It all began on April 20, 2011, a breach of Sony’s servers days earlier lead to PSN and Qriocity
shutting down. Over a dozen days removed from the attack, Sony decided to close down its online games’ servers. Fifteen days later, gamers can finally resume playing their favorite Sony Online Entertainment run MMOGs. Over the weekend, the company slowly reactivated both SOE servers and PlayStation Network access across the globe. That covers DC Universe Online, Free Realms, EverQuest and Star Wars: Clone Wars Adventures, to name a few.
Now the fence-mending, lawsuit-dodging and customer-loyalty program(s) can begin.
Sony’s “Welcome Back” program is offering players with accounts in good standing the following measures of retribution.
All members can sign-up for 12 months of identity theft protection from Debix on Sony’s dime.
Subscriber members:
- 45 days of game time (30 days plus 1 day per day of outage)
- 500 Station Cash
Lifetime members:
- Clone Wars Adventures™ – 7,500 Galactic Credits
- Free Realms® – 20,000 Coin
- DC Universe™ Online – 10 Marks of Distinction
Various titles are offering their own events and perks to welcome back players. This includes free vanity items, double XP, increased rare mob spawns, in-game currency and more. See the chart at the bottom of the “Welcome Back” post for the full breakdown.
Are you heading back or going cold turkey? For that matter, has the breach at Sony caused you to rethink having your information saved, or do you believe others companies are safer?