PlayStation Stars is kind of a mediocre loyalty program. It has a few functions. The first is unlocking digital collectibles that...suck. I don't really understand the point of them. These are mostly done by campaigns that challenge you to play a certain game within 90 days or get a specific trophy in a PS+ game or whatever. Essentially if you accomplish the challenge you get a model of some random asset related to some game, which you can view in the PlayStation app on your phone. Why does anyone want a 3D model of, like, the rabbit from Jumping Flash to look at on their phone? I don't know. I think this was launched during the NFT craze and they're sort of fake NFTs (they don't use the blockchain but they're like virtual collectibles I guess) but nobody talks about them and they're useless. They would have been much better off doing something like Nintendo's Platinum Points thing where you can buy art to assemble user icons for your account with. That system is legitimately cool, and since it's your online user icon you have incentive for wanting to collect cool stuff you can show others while you're playing. When Nintendo is outsmarting you in the online space you've clearly gone down a very bad path.
The second function of PlayStation Stars is to grant you special customer service priority if you reach the top level, which requires purchasing 4 games from PSN in a year and earning 128 rare (50% or less completion on PSN) trophies. Nobody knows what this priority customer support gets you and Sony customer support sucks in general so this is just a very weird and frankly deranged benefit. Giving someone priority customer support because they have a lot of "rare" TROPHIES is some next level stupidity. Fortunately it doesn't seem like this is really much of a benefit because the wait times are still awful and Sony customer support still won't actually do much to help you, as is their standard operating procedure.
The third function of PlayStation Stars, and the one I want to talk about now, is as a rewards program. You get "points" for either purchasing games on PSN or completing certain campaigns. These points can then be traded for more virtual collectibles (why?) or for digital games or PSN credit. The rough exchange rate is 5000 points for $20.00, and you get 10 points for every dollar you spend. So that means that each point is worth about 4/10ths of a cent, and you get 4 cents worth of points per buck spent. It's a 4% rebate program, and that's not amazing but it's not awful either. It's on par with some other companies' rewards programs.
Where it gets really stingy is in the "campaigns." So in addition to getting virtual collectibles for completing certain tasks you also can get point rewards. These generally give either 50 or 250 points, and if we do the dollar conversion we see that's either 20 cents or a buck. Now some of these tasks are kind of reasonable, like "Play one of the recent PS+ game releases." "We'll give you 20 cents to boot up Foamstars" isn't the most appealing offer but it's not insane either. It's fine.
Where it gets insane is that some of these are for purchasing full games, and they still only give 50 points. Keep in mind that you're already getting like 700+ points for buying a $70 game, but you get another 50. That's 20 cents worth of rebate. On a $70 purchase.
Who is actually influenced by this? Who is this for? It's just a deranged offer. Imagine a 20 cent coupon for a $70 item in the real world. It would just be confusing. And sometimes you have to pre-register for these campaigns, meaning you have to virtually clip this worthless coupon to get your insulting rebate.
I don't understand how this changes people's behavior. The fake NFTs are better because they're at least something semi-unique, even if they're just 3D models you view on your phone.
I know this isn't a big deal, but I look at the set of decisions that led to offering a 20 cent rebate on a $70 game and I have to ask whether anyone actually thought this through. It's just wild to me that huge companies with thousands of employees do weirdo stuff like this.
Log in to comment