We all like special offers and bundle deals. I often snap up those Humble Indie Bundles for PC when they pop up and I’ve lost count of the number of game-and-DLC bundles I’ve bought for a pittance in a Steam sale. So when Sony started to run special offers and price reductions on the PSN Store, it was a welcome addition. When they bundle bits and pieces together for a reduced rate, all the better. This is something that the PSN Store has been doing really well with, whether it’s special offers or permanent price reductions, they’re clearly making an effort to be competitively priced – even without any competition.
Unfortunately, one of their bundle offers over the recent festive period has turned into a bit of a disaster for the customers who bought it.
As part of the package of special offers run on the store around Christmas, there was a Pick n Mix bundle of five PlayStation minis for the bargain price of just £3.19/€3.99/$5.60. You bought the Pick n Mix item and it allowed you to choose five minis from the Store’s ample selection of bite sized delights.
The problems arose when customers purchased and downloaded the item from the PSN Store via their PlayStation 3 and then tried to transfer the content to their PSP. It didn’t work. The latest terms of the End User License Agreement on the PlayStation Network reduced the number of machines you’re allowed to use your content on from five to the slightly more restrictive number of two. That’s two PlayStation 3s and two portable devices (PSP or Vita) though, so the transfer shouldn’t have been a problem. In fact, in order to record the issue, a user took a screengrab of the terms for this particular item and posted the image in the community forums. I’ve underlined the relevant portion in red.
The problem was first raised on the community boards on the 22nd of December and reported to the technical support teams by the ever-helpful community moderators. Six days later, on the 28th, a reply was left in that thread which indicated that the bundle was now made available via the PSP side of the PSN Store and if it was (re)purchased and downloaded from there, it would work. Essentially, there were now two versions of the bundle – one on the PSP store and one on the PS3 store which, contrary to most customer’s previous experience, wouldn’t allow transfer to a PSP after purchase.
This seems like a quick patch up that would limit, but not solve the issue in the future. The PS3 store bundle had the line added to its description to say that it was for the PS3 (judging by forum comments this seems to have happened on or around the first of January) but as most minis work on the PS3 as well as the PSP they’re made for, that measure is understandably unclear for many consumers.
If a consumer had bought the bundle on the PS3 store, and selected their five minis, those items became impossible to purchase via the PSP store. The store thinks you already own them and should, theoretically, be able to re-download from your download list. Unfortunately, consumers who managed to get items onto their PSPs were met with error messages explaining that they couldn’t activate on another device. It seems like every combination of available options has been tried, the PS3, PSP and Media Go stores all resulting in error codes and continued frustrations for existing purchasers.
Many users reported lengthy and fruitless calls to customer services, at further personal expense, and others allude to shady solutions which contravene the EULA or local laws. As things progressed past the three week mark, with the bundle still for sale under its new description, consumers did start to see voucher codes emailed to them. These codes would allow the download of five additional minis but if the consumer had already selected their minis and ‘purchased’ them when they first bought the Pick n Mix bundle then those minis remained impossible to select, even with Sony’s vouchers.
Several consumers suggest that they would have been happy with a refund and apology, resetting their purchase history to allow access to the minis they selected and the chance to re-buy them – even at full price. The voucher solution doesn’t seem to have found favour with anyone yet, although there is a slim chance that those who do approve of this peculiar compensation are busy playing their five second choice minis rather than complaining on the forums.
The thread on the community forums which highlights this issue is currently at 28 pages and gets progressively more irate as it goes on. Perhaps the most alarming thing is the tone and language of the Sony customers who are reporting it. They don’t seem particularly surprised, they don’t expect much of a solution and they seem resigned to their issues being swept under the carpet and ignored. Surely that’s a serious problem for Sony, that their engaged consumers are expectant of abysmal after sales support and dishonest cover ups?
I don’t think anyone would reasonably expect a store with as many items and as many customers as the PSN Store to exist without occasional problems arising. Mistakes are made, that’s perfectly understandable. It also seems that this could be a complicated issue to fix, the nature of the deal means that customers all selected different minis so individual item vouchers become very difficult to assign to the right people. But most of the frustration seems to be based around the lack of transparency. Customers seem to feel that Sony hasn’t been open or honest about this issue and has instead tried to cover it up and ignore them.
It might only be £3.19 that changed bank accounts but the subsequent inability to ever access certain content again and the lack of a rapid or open response from Sony has left many consumers feeling jaded. Surely that loss of faith is a much more valuable asset?
Crocadillian
This sounds quite typical. For Sony to continue to leave a sense of customer apathy is incredible. Getting a PS Vita seems tempting, but I think i’ll try to remind myself that until Sony sort themselves out that i’d be supporting retarded events like this and the poor management of the PSN services.
colmshan1990
That’s shocking, and what’s more, I don’t see the sense of the problem continuing.
Just patch it, or whatever the fix is, and let them copy it over! It’s a no brainer Sony!
Krog360
As someone who is directly affected by this I can only tell you how frustrating it is. My tally so far is three calls to Customer Services and three emails and still….three weeks later…..no solution. I was intending to buy a PS Vita but this whole episode has left my confidence in Sony completely shattered. Very poor indeed :-(
Bilbo_bobbins
tut tut Sony, poor form indeed.
DrNate86
The PS store has made a few cock ups lately, I’m affected by this mini business as well as still waiting for my code to download the Renegade Ops DLC from the Play promotion, which has been available for weeks and has yet to be acnowledged even on the blog. Their standard wall of silence is rapidly reducing my patience with them.
Erroneus
This reminds me of the PSN Play deal, if you bought 4 games you would get Payday: The Heist free. Well SCEE fucked that one up a lot, so people who actually did that (including me) did NOT recieve the game when it launched, which even was a delayed launch.
It took them two weeks for some, three weeks in my case, before I got my Payday: The Heist key. I haven’t even bothered to install it, was so pissed about it. Three weeks after the launch, that game was forgotten because of games like UC3.
I’m never going to use a similar “deal” from Sony again, sadly the amateurs who run the PSN shop can’t be trusted to do their job properly.
hazelam
that thing about this that really infuriates me is that they changed the license after this issue came to light, and they’re giving people the brush off saying the terms state it’s only for ps3.
http://community.eu.playstation.com/t5/Technical-Help/PSN-Pick-n-Mix-Minis-transfer-problems/m-p/14675667/message-uid/14675667/highlight/true#U14675667
“As it says in the description it is for PS3, so going by the terms and conditions the games are technically working as stated. However each seperate case is taken into account and looked at individually regarding the circumstances.”
how they think they can get away with this is quite frankly beyond me.
they’re trying to say they fulfilled their end because they’re doing what the new terms state, and pretending like the old ones didn’t exist, despite the pictures to prove they did.
i don’t have a law degree or anything like that, but i know the license as it was when we bought the games applies, not what they changed it to afterwards.
and they know that, i know they know that.
what they’re doing now changes this from a mistake, albeit a terribly handled one, to scee deliberately trying to con their customers.
in my opinion, this is just criminal.
that’s not using criminal in the slang sense, i mean criminal as in against the law.
Erroneus
That thread is so sad to read. I get the felling that Sony’s backend systems are utter crap and their solutions are hacked on, which is why they are having so many problems.
Also gooood fucking luck, if you don’t live in the UK. Then you have to through your local customer service, which is even worse and has NO authority to do anything.
hazelam
that sounds like the uk customer service too actually.
Lee3po
Yeh I was caught by this one too.
I bought the minis pick and mix pack just before christmas, when it said that it was for use on 2 PS3s and ‘up to’ 2 PSPs. I remember thinking at the time that the wording was a little bit ummm.. inexact…?
I did not realise that ‘up to’ 2 PSPs meant no PSPs.. :(
I’m only speculating here but, maybe this is indicative of Sony having intentions to charge for game licences on each device they are installed to? I assume this new-fangled PSVita thingy will run Minis? Could net them a little extra cash, eh?
Anyway, I emailed them (uk networksupport) as per the instructions of the official forum moderator, and got an email back saying they would contact me soon. I am still shivering in anticipation… :(
hazelam
you one other thing about this that really pisses me off, why can’t they just give us what we paid for?
it’s all digital, so it’s not like they’re having to produce more physical copies at their own expense, it’s free to copy a digital file, and with the size of the games bandwidth isn’t going to be an issue, though i can’t believe a corporation like sony would be on some sort of metered service anyway.
so why are they even going to these lengths to deny us what’s rightfully ours?
it’s almost as if they’re testing the waters to see if they can actually get away with it or something.
either that or they’re just flat out taking the piss.
Deathbrin
I don’t think anyone there cares tbh
Lee3po
Anything to add to the conversation deathbrin? or are you just here to tell other commenters how wrong they are?
MaxiM
I’ve sent my e-mail to SCEE Support over a week ago regarding this mess. Guess what? No reply to this day.