Those who are part of the PlayStation Stars program will stop getting credit for spending money on subscriptions after today’s update. Before this change, the program would give users points depending on how much money they spend on the PlayStation Store, and how many in-game quests they complete, and these points could then be used to buy PSN credit and other items.
By this logic, money spent on subscriptions like PlayStation Plus and EA Play would count towards your overall spending towards PlayStation Stars, and give you credit once you gather up a certain amount. But now, both of these subscriptions will not give you any more points.
Tightening its grip further, Sony also announced that any points you gather in the PlayStation Stars program will only remain usable for one year after they are earned, after which they will expire. Before this change, these points could be gathered for two years before their expiry. Any points that you’ve earned before October 24, 2024, will expire 24 months after they were earned, so this change is only proactive and won’t affect the points you already have stored up.
The news comes from an official email from PlayStation to all users of the Stars program. These changes were likely introduced to reduce the amount of money players are spending on the PSN. Perhaps PlayStation misjudged how many points fans can hoard and then use to get actual money for the store.
The PlayStation Stars program started in 2022 through the PlayStation app, and Sony also confirmed that its service would soon expand to consoles as well. This encouraged players to play games, complete in-game quests, buy games, and play the ones offered through PlayStation Plus to be rewarded.
This will likely put a major dent in the level of earnings players can have in a year, but at least the program is still working, and will still give out free digital rewards as well.
