Unfortunately, I myself cannot attest to this since I installed PT (but haven't played it yet). Nonetheless:
P.T. Demo Removed From Library Of PS4 Owners
If you had the P.T. Demo in your library on your PS4 but it wasn’t installed, you’re fresh out of luck: Konami appears to be removing the demo from your library altogether. It was known before that if you didn’t have the demo at all it was going to be removed from the PlayStation Store, but some gamers are finding out that if they didn’t have the demo installed, it was being removed from their library, too.
Crashlanded does a brief piece about the game being removed from PlayStation 4 owners’ libraries if the game isn’t fully installed on the unit.
Crashlanded took a snapshot of their own PS4 unit and showcased a picture of the game’s unavailability from their own library, with a notice saying that the game – even though it’s in their library – cannot be downloaded. Check it out below.
The article also makes a good point about that “all digital future” publishers keep publicly yearning for, writing…
“What it means for digital licenses as a whole with games on the PlayStation Store is more worrying, if publishers can ultimately remove anything you have previously purchased then where is the line truly drawn? I think these kinds of incidents make an all-digital future all the more unlikely.”
This is something that was heavily discussed when Microsoft wanted to introduce their digital-focused Xbox One unit back in 2013 and received a lot of heavy resistance. Incidents like this are reasons why there was such heavy resistance.
No one wants to put the ownership of their digital library in hands of publishers. This is a potential result of that.
There are a few other rare cases where games have been completely removed from digital libraries, such as Order of War, which Valve removed due to gamers being unable to access the title anymore after servers shutdown. It did have a multiplayer and single-player component, but after Square Enix scrubbed the servers clean, making it impossible to play the game, Valve had the title removed from the store and gamers’ libraries.
N4G user johndoe11211 mentioned in the comment section that…
“This is the reality of a digital future. People who keep saying that we still don’t own our physical copies need to wake up and smell the bloody roses. WE OWN OUR PHYSICAL COPIES. If this was on a physical disk there would be NOTHING Konami could do to stop people from playing and sharing this game.
“People who keep championing for a digital future sicken me. They have no vision and understanding of how ruthless and selfish these companies are. They will take away the games you paid hard earned money for in a heartbeat if they figured it would benefit their business. Thank God PT was a demo.I will never support an all digital future. NEVER!!!!!!!”
Gamers have been repeatedly put under pressure from publishers to give up various rights regarding their gaming habits, forcing them to begrudgingly adapt to the new changes or rally up their cries and fight back.
In the case of the P.T. Demo… it was free, so gamers didn’t lose anything from their own expenditure per se. However, this is another mark on the policies of an all digital future that shows that gamers are putting their libraries in the hands of publishers who can yank games away… and there’s nothing gamers can do about it.
PS. I added in the (Or Sony???) because I'm not sure how much control Konami would have over PSN accounts.
