We had previously reported at the end of last month that Sony had a plan to "make good" on the inconveniences suffered by both PlayStation Network users and Sony Online Entertainment gamers. Yesterday, the company laid out the details on what SOE players can expect, and it looks like you're primarily being compensated through free play time and in-game rewards.
The notice was placed sometime yesterday on the company's website, offering further apologies for the system outage, and detailing what you can expect as a token of the Sony Online Entertainment's gratitude.
"In light of the recent outage of Sony Online Entertainment's game services due to April's cyber-attack, 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," the post read.
First, everyone will receive 30 days of free play time added to the end of their current billing cycle. In addition to the extra month, one day extra subscription time will be added per day the system is down. SOE's servers went offline May 2, before finally announcing that some 24 million users' data had potentially been stolen.
Beyond the free play time, particular SOE games will offer specific in-game items. It's generally the type of things you would expect: free Batman masks in "DC Universe Online," seven daily items in "Free Realms," a model of Boba Fett's ship in "Star Wars: Galaxies." Although, I was immediately amazed to learn that people apparently still play "Star Wars: Galaxies."
The incentives apply, whether you're accessing the games via PlayStation or PC, but there's no exact date as to when SOE's servers will go back online.
"We are currently in the process of an extensive upgrade to our network to further protect your information from future attacks. It will likely be at least a few more days before we restore our services."
While we've certainly heard that rumor before, but SOE's statement mirrors what Sony's Patrick Seybold posted on the PlayStation Blog on May 10. NeoGAF poster Kagari claims to have heard rumors that the internal PlayStation Network is available to some developers. This may be a good sign that online games will go active soon. Keep your fingers crossed.