The PS4 Events Missing From Events

[(PSN)xxav1xl6ivax]

 

This had begun from a discussion in a PS4 “Community.”

Realizing that the Heart Of Deimos Update is almost upon us, and all the more, that it would be not at all inappropriate to call it a “launch,” it is remarkable to find that we (as players) and Digital Extremes (as both “developers” and “publishers,” in addition to more than 300 full-time employees doing just about every other kind of job that goes into making a game, and getting it to work) are looking forward, so soon, to something we really did not have any inkling of being in the future just six months ago.

Among the “Independents,” Digital Extremes has really shown an incredible resilience in the face of the Global Covid 13 Pandemic. Workflows, work, and living, “life-flows” (if you will) around the world have all been irrevocably disrupted. There’s not point in deciding whether or not to change our plans, they have been changed for us. The world has changed. 

Some things that I would have expected to advance from the way things have changed, have actually gone in a counter intuitive direction. With one of the hottest global trends in gaming (before the pandemic), “E-Sports,” being tracked in a monumental rise, and projected to really take off (“and this is just the beginning”), it seems a bit surprising to find the virtual version of sports events knocked down so hard, while live sports gradually adjusts.

The drop in the number of E-Sports “EVENTS” covered by the PlayStation Network (PSN) as “official” “PS Events,” has not gone by without my notice (despite, or perhaps because of my lack of interest in them). 

And something curious occurred to me. Not for the first time either. PSN has still maintained its “Events” feature, for both unofficial and “official” “Events” of various sorts in gaming, or Game Titles (whether it’s a MOBA doing some special promotion with free superhero skins for a week, or an MMORPG adding a new chapter, or dungeon, or story, character class, whatever). But, it would seem that Digital Extremes has had to curtail activity in that ... not terribly significant ... arena.

Looking back on the calendar of past events, there are the new Prime Launches, New Operations, Open (Landscape) Worlds, Annual Festivities, TennoCons, WF Anniversaries, WF on PS4 Anniversaries, but they all stopped. The 7th Anniversary of Warframe was the last, at the end of March. And, naturally, I figured it’s no big deal. There, in the PS4 “Community,” we knew that the Heart Of Deimos is a big deal, and a big event, that’s almost unexpectedly nearly upon us. 

It seemed strange. What was it that made it feel like there was something missing, in the absence of an “official” PS4 EVENT?” What does a PS4 event do for an event that really makes any difference? I mean, the PSN system or some mechanism notifies us about it coming up. We sign up for it (as if we were actually doing anything that we wouldn’t otherwise be doing anyways), we do the routine thing where we visit the Store (for no apparent good reason, usually), and the “official website,” and aside from that, we just get a couple of notifications (like we didn’t already know it was coming) a week or so, and a day or two in advance, and then when it happens, we have automatically already joined .... and ... wait a minute ... 

... when events, big and small, were all running as “official” events, via PSN, there were actually a lot of mechanisms being put into place and activated that synchronized upcoming Prime Access releases, and various forms of delivery of new “content,” etc. Things that would update the information in the separate account management folder files automatically, small processes that would run unnoticed in the background, and activate the sorts of things Steve might refer to as “moving parts.” 

Since the outbreak of the pandemic, there have been numerous, unusual, and often inexplicable breakdowns involving the “moving parts” responsible for delivering new “content,” often to, or through the PS Store. Others which an update alone would just somehow “fix,” without any particular fix having been written for the purpose ... is it possible that there may be some correlation between the withdrawal from “official PlayStation EVENTS” and perhaps at least some of these unusual synchronization or “moving parts” related breakdowns?

I have no idea.

I don’t know how any of these things actually work. 

It’s just an odd notion that instinctually occurred to me.