P.T., the free demo released by Konami that led to the reveal of Silent Hills, is being removed from PSN today. PS4 owners that neglected to download the game, as well as non-PS4 owners, will be unable to get the game anymore, following the announcement that the full game has also been cancelled.
In a time such as this, when media is quickly moving to a digitally-only future, the decision to remove P.T. also means that many now have no way to play this unique horror game that was a hot topic during the week of its release. It's a scary situation - one that reinforces the fears associated with digital-only media - but in the case of this particular free demo, not all is lost.
A decent amount of people still have P.T. installed on their systems, and there are tons of Lets Plays showing off the Silent Hills demo. It may be gone from PSN, but its contents aren't completely unavailable.
That said, some gamers have seen the demo's impending rarity as a chance to earn extra money. If there's one thing that always seems to happen after a popular game is removed, it soon pops up on eBay pre-installed on the proper hardware. And that's exactly what's going on today.
Dozens of listings have started to appear on eBay, with people auctioning (or straight up selling) PS4s with P.T. installed on them, and they're going for some outrageous prices. One 'Buy It Now' listing is priced at $1,500, and while it's also labeled as taking "Best Offer," it's not the only one with such a high asking price.
Other sellers are offering more games as part of the deal, or one of the Glacier White PS4 consoles, but this all comes down to P.T. and the anticipated demand to play it. The high demand is not unusual since Silent Hills will, presumably, never come out, and this demo is the only thing left of it. Although, the argument can be made that even P.T. wasn't an accurate representation of what the full game would've been.
As said previously, something like this has happened before, specifically with Flappy Bird. After its own creator took the game down, smartphones with the game already installed began appearing on eBay. The difference being that Flappy Bird eventually came back, while P.T. is unlikely to do so. Of course, Konami's situation is still on-going, so who knows what might happen.
How do you feel about people seeing this as an opportunity to make money? Do you already own P.T., or do you have to find another way to play it now? It still seems to be available on PSN.