A few days ago I grabbed the free PS Plus games on my PS5 like I usually do. And as always, later that day, I checked my phone and saw a series of emails from Sony confirming alleged purchases which resulted in a slight freakout before I remembered it was just Sony, this confirmed that I had “bought” free games. This cycle has been going on for several years. I feel this tell-tale cold every time.
You can find free games, free DLC, apps, and PS Plus games on PS4 and PS5. None of this will cost you a dime, but if you “buy” it or “add it to your library” Sony still considers it a transaction. This is why the company sends you an email a few minutes after you access Netflix Warframe
I did a little research on the settings before writing and couldn’t find a button or feature to disable or customize these emails. I could change my email to an account I don’t use that often, but then I’d likely miss out on important PSN ID emails. I could create a separate Gmail folder to intercept these notifications, but that doesn’t stop them from coming. It just moves the problem to another area where you generally fail to solve problems.
You would think I was used to these emails by now. No!
I am always scared when I see something in my email inbox about a recent purchase. Did I buy something? Did someone hack me? I recently dealt with a debit card issue that made me a little nervous about making random purchases. Therefore, as the children say, these e-mails hit differently these days. I’ve also spent a large part of my life with little to no money, so I’m very, very careful about what I buy and when. These emails instantly panic my brain. “Oh no! I’m going to lose all my money. I’m ruined! Oh god !!”
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When I mentioned those annoying and nerve-wracking emails Kotaku Slacking off I got feedback almost immediately. One Mike Fahey mentioned an interesting wrinkle: he has children. When he receives this email, he worries that one of his lovely children has bought something, probably with his credit card. If you look around on Twitter and Reddit, you will also find plenty of other people complaining and joking about the redundant PlayStation emails.
Sony is not alone in this. Epic is giving away free games every month, and whenever you grab one, you can expect a worthless receipt too. For some reason this doesn’t bother me so much, probably because I’m at my computer when I grab the games and my brain didn’t have time to forget what I was doing. Plus, there aren’t many free apps on the Epic Store that trigger emails as well. Still, Epic, can you stop emailing me about free things too.
It’s possible that a way to turn this off is buried somewhere, or a way to filter it out fine enough into a folder that I can ignore – ideally the trash. But it seems that by 2021 Sony should be able to distinguish when I’m actually buying something from when I’m just clicking on a free download. It can’t be that hard! And if, in the future, the company could just show a little reluctance to provide the evidence it could spare me, and apparently a few other, many mini-panic attacks when we check our emails.
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