Last month, part of the PlayStation community banded together in an effort to show Sony how much the decision to kill physical discs in 2028 affected them. The plan was for a weeklong blackout starting on August 23rd until August 30th, although people were encouraged to keep it going for even longer.
So, did the protest have a noticeable effect on player numbers, and therefore potentially on Sony itself? No. Well, according to the man of many numbers, Matt Piscatella.
Piscatella, who works for analytics firm Circana, replied to a user on Bluesky asking if the blackout had any impact. Piscatella’s reply was brutal and direct: “No. There was no significant change at all in player count or engagement in our tracking.”
There are some general caveats to consider: Circana uses its own mixture of black magic and proprietary tech to determine many of its stats, and also uses a lot of official data shared by the likes of Sony. In other words, it’s not clear exactly how Piscattella is measuring or gathering the specific data he uses to make this claim.
Regardless, Piscattella is dropping some serious cold water. If the numbers are accurate, the blackout didn’t make any noticeable difference, a potentially very stark reminder that just because an issue seems big on the internet doesn’t mean it translates into people actually giving a damn.
That said, I tip my hat to anyone who took part. You did your best and stood the line for something you believed in. Now the question becomes whether you intend to carry on and leave PlayStation, or whether you’ll take the loss and continue playing? I honestly don’t know which you should pick, because everyone has a breaking point.
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