PlayStation gamers have been treated to years of excellent free games with PS Plus, yet a new change has the gaming giant urging people to cancel their subscriptions to avoid paying out.
Free games every single month and hundreds of titles currently in the subscription library certainly sounds like an excellent deal for anyone who owns a PS5, and that's why PlayStation Plus has proven to be a popular choice for many.
You can treat yourself to some of the year's best titles and plenty of underrated gems alike, but you might not always want to stay subscribed - especially in lieu of recent price hikes.
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That's why PlayStation are urging gamers to cancel their subscriptions in a new statement, as a confusing wording change has led many to pay up when they didn't want to.
Why are gamers urged to cancel PS Plus?
As reported by GAMINGbible, Sony has made a new change to the wording when reviewing your active PlayStation Plus subscription, which has led many to mistakenly renew when they meant to cancel it and save money.
Previously all you needed to do in order to 'cancel' your current subscription was enable the 'Turn Off Auto-Renew' setting, which meant that your PS Plus status would simply expire at the end of your current term and you wouldn't be charged.
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However, now you have to actively select the 'Cancel' button to end your current term, which despite seemingly like a simpler alternative has left many feeling confused.
What has PlayStation said about this new change?
On the official PlayStation Plus subscription support page, Sony offer specific guidance as to how you should cancel your subscription if you don't want it anymore.
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"Once you cancel your subscription, your subscription will be deactivated from the next payment date," the advice reads, before revealing that you now need to actively select the 'Cancel' option in order to end it, as otherwise it will default to renewing at the end of the term.
This is different to what it was before, and any games or app services with a subscription option still have the 'Turn Off Auto-Renew' option leading to even further confusion.
One post on the r/PlayStationPlus subreddit from u/avidmar1978 hammers this point home, writing: "If you don't want to renew PS Plus, you must actually cancel your subscription. There is no 'auto renew' setting for PS Plus. It's 5 posts a day in here... 'Sony charged me even though auto renew is off'. If you don't press the CANCEL button, your sub will renew. It's that simple."
Why has PlayStation made the change?
While it might seem like a simple move that makes it easier and clearer for people looking to end their PS Plus subscription, some have argued that the wording actually works to prevent people from cancelling on a psychological level.
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"I think they purposely did that to scare people into not cancelling in case they lost access to PS Plus," writes one comment in the Reddit thread. "Of course, if you read it properly it tells you the date it will be cancelled. But I still find it annoying that they changed the wording to seem more dramatic than it actually is."
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Most subscriptions won't end as soon as you press the 'cancel' button, giving you until the end of your current term, but you certainly can't blame people for feeling anxious that pressing the button will mean that they potentially lose a $159.99 investment earlier than expected.
If someone was to think that, instead opting to cancel closer to their end date, there's a good chance that they'd forget about it and it'll end up auto-renewing.