PS Plus Issue: Lost Essential License if you also downloaded the Extra version.

[kanzenchaos]

If you're like me and redeemed the PS+ Essential PS4 version, then downloaded the PS5 Extra version, it seems you have lost the game when it left the catalogue.

Seems like the Extra license overwrites the Essential one.

 

Other games that might potentially be a problem: (only ones I can remember atm)

- I've been looking through my purchase history to tell if the old licenses have been replaced -

Bugsnax - Haven't tried redeeming from PS+Extra

Dark Pictures Man of Medan - Replaced with Extra license

Final Fantasy VII Remake - Seems safe

Ghostrunner - Replaced with Extra license

Mafia III - Allegedly, can't really confirm since it seems there is only 1 version

Maneater - Seems safe

Oddworld Soulstorm - Haven't tried redeeming from PS+Extra

 

Source: 

 

Edited November 28, 2022 by kanzenchaos

[GUDGER666]

Have you tried restoring your licenses? If so contact support via live chat and should be able to fix the issue. 

[kanzenchaos]

4 minutes ago, GUDGER666 said:

Have you tried restoring your licenses? If so contact support via live chat and should be able to fix the issue. 

It's gone from my purchase history and replaced with the new one.

 

I'll try contacting the store support tomorrow morning and will post here if it works! I still have the email receipt from January 2021.

[cm-PUNK2000]

Yup! had this same issue on Man of Medan. i'll resub to extra when there's only a few months left on my Essential sub, but i hope they dont remove Medan by then since idk what will happen lol 

[darkjian92]

I've started the process with Greedfall and Sony as of a few days ago - there's a double issue here in that the PS4 only edition that was used for PS+ is no longer available to purchase/obtain, having been superseded with the PS4/PS5 crossbuy license.

 

Thus far, Sony have removed the PS+ Extra license from my account, so I can now at least rebuy the game from the PS Store. I'm continuing to pursue the reinstatement of the original license - Australian Consumer Law is a bit of a cudgel and very much in favour of the Consumer, so I'm hopeful of either a good result or a useful answer. I know this is being pursued in other quarters, too - a few reddit threads have already kicked the issue into awareness there.

[kanzenchaos]

27 minutes ago, darkjian92 said:

I've started the process with Greedfall and Sony as of a few days ago - there's a double issue here in that the PS4 only edition that was used for PS+ is no longer available to purchase/obtain, having been superseded with the PS4/PS5 crossbuy license.

 

Thus far, Sony have removed the PS+ Extra license from my account, so I can now at least rebuy the game from the PS Store. I'm continuing to pursue the reinstatement of the original license - Australian Consumer Law is a bit of a cudgel and very much in favour of the Consumer, so I'm hopeful of either a good result or a useful answer. I know this is being pursued in other quarters, too - a few reddit threads have already kicked the issue into awareness there.

Hopefully this reaches Sony and they fix it for everyone. At least making sure licenses don't overlap one another for the future would be great.

Sad to hear all they did was remove it from your account. Be sure to give us updates if you can.

[darkjian92]

I'll definitely do my best to toss updates on here as well.

 

For reference, after fighting with the support chat bot and a human over chat, I received the following:

 

Quote

Thank you for contacting PlayStation Support.

We are sorry to see that you have had issues with GreedFall. I can confirm that we have removed your most license for this, please now restore your licenses and try to access your original purchase. 

Instructions on how to restore your licenses are here: https://www.playstation.com/en-gb/support/games/restore-licences-playstation/

I hope this helps, but if you have any other questions, please contact PlayStation Support, and one of our team will be happy to help.       

Thanks,       


The PlayStation Support Team

Restoring licenses didn't work despite several attempts, and thus I've replied:

 

Quote

Hi folks,

 

While I can see that some things have changed (all eligible editions of Greedfall are now available for me to purchase), 3 separate attempts to restore my licenses have provided no success. Accessing Greedfall from my library on PS4, PS5, or mobile app redirects me immediately to the store page, and I'm unable to download or start any versions.

 

Could you please follow up when you get the chance?

I'll keep this thread in the loop with any updates.

 

-DJ

[darkjian92]

It looks like Sony may have resolved the problem - it looks like my Greedfall license has been restored successfully. Just downloading now to make sure I can start the application.

[darkjian92]

Greedfall downloaded and started without any problems. I don't know whether the fix has been applied to everyone, or whether the old license was restored, or whether they've applied a new license manually. I suspect the latter, as the PS+ logo has disappeared from the game tile.

 

But it looks like contacting through regular support channels has given a good result in my case - it'd be worth someone else checking whether it's working for them now, but for anyone else seeing this thread, it looks like Sony are at least capable of and somewhat willing to consider reissuing the license. YMMV, obviously, but hopefully it's good precedent and Sony will fix things moving forward.

Edited November 30, 2022 by darkjian92

[kanzenchaos]

2 hours ago, darkjian92 said:

Greedfall downloaded and started without any problems. I don't know whether the fix has been applied to everyone, or whether the old license was restored, or whether they've applied a new license manually. I suspect the latter, as the PS+ logo has disappeared from the game tile.

 

But it looks like contacting through regular support channels has given a good result in my case - it'd be worth someone else checking whether it's working for them now, but for anyone else seeing this thread, it looks like Sony are at least capable of and somewhat willing to consider reissuing the license. YMMV, obviously, but hopefully it's good precedent and Sony will fix things moving forward.

Doesn't seem to be applied to everyone, mine is still locked.

Still, glad to hear you have it back! Gives us hope that we can at least trust in the PS Support.

Since it was given outside the PS Plus sub, did it also give you the PS5 version, or only PS4?

[darkjian92]

It seems I can run the PS5 version with a "free upgrade" in the usual manner, but I wouldn't put it past Sony to rectify that in future. For the time being, the applied fix seems to have given it to me on both consoles.

Edited December 1, 2022 by darkjian92

[darkjian92]

Just to keep everyone in the loop on ongoing communications with Sony:

 

Sony:

Quote

Thank you for contacting PlayStation Support regarding Greedfall, sorry for the delay in replying.

We have recently added a new version of Greedfall in your Library. Please download this via your game library to access this content.

I hope this helps, but if you have any other questions, please contact PlayStation Support, and one of our team will be happy to help.

 

 

Me:

Quote

Thanks everyone, that seems to have resolved the issue. A few folks on internet forums have been following my conversation with you, it's been really good to have had such an effective communication and response from Sony staff.

 

May I ask, is it likely that the underlying mechanism that caused this issue will be updated for everyone automatically, or will they each need to contact support directly? Additionally, are any changes planned to avoid this occurring in the future? I'm not sure the issue would ever arise quite the same way (with the original provided license having been removed from the Store prior to the game leaving PS+ Extra), but it'd be good to have some reassurances moving forward.

 

Thanks again for your assistance.

 

[darkjian92]

Final word from PlayStation support:

 

Quote

Thank you for contacting PlayStation Support, sorry for the delay in replying.

There is not currently a known issue matching the circumstances of this case, so we would encourage players who do experience similarly to reach out to us directly for assistance. 

If we do receive multiple reports and a wider issue becomes apparent, then these types of licensing issues would be resolved in a future update.

 

[kanzenchaos]

15 hours ago, darkjian92 said:

Final word from PlayStation support:

 

 

Thanks for updating us with your journey in solving this problem. I hope everyone affected by this does the same so Sony gets this fixed in the future.

 

I've already contacted them, but through an external website in Brazil, really popular among companies who operate here since it calculates their reputation based on how often the consumer is or isn't satisfacted by their consumer support. It usually works better than even direct support from companies website.

 

They gave me 5 work days to come up with a solution, which should be tomorrow. I'll update here with my experience as well.

[deathskitten]

I tried to chat to Sony support about this but the agent just kept saying that I'd have to purchase the game now that it's left the Catalogue. They didn't seem to understand the difference between Essential and Extra.

 

Very annoying! ? I'll try again later but I'm not overly optimistic that I'll get access to the PS4 version of Greedfall again!

[Adilya]

Thanks for keeping us updated on this issue! This is so typical of Sony, sigh. It's keeping me from playing the game too.. as I really want to play the PS5 version but I don't want to risk losing access to the PS4 version in case I don't finish the game before my sub runs out (which is very likely with my track record ?)

[deathskitten]

Ok so I tried again today. I got a different online customer service rep who was a bit more helpful! 

 

This is a copy of the original message that I sent to the customer service rep in case anyone else is planning on contacting Sony as well:

 

Quote

 

Hello, I hope you are well!

 

I'm having an issue with my account that I was hoping you would be able to help me with. 

 

I redeemed Greedfall on PS4 thanks to PS+ Essential back in January 2021 [I also gave the transaction ID which I found on my email receipt from when I originally claimed the PS+ game].

 

The PS5 version of the game was then added to the PS+ Catalogue and so I also downloaded this version of the game. The PS5 version of the game has now left the Catalogue but it seems that I have lost access to the PS4 version of the game that I redeemed through PS+ Essential. As the PS4 version of Greedfall was an PS+ Essential game I should still have access to the PS4 version of the game.

 

It looks like the Extra license has overwritten the Essential license so I can no longer download the PS4 version of the game.

 

Would you be able to look into this?

 

 

The customer service rep got me to restore my licenses, which didn't do anything so they've now sent my case on to one of their specialists to look into. I should hopefully hear back from them in a couple of days.

 

I'll let you know what happens next!

[Aceterix]

45 minutes ago, deathskitten said:

Snip!

 

Bravo on the perseverance, seems mad that they'd not thought of this but I guess few are surprised by this stage, fight that good fight!

[Lance_87]

On 5/12/2022 at 2:04 AM, darkjian92 said:

Final word from PlayStation support:

 

 

 

"In a future update" of what, exactly? Do they even PlayStation Network??

Edited December 7, 2022 by Lance_87

[darkjian92]

13 hours ago, Lance_87 said:

 

"In a future update" of what, exactly? Do they even PlayStation Network?

I've been assuming they meant a possible future update to the PS+ licensing infrastructure if the issue persists, but apparently similar issues have been experienced with PS Now for years, so it's hard to extend that to a willingness to fix problems. I guess we can only see as it develops.

[Lance_87]

9 hours ago, darkjian92 said:

I've been assuming they meant a possible future update to the PS+ licensing infrastructure if the issue persists, but apparently similar issues have been experienced with PS Now for years, so it's hard to extend that to a willingness to fix problems. I guess we can only see as it develops.

 

Oh well, who knows. It took probably a decade to let people repurchase games previously obtained through Plus (but only for PS4/PS5 )

[kanzenchaos]

Ok so here's how their response went.

They went in talking about how I re-purchased the game through my PS Plus Extra sub, so it replaced the Essential license and then left the Extra catalogue, and then said it was all my responsibility and I'll need to buy the game again.

Then quoted paragraph 8.16 of their ToS

Quote

8.16. Access to Purchased Items. Upon our confirmation of your transaction, and subject to the applicable Usage Terms, you may access the PSN Content you ordered through the Account that you used to complete the order. You bear all risk of loss for accessing the content, and for any loss of content you have downloaded, including any loss due to a file corruption or hard drive crash. You are solely responsible if you do not choose to download or access the content before it is removed or your license expires, and for the authorized ongoing storage and safekeeping of the content. We are not obligated to provide you with replacement copies for any reason.

 

It makes no sense right? It just says that only the purchaser account can use the product and that they are not responsible for file corruption and expired licenses. Except PS+ Essential games are not supposed to expire. How do you guys think I should proceed with this?

@darkjian92

[darkjian92]

Hmm. Sounds like you've come across much less helpful Sony staff than I did.

 

I'd run it at them backwards.

 

"Sony is, with this commentary, deliberately misrepresenting both my issue and my request. Recognising that the new/temporary license has superseded the old, and no notification or warning of supersedence was provided, Sony should be obligated to uphold the terms of the PS+ ToS, which reads: "Games included in PlayStation Plus that you download to your console are playable as long as you have a valid subscription and the game remains available in the service.". As my original license for Greedfall was a regular PS+ monthly game, it remains 'available in the service', and as my subscription has not lapsed, I am seeking the restoration of my original permanent license, of which I can demonstrate ownership with my proof of purchase."

 

I don't know what Consumer Laws you have on your side in your country - in Australia, the action is tantamount to theft, so they may have been more motivated just by virtue of that. It definitely sounds like some of the support staff are just power tripping, though, which sucks if it means we're going to get inconsistent results.

[kanzenchaos]

On 09/12/2022 at 5:46 AM, darkjian92 said:

Hmm. Sounds like you've come across much less helpful Sony staff than I did.

 

I'd run it at them backwards.

 

"Sony is, with this commentary, deliberately misrepresenting both my issue and my request. Recognising that the new/temporary license has superseded the old, and no notification or warning of supersedence was provided, Sony should be obligated to uphold the terms of the PS+ ToS, which reads: "Games included in PlayStation Plus that you download to your console are playable as long as you have a valid subscription and the game remains available in the service.". As my original license for Greedfall was a regular PS+ monthly game, it remains 'available in the service', and as my subscription has not lapsed, I am seeking the restoration of my original permanent license, of which I can demonstrate ownership with my proof of purchase."

 

I don't know what Consumer Laws you have on your side in your country - in Australia, the action is tantamount to theft, so they may have been more motivated just by virtue of that. It definitely sounds like some of the support staff are just power tripping, though, which sucks if it means we're going to get inconsistent results.

Just did my research and found:

https://www.playstation.com/en-us/support/subscriptions/subscribe-ps-plus-download-monthly-games/

 

Which says:

Quote

Please note, if you’ve downloaded a game or added it to your download list before it’s removed from monthly PlayStation Plus games, you’ll be able to play it for as long as you're a member of PlayStation Plus. If you choose to cancel your membership, you won’t be able to access any content downloaded as part of monthly PlayStation Plus games, but you’ll regain access if you subscribe again.

 

Used it as a foundation to my reply. Let's see what they'll say next.

[Squarevii87]

Never purchase/download a game from extra or premium if you have it from ps plus essential

It will override the licence and if the game leaves the service you must buy it again