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[Zeyphersan]

Its there forever, and there's nothing Sony can do about it.

I know you're being funny, but given the basic shit that PSN can't seem to do, I wouldn't have been surprised

 

[Trogdor1123]

What happens in this scenario :

Scenario A:

User purchases $1000 worth of games
User calls customer support and claims his account got hacked
Sony deactivates the games from the system so they cant be downloaded again.
User never goes online again with the same username so user gets the money plus the games as long as he doesnt need to install them again.
User plays games with another account on the same PS4

Disclaimer, im not fully informed how the game/account access works on PS4, but something like that might be preventing them from just refunding them willy nilly.

Im sure they can see which system it was sent to and where that system is. It wouldn't take much work for them to notice that its all been sent to the same system or a different one.

 

[Doctor_Thomas]

Remember that glitch where Killzone Shadow Fall was 85p because it unlocked when you bought some content pack thing?

Yeah.

I felt guilty about acquiring something for an, obviously, lower value than it was worth, even though I owned the disc, so contacted Sony to arrange a refund.

Long story short, I got the 85p back but, after a while, a lock icon appeared on SF and stayed like that until I inserted the disc to verify it again.

They definitely can revoke licences.

 

[autoduelist]

Wasn't referring to the offline stuff, but, if the console goes offline then that is basically a unit that will never generate digital sales ever again. They could also just ban the console. Writing off the licenses wouldn't be such a big deal in that case especially now that online connectivity is so integral to current-gen. That person will have a neutered console that will at best play physical games without patches that may or may not work right.

You're forgetting that the purchases can occur on a separate PS4. See my most recent post.

Banning the console does not help in my above example.

Im sure they can see which system it was sent to and where that system is. It wouldn't take much work for them to notice that its all been sent to the same system or a different one.

Just because it's a different system or IP does not eliminate the possibility of user fraud. Anyone traveling could do it.
I am not saying everyone does this, obviously - but people do go to great lengths to commit fraud. I do think it would be possible to recognize if the activity comes from certain fraud heavy locations (countries, specifically) but as mentioned in a previous post, we have no idea what Sony's research into these publicized cases showed -- and it's quite possible they determined the purchases came from, say, an ip they commonly logged in at.

 

[CLEEK]

Oh it's even better than that. You can still play the games even when your online. Even going online with the games. I got a refund for Driveclub and literally the only catch is that I can't redownload it until I pay for it again. The reason they don't "Just revoke the licenses" is because it essentially doesn't really do anything. I also did the same with Dustforce Vita (which still never got patched apparently).

Just so everyone knows.
Revoking licenses doesn't revoke your ability to play the game, just download it.

Where as when I got a refund for Driveclub, the customer service dude said it would be automatically removed from my PS4. That didn't happen (pretty sure it can't happen), so I just manually deleted the game.

I upgraded my PS4 HDD a couple of weeks ago, so when through he process of re-downloading all the games in my library. Driveclub is still there, available to download. I guess they didn't revoke my licence when they completed my refund.

 

[SoulUnison]

Personally, I believe this is why Sony and Microsoft do only lip service to securing accounts and investigating fraud. They don't care who gave them the money or why, because they get to keep it, and they hold all your previous purchases and content hostage hoping that the sentimental or monetary value of it all will keep you from taking any sort of actual action.

I almost think, as long as the press doesn't get too bad, they *like* it when people get hacked. With their "150$ maximum reimbursement" policy, any fraud over $150 is effectively profit they get to keep without even having to dispense product/content.

 

[Swarna]

You're forgetting that the purchases can occur on a separate PS4. See my most recent post.

Banning the console does not help in my above example.

There are plenty of hypothetical schemes to game any kind of system out there. This isn't an issue about preventing people who didn't pay for games from playing them (though Sony would obviously want to prevent that). They're just creating bad PR for themselves and losing real customers.

Who loses money when you revoke licenses? If someone gamed the system to play a few games you can chalk it up as a loss. There's no guarantee that person would have bought those titles legit anyways. It's like piracy. That person spent $400 on the console. Sony already made money off that person.

 

[weemadarthur]

??

OP = Occam

I know, it's a bit subtle.

 

[Occam]

What about the other idea I added to the opening post?

 

[Zomba13]

Perhaps there's a publisher fueled fear of people taking consoles offline forever with the games and still having access to them.

Eh, could do that right now. Buy all the games, download them to the HDD, unplug console, chargeback from bank. Full HDD of PS3 or 4 games for free and all it cost was a PSN account.

 

[UncleSporky]

What about the other idea I added to the opening post?

For all digital content purchased on the machine forever? You always have to go back a week after buying it to confirm the purchase?

They want to make the purchase process as easy and painless as possible so people make lots of purchases. They WANT it to be so easy to permanently buy games that it can even happen accidentally. They would never do this.

 

[Pandy]

What happens in this scenario :

Scenario A:

User purchases $1000 worth of games
User calls customer support and claims his account got hacked
Sony deactivates the games from the system so they cant be downloaded again.
User never goes online again with the same username so user gets the money plus the games as long as he doesnt need to install them again.
User plays games with another account on the same PS4

Disclaimer, im not fully informed how the game/account access works on PS4, but something like that might be preventing them from just refunding them willy nilly.

Oh it's even better than that. You can still play the games even when your online. Even going online with the games. I got a refund for Driveclub and literally the only catch is that I can't redownload it until I pay for it again. The reason they don't "Just revoke the licenses" is because it essentially doesn't really do anything. I also did the same with Dustforce Vita (which still never got patched apparently).

Just so everyone knows.
Revoking licenses doesn't revoke your ability to play the game, just download it.

Surely it would be easy enough to impliment that you don't get your refund until their server has talked to your PS4 and killed the game.
(Easy enough to impliment at the design stage, I mean. Retroactively putting features like that into the existing system might be impossible.)

 

[hodgy100]

The real answer is because Sony are happy keeping money gained through illicit means.

 

[xtradi]

This can't be true can it? I thought they did some license check. Or is it the case that the game is just checking against a local license that never "stales" and can't be remotely revoked by Sony?

Seems strange.

There used to be license check for digital once in 24 hour but after DDOS attack Sony removed this so the digital game can still be played while offline.

I understand Sony's problem comes from two different case and no easy solution :
1. PSN offline and people wants to be able to play digital games without checking in.
2. Sony ability to disable and removed purchased digital content in PS4. This requires digital games to be checked online before being able to be played and contradict the point number one.

 

[Kama_1082]

Oh it's even better than that. You can still play the games even when your online. Even going online with the games. I got a refund for Driveclub and literally the only catch is that I can't redownload it until I pay for it again. The reason they don't "Just revoke the licenses" is because it essentially doesn't really do anything. I also did the same with Dustforce Vita (which still never got patched apparently).

Just so everyone knows.
Revoking licenses doesn't revoke your ability to play the game, just download it.

That is 100% not true. I got a refund on NBA 2K15 and it was unplayable. I asked for a refund and got it. It was playable for about a week and it finally went dead Asked me for a license when I tried to start it up

 

[Vagabundo]

User claims the console was stolen and the console was set to remember his CC info.

Police report and ban the console before the money is returned.

 

[Koh]

If youre referring to the $600 thread, last i read Sony does investigate and refund fraudulent purchases beyond the 150.

150 is the max a SEN wallet can hold (something about not wanting to be classified as a bank i think), and it seems that Sony will credit your wallet in these situations straight away. When you exceed the credit limit they have to investigate and rapid to the card company.

Unless more updates in that thread came up stating otherwise, i think people got carried away by some poor communicating by the customer service representative.

 

[Dazza]

There used to be license check for digital once in 24 hour but after DDOS attack Sony removed this so the digital game can still be played while offline.

That's not true. I had a ps3 from launch with digital games on it without a permanent internet connection, I could always play all my games