The release of MLB The Show 17 in March was one of the most anticipated in the franchise’s history. With new game modes like the addition of quick play options, which cut playtime down substantially from playing full games, to the continued evolution of the visual aspects, everyone wanted to play this game. iDigitalTimes gave the game a review score of five out of five and reviews from other outlets were positive as well. However, that doesn’t hide the fact that MLB The Show 17 suffered from server issues on launch day.
Not only were the servers down on day one, but the servers continued to present problems week after week. Naturally, the issues became a strain on the players as Sony’s weekly server maintenance weren’t doing the job. There have been two title updates for the game in the last three weeks and while those patches dealt with many issues inside the game, the hope was that those updates would begin fixing the server problems. While the problems have improved, many are still unhappy with the servers in the game.
This week Sony, knowing that consumer sentiment was down on the company, wrote a heartfelt letter to the users of MLB The Show 17. It featured an apology to the players about the server issues and made it clear that they are not happy with the problems. They did however go into detail about what they have done to fix the problem.
“We’ve been working without pause to address a number of server and gameplay issues to restore the online experience we had hoped to achieve at launch. Some of these changes have been made visible to our community in the form of patches and in-game messages, while other upgrades haven’t been publicized, in the form of back end server updates.”
In addition to the apology from Sony, they announced a way to give back to fans of MLB The Show 17 who have been dealing with these issues.
“Every PSN ID which played The Show 17 between 3/28 at 12:01 am PT and May 11 at 1:00pm PT, will receive 10 Standard Packs and 11,000 Stubs automatically added to their account.”
10 standard card packs and 11,000 stubs is a very substantial make-good for players. For a mode like Diamond Dynasty, that could get your created team up and running quicker than normal. For Sony, they may lose a bit of money from giving away 11,000 stubs and 10 packs of cards, but loyal customers are always worth the investment. Gamers, especially sports fans, have really good memory and it takes just one screw-up to taint your game forever.
Sony is doing the right thing and fans might forget about the server issues in MLB The Show 17...over time of course.
