u/PBOats121

>Jordan: I was told at some point that an inFAMOUS project is in development somewhere at PlayStation. Now you may notice that this is not reported as a story on VGC, because it’s not something I can stand up with two sources. But you know, you hear things on the wind, and I feel like my wind has a pretty good tracker.

A couple days ago, a user on ResetEra did some digging into what might be going on. Since he has a jailbroken PS4, he was able to look behind the scenes and see what was actually happening with the license files. His findings seemed pretty plausible at the time, and DoesItPlay has since co-signed what Andshrew was suggesting is likely tied to Sony’s 14-day refund window is, in fact, what’s happening.

Here's a write-up from Push Square that breaks down what’s happening pretty succinctly:

>According to Andshrew’s research, purchasing a digital game issues a temporary 30 day offline license usage.

>This license transitions to a permanent license when you connect to the PSN 14 days after making your purchase. From that point onwards, your game will be permanently playable offline.

>The idea is that this exceeds Sony’s two week refund window. The manufacturer issues refunds on digital software that’s been purchased but never booted.

>It’s therefore speculated that some people have been downloading games, immediately taking their consoles offline, requesting a refund, and then retaining ownership of the software. This new licensing system, it’s argued, is designed to combat that.

>It certainly explains a lot, like why some people have seen the 30 day expiry timer suddenly disappear.

>But we can’t help but wonder how many people were actually taking advantage of this loophole, and if it’s truly worth all of the hassle to Sony.

>Assuming this is the case, then it should be fairly easy to prove over the coming weeks. But what would be more straightforward is if the manufacturer came out and made a comment.

>So, to summarise: newly purchased digital games have a 30 day offline license attached. If you connect to the PSN at any point after the 14th day of purchase, the license will become permanent and you’ll be able to play your game offline in perpetuity.

So in short: you don’t need to rebuy your games, and there isn’t some monthly “handshake” you have to manually do with a server. As for why Sony hasn’t said anything, I honestly don’t know. I went back to see if there was any kind of press release about the CBOMB situation in 2020, and there wasn’t. They just quietly fixed it.