Sony announces PlayStation Stars, a loyalty program for PlayStation players

destructoid.com:

Brand loyalty is getting more rewarding. Sony has revealed it’s launching a new loyalty program called PlayStation Stars, rewarding players for playing games and completing various activities.

In a new PlayStation blog, Sony VP of network advertising, loyalty, and licensed merchandise Grace Chen describes what’s in store for the program. While it doesn’t have an exact launch date just yet, the plan is for PlayStation Stars to reward players for doing things in their games.

One example is completing a campaign by winning a tournament. Another might require earning a specific trophy, or being the first person to Platinum a game in your time zone. Others might just be check-in campaigns, only asking you to play the game.

PlayStation Stars members can earn loyalty points, which can be redeemed for prizes like PSN wallet funds and PlayStation products. PS Plus members enrolled in Stars also automatically earn points.

Also part of the PlayStation Stars loyalty program is another type of reward: digital collectibles. These collectibles will be “digital representations of things that PlayStation fans enjoy,” including figurines of characters and “cherished devices” from Sony’s history. Collectibles will have different rarities to earn, and Sony says there will “always be a new collectible to earn.”

Now, if digital collectibles made you tug at your collar a bit, Sony has clarified: these aren’t non-fungible tokens, or NFTs.

“It’s definitely not NFTs. Definitely not,” Chen told the Washington Post in an interview. “You can’t trade them or sell them. It is not leveraging any blockchain technologies and definitely not NFTs.”

So, we narrowly avoided that. Sounds like the collectibles are neat little cosmetics for bragging rights.