The Effects of the PSN Outage on Personal Gaming Habits
With the PlayStation Network being unavailable for eleven days now I’ve decided to post a User Blog about the effects it has had on my gaming habits.
Since I received my PlayStation 3 in January 2008, it has made internet access an integral part of our electronic entertainment. Before the arrival of the PS3, our television was used almost exclusively for watching television programming. Now, around 7:00 PM every evening, I turn on the PS3 and we use our DTV DVR to record any program or movie we are interested in for later viewing.
Having the PS3 on and signed into the PSN has become our social life. I sign into the PSN every evening and Mrs. Frog takes her place at the PC across the room for her Facebook gaming. We are playing games together yet separately. We are playing the games we enjoy with our individual groups of friends as if we have a house full of guests.
We have been internet addicts for well over a decade now. Living in a rural area, we managed to feed our entertainment needs with dial-up internet and Directv service for nearly ten years. With DSL service finally being offered here in early 2007 we were able to make use of a much larger part of the internet. DSL opened access to online gaming for me and social networking for Mrs. Frog.
I tried GameTap and installed Steam to test the online PC gaming waters. Mrs. Frog found Etsy and Facebook. PC gaming online was a little daunting for me to get started with. I played TrackMania and a few other titles through Steam. I tried a few MMOs and could not find anything I cared for. I felt that maybe an Xbox 360 would offer me an easier path to enjoy online gaming.
Therefore, I set about with a plan to buy a new Xbox 360 sometime after Christmas 2007. I had saved up enough cash to pick one up and I was watching the post holiday sales closely. I had a list of “Must Have” games and accessories that I wanted. Surprise! A FedEx truck pulls into my driveway late January 2008 and delivers to me a huge box from an address I have never heard of. I bring the box inside and open up to find a brand new 40GB PS3, Warhawk Bluetooth headset bundle, Resistance: Fall of Man and an extra Six Axis controller. Buried in the packing paper was an invoice stating, “Congratulations! You are the GRAND PRIZE WINNER! Thank you for entering the IGN Warhawk Playstation 3 Sweepstakes!”
I think I said something close to, “Holy Ned, patron saint of the pig humpers! I won something.” This was followed by a search of the entire box for some hidden bill I had to pay. Never having won a contest before I was very excited and set about hooking up my new PS3 and creating my PSN identity.
I downloaded Firmware updates, bought flOw from the PSN store, charged my controllers and headset, downloaded patches for RFoM and Warhawk and set about trying online gaming. Warhawk was a little advanced for me as a new player and it seemed to require having a group of friends to play with to truly enjoy it. Resistance: Fall of Man had an enjoyable campaign and easy to use online options. I met and filled my XMB list with many friends during the months I played RFoM online. Nearly every player I met and became friends with while playing RFoM was a player new to online gaming. This has continued with numerous other games since. But, RFoM was the genesis point of my social online gaming life.
My XMB friends list has become a community of people I invite into my home every night with the touch of a button. I have never met even one of them in person that I know of. Yet, I spend more time talking and interacting with them than anyone I know in my non-gaming daily life. I had one of my XMB friends call my local Sheriff’s Department and have them come to my house and make sure I was okay after Hurricane Ike destroyed our community and I was offline for a few weeks.
Over the last three years, the PlayStation network has become a large part of our lives. It is not about playing games for us. It is a way to enjoy the company of our friends. Mrs. Frog rarely plays PS3 games with the exception of flOw/ flOwer type experiences. However, she likes to listen to games and my chatter as I play at night while she tends to her city/farm on Facebook with other PSN wives. She always asks, “Is that Ned? How is he doing? Tell so and so hello for me! Is that cowboy? I need to yell at him for a minute!”
This all changed on April 20 2011.
Late in the evening on Monday April 18th Mrs. Frog tripped over our puppy Lucy while she was in the bathroom. She fell against the toilet and bruised her ribcage severely enough to keep her bedridden for most of the last eleven days. I turned on the PS3 as normal the following Tuesday and Wednesday and tried to fit in some time to play SOCOM 4 and Portal 2 in between helping Mrs. Frog. I managed to play a few games of SOCOM 4’s co-op mode with Ned, Tomissic and coldphire with many interruptions due to fetching things for Mrs. Frog.
Thursday the 21st I turn on my PC and start my normal morning routine to see chaos breaking out over the PlayStation Network. There is nothing I can do but read the reports and wait patiently for Sony to fix what is wrong and return to PSN to working order. I was hoping for a quick resolution.
Thursday I also began noticing my PC’s video card beginning to fail. I was lucky enough to get a replacement ordered before if failed completely Friday morning. This left us with only the PS3’s browser as our internet access. It was a long weekend waiting for UPS to deliver the new graphics card. The missus was feeling well enough to use the PC and tend to her business but was unable. I was forced to check as many of her online dealings as possible via the PS3.
Thankfully, the new graphics card arrived the following Tuesday and I had the PC up and running in a few minutes. We returned to our routine that evening with Mrs. Frog at the PC and me with the PS3. After about an hour of playing SOCOM 4 Mrs. Frog turns to me and says, “It’s very lonely around here with all of the PlayStation people offline.” Our normal chirpy banter between the two different online communities and ourselves was completely missing. We were playing our games in a weird silence.
This silence has continued through the PSN’s outage. Without the text messaging, voice chat and ability to communicate with our PSN friends while we play it feels very lonely. I still turn on the PS3 at night and try to play for an hour or two. Nevertheless, we both feel like we are just going through the motions to feed our habit. We have spent most evenings since Sony shut off the PSN watching television and wondering aloud about our PSN friends. “What do you think so and so is up to?” “I don’t know. I’m pretty sure Ned is out building snowmen.” “I hope Sony fixes this soon.”
The PSN outage has taken away a lot of the fun we have with gaming. We cannot share our gaming experiences with all of our friends around the world. I am having a lot less fun playing single player campaigns without the ability to send and receive messages from my friends. We have changed from playing games to being part of a community that plays games. It is almost painful to be cut off from a big part of our daily lives. We both miss interacting with our friends through the PlayStation Network and hope for a return of the service.
Mrs. Frog is feeling better with lots of bed rest and some prescription painkillers. Moreover, our routines are returning to normal. Still, without the PSN our house feels like something is missing. It is very quiet at night and it feels like our friends have been taken from us.