Ever dreamed of getting your limbs chopped off by Kratos? Or getting thrown off a cliff by Drake? Maybe one day that wish could be real, as PlayStation announced the community celebration Playerbase program. It invites fans to apply for a chance to have their likeness scanned and appear in Sony-published games. The application runs from April 7 to 26 and requires you to log in with a PlayStation ID and share additional information to participate.
The first step of The Playerbase is focusing on the legendary racing simulator, Gran Turismo 7, with more participating PlayStation Studios games ‘to be announced.’ In summer, the chosen winner will get a ‘limited-time’ in-game portrait, help design a custom Fantasy Logo, and create a unique livery that will be permanently added to the Showcase menu. They’ll also be flown to Los Angeles for a professional scanning session.
The catches, though? First, there’ll be only one winner.
Despite highlighting the word ‘fans’ (plural) on the official page, the Playerbase initiative is essentially a contest where only one fan gets the spotlight.
From there, one PlayStation fan will be selected to be featured in Gran Turismo 7 as part of The Playerbase.
After realizing that, Redditor ActionHank9000 wrote, “This honestly sounds cool on paper, but doesn’t feel like an actual celebration for the players. It feels like just a regular sweepstakes for one lucky person.”
Others expressed their disappointment as they expected something more ambitious, something closer to face-scanning features that already existed in several sports games.
Reallynotnick added, “Yeah I was hoping this was going to be something where I can scan my face using my phone with idk lidar or faceID and play in my games.” EA Sports’ NHL games and NBA 2K mobile companion apps, for example, allowed players to import their looks into career modes.
Then there’s the legal side of things. The contest terms include a pretty broad language, granting Sony the right to use your likeness as it likes.
By entering this Contest, you expressly grant to Sponsor and its representatives a non-exclusive, royalty-free, perpetual, worldwide, complete, sub-licensable and irrevocable right to quote, re-post, publish, edit, use, adapt, translate, archive, store, reproduce, modify, create derivative works from, syndicate, license, print, sublicense, distribute, transmit, broadcast, and otherwise communicate, and publicly display and perform the Entry, or any portion thereof, in any manner or form, without notice, payment or attribution of any kind.
It’s to be expected, but it still left a sour taste in the mouths of some PlayStation fans. Ill-show-u snarkily responded, “Yay now PlayStation can harvest my biometric data as well, that’s all I ever wanted.”
None of this makes the idea itself bad. Being scanned into a PlayStation game feels like a classic 2000s promotional move, and it’s still a cool prize. But between the single winner and the legal terms, Playerbase feels less like a genuine celebration for fans worldwide and more like a simple marketing ploy. Just with your face attached all over it, potentially forever.
