customer service for over a year. With no mention of levels on PlayStation’s US Stars page, it could be a regional feature, but it’s still very unfair. Pay-to-win was bad enough, now we have to pay for support?
