Remembering the Great PSN Outage of 2011
by ted2112, HSM team writer
Where were you on April 20, 2011?
Me and my old black lab, Jack, were renting this big empty house on the beach in southeastern Florida. I was there working a short-term gig and was supposed to be just a month. Although the house was way too big, I considered that I was just borrowing it for a month and I loved its location. It didn’t have a stick of furniture in it, save a sectional couch that doubled as my bed, but I brought my flat screen TV and my PS3 and that was all I felt I needed to get me through.
I had dreams of working, moonlight on the water, and ocean breezes coming through the open windows. What I got instead was a heat wave, windows shut tight, AC cranking 24/7 and the great PSN outage of 2011.
I used my PS3 constantly: it was half entertainment, and half communication device. I used it to stay in touch with family and friends and Home played a big part with that. I was a thousand miles away, but with my PS3 I was right next door, right? I tried logging on that day and got that generic error message we all got, and thought I had a wi-fi problem again. The modem and wireless router were on the other side of the house and I had a problem with my PS3 connecting through all those concrete walls sometimes. I ended up buying a hundred-foot Ethernet cable and running it down the hall. I checked all my connections and tried logging on again, to no avail. I jumped on my laptop and went to the forums and found out there was a small problem and it should be fixed soon.
Well, we all know what happened.
That small problem turned into a major system attack that shut down the PlayStation Network for twenty-four days and had the theft of 77 million people’s personal information and an unknown amount of credit card numbers stolen.
I was one of them. Someone in France charged over $700 worth of clothing on my card. I hope they got something nice; someday I hope to buy that much in clothing at one time, or even go to France. Until then I will just have to pay for other people to do it.
I didn’t end up having to foot the bill in the end, but it did take a while to resolve and it was injury added to the insult of the PSN being down. For me and my situation, the outage was a big deal.
Like the expression goes: “You don’t know what you got till it’s gone.”
It made me realize what a big part of my life Home and the PS3’s online capabilities were to me, and I wasn’t alone. All of us were left in the lurch, wondering what the hell was going on. Sony’s chairman of the board, Kazuo Hirai’s press releases, were vague and overly optimistic. After reading them, I generally felt the PSN would be back on line any second, so I was very surprised after the fact to learn how big the intrusion was, and appalled that Sony both kept it from us and left all that data out there for the taking. I was also amazed that they were able to identify, repair and upgrade the whole mess in less than a month. Sony admitted the mistake and worked hard to make it right, and in the end they came through the ordeal bruised but with their honor intact.
Now, I’m not really interested in pointing fingers; we all know who was behind the attacks and I do wish they were XBox haters instead. I don’t want to get on a soap box here, but attacks like this hurt people like you and I, and don’t change much for the better.
Another thing these things foster in a situation like this is all the crazy rumors that will go around. The trophy issue was one. Many people stopped playing games out of fear they would loose their trophy information. People also got new credit cards numbers in droves after hearing all about the stolen data in the non stop news reports. The news also carried reports of certain rogue on-line communities claiming, and then denying, responsibility. One of the craziest I heard was that Sony simply couldn’t fix the problem and the PS3 was done. It was days of confusing and contradictory stories, but that’s what happens in a news vacuum: if there is no information, make something up.
So: those days I ended up taking walks with my dog. He is an old-timer and the heat got to him, so most days we wouldn’t make it far down the beach. We would just sit and watch the ocean. Sometimes I would think of what was going on in Home. Were the streets deserted? Would I come back and find my Hollywood Hills house trashed? Or the $20 I had on my account spent up on random Play Station Store movies? It made me think about what a double-edged sword technology can be.
In the end we all survived. We didn’t lose anything and actually got a bunch of free stuff out of the deal. What was your experience? For me, the beach that one month turned into two. I taught myself how to body surf with minor injury, read a bunch of good books, and when the PSN finally came back, I think my dog was grateful I wasn’t dragging him outside for walks anymore. He is alive and well and sends his regards.
Where were you during the PSN outage? What did you do, and how did you cope? And most importantly, has anything changed for you with regards to Home and the PSN as a result of the outage?
April 16th, 2012 by ted2112 | 6 comments
ted2112 is a writer and a Bass player that has been both inspired and takes to heart Kurt Vonnegut words...."we are here on planet Earth to fart around, and don't let anyone tell you different."
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Great article!!! Glad you had your dog Jack to keep you company. I remember the outage well. When I first started playing Home, I never had any problems logging on. Shortly after, I couldn’t stay connected to the game. I didn’t know whether to blame my router or something on the PSN’s end. After several calls to Sony and my router company and trying many fixes and settings nothing helped. I went to a local electronics store and told them about my problem and they suggested a long cord that connected the PS3 directly to the router. Well guess what? It worked!! I could now play Home and not disconnect. So the day of the outage when I logged on and got the error message I thought my luck had run out and I’d not be able to play Home again. After several attempts of trying to log on, I went to the Sony forums and learned that it was a site-wide problem and not just on my end. Phew! Little did I know that it would take 24 days to start working again. I followed all the news to stay up to date and was greatful that I never used my credit card to purchase things. I use PSN cards so I don’t go crazy buying things. If I used a credit card, I’d spend way too much!!! LOL!
I missed Home, but since I don’t go on daily I just waited it out. I kept up with friends in other ways. Nothing has changed my feelings about Home. I still won’t give a credit card, that’s for sure and I am greatful for the times I do see my friends on Home and love hanging out with them.
I am laughing about you saying you were worried about your Hollywood Hills House being trashed. I felt the same way about my Tropical Escape space.
I am glad that Sony handled everything well and I am glad the outage didn’t make the PS3 gone for good. As for the people in France, I hope they bought something useful and I am glad you didn’t have to foot the bill!!!
Perverse as this is going to sound, the Great PSN Outage was actually a blessing to HomeStation.
Generally speaking, most internet outlets for Home focus on what the latest breaking news is. But if that’s your focus, then what do you report on when there’s nothing to report? Meanwhile, you’ve got a consumer base that’s absolutely starved for anything to do with Home.
Enter HSM. As a literary journal, many of our articles are evergreens — and since we cover Home from a sociological perspective instead of a pure gaming perspective, the outage provided us with fantastically fertile material to write about. And we, in turn, delivered some unique content that couldn’t be found anywhere else.
This is not to say that I liked the outage; the people responsible for it deserve to be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. But the nature of business is to create opportunities and seize the advantage, and the outage permanently introduced a lot of new readers to HomeStation. It was one of our shining moments as a publication, and this team rose to the challenge in outstanding fashion, as they have done time and again. It was a pleasure to be a part of it.
I spent my time off Home by writing about it in the magazine and also by playing games and watching TV more than I had in a long time. I also read a few books and kept my eye on the virtual clock til the day came that we could get back to our friends. I wasn’t happy about the situation but since it was out of my hands I didn’t feel the need to complain about it, no sense crying over spilled milk, you won’t get it back in the bottle.
Nice read Ted.
I think it was about a week after the system came online again that I first popped into Home. I had never been to Home and I wasn’t effected like somebody who was, so I reaped the rewards of the 100 free items and all the welcome back perks. I may not have a “what did you do during the black out?” story, but allow me to interject this, I am Home so much on a daily basis doing the whole scene, gaming, buying, making and keeping friends, decorating, that honestly, I hate scheduled maintenance offlines. As I write this, we are in a scheduled maintenance time, (in the morning) and I almost felt sad when a dear friend and I said bye last night knowing we probably wouldn’t talk today due to maintenance. I can’t imagine what would happen if it ever went off again. I would probably grow a long hermit beard and long hermit hair, sit with my PS3 on till it returned and I could come out of my dark, dank cave where I raised rats as friends. Yeah, I love it that much, and don’t want to lose it like you guys and gals did. Glad I wasnt there.
Me and several PS3 supporters and owners are involved in a verbal war of words against M$ losers who threw insults and rants and saying that ‘We deserve this punishment bcos Uncharted 2 won GOTY at the SPIKE Game Awards’ and such.
Rants are for idiots but sometimes when the line got crossed you just had no choice but to make a stand for the console you’re supporting, like a fan supporting his favourite football team.
Those responsible should be sentenced to death, especially George Hotz whose legal fees were funded by M$.
Ahhhh…BINX! LOL Lovin’ your Lab! Oh my do I remember the GREAT OUTAGE! It was a, on one hand miserable situation, and on the other hand a real eye-opener. I also learned how much the Home community meant to me! I missed Home and all my friends terribly…but, in the end we got some awesome free rewards as you stated and a greater appreciation for each other and Sony.
Great article Ted you’re a terrific writer…I could just see you sitting in that house…, the looks your dog was giving you during the walks…, AND the looks you got after the walks were finally over! ROFL!