So, what games didn't you buy today?
The short answer: Any of these...
What began weeks ago as a frustrating inconvenience, the complete collapse of the PlayStation Network has gone on to become what I can only imagine will be a defining PR disaster in the history of the video games industry. As the days go on, I find more and more facets of this outage rising to full awareness. Between the personal information compromises, the estimated financial loss for anyone involved, and the incalculable loss of public trust, this fiasco almost defies conventional definition.
It's pretty bad. Scratch that. It's really bad.
What makes it even worse is that it's still going on. No one has expected this to go on for as long as it has. Not a single one. Hell, even Sony expected a bit more progress on resolving the outage by now. When I read about the Network shutdown on April 20, I blew it off. With a nice vacation planned for the weekend, I had little to worry about. I remember saying to myself, verbatim, "this'll be fixed by the time I get back."
I almost did a double-take when my phone's RSS reader was filled with PSN articles when I got home Monday night. Not only was the service still down, but there's a pretty good chance my personal information had been taken.
Personal data aside, the thought of a major global server network and digital retail space being down for six days is insane. The expectations of a digital culture has made us notoriously impatient. Six days is an eternity when it comes to the internet. I mean, look at this blog. Anyone reading it before today was pretty sure I had died. A service like PSN being down for more than a weekend is pretty unheard of. I don't remember any of the Xbox Live outages lasting that long, but the backlash against Microsoft was still huge.
Now add the theft of personal data from millions of PSN users, including ambiguity as to the safety of credit card information, and you have a public relations nightmare from which Sony will not soon wake.
That's only after day six.
Today is day 21, and the issues have only compounded. Now, Sony isn't the only one taking a hit. Although some third-party developers have commented directly on the outage, such as Capcom, it would be hard to imagine anyone with content on the platform exit this debacle unscathed. One instance I find disheartening is Bethesda's release of Brink. A Bethesda spokesperson assured Eurogamer it would ship on time in spite of PS3 users being unable to play online. That's a pretty bitter pill for Bethesda to swallow, given the cornerstone of their game is its online component. Games live or die by their releases, and to be forced to choose between pushing back your street date and killing your game's hype and momentum or launching a game that lacks its core functionality based on bad circumstances, the fault of which is not your own, is terrible.
No developer should be put in that position, but many have and many will if this trend continues. As it stands now, there is no definitive end to the PSN outage. Sony is shooting for a return of all functionality by the end of the month, but have yet to set a date for basic services like multiplayer support and PlayStation@Home (which I am sure will make a lot of already-bored people very happy). Sony has promised reimbursement to account-holders in the form of free games and services (such as free identity-theft protection, how thoughtful), but what of those who have lost more than playtime on FreeRealms? I cannot imagine what small developers who rely on PSN as a distribution platform are thinking right now. I don't mean to be melodramatic or alarmist, but I am confident more than one person is going to lose their job as collateral damage from this.
And that, more than anything, is what makes me upset. Yes, there are games I would be buying if PSN were up, but I have a big enough back catalog of games to barely notice. In all honesty, the fear of not earning trophies (regardless of what they say) has caused me to dig out an old treasure trove of unplayed PS1 games, the contents of which I hope to write about soon. Between that and Netflix, I have been rather unaffected by the downtime. What gets to me is the idea that, with the hacking of Sony's network, the people who stand to lose the most aren't Sony at all.
The jury is still out on who actually perpetrated the security breach, but to those responsible, I ask: When the dust settles, what will it all have been for? Greed? God, do I hope it was greed. Greed is easy to justify, and, at the very least, has a purpose. What depresses me most is the idea this attack was meant to send a message to Sony. If the goal was to remind the PlayStation devision it's not God, good job. They're mortal. So is this whole industry, and you have done little more than harm individuals who most likely have more in common with you than with Sony. You know, it goes beyond that. If the punchline in all this is 'don't fuck with hackers,' I am disappointed by your narrow-mindedness. You have proven yourself a petulant anarchist. Even further (assuming you are who we all have begun to believe you are), you have drawn the ire of your cohorts, the only group of individuals likely to have ever garnished you praise. All you will have to show for this is the fleeting satisfaction that you undid something that never really needed undoing, and if that's good enough for you, so be it. Enjoy your chaos if that's all you want.
Because other than my time right now, that's just about all you'll get.
No comments:
Post a Comment