38 thoughts on “Lawyers to get $2.75M for SOE/PSN/Qriocity Class Action Suit for 2011 Security Breach — We’ll Get 450SC

    1. The FAQ is pretty clear, but here’s my impression…

      If your account was active any time prior to May 15, 2011 AND you have played since that date, your account is classified as “active” for the lawsuit and you are entitled to 450SC.

      If your account was active any time between January 1 and May 14, 2011 but then you NEVER logged in after the breach, then you are entitled to a cash translation of however much StationCash you had in the now-dormant account, as long as it was least 200SC ($2). In other words, if you had 10,000SC in your account and never logged in after May 14, 2011, I believe you will get a cheque for $100. To get this payment, you must agree to have your account closed.

      So basically this lawsuit mostly benefits those who walked away from their accounts after the breach.

    1. I imagine that Sony’s legal department has had an idea more-or-less what this would cost for quite some time, maybe as long as a year or so. Any interesting news from Sony from about a year ago? Why, yes, yes there was. They chose to save some money by sunsetting four of their less popular, less profitable games, even though they had recently been spending money on them. It was something that was a surprise at the time. I recall Smed being rather defensive and sounding a bit bitter about it.

      We’ll never know if there is a direct connection. But the timing is interesting. That lawyer-money had to come from somewhere, after all. Perhaps it impacted more than they are saying out loud.

  1. I also want to add that this is only for USA, so us europeans need not to bother.

    Here’s from their “FAQ”

    5. How do I know if I am part of the settlement?

    ANSWER:
    The Court decided that the Settlement Class includes anyone residing in the United States (including its territories) who had a PSN account or sub-account, a Qriocity account, or an SOE account at any time before May 15, 2011.

  2. Seriously people. Do NOT pursue this. SOE made good after the breech, and anyone who was involved in the game should remember the Station Cash giveaways, the “make good” bundle given to all players, the “making all zones hot zones events” and whatnot.

    SOE made good on this. This is just lawyers being greedy. Don’t play their games.

  3. I read this and immediately went to the scene in The Jerk where Steve Martin was writing all the checks for $1.97 to the people who won a class action suit against him. (And yes, I am sure I got the amount wrong. *smile* But it was something similarly low.)

    But seriously, didn’t hurt me in any way. I looked at the online claim form just to see how complicated the procedure is and discovered it was really simple to do so I went ahead and made a claim.

  4. If that many lawyers take on sony and then split 3mil, I’m not sure if they would call it a win. If nobody’s happy then it’s probably a fair resolution. However, I’m a little confused how they can count their made-up currency as money. I’ll take it and be happy, but only because I agree with Mogrim – They made good, as far as I know. But if anyone suffered provable monetary damage, they should be paid in, you know, money.

    1. I can’t edit my post, but I see what you’re talking about now. Although I would have liked the SC, I’m not going to work for it by filling out whatever forms I assume are on that claim link. However, I am skeptical about it making a political statement in the “lawyer sharks vs our computer overlords” debate.

  5. This doesn’t apply for me but I hate that you have to write to them to be excluded in the suite. I’m excluded because I am not a resident of the US. But yeah, waste of time and the lawyers make the money off of it.

    1. Seems like I get a new notice of a class action suite every week – and they are all that you have to specifically exclude yourself – I think that is pretty standard for class actions.

      I didn’t get an email on any of the three accounts I had active at the time.

  6. (Rant)

    So. Sony gets attacked, information gets breached, and systems get shut down for about two weeks. And people sue Sony about it?

    Yes, security is crucial, and a breach of security is not a trivial event. I respect that. Anyone whose information was taken has a legitimate claim against Sony as a result.

    For the rest, whose information wasn’t stolen, this might constitute a loss of faith in Sony’s security. People of those opinions should cancel their accounts, and I expect they already have.

    Anyone not belonging to the two categories above, who is still attacking Sony, is acting like a spoiled kid whose toys were taken away. And any lawyer promoting this sort of lawsuit deserves to be treated exactly like the spoiled kid in question. Choose your preferred method of demeaning childhood punishment and insert it here.

    I’ll claim my 450SC because, as Feldon rightly pointed out, the lawyers get theirs whether or not I get mine. And the things I use my SC to buy are not costing Sony anything (spell research). But seriously… Aside from those whose information was indeed stolen and used maliciously- everyone else whining about this is literally whining. And I find it disgusting that our legal system rewards this behavior.

    (End Rant)

  7. Why isnt European Players included in this settlement? We were effected just as much as the USA. I know its only 450SC but it would be nice that our inconvenience was acknowledged too

      1. That is not it. I know of at least three US based class action suites that had class members in Australia that received payments in settlement. It was the way in which this group of lawyers defined the class in their presentation to the court.

        1. Nope, it is much more likely that our local ambulance chasers were completely ignorant of the whole thing. The ‘normal’ way these things happen is that the US law firm(s) contact an Aussie firm to do the leg work for them and drum up business. In this case it did not happen.

          1. I am not crying though I believe SOE did the right thing at the time with the “make good” package, this suite was vexatious and should have been dismissed IMHO.

    1. Because we European players, in fact all players have long ago been compensated by SOE voluntarily. We got 1 free month of All Access, research potions and more. This is just another case of greedy lawyers abosuing the US legal system.

      To be fair, US customers have been hit by this a bit more than we did. Identity theft is almost non existant in the EU, but I’ve heard it can be a real nightmare in the US with creditors coming after you for debts incurred with accounts opened in your name. But as far as I remember SOE even offered to pay for a company offering protection from identity theft fraud.

  8. LMAO wow they got off free and clear on that. split millions of dollars to lawyers and give compensation in “Virtual Funds” sounds like good old fashioned embezzlement scheme to me. Create a fake company, create a class action suit lawyers suck up the money in fee’s company files bankruptcy and then the so called lawyers are the “New capital investors”

  9. To be fair as someone pointed out earlier, Sony basically made good already. Both the amount people are getting and frankly the lawyer fees (~3 Million is not a lot for even one law firm) are small. Take the SC and be done.

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