A strange email popped up in my inbox last week. It was a note about the PSN breach (yes, the one that happened in 2011) and a code for The PlayStation 3 title The Puppeteer.

After almost five years, Sony is now dishing out codes for games. If you claimed games as part of the “Welcome Back” program that was originally offered when the service came back online, you could pick from one game. If you didn’t download any of those, you could get two.

The settlement was finally approved in July 2014. Affected users began to choose their compensation games in January 2015.

It’s taken 13 months since then to iron out the distribution and get game codes to users. So if you see a strange email show up in your inbox, that’s why you’re getting it. The code is legit, but if you’ve upgraded to a current-gen console, it might be a bit too late.

Our Take

The unfortunate nature of interactive entertainment is that digital games sharply decline in value over time. The sad fact of our legal system is that it often takes years for class action settlements to reach affected users. Put them together and you have compensation that means little to users today, even if they found value when it was first offered.