Community Points: Free $20 PSN Card Every Month (Update)

Today, we’ve decided to roll out our latest and permanent Community Interactive Feature for PlayStation University. I understand and appreciate our community thoroughly and I also recognize that without our faithful and loyal readers, we wouldn’t be growing at the rate we currently are. For that, I thank all of you.

However, with your daily visits and interaction with the website, it has helped create advertisement revenue due to the ads you see displayed on the front page as well as our forum (sign up here!). This revenue has been a huge help in aiding the sites increasing server costs (due to growth) as well as making it possible to purchase review copies of games and to give away things on the site.

For those of you who know me from a previous website or have grown to know me here, you probably know that I like giving back to the community as much as possible and whenever I can honestly afford to. I do my best to make things happen and today, it’s good to know that we can finally roll out a Community Points initiative that I’ve wanted to open up from Day 1.

Alright. If you scroll down the page and look below where the “Polls” section is on the sidebar, you’ll notice a new leader board that lists the “Top Users” of the community. The Top Users section has been removed, but everyone is still accumulating points on the website. At the end of every month, I will make the leader board public once more so people can see who the potential winners are . Currently, everyone should be at roughly 0 points. Users will be able to increase the point total by logging into your PlayStation University WordPress Account here (Sign up here if you haven’t) and by leaving a comment on an article (Spam comments will be deleted and you will LOSE points if this happens — please keep it appropriate).

Rules

  1. Users who go back 2+ months to spam old articles for free points will be disqualified from that month’s competition. This will be monitored closely.
  2. Comment discussion between users is acceptable, but keep it completely on-topic and relevant to the news post being commented on.
  3. Personal discussions will be deleted and subject to point deductions.
  4. The Top 8 Users of every month will be thrown into a hat and their names drawn to receive the $20 PSN Card.

At the end of each month, the Top 8 Users of the month will receive an email to the same email account they signed up with, congratulating and thanking them for their active contribution to the website and ONE will also receive a Code redeemable on the PlayStation Network to add $20 into your PSN Account Wallet. In order to redeem this code, you will need to create a North American account. However, this Monthly Prize is open to ALL readers from around the world.

Just to be fair, staff members will not be eligible for these prizes (Authors on the front page), however, moderators and subscribers to the forum will all be eligible as will regular members. As the site continues to grow, the denomination of the PSN card that can be won will increase as well. Hopefully in the coming months, as the site grows, we can change the parameters of the contest to three winners who will be awarded a $50, $20 and $20 PSN Code each month.

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If you guys have any comments or questions, feel free to leave them below. We’d love to hear feedback on what you think of this initiative and if this is something that you think will increase your interactivity within our community. We care about our userbase and take all of your feedback to heart, so always feel free to express yourself in a constructive manner when leaving feedback for the site staff.

Thanks,

The Dean.

UPDATE: Guys, this initiative isn’t for you to abuse. Those found abusing this generosity by doing nothing but spamming all of the articles (even those 2-3 months old) will be disqualified for that month’s competition. This is set out to be fair and should remain such.

I’ve removed a massive amount of comments and have adjusted both Xero’s and Dr. Moogle’s scores. If you guys continue the ridiculousness of it all, you both will be disqualified from this month’s contest. I do not want our community turning into a spamfest. If we can’t do something like this appropriately, we just won’t do it at all.

Readers Comments (50)

  1. this is much better than other method 😀

  2. @Xero

    Just remember — Nothing will be tallied points-wise for you if you’re not logged into your WordPress account for the site while commenting. 😉

    So to take part, make sure to do so!

  3. I would love to take this offer up but that wordpress link tell’s me my username and email (the same I use here) are invalid..

  4. so that first comment i made meant nothing? 🙁

  5. @UMGAWA

    I created your account for you. If anyone else runs into this issue, please leave a comment here with the email you wish to use attached to that comment. That way, I can create an account for you and your details will be emailed to you immediately. I will do my best to see why certain emails are being considered invalid.

    @Xero

    Doesn’t matter, as a new registrant, you got 25 bonus points for signing up 😉 Which is worth more than one comment — so you won out 😉

  6. yay 😀

  7. This is a great incentive for people to join our great, growing community, and a great chance for everyone to feel part of it, one that actually gives back to its members and cares for them.

    Heads up Dean, this is a great idea. However, how will you guys deal with spam members? What if comments, instead of being contributive to the main topic, are just “I agree” or “Looking awesome!” answers? Will they still rise those points?

  8. @thorzilla
    i agree lol

  9. @Thorzilla

    If the comment is on-topic and valid, it’ll remain. “I Agree” and “Looking awesome.” are still valid “opinion” comments, IMO regardless if that becomes the norm for said user.

    If it happens to be 5-6 “I Agrees” within a 5 minute span from the same user — we’ll just delete those comments as they’re obviously spam and users will receive negative points for it.

    But an “I Agree” here or there is definitely acceptable — I’ll do my best to monitor comments on the WordPress Dashboard to keep an eye out for it.

    PS: Lol @ Xeros new found ability to pad.

  10. This is really nice. I could always use the funds for more games 🙂 And it might actually have me posting more lol

  11. @Solidsok

    Glad to have you aboard. I’m always looking for more ways to get the community of readers more involved.

  12. wait so, do you not get points for forum posts?

  13. @Xero

    WordPress is not integrated with the forum, so that would be impossible 😉

    I’m working on a similar feature for the forum as well though — we’re just working on a way to make it an automatic feature like this one and a way so TRF doesn’t win every month for his post-fests, lulz

  14. Thanks Dean, worked a charm! Thanks mate!

  15. @UMGAWA

    Not a problem man. I aim to fix things ASAP.

  16. Awesome idea man.

  17. hmm, as this does sound nice…perhaps you can add in just a plain drawing every month for not just the top people (as i doubt i will ever be 🙁 )

    but im a bit confused…do you get points for EVERY post you make on an article? or is it once per article?

  18. @ Dr. Moogle

    every post 😀

  19. As long as it contribues something I would guess. Short comments such as “good read”, “nice” etc. I would kinda consider as spam.

  20. Damn, I’m not elligible. OK….I’m quitting being a PSUni editor and setting up stock as an every day user >_<

  21. Does it matter if your name on this board is different from the forum?

    PS. I’ll read a response, but I won’t respond because I don’t want to spam 😉

  22. Something would be nice when you will obviously have more commentators on the articles would be a quote or reply system such as Youtube or so. 🙂

  23. Wow, this is an awesome feature that will attract a lot of people. I’m going to tell some of my buds about this to make this community grow (hopefully they won’t be 360 fanboys). Great job Dean!

  24. Seems like a good idea. Funny how this already has 30 responses but other articles I’ve seen and professor videos don’t always get that many. Oh well, people love free stuff.

  25. Kinda lame it goes to the person with most points. It should be put the top 5 point getters in a hat and draw the winner. Nonetheless, I’ll try next month. Xero or Moogle have this one XD

  26. I Agree. . . . . .

    Just kidding. Nice iniciative and a reallly interesting reward program; I would like to see something like what Kotaku does:

    “Talk Among Yourselves”. Basically you guys give 2 or 3 subjects on the videogame industry and then we start to comment. It obviously needs a fine set of rules (Like just ONCE a week, lol) but I feel it would be great for the community.

    BTW, “I’m new here” (Been reading the site for a while but just registered) so, hello everyone.

  27. i want more reviews

  28. Been following you since the Gamezine days and never really commented on your articles (sorry :p) but I always enjoyed the read and up to date news. I don’t expect to win anything here at all honestly since I’m sure I’ll be far from the most active but I thought I’d create an account anyway because I’m really enjoying this website so far 🙂

    Great idea to try and generate more traffic/discussion and hopefully it all works out for you guys!

  29. Thanks Vof =D This is me BTW, The Dean is an imposter =)

  30. when does this end

  31. This is actually really cool. Of course it is, it is free PlayStation money. 🙂

  32. cool love these type of events :), so pretty much u just send it to our email if we win right?

  33. does this end by the end of february

  34. @arc, that is what it says. “At the end of each month, the Top User of the month will receive an email to the same email account they signed up with, congratulating and thanking them for their active contribution to the website and will also receive a Code redeemable on the PlayStation Network to add $20 into your PSN Account Wallet.”

    Quoted right from the article.

  35. @Dean:

    Oh that sounds pretty fair then. This should amp community participation x10

  36. quick question? does this apply to canada and us (cause they have different gift cards from what i heard) or does it only apply to the us?

  37. @minal:

    The post itself states that it’s open to any country, but the card is only valid in the US.
    Take your time reading those posts, not raising your point count : ]

  38. Well that’s cool, props to the site and people who put it together.

  39. If I win this, I’ll download FF7 and right a review of it! 😀 PSU is the best sight ever!

  40. Thanks. So we’re gonna get this giveaway at every end of the month right?

  41. @ thorzilla thanks chap, did not see that when i was reading it 🙂 anyways really great idea dean and i cant wait to see if i can get one, i have several things ive been eying in the psn store for a while 🙂

  42. i cant wiat for the next update

  43. Awesome, can’t wait for this.

  44. Honestly, you should have kept this a secret to see who really posts and is really active on this site. Now that this is announced, we already have like 3 people spamming articles and just isn’t fair.

  45. Agreed with SonyJunkie, this card should be a gift given by the very own administrative board to outstanding members, not the top spammers.

  46. So this doesn’t include forum posts, does it? Also, we can go a week back in news articles to comment, right? Or anything from now on goes?

  47. TRF, people like you, It is not a contest to see who posts the most. It is meant to be who is active and productive members. You should only post when you want to post like it has been since the beginning, not just to raise your number.

    And thanks Thor

  48. Wow, that is awesome man, this is a great site and I hope everything goes great for you ^^

  49. I could get used to this

  50. i still think we should go for like a monthly or seasonal drawing or something

    for the less active people (but still decently active). Like you have to log in and post something useful like 3 times a week….and those people who indeed do do that all have the same chance in winning a drawing or something

Comments are closed.