Griefing Is Why You Can’t Change Your PSN Name Yet
Being unable to change your PSN name has been one of the sticking points for PlayStation users. Once you create your account name, you are stuck with it for all eternity. You could create a new account, but those purchases, trophies, and thousands of hours poured into Skyrim or the three level 30 Guardians you have in Destiny would be lost to the darkness. After all, Xbox Live offers one free change and then charges a nominal fee for any future changes so it can not be that difficult, right? Speaking to IGN, SCEA President and CEO Shawn Layden revealed that it is more than technical reasons currently standing in the way of the feature.
In the interview Mr. Layden replied to IGN’s Colin Moriarty, who wrote a previously op-ed begging for the ability to change your PSN name. While Mr. Layden agreed that the desire is to give PlayStation users more control over their profile and presence on the network, there was another reason beyond the technical hurdles such an option might entail.
“At the same time, as you’ll understand, we don’t want to make it so that you can go in, grief a bunch of people in ‘Far Cry,’ change your avatar, change your username, go into ‘CoD’ and grief everybody over there. We want to stop that.”
Anyone who has spent time playing online multiplayer games can attest to the unsavory characters that inhabit the death match, control, and capture the flag maps which we enjoy so much. The Inquisitr has previously reported on games like League of Legends and the bans handed out for the more toxic members of the community.
It can seem that for every helpful player, there are four players that seem hellbent on filling every possible word with vulgar curses, highly inappropriate sexual humor, and just plain bad sportsmanship. Some of them are merely posturing behind the anonymity of an avatar, while others live for the ability to grief other players. The old adage, “it only takes one bad apple to ruin the bunch” seems true as those who are obeying the rules are being penalized for the actions of others in not being able to change your PSN name.
“[We want to do name changing] in a way that’s transparent, but also don’t let people morph themselves, either. And yeah, it’s terrible that you have to make decisions on a service sometimes by optimizing around the bad actor. I hate that we have to do that. So we’re trying to balance that between… the 99 percent of users going to have a good experience, how can we help make that happen without giving one more tool to the bad actor to go in and ruin the experience for others?”
While it is admirable that Sony is making it difficult for the more toxic gamers to change their PSN name, it is not a perfect solution. Gamers that purchase their games at retail will still have the ability to create multiple PSN accounts and play them with the same retail disc.
The fact that it is an issue being investigated by Sony shows they are listening to their consumers, one of the reasons accredited to the PlayStation 4’s lead in the current console generation. Until Sony makes it possible to change your PSN name, all we can do is wait and hope that they will also let PlayStation 3 owners one day sort their gaming list alphabetically.
