PSN Gamers Will Finally Get to Change Their Usernames Starting Next Year

[TJ13]

There seems to be some issues that some are not happy about if you change your ID.

 

[ImaRobot]

I'm a bit confused by all this, can anyone elaborate on why you'd lose saves and what not? Haven't had a PS in years, but on Xbox it's pretty much seamless, and have many friends who flip-flop between name changes every so often without a hitch.

 

[TJ13]

If I had to guess.
It's basically a New PSN account with your old PSN ID.
So is it really worth changing your ID in risking losing paid content?

 

[ImaRobot]

If I had to guess.
It's basically a New PSN account with your old PSN ID.
So is it really worth changing your ID in risking losing paid content?

What I'm wondering is why does it happen that way.

 

[TeamCZRRacing]

If I had to guess.
It's basically a New PSN account with your old PSN ID.
So is it really worth changing your ID in risking losing paid content?

It sounds to me more like some games have DLC tied directly to your account's name, and may not recognize the account if the name were changed.

 

[kolio]

What I'm wondering is why does it happen that way.

It sounds to me more like some games have DLC tied directly to your account's name, and may not recognize the account if the name were changed.

I think it is basically what @TeamCZRRacing said. Some online games use your PSN ID as way to verify purchases rather than the system itself, maybe? But what doesn't make sense to me is that back in the PS3 era, you could log onto a friends account, download his DLC to your system, log back into your account and have the DLC for free. Yes, that simple. So why would a name change effect you?

I'm not the most tech savvy when it comes to saving an transferring game save data and such, but does anybody know if this could be caused by games saving your data to their cloud and then when you log into the game it pulls that information rather than something from your HDD?

 

[ImaRobot]

It sounds to me more like some games have DLC tied directly to your account's name, and may not recognize the account if the name were changed.

Coming from Xbox that sounds like an extremely weird way to go about things.

 

[TeamCZRRacing]

Coming from Xbox that sounds like an extremely weird way to go about things.

It does, but I'm betting many game devs who've published on PS4 never really expected this to be a thing, whereas it (at least almost?) always ha been on Xbox.

 

[eran0004]

Coming from Xbox that sounds like an extremely weird way to go about things.

I wouldn’t call it weird. It’s more intuitive to call someone by their name instead of their social security number. And when you’re on a platform where names are permanent you might as well take the intuitive approach.

 

[ImaRobot]

I wouldn’t call it weird. It’s more intuitive to call someone by their name instead of their social security number. And when you’re on a platform where names are permanent you might as well take the intuitive approach.

It is weird to lock it specifically to a gamertag rather than the profile itself, in my opinion. It makes it even moreweird when coming from a console that has no issue whatsoever with this, especially when the person(me) doesn't understand, hence the question posed..

I think that because I've been accustomed to changing my name on the console I own without issue, that it's making it an odd situation in my head as to why it can't be made to work in a similar manner. I'm wondering why it just can't be tied to the email associated to the account rather than just the alias.

 

[eran0004]

It is weird to lock it specifically to a gamertag rather than the profile itself, in my opinion. It makes it even moreweird when coming from a console that has no issue whatsoever with this, especially when the person(me) doesn't understand, hence the question posed..

I think that because I've been accustomed to changing my name on the console I own without issue, that it's making it an odd situation in my head as to why it can't be made to work in a similar manner. I'm wondering why it just can't be tied to the email associated to the account rather than just the alias.

It’s not weird when you’re developing for a platform with permanent names.

Sure, perhaps you should have accounted for the possibility that one day the platform would allow name changes, but that makes it a rigid solution rather than a weird solution.

And obviously it can be made to work with another identifier, otherwise name changes would not be allowed. Most games probably use another identifier and for those this change is not a problem.

Linking your ID to your email is a bad idea because then you can’t change your email address without changing your ID. Same when linking to your profile, since any change to any part of your profile would be an ID change. What you want is a unique and permanent string, kind of like a “social security number” for your account.

 

[ImaRobot]

It’s not weird when you’re developing for a platform with permanent names.

Sure, perhaps you should have accounted for the possibility that one day the platform would allow name changes, but that makes it a rigid solution rather than a weird solution.

True. While a good thing, I was just at odds with the fact of it being released with such potential side affects.

Linking your ID to your email is a bad idea because then you can’t change your email address without changing your ID. Same when linking to your profile, since any change to any part of your profile would be an ID change. What you want is a unique and permanent string, kind of like a “social security number” for your account.

Well that's another reason I thought it was odd, because I can change the email associated to my Xbox account without it affecting my alias or any other thing that is linked to my Xbox Live Account. Hell, I can even transfer my licenses over to a different account if I'd like to.

I'm sure they'll get it stamped out regardless.

 

[TJ13]

Beta 6.10 has started.
I have been chosen to test.
6.10 is "Change PSN ID" software.

 

[SlipZtrEm]

I wouldn’t call it weird. It’s more intuitive to call someone by their name instead of their social security number. And when you’re on a platform where names are permanent you might as well take the intuitive approach.

Intuitive in terms of talking to people, sure.

The issue here is deciding names were permanent in the first place. There's no reason there couldn't have been a (hidden to the user) unique identifying number tied to accounts. Users shouldn't even have to create their unique ID; for a database, it makes more sense to have it assigned by the system.

 

[eran0004]

Intuitive in terms of talking to people, sure.

In terms of programming. If you don’t consider the possibility of name changes in the future there’s nothing telling you that a username should not be used as an identifier. It’s more intuitive to call someone by their name, so it’s a fully understandable programming mistake.

The issue here is deciding names were permanent in the first place.

That’s half the issue. The other half is reversing that decision.

There's no reason there couldn't have been a (hidden to the user) unique identifying number tied to accounts.

There probably is, otherwise all games would be affected by the change rather than just some.