Sony, Security, & Why I Don’t Trust The Digital Only Future

If you know me then you know I’ve always been a bit wary of the digital future, but I’ve bought digital games and hadn’t had a bad experience with the service. That is until around five weeks ago when PSN was taken down for a few days by a “hacker” group. Usually I’ll report on the matter and then as the story dies we move on, and wait for the next story. I thought that would be the case here but a few weeks later the extent of this attack was finally felt.

Before I delve into the problems let me give you a bit of context. I bought a PS4 at launch but had to send it back for a replacement a couple of weeks later because the disc tray wasn’t working. I deactivated that, got my new one and activated it as my primary console. It was my primary console throughout 2014. A similar situation to that of our reviews editor, Dominic Leighton, who followed the same steps.

Problems didn’t arise until I was in the middle of reviewing Saints Row: Gat Out Of Hell, which was digital review code. This is important. I was also playing during a PSN maintenance window and for a while had no problems. Then a warning flashed up saying my console could not connect to the authorisation server, and the game would close in 15 minutes. This was followed by a five minute warning, and then true to the console’s word I was booted out. When I was on the main menu I noticed every digital game I owned and had on the console had a padlock next to it. That’s isn’t all as services like Netflix and Amazon Instant Prime were also locked out.

This also happened to Dom and we both discussed whether our broken PS4s had been refurbished and somehow reactivated, making our current consoles secondary ones. Of course we have no proof and it could be coincidence that both of us lost primary access at the same time, some time after sending back deactivated broken consoles.

This was odd to me as I had never experienced this problem before on a PSN outage, so I logged into my account online to see what was going on. When I checked the devices I owned I noticed consoles I never owned on there, like a second PS4 and second PS Vita. I also saw my PS4 had been deactivated as the primary console. It appeared my account had been compromised so I did what anyone would do, changed my password and called PlayStation Support.

During this conversation I explained what had happened, and asked if these new consoles that had appeared could be removed from my account. The rep on the other side told me that it did look there had been some suspicious activity on my account, but it would have to be escalated upwards. I was told to note a reference number and expect contact in about a week. Fine, I understand there will be people ahead of me in the queue so I can wait a week. Last night I finally got a reply.

As part of our fair usage policy, we are unable to manually deactivate any consoles from your SEN account in order to prevent game-sharing.

So after explaining that my account was potentially compromised and security breached through no fault of my own I’m told I’m basically out of luck. I now can’t deactivate any consoles from my account for six months through the SEN website,due to Sony’s arbitrary time limit that comes into place if consoles are unregistered through its site.

This now means that any time PSN is down I will lose access to my digital library, because the authorisation server can’t be reached. Not just that but I also lose access to Netflix and Amazon Instant on the PS4, as well as every other app. Now a PS Plus subscription isn’t required to access these anyway so I don’t think Sony has any right to restrict my access to a third party service I pay a separate subscription to.

I can’t reset my console authentications for months, Sony won’t help, so I’m locked out of a lot of paid content every time PSN goes down. It wouldn’t be too much of a problem if a PSN outage happened once every six months, but it is down for maintenance monthly. And that doesn’t include when it stops working unexpectedly. PSN isn’t a reliable service at the best of times, so requiring authentication through it makes the situation disadvantageous to users. What if Sony suffers another major breach that takes down PSN for months? Are we supposed to accept that we’re locked out of digital content?

What also gets me is the game sharing excuse, or what used to be lending things to friends and family. The only difference here is the format through which something can be shared, where instead of disc it is a digital copy. It feels like even more of a slap in the face when we now live in a world with Share Play. Sure there is an hour limit per Share Play session, but I could start Far Cry 4 right now, activate Share Play and then let someone else play the game, just resetting the lobby each hour.

I also don’t like how we as a group just accepted primary and secondary consoles, because this wasn’t done for the consumer’s benefit. If I want to a buy a second PS4 for my home to put in another room, I want to know it can do everything the other one can regardless of contacting an authorisation server. When Microsoft suggested a similar practice with Xbox One game discs requiring a connection to the servers to verify authenticity there was a lot of outrage, which led to the company abandoning that particular practice.

The main feeling I’ve got from this situation is that I no longer feel like I own the items I have bought from Sony’s digital store. I own my Megadrive games, I own my PSOne games, I own my Wii games, but because some of my PS4 games are digital I don’t fully own them. No, instead I essentially have to have Sony’s permission to play them regardless of the fact I paid for games like Valiant Hearts and Octodad.

Sony’s policy to activation feels incredibly dated already, and it is really cumbersome too. It doesn’t help myself or Dom claim back our accounts and use our machines as we wish. I seriously advise that you check your PS4 is still your primary one, because something has caused mine and another staff member’s to switch from that, and get locked out every time PSN is down.

The digital future is convenient for two groups. Those who prefer digital over physical and for the companies that own the machines, because they can set high prices and also control what you do with what you purchase. Our power as consumers is steadily being eroded away, and if the future of games is digital only then I will bow out and not look back.