Sony is already retiring this PS5 launch feature

techradar.com:

Sony will discontinue the PS5’s Accolades feature later this year, as the system received less usage than the tech giant expected.

The PS5 community awards feature lets players commend fellow gamers for helpful and generous actions. But Sony says Accolades hasn’t received the engagement it had hoped for.

“In fall of 2022 [that’s spring in the Southern Hemisphere], the Accolades feature on PlayStation 5 will no longer be supported,” a PlayStation support page(opens in new tab) spotted by Push Square(opens in new tab) reads. “The feature hasn’t seen the level of usage we anticipated, so we are refocusing our efforts. We encourage the community to continue to send positive messages to one another.”

The Accolades feature was originally introduced to let players show their appreciation of one another. After completing an online match, players can pick a fellow gamer to award with one of three accolades: Helpful, Welcoming, or Good Sport. The idea is to recognize generous players while encouraging greater positivity among multiplayer communities.

The system is fairly robust, too. You can only give accolades to players who aren’t on your friends list, and can’t send an accolade to the same player more than once within 12 hours. You can view any awards you’ve earned through your PSN profile.

But while the player-led rewards program will be sunset, a new system is on the horizon. Sony announced its PS Stars loyalty program last month, which will reward players for spending time on the PS5 and PS4. Through Stars, players earn points for playing specific games or earning particular trophies. Those points can then be transferred into digital collectibles and PS Store funds. The new program is expected to launch worldwide later this year.