Sony Proposes Settlement Over 2011's PSN Hack

Weird. I thought this was in the past. They're offering the same games, too.

Yay free stuff.

Not complaining about 6 months of PS plus.

this is why "always online" to play is such a bad idea. Although PSN service was free back then I want to say there were still plenty of games that people still couldn't play offline during the outage. I know some games are online only strictly because that's the nature of the game but I think of a game offers a single player experience it damn well better not be tethered to the publisher's own servers in order to function.

That first-come, first-serve is bull shit.

It's crazy that that was 3 years ago. I remember people swearing they'd never touch a Sony product again after that. It's actually pretty impressive how quickly they were able to turn their "brand" around, considering where they were back then.

It's just a shame I no longer have any Sony systems to redeem anything on!

That's some chump change for such a crazy outage of service and possible data leakage.

true. kinda find it weird this is what they are doing as the people who were angry enough to sue about this probably arent looking for more playstation products.

in saying that if you want to give me 3 months PS plus for something that didn't effect me and i forgot happened sure go for it.

Ah yes, I remember this well.

Most specifically I remember being on holiday in Malta and my having my blood run cold as my bank phoned me to say that they had cancelled my debit card as a precaution. I also remember the tremble in the womans voice as she realised that that she hadn't followed procedure and checked my advised travel plans before cancelling the card, and had therefore left me stranded without a way of getting funds other than the cash I had on me.

Fun times. Fun times.

https://psnsoesettlement.com/AccountLogin/tabid/68/Default.aspx?returnurl=%2f

The link to submit a claim is currently down, but we should be able to submit our claim using this link once Sony officially starts allowing us to submit claims on the first come, first serve basis. Sony could always decide to change the link, but hopefully they don't.

I don't think it's fair that Sony is still getting punished because people decided to hack them. Why aren't we angrier at the hackers who started this.

@awkwardloser: because Sony had so very little security, it shouldn't have happened in the first place

because they aren't a multinational company with money.

I only care if this gets me a free copy of Street Fighter Cross for my Vita... or maybe Gravity Rush.

3 Months of PS+ will be nice to tack onto my account. None of those games interest me so I'd rather take whatever free stuff comes my way on PS3/4 from PS+

As it stands right now, I will take the 3 months of PS+

Yeaaaahhh I guess...

Not really in any way comparable to the amount of personal information that might have walked away. This is weird to me. Court ordered free games...what the fuck?

@rorie: But not bad for doing something 3 years after the fact. I'm surprised they're turning around and reminding everyone of the whole thing. But hey, they're on a good streak.

Dunno, I have a feeling there was some class action lawsuit in the background here forcing their hand. I think I remember a few of those popping up around the time of the hack.

But, yeah, they've seemed to be doing their best to turn public opinion around lately. Their PR and Marketing teams deserve a lot of credit.

That's a good point, a lot of folks were directly affected by that fiasco. You're right.

And totally, their teams are doing a smashing job selling the PlayStation in a ton of ways. Tons of credit.

Now... to look into claiming my sweet, sweet PS3 wallpaper...

PSN got hacked, nobody lost anything but we got a lot of free crap, Xbox Live got hacked, nobody notice but many lost their accounts.

Uh... didn't this already happen? I got Dead Nation for free soon after it happened.

Sony got off easy with this one. I wouldn't be surprised if they have spent 20 million on lawyers for the 3 years since this case was filed.

I took a a quick look through the proposal, some interesting tidbits:

This does not apply to Europe, as the Settlement Class is defined as "persons residing in the United Sates."

There is a cap of $6 million on claims benefits for non-Welcome Back participants, and $4 million for participants. The 'value' of each game is $9, so it looks like Sony is anticipating 'giving' away 666,666 games to non-participants and 444,444 games to participants.

Even if you miss out on the 'capped' portion, you still get a free month of PS+ if you submit a valid claim.

$2.75 mil in attorneys fees for the plaintiff (which is actually not that much, given there were 7 (!) firms working on this for a few years).

So no Canada either, that sucks since we use the exact same PSN as the US.

Thank goodness for not having a console.

The Sony hack was the reason I own a PS3. I'd previously bought a PSPgo, which due to the Hong Kong PSN having no games led me to setup a US PSN account. Gave the handheld to a friend. When the Welcome Back package was offered, I realised I could get two PS3 games, and two PSP games (which I had no other way of redeeming) if I bought a PS3. Seemed like the best time to jump in, got myself a used slim as four free games was a heck of a deal back in the pre-PS+ days.

120 free games later...

"One's out for blood, the other's in it for the strange. Together they are..."

I guess I'll try to get Rain. I own everything else there.

I already got WipeoutHD + Fury and Ratchet and Clank: Quest for Booty out of this. This is an added bonus.

Que? More freebies? I already got Infamous and LBP for free so... what?

Couldn't have said it any better myself.

Though I still think it's weird that the reparations for having an insecure online infrastructure are "hey, wanna get some KOOL GAMEZ (through our insecure online infrastructure)?" What?

Can people still opt out of these freebies and join a class action lawsuit against Sony? Because that seems more viable.

I'll take the 3 month PS+ since I already those games. I really want to finish Remember Me.

@wmoyer83: This is the settlement of a class action...

Still take PSN over Xbox Live, any day.

So if the aggregate claim amounts for people who did/didn't participate in the Welcome Back program total $10 million, I guess that means the lawyers got $5 million? Seems to be how it usually works in class action cases anyway.

@radioactivez0r: I think the extra $5 million is for things like compensation for identity theft losses. Attorney fees usually are not included in an announced settlement amounts.

Were there ever any confirmed reports of stolen credit card data being used?