How Gamesharing/Trading REALLY works

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Hey guys/girls, I've been looking through all the gamesharing/trading topics and it's beginning to drive me completely bonkers. Everyone's wondering why even though they've only shared the same game with 3/4 people, they suddenly don't have any trades left. Well, this is why:

It's not the games you get to share 5 times. It's the account you bought them on. Every account has a limit of 5 PS3's that can download from it, including the owner. So you and 4 other people/PS3's can download AS MUCH AS YOU WANT from your account, but as soon as 5 people/PS3's (including the owner) have downloaded from it THAT'S IT. That doesn't mean that you can't share anymore, you can, but it has to be with the original 5 PS3's (including the owner) that are now attached your account's memory.

Here's an example. I make an account, let's call it 'Superflakes'. I buy Loco Roco and Pixeljunk Monsters. I then share Loco Roco with 'Bob123', 'Gigantoballs', 'Notahomo' and 'magicpengel'. Then I go to share Pixeljunk monsters with 'Megamolly' and it says I have no shares. WTF, right? Well:

There's now 5 people/PS3's attached to your account. Superflakes, Bob123, Gigantoballs, Notahomo and magicpengel. That means that you can trade ANYTHING you want, ANYTIME you want, AS MUCH as you want with those 4 people/PS3's, but no one else.

So what do you do if you want to trade with someone other than that initial group? You make another PSN account (read the important edit 2 below for more information on that).

So there isn't a game share limit, there's an account share limit. That's why I regularly share games (more than 5 times too, we tested it) with 4 of my buddies and have a seperate account for random people that may have stuff I want.

I really hope this helped everyone and stops people from going WTF!? whenever they can't share with someone because their shares are magically gone. Take care CAGers!


------------------------------------- Important Edit - How to trade -------------------------------------

Okay, this is for people who don't know how to trade in the first place. Here's what you do:

1. Find someone trustworthy. You're giving them your account info so I can't stress this enough. I always get the MSN/AIM of someone I'm trading with so that we can trade account info at the exact same time and keep each other up to date on when each person is done.

2. Get rid of any credit card/billing info in your account. Otherwise, the person who signs into it could just use your card to download whatever the heck he/she wants.

3. Change your account's password, then change it back when you're done. You don't want the password to be the same before and after the trade because then the person you traded with could get into your account whenever he/she wants.

4. Make a new User/Profile on your PS3 using the PSN Name of the person you're trading with as the user/profile name. This is to help keep track of who you've traded with, and either way it's mandatory. DO NOT DELETE THIS USER/PROFILE AFTER THE TRADE! If you do, anything you've downloaded from that person will stop working!

5. Swap account info with the person you're trading with (Username & Pass), then take that info, go into the new profile you made and click 'Sign Up' under the 'Playstation Network' tab. From here, choose 'Use an existing account' and input the info they gave you. If he/she hasn't lied to you, it should accept it and you should now be connected to the Playstation Network. If it accepts it but doesn't connect you right away, just click 'Sign In' while at the XMB and everything should work.

6. Now that you're signed into their account, click on Playstation Store (the place you'd go to download demo's and whatnot). At the top right of the store is a button called 'Download List'. This is where everything that person has downloaded is stored. Go in there and just download whatever you want. It doesn't matter if you take anything you guys hadn't originally agreed on since you guys can now share as much as you want with each other anyway (read what I wrote above this edit).

7. Once you've taken everything you wanted and it's all downloading, sign out of the person's account and let him/her know you're done. Even if you sign out of their account the stuff will keep downloading so don't worry about it. I prefer to get in and out as quickly as possible so neither of us thinks the other person's doing anything they shouldn't.

8. That's it! Once everything's downloaded just install it and you've officially got a bunch of new goodies. Remember, DO NOT DELETE THE USER/PROFILE YOU MADE FOR THIS TRADE! I can't stress this enough as all this hard work is flushed down the toilet if you do.

So now that you've traded, this person/PS3 is attached to your account. That means you can trade as much as you want with this person again and again with no repercussions. Read my original post (before this edit) for more information on that. Have fun!


------------------------------- Important Edit 2 - Making a new PSN Account -------------------------------


Alright so some people are wondering how to make a new PSN Account to trade with more people and what exactly happens if you do. Here are the steps to making another one:

1. Make a new User/Profile on your PS3. Call it whatever you want, it doesn't matter, plus you can change it later.

2. Click the 'Sign Up' button under 'Playstation Network' and create a new 'Master Account'. I've never tried making a sub account and the way I see it if it ain't broke don't fix it.

3. Create the account using a different e-mail address than any other accounts you've made. Everything else can be the same, just make sure the e-mail is different (since that's how they send you account information).

4. After the account's been created, you're done!

It'll be a completely fresh PSN Account so the download history will be empty (meaning no one can download anything from it until you've downloaded something with it) and it won't affect anything else, meaning you can switch users/profiles and still do whatever you want on other accounts (which stay exactly the same as they were before).


------------------------------- Important Edit 3 - Frequently Asked Questions -------------------------------


Last but not least are some questions people may have (thanks to everyone who commented and brought these up, they'll help everyone else) and some answers that should help you guys/girls out.

Q: I deleted the User/Profile I made for someone I traded with by mistake, now all the stuff I downloaded from him/her show an error and won't work. What do I do?

A: There's two ways to fix this. First of all re-make the User/Profile with the exact same name as before and get in contact with the person you traded with.

First Method: Go into his/her download list and start the downloads of everything you downloaded before, then after they start and the 'Activating' message disappears, stop the downloads. This re-activates everything and gets them working again. It's quick, and saves bandwidth.

Second Method: Delete all the broken downloads off your drive, then go into his/her download list and re-download everything completely. This takes longer and uses up your internet bandwidth but is definitely useful for people who like to play it safe.