PlayStation is being sued after recent video game shutdowns

Four players are suing PlayStation maker Sony Interactive Entertainment and is seeking class action status under California's Digital Goods Transparency Act AB2426, which goes into effect in 2025. In short, companies are required to tell customers that digital goods like video games and music are licenses, not outright purchases as a physical item. PlayStation includes language purporting to disclose that information, but the lawsuit says that's not enough.

The timing is probably no coincidence. In recent weeks and months, several video games have been shut down, and those who own them can no longer play them once they are completely offline. While many of these games aren't PlayStation native, it's worth highlighting the recent shutdown of online services for Destroying the AllStars. Published by Sony Interactive Entertainment, Destroying the AllStars was a 2021 PS5 exclusive that was pulled from the online server shutdown list in May 2026. All that's left is the single player mode, which is a shell of what the game was, and it's also going away on November 25th. Such shutdowns are not directly named in the lawsuit, but reflect its direction.

PlayStation Store faces new lawsuit

The new lawsuit, filed for alleged violations of a California law requiring digital storefronts to clearly disclose when consumers are buying licenses (not actual games), says that terms like “Buy Now” and “Confirm Purchase” intentionally mislead people (as lawyers wrote in a recent complaint, as first reported by Aftermath). According to the complaint, the four players were unaware that they had purchased licenses to play the games, rather than purchasing them.

In it, the lawyers suggest that when someone logs into the PlayStation Store and presses “Confirm Purchase”, there is nothing required of shoppers to confirm that they have read and understood the information posted – with a note above said button informing the shopper of this. However, the complaint claims it is still small and “a reasonable customer completing a purchase would not necessarily notice this disclosure.”

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It remains to be seen how this lawsuit will move forward, but it's worth noting that it's not limited to California. Players around the world use these stores, are limited to licenses and do not have direct ownership of their games. This came about when Ubisoft quit Crewits online-only racing game, in 2023, which served as the inspiration for this law. This was also the core that started the Stop Killing Games movement, which is promoting an alternative to shutting down games in the United States and Europe.

It's worth noting that this isn't the only lawsuit filed over similar issues (GameStop was sued over similar issues before being voluntarily dismissed), nor is it the only lawsuit filed against PlayStation/Sony this year. In May, a lawsuit was filed against Sony for allegedly raising PS5 prices to deal with the tariffs but not pass them on to consumers who purchased PS5s at the time. Basically, they claim that Sony profited twice: once from the initial sale at the increased price, second from the tariff commission.