Sony and I had a falling out about a year ago when my Playstation account got hacked. They refused to believe that I hadn’t given access to my account to someone else, wouldn’t refund me and wouldn’t block access to it from the person shod stolen funds from my wallet. It was 49p so I just cancelled my account and never turned on my PS3 again.

SOE (Sony Online Entertainment) have still been receiving money from me for a while though because I play (or at least played) Planetside 2. It was supposed to be a stopgap game to play while waiting for Elite to get finished, but I ended up getting a subscription. That subscription had, over time, racked up to the highest level which bought me quite a few rewards. When I logged in yesterday, however, those rewards failed to materialise. On close inspection it seems my subscription was no longer active.

What had happened is that I signed up with a card that expired this month. I got no warning about this from SOE, they just cancelled my subscription because payment failed. I am welcome to resubscribe but, because I’ve let my subscription “lapse” I have to work my way back up to the top tier. This takes 6 months, or money. To say I’m annoyed is an understatement.

It does solve one dilemmas however. I was wondering how I was going to fit much Planetside in, what with Elite getting to be very playable, Defence Grid 2 coming out and various other things going on. The answer now is: I won’t. I’ll keep my account for the odd game since it’s sometimes quite satisfying to log on and shoot someone in the face with a TV guided rocket launcher, but it’ll no longer see the level of play I’ve been putting in previously.

It’s a shame really, but I’m used to seeing the gaming industry chasing after profits and milking their customers for all their worth rather than treating them like people. Thankfully not all game companies are like that.