Gaming is all about authenticity. So what happens when you lose it? Can you ever get it back? Sony made a high-profile marketing mistake by launching a fake blog, ‘alliwantforxmasisapsp’ that was soon outed by gamers, industry followers and media. Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA) had to quickly rebuild customer loyalty and trust in the PlayStation brand. The challenge was to make PlayStation credible and authentic again.In this delicate environment, the team developed and launched blog.us.playstation.com/, a corporate and gaming community blog,PlayStation.Blog rapidly became a credible hub for the entire PlayStation ecosystem. In 2012 PlayStation.Blog is one of the most active and highly-trafficked company blogs in the world, posting more than 2,500+ unique content items and receiving up to 4m unique visitors each month, and generating 1m+ page views and 20,000 comments every week.SCEA has replicated the program globally. The blog drives significant revenue from its online store, and the community has grown from a team of 1 to nearly 40 worldwide.The big test came in 2011, when SCEA was forced to take down the PlayStation network after a sophisticated hacking attack. The blog became the go-to resource for updates. PlayStation’s authenticity was intact.The program has been widely recognised, winning Mashable's Best Corporate Blog award. What started as a way to re-establish authenticity after a marketing faux pas has grown into the communications foundation of everything that PlayStation does.

The launch of PlayStation.Blog kicked off an ongoing program which included: • Online influencer identification, outreach and engagement;• Online reputation management;• Community management, including moderation, facilitation and support;• Content development;• Media production and distribution;• App development;• Offline events (blogger lounges, meet-ups, influencer events).The team custom-built a measurement methodology to track, measure and weigh the reach and influence of PlayStation.Blog, plus several WordPress plug-ins.In April 2011 SCEA faced a massive test to its authenticity, when it announced a data breach and shut down the online PlayStation network for a period of time. The blog came into its own during the crisis, and became the go-to resource for updates on the network outage. Whether they visited the blog URL or subscribed through a social network or via RSS, it became, in a sense, the PlayStation wire service.

What started as a way of re-establishing trust after a marketing faux pas has grown into the communications foundation of everything that PlayStation does.In 2012 PlayStation.Blog is among the most active company blogs in the world:• 2,500+ unique content items each month;• 1m+ page views and 20,000 comments every week;• 3-4m unique visitors each month;• 21m Facebook fans (7th largest worldwide);• 1.2m Twitter followers (largest in gaming).PlayStation.Blog has been widely recognised, including winning Mashable's Best Corporate Blog award.Sony has replicated the program globally. The blog drives significant revenue from its online store, and the community has grown from a team of 1 to nearly 40 worldwide.And when the blog’s credibility was tested by the network shutdown, it held up: within 2 weeks of the network returning live, traffic returned to 90% of pre-outage levels.

Authenticity isn’t a game.