Welcome to Coffee Talk! Let’s start off the day by discussing whatever is on your (nerd chic) mind. Every morning I’ll kick off a discussion and I’m counting on you to participate in it. If you’re not feelin’ my topic, feel free to start a chat with your fellow readers and see where it takes you. Whether you’re talking about videogames, CC Sabathia finally winning a game, the arrival of the white iPhone 4, or lava salts, Coffee Talk is the place to do it.
Sony is still scrambling to get its PlayStation Network service fully operational. Millions of gamers have been inconvenienced by the outage caused by “an external intrusion”. As RPadholic N8R pointed out, customers that pay for enhanced services like PlayStation Plus or subscribe to games like DC Universe Online have been especially put out. What do you think Sony will do to compensate gamers for the down time?
It would be fairly easy to tack on an additional month of PlayStation Plus service or add some extra time to a DCUO subscription, but is that enough? Do you think Sony will try to win back gamers by giving away something really cool? Or will it be something lame like a virtual t-shirt for PlayStation Home? (Though it would be funny to have an avatar wearing a shirt that said, “PSN Was Down for XX Days and All I Got Was This Stupid T-Shirt!!!”)
I’d be interested in seeing everyone get some PlayStation Plus time and a free downloadable game or two. It would be a nice gesture that could also get Sony some new Plus subscribers. Sony makes money, gamers get free stuff — everybody wins!!! (Well, not if you’re still angry about not being able to play Portal 2 with your friends last week.)
Now it’s your turn to speculate! What do you think Sony will do, if anything, to make up for the PSN outage?
They won't do anything. In my past dealings with them, it is their policy to not ever offer compensation or refunds or any kind. I fought with them for several days over this.
I might be more angry about this but I had such a CRAZY weekend and now it time for finals so I haven't even noticed it was down.
Good luck on your finals! I will send smart(guy) vibes your way.
… Kelsey Grammer… …James Franco… …Leonard Susskind… …Halle Berry…
Sorry, that last one popped in my head because I watched "Swordfish" this weekend.
… and by "watched Swordfish", I mean "play and rewind only the 15 seconds where Halle Berry is topless 384 times."
-M
Lol. Best scene ever but then ruined by Monster Ball
having gone through the experience of having 3 PS2's burn out on me, I wouldn't expect their support to be any better.
I think they will charge PSN users $150 for having to fix their severs. They do that whenever one of their PS3's die for no reason at least.
DCUO subscribers should definitely get compensated but PS+ subscribers because don't need to be compensated because you aren't missing out. You can still play the free PS+ games, just not online.
A free download of "Fancy Pants Adventures", maybe?
I don't know what that is, but I just like saying the name because it could also be the title of a porno.
New Coffee Talk idea: "What game titles could also be the names of porno movies?"
-M
Call of Duty
You know, "Call of Doodie" could actually be the replacement title for "2 girls, 1 cup."
-M
NBA Jam – Face Jam
ToeJam & Earl
I can't resist this anymore:
Metal Gear Rising
Just Cause
Banjo Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts
Alone In The Dark
Kinectimals (too soon?)
Wii Play
Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story
Wii Fit
Wii Watersports (duh)
The Italian Job
My Little Pony: Pinkie Pie's Party Parade
The Conduit
Twisted Metal Black
Broken Sword
Cooking Mama
I got a million of them.
Also, I know y'all were talking about COD… but Call of Duty: Black Ops…
Who uses HOME?
Seriously I think they should compensate games with paid subs like DCUO or allow you to use the PC client as well as the PS3 client. The plus subscribers? Isn't that just a special store? A free month is easy to do. Besides, they might buy something in that month.
I used to use HOME. It was fun to play the mini games and at one point they were doing some mystery thing. I 'played' it mostly during that time, but when it ended so did my time spent on HOME.
A friend showed me 2nd life yesterday (or parts of it) and I couldn't help but feel like she was just sitting on PS Home. 2nd life looks DUMB btw. I can't believe it is so big, but I do know why I have never seen it before yesterday now.
Eh, I don't know. If it was their fault I might have less sympathy, but asking them to "pay up" after being hacked to me is kinda like asking you to pay your neighbors after you get burglarized.
If your neighbors had property in your house you'd replace it though :)
Yeah. I'd replace it. But asking for a free this or that, that goes beyond that is what I'm not quite grasping. If it was down for 3 days, you should get 3 free days. If it was actually their fault, I'd be much less sympathetic.
I fully agree
It's a good point, but i don't think the analogy applies because I pay Sony for the subscription. It has a PC counterpart, but A) the games don't play cross platform and B) I run a Mac.
What's their fault is that they decided to jump into the realm of subscription based games. Hell, what I'm asking for wouldn't even really cost them anything.
I think of an analogy that is a true story:
In Pittsburgh (and I'm sure Mrs. Nightshade has told you about this place at the least), ouur local amusement park is called Kennywood. Every year, Kennywood coordinates with all the schools in the area, offers a lowered admission to students of that school for one day, the school takes a day off, and it's called "the Kennywood Picnic"… this is the setup to the story that is my analogy.
When I was in 9th grade. I was on a roller coaster on my schools Kennywood picnic. I had my hands up, but every ad to this park shows people on a roller coaster with their hands up. Anyway, it was coming up the last hill going into the station. As the train slowed, inertia continued to move me forward and I literally shattered my 2 front teeth when my mouth hit the steel front of the car.
I was scared as hell. I was a high school kid in a band and I just lost my 2 front teeth. The friends I was with came with me to the first-aid office. The people there immeadiately immobilized me on a stretcher in case I injured more than my teeth and called the paramedics. So I had my one friend call my mom and let her know what was happening. She was going to meet us at the hospital. My friend then called his mom to let her know what happened and that he intended to ride in the ambulance with me in an effort to be the awesome friend he's always been.
Long and short, I missed the rest of my Kennywood Picnic, and my friend relinquished his because he's cool as hell. Kennywood then paid for all the dental work I needed. But not only that… they gave my friend's whole family a free pass for any day left in the season. They didn't have to do that… but it didn't cost them anything and they made people happy with them.
Another analogy of how it's screwed up if they don't compensate… I delivered pizzas for 2 years. At the point the story takes place, I was the best driver the store had. Pizza guys make cash drops between orders. They gave me $20 in change at the start of the day to break change with. From the day I started , I was told that this is what we are insured for. $20 is all the cash we should ever have on us in case we get robbed.
Well, one night, I had just cashed my paycheck and we were busy (Friday) so I took about 5 orders at the same time to get people their food sooner. On the last run, I got robbed at gunpoint.
They told me to reach in my pocket and give them the money. When I did, I only took a small outer portion of the fold in my pocket and threw that on the ground. This was about $20 in ones. They were satisfied (they didn't count it yet), and told me to leave.
I get back to the shop, tell them what happened, file the police report, all that. The next day they said I could take off… but I was cool to work. After all, I knew from day 1 what I was risking and getting off that easy was a blessing in my eyes (my buddy Shawn that I worked with got handcuffed in his own trunk and driven to be left about 50 miles away). But… I was asking about the $20 I lost. Since I had and paid all the money the store needed, this $20 came straight out of my tips. I wanted it back.
A week goes by, I hear nothing and ask my manager. He agrees that I should be compensated and said he'd call corporate (he was a cool guy). Another week goes by and I ask him about it again. He says that corporate won't reimburse me and the loss is on me. At which point, the manager gives me $20 out of his pocket. However, I still gave him my 2 week notice at that moment. He said "Not only do I not blame you, but I did the same thing an hour ago over this. I can't work for a company that cares so little about their employees". 5 other people quit that day too.
Part of running a business, is making sure the customer gets what they paid for. That's the American marketplace.
I'm not disagreeing with the fact they should reimburse you for what you've actually lost. But expecting them to offer up a free game or a free month when all you lost was a couple of days is where you lose me. Taking the analogy from above, that's like asking for $50 to cover the $20 you lost. If they offer it up, then good on them. But it shouldn't be the expectation.
(FYI, I'd have quit too. That's some serious bullshit right there)
I'm not asking for more than what I lost. There's a comment I posted earlier below this comment that exemplifies that.
And it was BS. If it would have happened today, I'd be in touch with the labor board. However, I didn't know then what I know now.
Dude, that sucks about the $20. Was it Domino's? That totally sounds like it would be Domino's. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that they treat their employees that way.
-M
No.
It was a chain local to Pittsburgh called Pizza Outlet that changed it's name to Vocelli's.
Also, Sony is at fault for not being as secure as it apparently needed to be. They slacked in that department… why should I have to pay for that?
In the neighbor analogy your prepaid time (the property) is what needs to be replaced.
I got that, but the property would be more like something the neighbor sold me and keep at their house because it simply cannot be moved anywhere else.
It's more like me prepaying a babysitter to watch the kids every Tuesday and one Tuesday she doesn't show up… turns out she was in an accident on the way. However, I should not be out of my money because of that.
It feels like going for a Korean massage, paying for the happy ending, and walking out with blue balls.
consideration given, specific performance required. easy as that.
That's what I'm saying.
I think you're making an assumption that they weren't properly prepared for an attack. A good hacker can still get by proper security precautions, just like a good burger will rob your house whether you have ADT and a guard dog or not.
Server technology can be backed up. For company to run servers on the scale they do, redundancy is vital for these kinds of cases or simple hardware failure.
I myself have recommended and setup off site backups for much smaller businesses than PSN. I assume they would need ALOT of back ups… but that's called being secure.
My HDD in my Mac died about a month ago. I replaced the HDD with a new one (no problem). What about my data? Time Machine backs up EVERYTHING on your HDD to an external, including applications (or programs). After a 30 minute span, my computer was exactly how it was a few hours before it went out except I had a brand new HDD that was bigger than the old one. On top of that, I upgraded my OS to Snow Leopard before I imported. I brought in what I needed from Time Machine, and it worked itself in with the new OS.
So basically, because I took proper precautions in the first place, I lost nothing and bounced back from hardware failure at 130%. It's not counting your chickens before they hatch as much as it is building a shelter for your eggs so the god damn wolves don't get them.
Also… I guarantee everyone here that once this is resolved and it was indeed hackers (which Sony sort of eluded to in their official PSN blog), the odds of this ever happening again are slim. They will know what went wrong and how and take the necessary precautions to nip this in the bud upon PSN coming back online.
That's smart business and Sony is a smart company. They just screwed up a little, that's only human.
However… if I don't see the stop sign and hit your car accidentally… I'm still at fault. If I am in possession of something of yours and it turns up missing (no matter how), I still feel responsible for it. If you ask me to carry a piece of your luggage and I accidentally leave it at the hotel lobby instead of loading it into the cab heading to the airport (I haven't forgotten and I still owe you for that Ray), I'm at fault and should compensate any loss suffered.
That's just being fair.
The problem isn't necessarily the supposed lost data. It's the DDoS of authentication servers which are different than game servers. If a client can't handshake with the authentication server then the service or product isn't able to be accessed.
Sucker Punch has announced they're extending the Resistance 3 Beta, with a full announcement coming once PSN is back up. So we'll see if others follow suit and do other things like that. Too me, that would make the most sense.
inFamous 2, not Resistance 3. Not enough sleep this weekend…..
Wait there is an inFAMOUS 2 Beta? I should really pay more attention.
All I'm asking for is for the amount of time I missed being able to play DCU to be tacked on to the end of my subscription.
That's fair, right?
I think that sounds like a fair request. If they are as bad as Slicky made it sound above though I have to say good luck.
In MS's favor, when someone Red Rings… they send you a free month of Gold to compensate for the time you lost.
I think that's more than fair and I'm not even asking for all that.
I never got that in the 3 times I went through it
I surely did, and I was only out of my Xbox for 18 days all in all.
My Nintendo story:
I bought one of the first run Wii's. By the time Super Smash Bros. Brawl came out, it worked fine until I put in that game. It would play all my other games except that one. My son was upset.
I called Nintendo and told them about it. They said the laser needed recalibrated and they would send a box and fix it at no cost to me. When I got the coffin, I wrote them a letter saying thank you and that I was a lifelong customer and my then 5 year old son was on the track to becoming one as well.
When they sent the Wii back, they also sent a limited edition Pokemon watch and keychain for my son… that was above and beyond.
Wow. That is cool. I still haven't fixed my original fat PS3 because I don't like either option they give. New console for $200 or fix the old one and warranty it for 90 days for $200. Granted my PS3 saw more hours than any other piece of electronic equipment I owned and survived 3 out of 4 drops from the strap slipping on my carrying case and slamming to the ground.
When my ps3 broke, only option I got was a replaced one and 90 day warranty for $150, b/c I don't think there was an option to even fix mine. But I talked to them forever, and they worked things out. Extremely nice and polite too.
All four Xbox 360's I sent back always came back with a free one month XBL card attached. I don't know why they didn't do the same for yours.
-M
I'll be surprised if they miss 'Update Tuesday'. But who knows?
I'm really going through some BadCompany2 withdrawal though….
meh good luck on compensation. i've never known and mmo that would just b/c servers are down, either from them or from w/e.
blizzard gave users 48 hours of credit for a prolonged outage a few times. that was during vanilla and 2nd expansion though.
Apparently other people feel the same way about this situation. http://ps3.ign.com/articles/116/1163798p1.html
Thankfully I'm not paying for anything right now, I just can't upload trophies. And I can still browse the internet on it.
Huly is giving Hulu Plus subscribers an additional week of service. Let's see if other companies follow suit.