Why? If Sony pays them $2 per PSN+ download and PSN+ downloads are 4 million that's still $8 million in the bank from PSN+. Would Rocket League have 400K $20 downloads off PSN if it didn't come to PSN+? Maybe, maybe not. But we can be pretty damned sure it wouldn't be 4 million+.

It's beyond doubt that Sony is paying something for each PSN+ download, the game isn't a free giveaway. It might be that Sony can convince 3rd parties that PSN+ downloads of old games don't need Sony to pay for each download. But a new release game, no way Sony is getting that for free.

Games are not free on PSN+, we're just paying for [renting actually] them by a different model. It's quite possible that the developer could get the full 1st month PSN+ sub if someone subscribes to PSN+ for the first time and the first download is Rocket League. So that might be as much as $5. We have no idea what the agreement is with a new release game going up on PSN+, but it'll sure be a bigger pay out than a year old game going up on PSN+.

I'm shit at playing this game, but I really enjoy the twitch streams of the top players.

Because Sony didn't offer the deal or they didn't accept it? Do you think a PS+ release is automatically on the table for every game?

Oh, there are tons of mediocre games on PS+, but not many (any?) bad ones afaik. So sure, I'll give you that. However the media attention... You're gonna say that's just because of PS+? And not because it's a great game? Once again it comes down to, do you believe it would've done as good as this if hadn't been a great game. I can easily admit it wouldn't have sold/been downloaded as much if it hadn't been on PS+, and I've never argued that it would have. I mean, is it that hard to just admit that it wouldn't have done this great if the game hadn't been great? I'm not even talking about for games to do great in general, cause tons of mediocre games sell tons, I'm just talking about this specific game. And don't answer something like "It wouldn't have had these numbers had it not been free" because I've never claimed otherwise. I've just claimed that the quality was also crucial to acheiving these numbers. Can you agree on that? That quality has been crucial to acheive this numbers, just like being on PS+ has been crucial?

But I never said something bad about the game's quality? This thread is about the 5 million downloads and I'm giving my opinion on how it reached that.

- Online addicting multiplayer (and yes, that makes it a good game)

- new game that launched for free

Those are the reasons it was downloaded over 5 million times. The good worth of mouth and media attention (including twitch and youtube) all came from those two things.

If this game wasn't free, would people have know how good it was? Some would have, but most wouldn't imo.

I just seems you have been largely ignoring the quality aspect for most of the thread.. Anyway, glad we could agree, I'm off now.

I do love how people conveniently liek to say PSN+ games a free when it suits them, and then say PSN+ is not free when it suits them. Perhaps you're not guilty of that hypocrisy, but there are some who are saying this game is free on PSN+ but in other contexts they say games on PSN+ are not free.

Rocket League is not free. To get the privilege of downloading Rocket League with no upfront cost you are required to have paid a PSN+ subscription. The game is a long term rental based on a subscription model.

Before anyone accuses me of the same hypocrisy in reverse, for a long time whenever I write about games downloaded through PSN+ I've always written it as "free". Which I hope most people realise means, not really free. PSN+ is $60 per year. Most months there are 6 games available on PSN+ if you have PS3, PS4 and PSV. If you only have one platform then it's typically 2-4 games available. Assuming you have all 3 platforms that makes about 72 games that are available to you in a year. If you download all of them that's a cost of 83c per game. The vast majority of people won't download all the games (and Sony is relying on that), which means the price per download is higher. It's a very small price, but you are paying something. And you have to keep on paying if you want to be able to play the games you've downloaded. It is pretty safe to assume that what the developer gets paid for a new release on PSN+ is a lot higher than a year or more old game on PSN+.

So let's not keep perpetuating the convenient myth that PSN+ games are free. 

Downloaded it from Steam today. It's an awesome game, so this milestone is well deserved.

Wow, I'm impressed. At first I didn't give the game much credit and thought it was only doing well cause it was free with PS+, but 5m downloads really shows how good of a game it is.

I have often been curious about the payment model used for PS+ and Xbox Games with Gold.

I'd have thought it would be much more likely that Sony/MS would just offer up a flat fee up front (varying depending on the nature of the game, how long its been out, pedigree of the developer etc).

@ Everyone else.

Guys, its pretty self-evident that:

1. The game is pretty good.

2. The excellent sales are in large part due to it being offered through the PS+ scheme.

I really don't see that its necessary to get too far off-track debating which of those points is most relevant, they are not mutually exclusive.

It could be a mix: We'll pay you $2 million up front to put (new release game) on PSN+ / XBLGwG, if it reaches benchmark A we'll give you another million and we'll give you another million for each of benchmarks B, C, D and E. We'll talk some more if it reaches benchmark F and beyond.

I think Rocket league must be getting close to benchmark F. It certainly seems like Psyonix wasn't expecting this level of success, so if there are bonus benchmarks they are probably relatively modest. I just hope Psyonix had enough confidence in the game to put in some highly ambitious benchmarks, and I hope Sony was sufficiently generous or [more likely] sceptical of it reaching the ambitious benchmarks to agree.