PlayStation’s Play At Home Initiative Saw Over 60 Million Games Redeemed

Last year’s COVID-19 lockdowns saw more people staying at home and playing video games, and PlayStation‘s Play At Home initiative benefited with up to 60 million games being redeemed and downloaded. First launched last April, the Play At Home initiative served as Sony’s answer to free giveaways from the Epic Game Store, allowing players to download and keep certain high-quality PlayStation exclusives with no strings attached for a limited time.

Having already started strong with titles like Journey and Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection, Play At Home gained much buzz over the past few months by featuring blockbuster titles like Horizon: Zero Dawn and 2016’s Ratchet & Clank, and even managed to raise money for promising indie developers in the process. Although the Play At Home program didn’t offer up any full games during its most recent giveaway in May, there was free DLC content and in-game currency available for multiplayer titles like NBA 2K21 and Brawlhalla.

In a recent interview with GamesIndustry, PlayStation CEO and president Jim Ryan revealed that Sony’s efforts to provide gamers with free content during the difficult COVID-19 pandemic with the Play At Home initiative has led to over 60 million games being redeemed since the program started last April. “It struck us as everybody was struggling with the first lockdown, we thought this would be a nice thing to do. We were able to do it and we were very happy with the reaction,” Ryan noted during the interview, describing how the Play At Home giveaways were performed in two waves during the past two years. “And then we got through Christmas and we started lockdown again, and everybody… it was a bit miserable. We thought it would be a nice thing to reprise.” He closed the subject by musing that Sony might bring back the Play At Home initiative for a third round of giveaways in 2022 if the complications and lockdowns from COVID-19 continue into next year.

Sure enough, the COVID-19 pandemic led to more and more people trying out video games, with even the World Health Organization recommending gaming as a good pastime during last year’s lengthy lockdowns. With players stuck away from brick-and-mortar gaming outlets and short on the money needed to purchase games online, it fell to free offerings from the likes of the Epic Games Store to provide players with interactive entertainment during the long months of 2020 – despite these free giveaways costing Epic a great deal of money to implement.

PlayStation’s Play At Home program certainly helped players during the long and worrying COVID-19 lockdowns, providing them with polished PlayStation exclusives like Horizon: Zero Dawn and Uncharted free of charge. There’s no word yet on whether Sony will give away another round of free content over the next few months, but given the success of past waves, it’s certainly possible.

Source: GamesIndustryBiz

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J. Brodie Shirey
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J. Brodie Shirey is just a simple man trying to make his way in the universe, but aren’t we all? He currently lives in York, Pennsylvania. He is a big comic book, video game, and science fiction fan, and likes writing articles for ScreenRant or scripts for some of his crazy TV show ideas.

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