List of references on Sony websites to players "owning" their digital games
Four California PlayStation buyers — Andrew Garcia, Edward Heycock, Jason Mendoza and John Salinas — filed suit on June 18, 2026 against Sony Interactive Entertainment, LLC in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, Case No. 3:26-cv-06016. Each had spent hundreds of dollars on digital goods over the past few years, and they allege they received only a limited, revocable license rather than ownership, paying more than they otherwise would have. The complaint alleges the PlayStation Store violates California's digital-goods transparency law by advertising digital games with ownership language such as "Buy Now" and "Confirm Purchase."
The alleged problem centers on the checkout flow. When a consumer proceeds to checkout, the store displays a confirmation screen with a "Confirm Purchase" button, and selecting it finalizes the transaction and charges the payment method. Above that button, PlayStation includes a brief disclosure referencing the Software Product License Agreement, stating that the purchase of the digital product amounts to a license subject to that agreement. The complaint says this disclosure appears in comparatively small text relative to other portions of the interface and is not visually highlighted or otherwise designed to draw the consumer's attention — short of the clear and conspicuous disclosure California law requires.
The transaction actually grants a limited, non-exclusive, revocable license governed by Sony's Software Product License Agreement, which the complaint says "expressly provides that the software is 'licensed to you, not sold'" (a point the complaint raises at Paragraph 56). That agreement bars the buyer from renting, sublicensing, copying, reverse engineering or transferring the game, and access can depend on the continued availability of the PlayStation platform. In short: the buyer sees "Buy Now" and is charged full purchase price, but receives no rights of ownership.
On August 21, 2026, Sony moved to compel individual arbitration under the PlayStation Terms of Service and, in the alternative, to dismiss the complaint with prejudice. Under a heading reading "Reasonable Consumers Would Not Be Misled," Sony argued that it is not plausible that reasonable consumers believed they were obtaining ownership of a digital game. The case remains active, with a hearing scheduled for October 1, 2026.