Sony Online Details Compensation for PSN Outage

[Greg Tito]

Sony Online Details Compensation for PSN Outage

The keepers of EverQuest and DC Universe Online laid out their plans to make good for the network being down.

Lost in all the shuffle over the hacking and subsequent outage of the PlayStation Network is the plight of millions of MMO players who haven't been able to log into their favorite games. Games like EverQuest and its sequel, Star Wars Galaxies, and free to play kid-friendly fare like Free Realms and Clone Wars Adventures might not get a lot of attention anymore in the press but they still have a loyal and substantial fanbase who has been out of luck since Sony's network went down last month. Even I've been vexed that I haven't been able to play a match of DC Universe Online [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/reviews/8684-Magic-the-Gathering-Tactics-Review]. Sony Online Entertainment, the "MMO arm" of the company, is doing its best to compensate customers for the loss of play time by giving away some extra goodies, and assures us that its services will be back online soon.

"We are committed to compensating our loyal player base for the inconvenience caused by the data breach and lost game time while we improve our security measures," SOE said in a statement. "It will likely be at least a few more days before we restore our services."

Until then, players can warm themselves with the knowledge of riches that await them when they are able to log back into SOE games. For any game that has a monthly subscription, SOE said that it will provide 30 days of free service plus one day for each day the service was down. But what about the poor cads who invested in foolproof lifetime subscriptions for a game that exists on someone else's servers? Well, SOE is giving them boatloads of cash (20,000 coins for Free Realms, 7,500 Galactic Credits for Clone Wars Adventures and 10 Marks of Distinction for DC Universe Online.) All Station Pass subscribers will also get 500 free Station Cash.

Players affected by each game in SOE's library will receive special ingame bonuses and giveaways as follows:




DC Universe Online: Batman and Two-Face Inspired Masks and 30 Marks of Distinction
Free Realms: Free daily items (7 to collect)
Clone Wars Adventures: Count Dooku v2 Outfit
EverQuest: A series of events, including Double XP, Double Rare Mob Spawns and Double Faction Gains
EverQuest II and EverQuest II Extended: A series of events, including Double XP, Double Guild XP, Loot Bonanza, and City Festivals
Vanguard: Saga of Heroes: A series of Double XP events
Star Wars Galaxies: Bounty Hunter Statue, a miniature model of Boba Fett's ship, the Slave I
Magic: The Gathering - Tactics: Four of each of these spells: "Ivory Mask", "Duress" and "Angelheart Vial", plus 500 Station Cash
PoxNora: Limited edition Carrionling, Welcome Back 5K Gold Award Tournaments and two Draft Tournaments, plus 500 Station Cash

In addition, SOE is offering United States subscribers access to free identity theft protection services to help deal with possible leakage of personal information, and is working on providing such services for international customers as well.

I laud Sony Online Entertainment for pledging to give away so much currency and items in all of their games as a way to compensate for lost time, but I am a bit concerned about the long term consequences. With game economies as fragile as they are, I'm not sure that a huge infusion of free currency for every player will be a good thing for the games. Is SOE worried at all about inflation?

Of course, after the game cancellations [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/108895-UPDATE-SOE-Closing-Studios-Cutting-205-Staff], the employees left at SOE are probably more worried about customers coming back to their games at all. Who cares about a little inflation?

Source: SOE [http://www.soe.com/securityupdate/recentupdates.vm]

Permalink

 

[de5gravity]

In addition, SOE is offering United States subscribers access to free identity theft protection services to help deal with possible leakage of personal information, and is working on providing such services for international customers as well.

Did they ever specify what that service is really about? And why just the US, from my understanding credit card information from all over the world got stolen.

 

[Zipa]

In addition, SOE is offering United States subscribers access to free identity theft protection services to help deal with possible leakage of personal information, and is working on providing such services for international customers as well.

Did they ever specify what that service is really about? And why just the US, from my understanding credit card information from all over the world got stolen.

SOE stated originally that it was Non US data that got stolen, so offering this is one hell of a slap in the face to their Euro and non US customers.

 

[omicron1]

Ok... I'm still waiting to hear what PSP games I get to choose from, though. Until I hear what $20-or-more-valued compensation I'm getting for my "time off," news like this is basically just crackers.

 

[Fatal-X]

Somebody knows how to contact SOE via e-mail? Can't find any adress on their site.

 

[Weaver]

Okay then... what to PSN users get?

 

[Adio Royster]

That's great, Sony, but since I don't play any MMO games (nor have I in the last decade), how about you just tell me when the PSN is going to be working again. Sony has become that hot high school girl who also turns out to be the biggest tease on the planet...

 

[Swifteye]

Okay then... what to PSN users get?

They already told us what we would get. 30 days free psn plus with some free games to download. Are you asking what those games are?

 

[Weaver]

Okay then... what to PSN users get?

They already told us what we would get. 30 days free psn plus with some free games to download. Are you asking what those games are?

I didn't see that article.

 

[Swifteye]

Okay then... what to PSN users get?

They already told us what we would get. 30 days free psn plus with some free games to download. Are you asking what those games are?

I didn't see that article.

really? they mentioned it in a bunch of articles. Ya know if you ever got a question about what's been going on with the play station network you can always visit there website where these guys usually get there information from. here's a link for your convenience http://blog.us.playstation.com/

 

[JamesCG]

Okay then... what to PSN users get?

They already told us what we would get. 30 days free psn plus with some free games to download. Are you asking what those games are?

Wait, we get the free games? That includes NA, too, right? XD I was confused, I thought it was just Europe. ._.

 

[GeorgW]

That's great, a lot more than for PSN, but I hope to hear more about that. Though the inflation part might be intentional, it would benefit them.

 

[Swifteye]

Okay then... what to PSN users get?

They already told us what we would get. 30 days free psn plus with some free games to download. Are you asking what those games are?

Wait, we get the free games? That includes NA, too, right? XD I was confused, I thought it was just Europe. ._.

Hmm. Well I'm in north America and I expect free games not sure about Europe though they do too I think. I'm sure they will detail that sometime later on probably.

 

[weirdee]

Yall don't have to worry none about inflation, because it's less than what went unearned for the time all of those services are offline.

 

[Wado Rhyu]

at this moment you can't reset your password. and because of that you can't play online.

so another day of offline time

 

[Vrach]

In addition, SOE is offering United States subscribers access to free identity theft protection services to help deal with possible leakage of personal information, and is working on providing such services for international customers as well.

Did they ever specify what that service is really about? And why just the US, from my understanding credit card information from all over the world got stolen.

Bolded the part you seemed to have tunnel-visioned past. The service has been explained in a previous article (look through a few addressing the whole PSN issue, you'll find it), basically it's an anti-identity theft service. Someone tries to steal your identity, you have someone keeping an eye on that for you, they can prevent that or reverse/remedy the consequences.

As to why, the answer is beyond obvious, because US has the same set of laws and firms operating within it, whereas the the rest of the world is pretty divided. Since a large percentage of their customers is in the US, it's obviously the best place to start cause you kill all that percentage (not gonna name numbers cause I honestly have no idea, but it's not a point of contention that US is a large piece of the market) with a single blow without a care in the world for breaking some country-specific law or having to hire more than one firm to take care of it. It's good enough they're working on the rest considering how much work it'll be for them, US is simply the absolute best place to start.

I laud Sony Online Entertainment for pledging to give away so much currency and items in all of their games as a way to compensate for lost time, but I am a bit concerned about the long term consequences. With game economies as fragile as they are, I'm not sure that a huge infusion of free currency for every player will be a good thing for the games. Is SOE worried at all about inflation?

Of course, after the game cancellations [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/108895-UPDATE-SOE-Closing-Studios-Cutting-205-Staff], the employees left at SOE are probably more worried about customers coming back to their games at all. Who cares about a little inflation?

You answer yourself for the most part with the second paragraph, the incentive is very much needed - SOE games are not that popular (in relative terms, if this thing happened to WoW, they could easily get away by saying "sorry, but fuck you, it wasn't our fault" and lose next to no customers).

Furthermore, there's the fact they're not giving currency for the most part (or at all, from what I see?), but items, big difference, no inflation there whatsoever (can simply mark those items as non-vendorable or ridiculously cheap to vendor and I doubt most players would try and vendor them off anyway).

 

[FarleShadow]

I love the bit about ingame economy inflation.

I think sony have abit more to worry about then alittle problem with game economics when they've got a legal problem the size of a small island.

 

[Jack Macaque]

Sweet lol this is getting better and better.