Have you learned nothing, PlayStation? Amidst the official announcement of Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered at PlayStation’s latest State of Play, Sony has raised the price of the original game on the PSN store right under our noses. There was no announcement about the price change, though Twitter user @GamePittReviews spotted it when reviewing the price change history. The numbers don’t lie! Players can now expect to pay double the original price of $15.99. In response to the tweet, @GamePittReviews said, “You do realise that this means people will simply buy the PS4 version physically second hand (giving you literally no money) and then grab the upgrade.”
While concerning, the price hike isn’t surprising coming from the gaming brand, at least not as of its more recent decisions. Just recently, PlayStation was under fire for forcing Helldivers 2 players on Steam to connect their PSN accounts to their profiles, which caused it to be review-bombed on the platform. If that wasn’t bad, the same thing happened when God of War Ragnarok was released on Steam. Fortunately, players can bypass the PSN account connection with a mod, but it shouldn’t be that way. It’s almost as if every decision the company makes is based on how upset it will make players and now, to see how much it can disappoint Horizon Zero Dawn fans.
PlayStation Needs to Have More Faith in Its Fans
With Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered on its way to PC via Steam, it’s almost expected that PlayStation will pull out the broken record and force players to connect their PSN accounts, causing yet another uproar that sees the game being review-bombed. It’s not something I hope for, but that just seems to be the routine for PlayStation. The disappointment doesn’t just fall on its first-party games, but extends to the hardware. When the PS5 Pro was announced, I knew it would be expensive, but I didn’t think it would cost a month’s worth of rent.
It’s almost as though PlayStation knew that the price would be difficult for fans to digest, so it decided to announce the nostalgic PlayStation 30-Year Anniversary Bundle and see if they would forget. But if PlayStation just had a little more faith in its fans, then I think we’d stop seeing so much nonsense when it comes to anything it announces. At least, that’s how it feels because I don’t understand why PlayStation would make certain decisions entirely under the impression that fans won’t notice or be upset. This is especially so regarding their PC ports because, honestly, nothing gets past PC players. They’ll chew a developer to the moon and back if they are required to connect an account just to play a game.
So, why is it something that PlayStation insists on asking for every time it launches a game on Steam? Trust me, there will not come a point where players will surrender and connect accounts; they’ll review-bomb the game.
