Join The Community
The PlayStation Play at Home Initiative portioned out 60 million free games to players all over the world, according to Jim Ryan.
The PlayStation CEO discussed the program, handed out free games to PS4 and PS5 owners throughout the lockdowns of 2020 and 2021, in a fireside chat interview at the GI Live: London conference, as shared by GamesIndustry.biz.
A selection of games including Horizon Zero Dawn, Ratchet & Clank PS4, and Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection were offered to players as a neighborly gesture during the pandemic lockdowns. You don't even need an ongoing subscription to keep playing them, making them even more free than the free PS Plus games,
"It struck us as everybody was struggling with the first lockdown, we thought this would be a nice thing to do," Ryan said. "We were able to do it and we were very happy with the reaction. And then we got through Christmas and we started lockdown again, and everybody... it was a bit miserable. We thought it would be a nice thing to reprise. So we did it again, this time spread over a period of a number of months, and now actually 60 million games have been redeemed as part of that activity."
The free offers have since expired as lockdown measures have lifted worldwide, but Ryan said "we might feel we have to do it again" if things start heading back in the other direction. Granted, hoping for a pandemic to worsen just so we can get more free games would be extremely bad, but at least Play At Home was a bright spot in an otherwise difficult stretch of time.
Even if we won't be able to get them for free, we're still looking forward to these upcoming PS5 games.
