Democracy rules.
If you’re one of the millions of people who use Playstation Plus for a variety of different reasons, including online play, free games, et cetera, then you might be interested to hear that the experimental “Vote to Play” feature is coming back to Playstation Plus. According to a post on Playstation Blog, “By popular demand, Vote to Play is back and the voting begins on February 9th! The candidates include Action Henk!, Assault Android Cactus, and Broforce. The game that secures the most votes will be added to the March monthly games lineup for PlayStation Plus members.”
As a red-blooded, patriotic, voting American, this is the kind of news that gets me pumped. As a slightly disgruntled, hardcore Playstation fanboy who has been weary of occasionally lackluster Playstation Plus line-ups, this makes me even more excited. In September of 2015, Playstation Plus introduced the Vote to Play feature, which was posited to be the new format in which Plus users would get their free games, but it did not return. I personally thought that Vote to Play was a great idea. If you spend mere seconds on any Playstation-focused forum, you will find a bevy of furious users who are fed up with the slew of free games that we receive every month. Sure, it is a wildly entitled, whiny attitude, but most of these people remember the days of full-length AAA games being included in the Plus line-up, and given that that has not happened very often in recent years, they have not been pleased with the alternative: a handful of indie games every month.
I do not think Sony has addressed the origin of the concept or reason behind Vote to Play, but I would bet it might have something to do with the incessant complaining of the Plus users. Give the users the right to vote over what they receive, then Sony is not the bad guy if the “wrong game” wins the vote. Like I said, I think it’s a solid idea, and I love the opportunity to vote for what we receive in the line-up. In theory, the users of Plus could still (and probably will) complain about the choices that we are given to vote on. But, that is the beauty of democracy; you do not have to vote if you do not want to, or if you do not agree with any of the options given.
I have heard quite a deal of positive buzz around both Assault Android Cactus and Broforce, so I can already anticipate it being a tough choice between those two games. I have not heard anything of Action Henk!, but it may prove to be a real contender as well. The same Playstation Blog post gives summaries for each of the games so that you can form nebulous opinions on the choices given. If you want to know more about any of the titles, I would suggest looking up the post on Playstation Blog. Also, if March’s Vote to Play format follows last September’s, the two games who do not win the vote will launch on the Playstation Network with a discounted price tag. The winning game will be free, and available for download alongside a number of other free games.