SHOCKING: Twitter Is Mad About PlayStation’s New Loyalty Program
In a blog posted yesterday, PlayStation has finally unveiled some details about their new loyalty program, PlayStation Stars.
PlayStation Stars is free to join for anyone, and PlayStation Plus members will be eligible for extra benefits. Rewards (which come in the form of loyalty points and “digital collectibles”) are earned in the program simply by purchasing, playing, and completing games on your PlayStation consoles. Players can hound the PlayStation app to keep track of daily and weekly challenges to earn more points as well. So, in short, this is nothing groundbreaking in terms of any other loyalty program you might already be a part of.
This new loyalty program has a variety of perks and features for people to get all jazzed up about. The below graphic goes over PlayStation Stars’ four-tiered rewards structure. All players start at Level 1, and will eventually make it to Level 4 by – you guessed it – buying and playing games on PlayStation. It is estimated that players will reach Level 4 after purchasing four full-price games from the PlayStation store and earning 128 “rare” PlayStation trophies. And that, as they say, is the rub.
Level 4 contains a “controversial” perk, which reads: “when contacting PlayStation Customer Support, you will be given priority in the chat order”. Some people online are mad about this, claiming that all customer support needs to be the same regardless of rewards tier. This is not an uncommon reward for premium credit card holders, or for VIP members of different loyalty programs for other industries.
As someone who does not own a PlayStation console currently, this kind of reward makes me want to spend money with them. I actually had to contact PlayStation the other day to try and recover my old account – and the chat support was pretty fast on its own. Even faster support because I’ve spent 200-300 dollars and dozens of hours playing your games?! Fuck yes I would like to be prioritized! If you’ve ever thought to yourself – “man, I spend so much money here – they really should be treating me better” – then deep down, you do too!
Once again, we’re dealing with a social media platform mainly comprised of people who purchase their video games with allowance money, so this “outrage” is not surprising. I, for one, am pretty excited to see an actually good reward from a gaming loyalty program – and I hope more services follow suit (and REALLY hope Sony does not back down on this).
I cannot tell you a single reward that I’ve earned from Microsoft, Steam, or Nintendo’s loyalty programs that has actually been useful. This is a tangible, exciting perk that actually makes you feel like your time and money was well spent with a particular brand. And hey, that’s the point!
PlayStation Stars launches today in Asia, next week in North and South America, and the week following in New Zealand, Europe, and Australia.
