PlayStation Blackout boycott fails to impact US player engagement

The ‘PlayStation Blackout’ boycott, organized by the preservation group Does It Play, failed to produce a measurable impact on user engagement in the United States. The campaign, which ran during the last week of August, called on PS5 owners to stop playing, making purchases, or renewing subscriptions to protest Sony’s decision to phase out physical disc production by January 2028.

According to Mat Piscatella, executive director at Circana, the company’s Player Engagement Tracker showed ‘no significant change at all in player count or engagement’ during the protest period. While the boycott aimed to highlight concerns regarding digital ownership, game preservation, and the decline of the used game market, the data suggests the movement did not mobilize a large enough portion of the US player base to shift statistical trends.

Analysts noted that the timing of the boycott may have coincided with major industry interest, such as gameplay reveals for Grand Theft Auto VI and betas for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4, which could have offset any intended decline in activity. While the Circana data is specific to the US market and does not account for global engagement, it indicates that Sony’s transition toward a digital-only ecosystem remains largely uninterrupted by this community action.