PlayStation announced the launch of its new loyalty program, PlayStation Stars, which includes a chance to collect ‘digital rewards’ that are definitely not NFTs.
There are a lot of great reasons to be a PlayStation fan right now. From future releases like FFVII Rebirth being a PS5 exclusive to the new PS Plus Games Catalog. There’s a lot going on. And now PlayStation has announced PlayStation Stars, a new free-to-join loyalty program that will be launching later in the year.
Once you’re a member of PlayStation Stars, you can earn rewards by completing various campaigns and activities. There will be ‘monthly check-ins’ where a campaign will ask you to play a game to receive a reward. While others may require you to partake in tournaments or earn specific trophies.
“Or even be the first player to platinum a blockbuster title in your local time zone”, PlayStation explains on their blog.
As a PlayStation Stars member, you can also earn loyalty points which can be redeemed in a catalog. That could include PSN wallet funds and even PlayStation Store products. By being enrolled, each time you make a purchase on the PlayStation Store you’ll automatically earn points too.
It sounds like it’s PlayStation’s version of Nintendo’s Mission and Reward System for the Nintendo Switch.
Via Nintendo Switch Online, users can complete tasks like playing a specific game on the NES, SNES or N64 libraries. Completing a task gains you Platinum Points which you can spend to create your own user profile avatars, using images of characters from Nintendo properties.
You can also even exchange the points for physical rewards on the Nintendo UK Store.
Claiming physical games on your Nintendo Switch, and making purchases on the eShop earns you Gold Points. These can be used to get discounts on future eShop purchases, each 1 gold point = 1 penny.
Unlike Nintendo, PlayStation Stars is introducing “digital collectables.” These collectables will take the form of digital figurines based on iconic PlayStation characters and devices.
NO NFTS TO SEE HERE
After the announcement, I was alarmed by the wording of “digital collectables”.
In the past few years, a lot of game studios have been making waves to start implementing NFTs into their games despite swarms of backlash. And I thought this was just another one to add to the long list of companies to be disappointed in.
However, in an interview with The Washington Post, Grace Chen, vice president of network advertising, loyalty and licensed merchandise at PlayStation put many minds at ease.
“It’s definitely not NFTs. Definitely not. You can’t trade them or sell them. It is not leveraging any blockchain technologies and definitely not NFTs”, she states as PlayStation fans everywhere collectively sigh with relief.
Although they described the digital collectables as “figurines of beloved iconic characters”, part of me hopes they take more inspiration from Nintendo and allow how to create our own avatars. Instead of just being able to just show off whatever digital figure you’ve earned, making it so that they exist as avatars based on PlayStation characters would be a neat feature.
With the new PlayStation Plus games catalog and now PlayStation Stars, it feels like an incredibly exciting time to own a PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5. And I can’t wait to see what PlayStation does with its new loyalty program when it eventually launches.
Especially if it definitely doesn’t include NFTs.
Featured Image Credit: PlayStation Source: PlayStation Blog