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Dear SCEE: thanks for wasting my data cap

krae_man

Member
Opt-out features are always terrible.

Except you already opted in when your turned it on in the first place.


When Netflix added lower quality streaming options to help people with data caps, it didn't default everyone to the shitty 0.3mbps quality level. That's not how it works. You're kept where you are and are informed of the new options.
 
Well, before the option to turn it off came in, it was always on. It's just as easy to argue that they absolutely should not have defaulted it to off for existing subscribers at that point because that'd be removing a feature on the sly for them.

And that typically hasn't gone down well for them in the past.

Yeah, that's fair enough. And definitely they should be commended for actually allowing people to turn it off. Of course, I'd argue that they shouldn't have been trying to sneak in betas and demos like that in the first place (and consider it far more intrusive than adverts for games on the XBL tiles), but that's obviously a point of contention as evidenced by this thread.

I'm just surprised that SCEE, who service a bunch of countries with data caps, would have such things happening in the first place. Then again, even though the various branches of SCEI are relatively silo'd, the firmware is probably standard.

/shrug

Main thing is that I'm able to stop this from happening again.

Thanks for giving the actual reason, though. Much appreciated.
 
Yeah, definitely. I still can't stand opt-out features, but at least now a situation has presented itself. Unfortunate that it took bitching and consequential hostility from GAF to present itself, but at least now it's there.
The only one being hostile was you. You went on a rant about Sonys shitty system over a problem perpetuated by yourself, then moved the goal post fifty times to continue the argument
 
The U.S. already does capping. I'm on Cox Communications. My cap is 200GB/month. They started capping in 2011. They haven't expanded it once.
 
Eons ago? Shouldn't you have gotten other unwanted software before this then?

at this point its too obvious.

humor-trolling_00313274.jpg
 

test_account

XP-39C²
C) Firmware updates are installed automatically by PlayStation+. :p
Actually it is just automatically downloaded. Sony doesnt have automatically install because they require you to manually agree to the EULA for every firmware update (i think they need to do this in case they do changes to the firmware that people dont agree with (like when they removed OtherOS)). It can be easy to go quickly through the installation steps and not think twice about what all the text actually says though.


Yeah, definitely. I still can't stand opt-out features, but at least now a situation has presented itself. Unfortunate that it took bitching and consequential hostility from GAF to present itself, but at least now it's there.
Yeah, it is good that it is possible to turn the feature off at least. I dont have bandwith cap, but i dont want to fill the harddrive with stuff that i dont want (it is quick and easy to delete it though, but still).
 
Nope


It specifically asks you during setup

Read the whole thread. It's already been established that the process now is different to how it was. The video linked above is an example of what I went through when I got PS+. You have automatic downloads and you set it to on. They've obviously branched it out since November 2011.

There's really two issues here:

1) Should automatic downloads for patches and firmware updates also mean that you should get videos, games and other items Sony thinks you might like? I say no (especially as they obviously put no thought into it); others disagree. That's fine.

2) When they finally allowed you to split it out, everything was defaulted to on. That makes sense since it was technically all on before. Of course, unless you are a "power user" (for lack of a better term here), there was no way for you to actually know this. It's like two or three menus deep and there was no reason to believe it had changed if you don't read the PlayStation blog or otherwise keep your finger on the pulse of PlayStation gaming. Our PS3 is a glorified Blu-ray player that happens to play Final Fantasy and Wipeout. The fact I'm complaining about this now, when the beta is over, should be an indication of how often I turn it on.

Some people seem to think that a vague comment about what automatic downloads allows constitutes to an agreement. That's fine and that's their prerogative. If they want to think me an idiot for finding it appalling for Sony to use a useful feature as a Trojan horse for their first-party advertising, so be it.
 

Eusis

Member
Hmmm, that's a good point. What does it use to keep track? Trophy data? Installs? Save data? I always assumed it was install data, since I haven't gotten any huge patches for Gran Turismo or anything.
I think it tracks what games were most recently played, and it's definitely not save data because the Heavy Rain patch didn't redownload upon moving to a new HD, not unless I forgot to delete it beforehand (unlikely, I razed the hell out of data once my initial backup failed over a day in). It also auto deletes patches (or did auto delete them) if they weren't installed in a timely manner.
The U.S. already does capping. I'm on Cox Communications. My cap is 200GB/month. They started capping in 2011. They haven't expanded it once.
Odd thing is that I knew this happened, but it didn't seem to reliably be enforced, and when I tried to check again recently I couldn't find it. Well, best to monitor how much you use, but that's loose enough that software auto pushed alone probably won't do it.
 
Of course, if you've got a small cap and you've set stuff to auto-download, you really don't have a leg to argue about your broadband cap being used when stuff auto-downloads. (Be grateful you never got Witcher 2 for PS3. 4Gb+ patches, anyone?)
 

test_account

XP-39C²
If they want to think me an idiot for finding it appalling for Sony to use a useful feature as a Trojan horse for their first-party advertising, so be it.
To be fair, i would assume that it was mentioned somewhere in the PS+ subscription about push-demos. If that is the case, i wouldnt really call it being a trojan horse. I'm glad that Sony offered an option to disable it though, because it wasnt like that in the begining (not that they pushed many demos, but still).
 
When the automatic update feature upgraded, it clearly informed you of what changes where made. The OP clearly didn't pay attention, hence the confusion. I guess it's easier to blame Sony than to actually admit that you were wrong. Human nature.
 
When the automatic update feature upgraded, it clearly informed you of what changes where made. The OP clearly didn't pay attention, hence the confusion. I guess it's easier to blame Sony than to actually admit that you were wrong. Human nature.

Seeing as the firmware installs automatically, I'm not sure this is the case. Unless I have a magical PS3 or something. But indeed, I have turned it off and it's immediately turned itself back on to install the update. My fiancée actually thought the PS3 was broken. Keep in mind this is at 5pm, not at 3am when my PS3 is scheduled to do its PS+ run.
 

Zen

Banned
So I turned on my PS3 the other day and noticed that the system had downloaded the beta for God of War: Ascension. I suppose that SCEE thought it was being really helpful, doing all the work for me so that I could have access to this wonderful beta with no effort on my part.

Except:

A) I live in a country with data caps, so downloading a 1.5GB file without my permission is just bloody rude.
B) I don't like God of War, so it's even more annoying.

Fortunately, I have a data cap at the larger end of the scale, so it's just annoying. But base data caps here start at 30GB, so that's a good sizable chunk wasted on something that people didn't ask for.

People moan about the ads on XBL, but I find this far more intrusive and overbearing. Bad decision making is bad.

/rant

And yes, I sent them a complaint.

If you live in a country with a data cap, why the hell do you have automatic updates and downloading turned on? Rename this thread "I make bad decisions".
 

hamchan

Member
What I find weird is that the option was added in November 2011. How come it took you a year and 2 months to notice it? And why hasn't other beta been downloaded for you before like Starhawk, PS-All Stars and Dust 514, if your auto-downloads for betas is set to on.
 

Raistlin

Post Count: 9999
Seeing as the firmware installs automatically, I'm not sure this is the case. Unless I have a magical PS3 or something.
You must have a magical PS3 then.

Firmware updates are auto-downloaded ... not auto-installed. That's specifically so you can see the change log, EULA, etc. the next time you turn your PS3 on. That's when it gets installed.





Regardless, how are you only now having this issue? If you signed up for PS+ when you claim you did, you'd have already had numerous demos/betas/etc downloaded over that last year plus.
 
What I find weird is that the option was added in November 2011. How come it took you a year and 2 months to notice it? And why hasn't other beta been downloaded for you before like Starhawk, PS-All Stars and Dust 514, if your auto-downloads for betas is set to on.

I was in early access for Starhawk and All-Stars, so I had them before they went PS+. I guess that's why I'd never noticed because I had downloaded them manually way in advance. (On a side note, they had all that beta time for Starhawk and it still came out an unbalanced mess? I was so sad.)

Dunno about Dust 514. It certainly hasn't appeared on my machine. Was it US-only?
 
wait so as OP said is this setting on by default if you get psn+? cause there are many countries with bandwidth caps.

They probably changed the policy. Right this minute I bought a whole year of PS+ in Australia for the very first time (I guess we're a part of SCEE? We seem to have Europe's game list). Automatic Update is off by default.

Edit:
Was the policy always on before? If so, I can see where OP is getting his problems from. Either way, Sony's current default setting for Automatic Update is "off" (like "it won't do a single thing PS+ claims to do" off) so they've already taken people like the OP into account.
 
They probably changed the policy. Right this minute I bought a whole year of PS+ in Australia for the very first time (I guess we're a part of SCEE? We seem to have Europe's game list). Automatic Update is off by default.

Yeah, Australia used PAL so they're lumped into the European divisions.
 
They probably changed the policy. Right this minute I bought a whole year of PS+ in Australia for the very first time (I guess we're a part of SCEE? We seem to have Europe's game list). Automatic Update is off by default.

Edit:
Was the policy always on before? If so, I can see where OP is getting his problems from. Either way, Sony's current default setting for Automatic Update is "off" (like "it won't do a single thing PS+ claims to do" off) so they've already taken people like the OP into account.
No, if you had your settings "On" before the update, then it stayed the same. It was always off by default.
 

Queeg

Member
So I turned on my PS3 the other day and noticed that the system had downloaded the beta for God of War: Ascension. I suppose that SCEE thought it was being really helpful, doing all the work for me so that I could have access to this wonderful beta with no effort on my part.

Except:

A) I live in a country with data caps, so downloading a 1.5GB file without my permission is just bloody rude.
B) I don't like God of War, so it's even more annoying.

Fortunately, I have a data cap at the larger end of the scale, so it's just annoying. But base data caps here start at 30GB, so that's a good sizable chunk wasted on something that people didn't ask for.

Almost a year and a half late http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?p=31252253&highlight=#post31252253 :p
As others have said you can turn them off now thankfully. Been about a year since they fixed it.
 
They probably changed the policy. Right this minute I bought a whole year of PS+ in Australia for the very first time (I guess we're a part of SCEE? We seem to have Europe's game list). Automatic Update is off by default.

Edit:
Was the policy always on before? If so, I can see where OP is getting his problems from. Either way, Sony's current default setting for Automatic Update is "off" (like "it won't do a single thing PS+ claims to do" off) so they've already taken people like the OP into account.

So before there was an all-or-nothing option, off by default but I set that to on because nothing is more annoying that sitting down to play a game and then realizing you can't because you need to download a patch or firmware update. You pretty much aren't playing the PS3 at this point, especially if you go wireless.

Now, at this point, technically I also get these betas. Two of the three mentioned, Starhawk and All-Stars, I was in early access for so I got them on my machine way before PS+ automatic downloading. So, I didn't really notice. (No sign of Dust 514, so not sure what's going on there.)

Apparently, in November 2011, they changed it to allow you to toggle exactly what you would like to have as automatic uploads and downloads. This was changed and, for whatever reason, it wasn't apparent to me.

The God of War beta was the first time I'd actually become aware of this behaviour. It angered me a lot because fuck God of War.

Some people consider me an idiot because they considered the small text underneath automatic downloads to be sufficient indication that Sony would dump giant demos and betas on my machine.
 

GorillaJu

Member
OP comes out swinging with hostility and blame, using discussion as an opportunity to shit on a popular game, then wonders why he gets nasty responses?

It's not poor interface design just because it doesn't read your mind to know whether you want to opt in or out. And companies design their products with the best consumer experience in mind, which means in this case that they'll design the interface and features for users without bandwidth caps first, since most people don't have them. That its buried in a menu is a sign of good interface design, because its not a front and center feature that needs to be changed on a frequent basis. It's in a logical place.

Lastly, it's also your fault that you didn't know because you disabled communication from Sony, so how could they inform you of the change? They certainly aren't going to put up a huge dialog box with on/off toggle for every minor update to the OS. That'd be silly and intrusive – much moreso than downloading a beta while you sleep.

The most bothersome thing is that despite nobody taking the bait, you still try to wind is up by making increasingly nasty remarks about GOW. Why even include your opinion on the game?
 
The most bothersome thing is that despite nobody taking the bait, you still try to wind is up by making increasingly nasty remarks about GOW. Why even include your opinion on the game?

The entire reason it really pissed me off was because it's God of War. Saying "Here's a game we think you would like!" and then giving me that (which is the idea of recommended) means they put zero thought into it. It's just a marketing tool.

People express their negative opinions about games all the time. People on here shit on God of War and Kratos all the time. God of War to me is exactly everything that is wrong with the video games industry.

Putting it on my console is insult to injury when also wasting my cap. The fact that they wasted my cap is annoying. The fact they did it with God of War makes me angry.

Deal with it.
 

breakfuss

Member
I don't have a cap, and I share the OP's feelings. Wasn't pleased at all to see GOW installed the next day, lol. And since I signed up last June (around e3), it's the first beta that's every automatically downloaded for me.
 

GorillaJu

Member
The entire reason it really pissed me off was because it's God of War. Saying "Here's a game we think you would like!" and then giving me that (which is the idea of recommended) means they put zero thought into it. It's just a marketing tool.

People express their negative opinions about games all the time. People on here shit on God of War and Kratos all the time. God of War to me is exactly everything that is wrong with the video games industry.

Putting it on my console is insult to injury when also wasting my cap. The fact that they wasted my cap is annoying. The fact they did it with God of War makes me angry.

Deal with it.

Yes you've made it blatantly clear that you're very, very angry. I can only imagine what it must be like to be shocked and offended when a developer thinks you might like a game that millions of others like. How dare Sony even suggest that such a refined connoisseur of video games would ever be interested in their shitty franchise?

Sorry I should just deal with it, whatever "it" is – I guess that some people make invalid complaints and there's nothing I can do about it?
 
I guess that some people don't share my tastes and opinions and there's nothing I can do about it?

Fixed.

Just because someone doesn't like something you do doesn't mean they are trying to wind you up. It just means, shock and horror, that they don't like it.

God forbid that people aren't allowed to express their displeasure about something.
 

SMD

Member
The entire reason it really pissed me off was because it's God of War. Saying "Here's a game we think you would like!" and then giving me that (which is the idea of recommended) means they put zero thought into it. It's just a marketing tool.

People express their negative opinions about games all the time. People on here shit on God of War and Kratos all the time. God of War to me is exactly everything that is wrong with the video games industry.

Putting it on my console is insult to injury when also wasting my cap. The fact that they wasted my cap is annoying. The fact they did it with God of War makes me angry.

Deal with it.

It's a poor insult to an injury on the scale of a paper cut. What exactly is your complaint, then? "Your recommended download was shite!" "Okay, don't opt in for them."

As has already been pointed out, opting in for any sort of automatic download when you have a data cap is just daft.
 

Jburton

Banned
"God of War to me is exactly everything that is wrong with the video games industry"

Talk about getting carried away with yourself.


Is this thread really about your irrational issues with said game or bandwidth?
 

GorillaJu

Member
Fixed.

Just because someone doesn't like something you do doesn't mean they are trying to wind you up. It just means, shock and horror, that they don't like it.

God forbid that people aren't allowed to express their displeasure about something.

No, of course you can voice your displeasure about something, but people would be more receptive if you were less disingenuous about your complaint in the first place. Are you blaming the interface or Sony's game recommendation?
 

Melchiah

Member
Pfft, not at all. I've made my reason clear:

Good user interface design should remove the need for the user to make decisions. They shouldn't need to over-think or hunt out features. If there's an option to turn it off (that appeared long after I signed up), it should be off by default. I set "auto-updates" on when I got PS+ years ago. I did not sign up for "auto-downloads".

Come on now, the settings are all in the same place, and easily found in the settings menu, as shown already on this thread. You can only blame yourself.
 
"God of War to me is exactly everything that is wrong with the video games industry"

Talk about getting carried away with yourself.


Is this thread really about your irrational issues with said game or bandwidth?

A shallow video game with a reprehensible protagonist and appeal that lies completely in its hyperbolic approach to violence and sex? Sure, why don't we just give that to everyone with PS+. I mean, those things are universally liked, right?

No, of course you can voice your displeasure about something, but people would be more receptive if you were less disingenuous about your complaint in the first place. Are you blaming the interface or Sony's game recommendation?

My original complaint still stands: you shouldn't put anything on any device that people haven't asked for. Whether I have asked for it here is the point of contention.
 

Coxy

Member
A shallow video game with a reprehensible protagonist and appeal that lies completely in its hyperbolic approach to violence and sex? Sure, why don't we just give that to everyone with PS+. I mean, those things are universally liked, right?

do you own Bulletstorm, Mortal Kombat and Dead or Alive 5?
 

clav

Member
The OP actually has a legitimate lawsuit.

Sony didn't warn the user about data caps.

It actually isn't his fault if he wasn't informed, and if the OP sues, he may actually win the case (e.g. see McDonald's coffee label warning).

Umm...

imageexra4.jpg


EDIT: Beaten like a ginger stepchild, I see

Does the screen before warn the user?

Anyone who uses a smartphone these days has seen the OS warn the user regarding data caps and automatic updates. Console needs to be the same if it's that big of a download.
 
do you own Bulletstorm, Mortal Kombat and Dead or Alive 5?

No. Although, you could argue I have the first two via PS+, just in case someone wants to get picky.

Of course, you could also argue that those games aren't *entirely* reliant on their vices. But you see plenty of God of War clones written off as shallow and boring gameplay affairs when they don't have that ridiculous hyper-macho approach.

Eurogamer - 70
No amount of lavish technical polish and drama-filled cut scenes can disguise how it feels to play, and the fact that at its core, the combat doesn't quite cut it. Put simply, it feels like it's trying too hard to be different for the sake of it, and throws all manner of good, well-established ideas out to its detriment. Instead of being a spectacular refinement of what's gone before, Heavenly Sword is a reinvention that doesn't quite pay-off.

Eurogamer - 90
A technical marvel, but with all the clever stuff turned towards the aim of very basic gratification. There are no branching paths, no complex decisions, and no multiplayer modes, but this particular game is all the better for it, since the results are rich and focused rather than drawn-out and a little ragged. Ultimately, if you want to revel in old-school pleasures decked out in the very brightest new armour, this is about as good as it gets.

EDIT:

The OP actually has a legitimate lawsuit.

Sony didn't warn the user about data caps.

It actually isn't his fault, and if the OP sues, he may actually win the case.

I wouldn't sue. An angry letter and a ridiculous thread are about right for the levels of impact, here. I'm just glad it is possible to turn it off individually now. Although, I suspect there's a Dust 514 beta on my HDD now... >_>
 

clav

Member
I wouldn't sue. An angry letter and a ridiculous thread are about right for the levels of impact, here. I'm just glad it is possible to turn it off individually now. Although, I suspect there's a Dust 514 beta on my HDD now... >_>

You do have a case though if Sony didn't prompt a warning saying automatic downloads may eat up a significant chunk of bandwidth and something about bandwidth caps be advised.
 

Dwayne

Member
You do have a case though if Sony didn't prompt a warning saying automatic downloads may eat up a significant chunk of bandwidth and something about bandwidth caps be advised.

Really? Automatic downloads has always been a part of the service, so it was part of what Donutta signed up for when subscribing.

PSBlog said:
Automatic Download: Subscribers will be able to set their PS3 to wake up from standby at any time of the day or night, download and install any game updates for the games you have been playing so you don’t have to think about it. Also, select demos and videos will be pushed to your PS3 ready to go. System software updates will also download automatically (manual install still required) and then the PS3 will turn itself off again.
Game updates and demos will also automatically install and the next time you turn on your PS3 you will see a brief on-screen message letting you know what has been downloaded and updated.
 
Yeah,I don't have a lawsuit even if I would be so ludicrous (although I appreciate the intention of support). Like I said, at best I can bitch about poor UI design and the thoughtlessness of wanting to push content on people just because they don't want to deal with the PS3's terrible update process.

And even then people disagree. :)
 
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