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Sony’s PSN Welcome Back Program Ended Today – Did You Get Your Free Games and PlayStation Plus Access?

July 3, 2011 Entertainment, News 15 Comments

After the breach of Sony’s PlayStation Network in April, Sony announced a welcome back program to reward members for their loyalty. The Welcome Back program included free PS3 or PSP games, 30 days access to PlayStation Plus, and a year of identity protection. The identity protection offer ran through June 18th (or June 26th according to some places) but still seemed to be working this morning.

As of this morning, the Welcome Back program was still operational with a sign to “download your free items by July3″…

…but it seems that it closed up shop around noon, Central time.

Even if you missed out on the Welcome Back program, you’ll still need to update your PS3 and reset your PSN password before you can do anything online.

Did you get the games and PlayStation Plus access while it was available? I picked up Infamous and Dead Nation this morning, apparently just barely making the cut-off. I was hoping to post a reminder to my fellow procrastinators but I wasn’t expecting the noon cut-off. Hope you got to it in time!

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Jason Hamilton

Jason Hamilton is an IT Professional in his full-time job and operates 404 Tech Support LLC in his spare time from Central Illinois. Send us a story suggestion with the Contact Page.

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sherbie

Sony’s decision to end the “Welcome Back” promotion on July 3rd (Asian time) and not posting the time zone element differential is just another way that the company is just not very smart or caring when it comes to providing a real tangible customer service goodwill gesture to its gaming community of users all of whom have had their personal financial identity information hacked because the company failed to expend money to solidly protect its system allowing a hacker breach of information to occur. Now, in a feigned attempt to appear to welcome back loyal customers, the company engages in a three card monty switch at the end and doesn’t even keep its word to end the program through July 3, 2011. There will be no more Sony products purchased for this house. I will participate in the class action lawsuit. There are better ways to treat your customers, Sony. It would have been more productive if you’d allow one free game download from your main store for returning customers with no time limit involved. The cost of any two games offered in the welcome back promotion did not exceed $65. You’re cheap and you will unnecessarily lose customers including me because of it.
Tim

Figures I log in for the first time since the breach and I am unable to download the free offer. I’m not saying that I will never buy another Sony product, but I will definitely think twice before doing so.
Angry at Asian Time zone

Why the heck did they put it as Asian time zone????

I got my games this morning at 4 AM PST and got the 4 games overall and my theme.

I fell asleep on the controller and when I tried to download the PlayStation Plus, it was not there anymore…

I looked around and I found this website. I think it’s stupid that they didn’t put the timezone requirement because it is still July 3rd PACIFIC TIME (sorry Eastern you’re July 4th already lol)

Can i call sony and tell them to give me it since I didn’t get anything? Plain bullsh*t
Ed

I stayed at a friends house, only to return home to log in and take 5 min to get my final claim before the 7-3 ended. I also didn’t get the PS+. Called them and they said no dice.
andrew

This is messed up. I missed out on the customer appreciation program. I thought it was over but apparently the ambiguous deadline was extended without letting us know. Sony has the email address of the members so why couldn’t they send an email. Was there a message on the playstation home screen about it?
- http://www.404techsupport.com/ Jason
  
  I only saw it on the PlayStation blog this morning. Completely caught me by surprise that they extended it. Sad thing is that the people that missed out on it the first time also probably missed the extension because it was under the RADAR.
- JOE
  
  Yeah what a waste of time calling PSN on July 3rd. My Rep agreed with me it should be through July 3rd, and put in a request…we’ll see what happens. They should have emailed everyone the “dead line” was extended after the fact.
EleKtriKnight

I tried downloading the free games multiple times. I always ended up getting the error that it was too busy or would time out. Would have been better if they just gave us credits.
Kevin

My family was out of town for the holiday weekend and I also missed out on the deadline. I was really looking forward to getting those two games – who in their right mind puts an expiration date on gifts??

I called them asking if I could still receive the games/some other means of compensation in it’s place and the guy almost mocked me. “Sorry, why don’t you just be patient for the next promotional.”

Frankly I’m pissed.

I also sent them an email about it, I hope their customer service doesn’t disappoint me twice.
Tom M

Well, Sony, that is just not flipping cool. I was gone for 3 weeks, without anyway of getting online. I find this really appalling. My friend told me about it while I was gone, and then I come back today to find it was no longer available! Does it really cost them anything to give me two games, virtually mind you, when I wouldn’t have bought them anyway? The games they were giving were okay, but I’m not gonna go to the store anytime soon to buy them. Sony better learn to treat their customer better.
Pan

This is downright ridiculous.

PSN promises free games to all those who’s accounts were hacked. They offer free games from a very poor selection of games they felt wouldn’t put too much of a dent in their pockets and expects us to “trust” them once again.

They did not open their catalog
They did not give proper warning
They did not give proper compensation for giving personal information out to the public

I don’t care what anyone says; if PSN really did care for their customers, they wouldn’t have done this so
half-heartedly.

It’s almost as if they didn’t want to give out a compensation based on the fact that the “weclome back”
didn’t last as long as most people would have hoped and to add insult to injury; the games were old and cheap.

Shame on you PSN
Shame on you and your never-learning ways
BM

@Pan: Sony did not HAVE to give anything to the public. They mainly did it to try and retain some of their pset console owners.

It seems like some people are never satisfied. If they were to offer a free copy of COD Black Ops, people would complain because they already have the game.

I personally got the 2 free games but missed out on the PSN+ subscription. I was holding off on redeeming it because the weather was nice out and I knew I would not benefit much from redeeming it in June/July. I would’ve liked redeeming the subscription in October/November when the weather sucks outside, but oh well. At least I have the ability to play games online for free all the time without subscription.

Maintaining the online community (servers, content management, security) costs Sony money and all they get paid for is a portion of the games & add-ons sold through PSN. This whole breach cost Sony a lot of money already, so stop complaining that you didn’t get what you wanted for free.
Aaron

I don’t understand why there was a time limit on this program. For those who either didn’t get around to it or were unable to get online during the welcome back period should have credits on their account to download the games of their choice from the selection Sony listed.
pissed off boy

i was out of town and i couldn’t get my two free games. will they give them to me on the website
jeremy

Man this sucks… My ps3 was in the pawn shop an everyone i told about the welcome back got games but me… There should never be a time limit on gifts… I hate sony for that foreal though