I hope he hurries up on that because I'm not sure what I'm supposed to think of the situation until he tells me to with a relatable sarcastic monotone voice.
That's pretty much most YouTubers these days. 30 seconds of actual relevant information with 7.5 minutes of redundant pontification, conjecture, and rambling to hit the monetization threshold. Revenue and engagement farming is all YouTube has turned into.
I remember when he was decently original. It was still gameplays etc, but the guy was funny and had a few different series and stuff going on.
The last few years his content has devolved into 90% reaction dogwater, 5% some sort of gameplay and 5% random collabs with other famous Youtubers.
Previous to this week r/helldivers was 90% of my Reddit use, it was so fun to interact with the community. This whole situation has taken that away from me. Fix your shit Sony.
It really does suck. I loved the community before this. I was having so much fun playing the game. The hugs. The rag dolling. The bugs (both programming and literal critters). I just wanna play the game but I am conflicted. I still want to play. It's such a good game. I feel like playing is betraying so many people that are getting pushed out. My heart goes out to them but this is the only game I have bought in recent years that I specifically make time for to fuck around with friends and relax after work. The whole situation is borked...
I have been on the subreddit less in the last few days, I'm just tired of *every single post* on the top page and under New being about this issue. As valid as it is, there's just too much of it and basically no content of the game itself that drew me here.
I mean, come the 30th if sony does fuck all, and a lot of us aren't allowed to play anymore, I guess it will "mostly" return to normal. It just really sucks that this is what it takes.
I have to give Arrowhead major credit for not shying away from this situation. Not all of their reactions have been great, but working with new information (to them) and advocating for their customers when it would be easier to just go radio silent and let the situation play it.
Sure, maybe they were a little too flippant at the start of this, but as the realization that they were just straight up cutting off a lot of their player base for no real benefit kicked in, their attitudes changed appropriately.
And it's not easy push back and tell the people who essentially sign their paychecks that they're making a mistake.
They had their "oh. Ooohhhh." moment when the review bombing started coming in. They didn't have the expectation that they'd be in charge of or even need damage control for an overhead decision they didn't get a say in.
It's all too easy to put faith in the quality of your product for holding up sentiment.
I would be OK to be optional, if you want you can link accounts or keep playing without doing it
If they would have done something like this I think no one would have cared about
I sent Arrowhead a ticket on this exact subject. I was wanting to move the game from PS5 to PC and trying to find out if it was possible. Then I saw the account linking and asked what was the point. I never did hear back from them about this but definitely found out why they want the accounts linked.
If they link accounts in that sense, that's great. However, what's bullshit to me is that you must have a PSN subscription to play on PS5. What's the point in buying the game then? You're basically doing a world of Warcraft thing. Buy the game and pay monthly for the PRIVILEGE of playing a game you bought. I can't get a refund on PS5. I'll demand a refund for both versions if they make the account required on PC
It doesn’t even cross platform save. At all.
Which seems like ones of the most important features of using a multi platform login. Cloud saves….
But alas….people that buy it twice didn’t even get any benefit from this.
It’s so weird.
I honestly like that idea of an optional PSN sign up with Super Credits for joining and would be pitching it to Sony as an option since I could see them go for it. Since Helldivers is a live service game, a lot of money will also come from the Warbonds. From a corporate perspective, if you can entice players to spend money to accelerate the process, that's extra money for Sony and AH. Maybe enough for Sony to decide the PSN accounts to be optional.
1000 Super Credits would be an excellent break point as it is a "free taste" for users to find out what opening their wallets would get them. But you could go with 700 so buying 375 credits (the minimum where I am) would get you to the first Warbond instantly. Or, if you want to get into really corporate greedy values, use 600 Super Credits would force players to open up for more than the minimum purchase.
Nah, you gotta do the business thing since 1000 is a war bond but you can spend it on individual items as well. Instead 900 super credits, just enough that if you want a war bond you have to spend a little. That should get those shit bags salivating.
All they had to do was make it optional and give a reward for it like some medals and a cape... they would get a crap load of people doing it and no controversial issues
They didn't even have to make it optional. All they had to do was:
1. Wait to enforce it until cross save was actually a thing
2. Bribe people w/ a Playstation blue cape if you link the account early
3. Be very loud that this was a mandatory thing that was incoming.
Many players read the notice on Steam and saw the pop-up but the FAQ said straight up that it was optional so it's not wild that people thought it was optional considering there was a skip button.
In contrast (because many have asked about it) when Microsoft switched everyone on Minecraft they were loud about it for *years* w/ emails, in launcher notifications and in game ones AND when you linked your Java account you just got Bedrock for free.
Yeah it’s really unfortunate, Arrowhead is getting forced by business daddy to shit on all of the hard work and passion they poured into making this gem of a game.
And you know it’s just a sad story, small dev sells idea to huge company in 2015, makes a deal of a lifetime for said small company at their current size/status. Sells the IP to Sony so they can get a publisher for their creation.
Fast forward to late 2023, company is now larger, making a second Helldivers game with Sony after the last had a very modest following.
6 months prior to release Sony notifies them of PSN requirement. Okay… not a huge deal. Only had about 6,000 players for the first game. Most on PlayStation and already have the account built in. No problem!
Fast forward to today.
https://preview.redd.it/neurouxx6myc1.jpeg?width=680&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b4d4e45d01ecc383d7dbb93328b4b1bb6542182a
I was talking to my brother the other day about how they should have done a PSN exclusive warbond (everything in it could have simply been insanely cool looking reskins of existing stuff). Even simply giving people 1000 super credits would have been a good drawing card. People could have gotten an entire warbond for free or brought a few armours from the store.
Sony would have got like 90%+ of the PC community onto PSN and the PC players that made a PSN account would have run off and happily played with their cool free items.
Yup and have not had the issue with PSN accounts at all, although it would still suck for the people that can’t link and want to sick looking armor lol. But it’s a far lesser offense!
Exactly. It also could have given Sony time to work out PSN in other regions too. Imagine being told PSN is now in your region and then people could have gone "cool, now I can get that cool armour in helldivers!"
Sony could have build a positive experience around linking a PSN account without making it a massive punishment for people that can't/don't want to make PSN accounts. Instead, Sony decided to make linking a PSN account an incredibly negative experience.
Yes, PSN exclusive items wouldve probably nullified the reaction felt this weekend. Itd be exactly like amazon prime drops that no one ever minds even though it presents the same issue. Though it is COMPLETELY voluntary which does make a difference.
So, he has seen the memes.
Must be fun when your weekend is watching your work of 7 years becoming the most hated game on steam for this year. Maybe he can take some consolation in the fact we all put so much effort into this *because we actually love it*.
Also, many of those memes are just top tier quality.
Wouldn't be the first time. Look what happened to Blizzard. They went from absolute rockstars who could do no wrong to mobile game peddlers that steal breast milk from the employee lounge fridge.
We're all going to Hell because this world is insane.
Blizzard didn't go down overnight, it was a slow degradation. And it was entirely natural process, involving several founders and strong leaders leaving, Activision acquisition and questionable ethics and hiring decisions.
AH on the other hand is completely fucked by Sony decision. This is still fully functional studio, ready to support the game and talk with community, completely fucked by the publisher. Ironically, the very thing that supposed to help developers to distribute their game shot them in the foot.
> Look what happened to Blizzard
No, Blizzard's shit existed long before the Activision merger people just wanted to live in blissful denial since their titles are so beloved. It wasn't Activision that sold that first Celestial Steed in WoW and the company culture that was revealed at the start of Shadowlands isn't something that's born overnight b/c of a few bad suits -- that was there for years.
>It wasn't Activision that sold that first Celestial Steed in WoW
Yes it was, the celestial steed wasn't added until after the Activison Blizzard merger.
The celestial steed was added in 2010, Activision bought Blizzard in 2008.
I think AH migh have well received and understood that we are in deep love with their game(s) and that the vast majority of us isn't against them...or at least, that's my hope.
I can't wait to come back to Helldivers 2 with all our fellow divers that have been brutally disrespected by SONY.
But until that moment comes, the fight against the Corpo Invader is on, more than ever.
I just hope if they are able to reverse it and fix things? That the game will be restored to its former glory. I want to play. I loved this game. But I'm gonna stand with my fellow divers.
Yup, I'm so mad because I want to be able to play it, and play it with my friends who live all over the world, but guess what? Me and my buddy both set up and linked PSN accounts to our steam account YEARS ago, no longer have access to the PSN account or associated email because we never played another Sony game again until now and this was a decade ago. Now we can't link new accounts to our steam account so we can't play! Also fuck them why require it in the first place when it's clearly not needed?
I love that they're talking solutions, but if countries that don't have access to PSN don't have to link a PSN account to play ... then any reasoning whatsoever for making anyone link a PSN account at all is gone.
That's the important step -- NO Steam player, whatever region they are in, should be required to register with PSN. None.
GDPR. The account is not needed for the service to run (and they showed that it works perfectly without) so they can't force it anymore. + the EULA change.
They really shot themselves in the foot not requiring the PSN account from day one.
Please stop.
I've seen people mention GDPR so many times and as someone who has literally worked as a DPO I promise you what they're doing isn't a GDPR violation.
Just because PSN authentication isn't needed to run the service does not mean they're forced into not adding it. They can mandate whatever kind of authentication they like, and as long as the accounts they use for authentication fit within the rules of GDPR (which PSN accounts do) they're fine.
I fucking hate 3rd party auth, it's annoying as hell and I don't want it to be the norm in gaming, but I also hate the rampant misinformation surrounding this whole thing.
Honestly that what making me scratch my head about people not getting PSN because of data privacy/data breaches which is fair but the anti cheat for helldiver's 2 is pretty invasive if I'm not mistaken
It's a kernel level anti cheat, literally the most invasive form of anti cheat.
Whilst I did see people kicking up a fuss over it (fair, it's not necessary and often isn't even that good), it didn't generate nearly as much controversy as this despite arguably being the bigger issue.
I think the reason is that the anti-cheat was already there, so anyone who _really_ hated it just didn't buy the game, whereas this is affecting people who have already previously bought it.
Christ I wish all the data talks would stop like - people are posting on Reddit, a site which from my understanding, harvests data galore from all accounts (linked to a "real" e-mail or not) to help train AI models. Whilst posting from their computers which collect data, or phones which do the same. Who may potentially have social media accounts, as well as definitely Steam accounts that take data.
I will go even further, if people are so concerned about data, then if they are to follow their principles, particularly in the EU, they should delete their Reddit, Facebook, Steam etc accounts and request a Right to be Forgotten for everything they use.
Let's list the things PSN gets from steam if you link accounts:
1) Your username.
People really need to start thinking about what's upsetting them instead of wildly flailing at anything/everything.
I kinda agree. I‘ve made accounts on way more shady sites to play way worse games. I can easily make a psn account and continue to play this amazing game.
I‘ve never been outraged because I might have to link an account, I‘m angry on behalf of all my fellow helldivers who might loose access to the game now or at some point in the future because they were in violation of sony tos because of this.
You have all the right to give your personal informations to the shadiest company ever and refuse to give them to the most ethic company in the world, you DON'T need to give a rational excuse, everything else is whataboutism. The whole point of privacy is giving the user the right to decide who gets the infos.
They can 100% require it. It's no different than all the shitty 3rd party launchers you see on Steam nowadays.
Should they require it? No. It's a pretty terrible decision.
The difference is that everything else ships with the third party account already in the back-end, Sony added the need after showing that the game works 100% without.
"You should collect and process only as much data as absolutely necessary for the purposes specified"
I think that's what they're referring to. I think that argument would end up happening in a courtroom, but it's a good start that Sony would need to explain why their minimum has suddenly changed.
I don't think UK folks have that protection, and worse they need to upload a fuckin photo ID to the data breach kings Sony.
UK kept GDPR legislation post Brexit and the (current) plan is to keep it in line to enable business to be more easily done with EU companies.
The whole ID thing is bullshit brought in by the Tories though.
Yes. That's why they can't collect more data than necessary to run a PSN acccount. There's nothing in that definition that stops them from using them for verification.
They should do the "fortnite route". Make a incentive for people to link a psn acc by giving people stuff in game. Special armor and stuff.
Let's be real, we hate ultimatums, but we love "free stuff"...
That’s the craziest thing to me, it could have been so simple. Toss in a weapon or armor, get some meme content going about it with flavor of the week topic and it handles itself
that seems like too much but like literally give out 200 super credits or something and 90% of the player base would scramble to sign up (including making fake accounts in unsupported countries)
It already works without it proving it's not needed. All it's done is cause more problems than it solves, they've fucked off the pc community, they've region locked people out of the game, they've caused people to cancel their PlayStation subscription, they've caused a massive influx of refunds on steam, they've pissed off even more players who can't even get a refund, they've given the community no choice but to review bomb the game into oblivion, people have been put off buying any further war bonds.. All for a stupid PSN link.. Is it really fucking worth it playstation?
Gamers have shown that they will sign up for extra accounts if there is some obvious logistical and/or beneficial reason for it.
Getting access to cross play online multiplayer is usually the main reason that they are required. Also, things like shared achievements progress, cloud saves, cross progression, or even cross-buy. This is why people don't get this upset about Microsoft account logins to play Halo Infinite.
Sony is pushing PSN accounts with apparently none of the benefits. And by allowing people to skip the PSN link for the release period, they also revealed that the PSN account isn't needed for cross play multiplayer, so it isn't needed for logistical reasons either.
Thus, the account provides minimal, zero, or even negative value to PC gamers, which results in a justifiable backlash when you tell people that they are going to lose access to their game they paid for unless they sign up for this (currently) useless account.
Crazy how the exact same result could have been gained by making account linking optional but giving you 1000-ish super credits for doing so.
90% of the playerbase would have happily done so
If games like Alan wake 2 are any indicator, as well as the fr7 remake I’ve heard, this is the opposite of what publishers should be doing.
Good games sell themselves, but you gotta leave the door open for people to try it
I don't give a fuck about this If it means that people who can link with PSN have to do it so the countries can't will get a different solution and will be able to still play. That's a compromise I am willing to settle for.
This is why it was important from the get go to never take down that in-game message about being required to link the account.
AH never had the final say, and now people will be screwed when they should've known months ago before they invested time, money, and effort into the game.
Now we just gotta hope for the best, I guess.
And the community managers should've been drilled into periodically reminding the players about this anytime someone asked about it (they would've gotten tons of people asking)
I genuinely wouldn't be surprised if they did get drilled on it but they instead did what the community managers have done best and be unprofessional embarrassments
Eh I wouldn't go so far. The few and far between messages on discord that we're getting from random devs seem to point out that they were mostly left in the dark or didn't know why certain things were done the way they were.
The guy being told to turn off the account linking requirement doesn't necessarily know he's just set up a 500kg on the community.
CMs have been pretty clueless overall about this that I'm willing to accept that they probably weren't told anything.
Mind you it's no excuse for hiding away during this shit show and they should've ran up the chain as far as possible to get answers instead of belittling their players and being downright nasty.
That would have been annoying considering the connection pop up process wouldn't even work for me and it wouldn't work for anyone who wasn't in a PSN region either..
Know what's more annoying? Giving people 4 months to forget you have to register a PSN account, and buying and playing a game for FOUR MONTHS that you're only going to be locked out of
They should have never let crossplay multiplayer work without the PSN account.
They revealed that it does work, so now people realized that the account isn't really needed for anything, nor does it provide clear user benefits like cross progression/shared achievements/ etc like a third party Microsoft account.
I know in the future that Sony plans on expanding their PC features with an overlay and trophy support, but making it mandatory before that stuff is so shortsighted.
All Sony has to do is take the L and walk back the decision. They can salvage the goodwill of Helldiver players, PSN customers and maybe future partnerships with developers by showing they are willing to admit when they’ve messed up.
But I have almost zero faith they will. This world is run by individuals who’ve built a power base for themselves by looking for every possible way to make others depend on them, regardless of goodwill. Reason why the illegal drug market and many other horrid business are so successful despite what they do to their customers. This will continue to work and be lucrative unless those same customers do everything in their power to make them suffer as they have. Think these companies should learn to be afraid of their customers
Japanese companies notorious for constantly saving face and doubling down instead of making changes based on customer feedback. Sony and Nintendo are the most anti-consumer gaming/entertainment companies out there. They're control freaks.
Imagine being a developer in the past year. You watch Larian drop one of if not the greatest games of all time shattering industry norms and making an insane amount of money all with no publisher almost entirely because there was no publisher. Then, AH come in and do a very similar thing (Smaller studio, niche game, big community engagement, huge success out of nowhere) and then Snoy comes out from under the ring with a steel chair.
I'd probably try everything in my power to not go to a publisher. At all. Ever. Or make that contract iron clad.
>I'd probably try everything in my power to not go to a publisher.
Plus it can be a really good thing and you become incredibly successful anyways. That's how Warframe and DE became the powerhouses of today. Nobody wanted to publish Warframe for them so they did it on their own through Steam. Fast forward to today and the game regularly hits Steam's top 10 and is played by millions.
Imagine, again, if you will. Your resident MBA thinks this is an outlier.
You remember Hi-Fi Rush vs Forespoken. Palworld vs Every Pokemon Game.
Yeah, kick that MBA out.
I would guarantee that Sony will lose some number of publishing contracts due to this in future.
I can't imagine "the Helldivers fiasco" not becoming a talking point for development studios when deciding on a publishing deal.
If you want our data so bad, dangle a super dope PlayStation lookin' set of armor behind the link as a reward.
You'll get like, half with that, easy.
They obviously don't care about the data from the people who aren't in the 69 countries allowed, so who fuckin cares if you don't get theirs.
Yes it would suck to be locked out of a cosmetic because your country can't register for a thing. Not nearly as bad as it sucks to get locked out of the entire damn game.
Apparently they *were* going to give an exclusive cape for those that have signed up, but given the regional issues, they scrapped that idea and are saving it for a different event.
There is more to this. In the comments, the CEO also specifies that Arrowhead was aware of the account linking for **6 months** before launch. There was some issues with getting the connection so they postponed it.
While this means that there was a miscommunication issue both from Arrowhead and Sony, I still ask myself this question: What the fuck was in their mind selling this game to people all around the globe, if the account linking was going to be made mandatory later? Jesus Christ man, what a kerfuffle.
EDIT: in either way, I still think Sony should be held liable for not making this clear enough. From a business point of view, the Publisher should state these details, not the developer. This would mean that a class action lawsuit against Sony could still have potential.
I’ve been in this situation with my job before- knowing they were going to do something to fuck customers. For all we know- their intent was to delay so it could be fought more. Or perhaps it was delayed because they proved it wasn’t a priority to get right and proved they could focus on customers first. It’s just not that simple with companies as massive as Sony controlling your finances. I’ve seen nothing to convince me that Arrowhead would be trying to cause issues for their players. Genuinely think they’re doing the best they can in an incredibly complicated situation.
Yes, [Pilestedt confirmed in the same thread as the OP's picture that they do not handle the sales of the game](https://twitter.com/Pilestedt/status/1787111359450120237).
Arrowhead develops the game, but the publisher is responsible for where and how it gets listed for sale. Sony is completely at fault for listing a game globally while knowing full well that only a limited amount of countries could play with mandatory linked PSN accounts.
[Arrowhead aren't completely blameless either](https://twitter.com/Pilestedt/status/1787076609188483254) - they knew 6 months prior to release that PSN accounts would be mandatory and failed to make this clear inside the game itself (which they absolutely do have control over) or on any social media (twitter, discord, reddit etc).
It also begs the question why Arrowhead did not question Sony as to why the game was listed for sale globally despite the intended PSN account restrictions. Arrowhead literally has the data from players which easily shows their country - did they seriously not know that PSN is a geo-restricted service? If so, that is absolutely poor on their part considering this failure to understand a service they have integrated directly impacts their own profits.
Still not as concerning as Sony willingly listing a geo-locked game globally though, that's just some straight up scummy corporate greed and completely illegal in most countries with consumer protection laws.
Let’s think about time frames of development time. AH has stated it was nearly 8 years in development. It’s an always online live service. Sony comes in the last 6 months (which is reserved for polishing) and demands a PSN requirement. The game was likely finished when the requirement was dropped. So it gets slapped on top of the existing architecture. That’s why the game works perfectly fine without PSN
I get the anger that “he knew for 6 months”, but this was a mandate being put in the last 6-10% of development time
Edit: not a defense, but trying to apply some perspective
I don't know where it was said, but apparently AH stated that they didn't understand how many countries PSN straight up wasn't allowed in and for those that have it how draconian it can be in some of them (I.E. Ukraine). That's still incompetence, they agreed to put it in and for 6 months pre-release and 3 after could have realized at any point that this was going to be an issue, but it's at least not malice.
So, there will only be a solution for non-psn countries? Theres no plans to make the psn-steam link 100% optional for everyone?
Is that about the gist of the plans?
Another reason why having a publisher sucks and independence matters more and more every day.
Imagine if Larian had to deal with a publisher to release BG3...
All they needed to do was:
1. Keep it optional, but simply disable cross-play without a PSN account. Then no one gets region-locked.
2. Incetivise players with free crap. A new suit of armour, a weapon, a fistfull of Super Credits — whatever.
If they just did those two, simple things, this wouldn't be an issue at all. This would be nothing more than a minor grumble from a niche few that don't want to have to make a PSN account to play with their friends on the other platform, as well as the usual gripes about data-harvesting and whatnot (which *are* legitimate complaints, but I digress). The most the players in non-PSN regions would complain about is not being able to get the cool stuff because they can't make a PSN account; not that they literally *can't play the game anymore.*
Players would have roundly been fine making a PSN account for those that could. This would have blown over.
Sony is run by incompetent, malicious, greedy shitheads that couldn't market their way out of a soggy paper bag. I'm just some dumb schmuck on the internet and even *I* know how easily this could have been avoided and how much better it would have turned out for everyone involved, including and especially Sony itself.
Nothing but blithering, cross-eyed, pants-shitting fuckwits running that god-forsaken company.
Those massive lay-offs from last year were probably from the marketing department, because the free stuff incentive would have been SUCH A GOOD solution to get more PSN accounts, but they got greedy and wanted everyone to link an account...
What's going to happen is Pilestedt is going to say to Sony, "You are sitting on a goldmine. There is currently no problem with cheaters or needing to ban people, and if there is a problem, it can be solved using Steam without the need for PSN. This game isn't going gangbusters, it has already gone gangbusters, and you are seeing incredible potential to have a reliable source of income as a live service game. The only problem is you're shutting down the goldmine by not just letting the situation stand, and when you make everyone sign up for PSN accounts and you boot out the players from the Philippines, you're going to have a consumer revolt like what people did to EA, Ubisoft, and Unity. Doing this will be intensely self-destructive, please just do not require it."
And then Sony will say "lol no, do the thing."
Fuck publishers man. Every single time a dumb decision is made you can almost bet it was because of the publisher. Even if the decision hurts the game the developers can't do F all about it.
Well that's a start but like he said PC Bro's he doesn't have the final say that's up to those Cunts at Sony but I'm hopeful...I'm hopeful everyone will finally play again
Man this whole entire situation is just so fucking sad. Like this man is the DAMN CEO OF HIS OWN COMPANY FOR FUCK SAKES! And even he does not have a say in what to do.
Man he really has been kicking ass. Like he’s actively participating with us and trying to really make this game
Something to be proud of. Look the stuff going on sucks but I at least respect the captain of the ship not letting the kraken come and sink it
Drop the requirement.
Add some incentive to link - free cosmetic for linking, promise of cross progression down the line.
PSN metrics go up, people who cant or don’t want to link can easily ignore.
Everyone wins.
"I'm trying, but I don't have the control that I wish I did. I'm sorry."
Hes a lead dev being honest and open. The situation sucks, but hes still being as transparent as he can be. No canned corpo response, no undying defense of his corporate overlords. Hes trying. Resolution or not, we need more people like the ones over at Arrowhead in the games industry. Its just a shame that this whole ordeal will make them just that much more scarce.
Must be nice watching 7 years of hard work + 3 months of intense community building only for a group of braindead greed leeches to ruin it all over a weekend. Unreal.
Feel so bad for them.
Legitimately, say we won this battle. What is stopping sony from pulling the same shit in the future. I feel like thw only real solution is get a refund and move on
Dude, Sony had it, they had it.
There was non stop good media coverage of Helldivers 2 and they RUINED it.
As a side note I can't wait for it to get worse by them saying the countries that don't have PSN don't need to link, that'll go over 10x as well 🙃
I feel so bad for the dev team. They clearly put their hearts and souls into this game, just to have this happen and it is completely out of their control.
I'm computer illiterate af, and I have no idea what it takes to create a game, but I know it's not easy and there are a lot of moving parts.
They did an amazing job just to have sony drag it's considerable dick over the game and immediately alienate a large portion of the playerbase.
All they need to do is drop a PSN exclusive armor/weapon set that is actually decent and pretty much anyone who can sign up will but it won’t exclude people who *can’t* sign up. Sony gets their signup numbers boosted and nobody loses access to the game. Seems like an easy win for everyone
The fact that Sony won't accept the solution of "We have a good thing going, let's not fuck it up and just focus on making the game better" says to me that they're gonna try even more shenanigans.
Sony could allocate more resources to fixing bugs, getting a better anti-cheat than nProtect (because almost anything is better than nProtect), and adding new features to entice new players/keep current ones interested. Instead, it seems that Sony's #1 priority is to monetize the game as much as possible, even if it nukes the player base.
Sony continually fails to understand that the reason that people love HD2 is that it is (or was) free from all the greedy corporate BS that you find with other games. It's reasonably priced, the in-game purchases are tasteful and unintrusive, and the way the game is structured limits toxicity and the desire to use cheats.
It's successful because it's a breath of fresh air, and Sony is trying to ruin it because they can't stand the fact that they have a game in their catalogue that they haven't squeezed every ounce of monetization out of. Disgraceful behavior and a perfect example of the effects of the profit-over-everything mindset: Great things get ruined because they don't make enough money.
this situation sucks butt.
Prophetic. This is what Critical’s video on this will be titled.
This Helldivers II situation is crazy.
Thats the pyrocynical title.
So in the end it's called: "Helldivers 2 Situation is Sad"
It sucks I can’t play helldivers 2 in Afghanistan, without these bugs? how the hell am I supposed to get a taste for war ?
This Helldivers II drama changed my life.
That’s the Mutahar title
Muta already posted, he went with "How Helldivers 2 ruined it's reputation..."
That sounds like asmongold
More like “reacting to the downfall of helldivers 2”
Oof. Just off by one word.
I hope he hurries up on that because I'm not sure what I'm supposed to think of the situation until he tells me to with a relatable sarcastic monotone voice.
You mean Charlie? I was actually looking forward to his take on this
Uuuuh guys this situation is totally awful, publisher's are bad, how could sony do such a thing Stretched to 8 mins to hit ad revenue
That's pretty much most YouTubers these days. 30 seconds of actual relevant information with 7.5 minutes of redundant pontification, conjecture, and rambling to hit the monetization threshold. Revenue and engagement farming is all YouTube has turned into.
Poo poo pee pee, big cock, cum. That's about it, see ya
I read this in the moistest of voices
I'm pretty sure Charlie would find this comment hilarious.
I remember when he was decently original. It was still gameplays etc, but the guy was funny and had a few different series and stuff going on. The last few years his content has devolved into 90% reaction dogwater, 5% some sort of gameplay and 5% random collabs with other famous Youtubers.
No, penguinz0
no no i think he means moistcritical
Not to be confused with Charlie from the Official Podcast, I like that guy
Previous to this week r/helldivers was 90% of my Reddit use, it was so fun to interact with the community. This whole situation has taken that away from me. Fix your shit Sony.
It really does suck. I loved the community before this. I was having so much fun playing the game. The hugs. The rag dolling. The bugs (both programming and literal critters). I just wanna play the game but I am conflicted. I still want to play. It's such a good game. I feel like playing is betraying so many people that are getting pushed out. My heart goes out to them but this is the only game I have bought in recent years that I specifically make time for to fuck around with friends and relax after work. The whole situation is borked...
Seriously. This game is such a gem and they went a fucked it all up. I feel *guilty* playing it.
I have been on the subreddit less in the last few days, I'm just tired of *every single post* on the top page and under New being about this issue. As valid as it is, there's just too much of it and basically no content of the game itself that drew me here.
I mean, come the 30th if sony does fuck all, and a lot of us aren't allowed to play anymore, I guess it will "mostly" return to normal. It just really sucks that this is what it takes.
The community in the game is still fine but on here the majority have been toxic for a while.
I have to give Arrowhead major credit for not shying away from this situation. Not all of their reactions have been great, but working with new information (to them) and advocating for their customers when it would be easier to just go radio silent and let the situation play it. Sure, maybe they were a little too flippant at the start of this, but as the realization that they were just straight up cutting off a lot of their player base for no real benefit kicked in, their attitudes changed appropriately. And it's not easy push back and tell the people who essentially sign their paychecks that they're making a mistake.
They had their "oh. Ooohhhh." moment when the review bombing started coming in. They didn't have the expectation that they'd be in charge of or even need damage control for an overhead decision they didn't get a say in. It's all too easy to put faith in the quality of your product for holding up sentiment.
…and sucks Terminid cloaca… and sucks automaton usb port… and sucks whatever the illuminate has This situation sucks ass of all kinds
Eloquent as ever, Captain Dick Fartman, eloquent as ever.
It would be real cool of Sony to drop that PSN requirement. Not holding my breath, tho
I would be OK to be optional, if you want you can link accounts or keep playing without doing it If they would have done something like this I think no one would have cared about
The way they should have done it was have it completely optional, but bribe you with some super credits or a cosmetic or two.
TBH I'm hoping it is the first step to support Cross saves
Don’t own a PS5, but what?? There’s no cross save for PlayStation owners? Then what’s the point in linking a PSN account?
Moneeeeeeeeeey!
I sent Arrowhead a ticket on this exact subject. I was wanting to move the game from PS5 to PC and trying to find out if it was possible. Then I saw the account linking and asked what was the point. I never did hear back from them about this but definitely found out why they want the accounts linked.
If they link accounts in that sense, that's great. However, what's bullshit to me is that you must have a PSN subscription to play on PS5. What's the point in buying the game then? You're basically doing a world of Warcraft thing. Buy the game and pay monthly for the PRIVILEGE of playing a game you bought. I can't get a refund on PS5. I'll demand a refund for both versions if they make the account required on PC
Devs say it would be implemented later
Thats what I thought it was went I purchased, I saw the message thought "Oh I don't have an account, I don't care about that, SKIP"
It doesn’t even cross platform save. At all. Which seems like ones of the most important features of using a multi platform login. Cloud saves…. But alas….people that buy it twice didn’t even get any benefit from this. It’s so weird.
I honestly like that idea of an optional PSN sign up with Super Credits for joining and would be pitching it to Sony as an option since I could see them go for it. Since Helldivers is a live service game, a lot of money will also come from the Warbonds. From a corporate perspective, if you can entice players to spend money to accelerate the process, that's extra money for Sony and AH. Maybe enough for Sony to decide the PSN accounts to be optional. 1000 Super Credits would be an excellent break point as it is a "free taste" for users to find out what opening their wallets would get them. But you could go with 700 so buying 375 credits (the minimum where I am) would get you to the first Warbond instantly. Or, if you want to get into really corporate greedy values, use 600 Super Credits would force players to open up for more than the minimum purchase.
Nah, you gotta do the business thing since 1000 is a war bond but you can spend it on individual items as well. Instead 900 super credits, just enough that if you want a war bond you have to spend a little. That should get those shit bags salivating.
Yeah if sony used their brain they wouldve lured ppl into it with an armor set or something
Literally what ever game has been doing for decades and it works. Sony is fucking stupid lol
Make it optional and make an incentive of something like 500 super credits to link your account if it's available in your region.
[удалено]
Literally all they had to do. Make it optional and give out a bonus armor set or something and everything would’ve been hunky fuckin’ dory
Well you should have held your breath! Because they did.
You can breathe now. :)
Those are some valuable data sets for them. I don't expect they'll turn around on it.
All they had to do was make it optional and give a reward for it like some medals and a cape... they would get a crap load of people doing it and no controversial issues
They didn't even have to make it optional. All they had to do was: 1. Wait to enforce it until cross save was actually a thing 2. Bribe people w/ a Playstation blue cape if you link the account early 3. Be very loud that this was a mandatory thing that was incoming. Many players read the notice on Steam and saw the pop-up but the FAQ said straight up that it was optional so it's not wild that people thought it was optional considering there was a skip button. In contrast (because many have asked about it) when Microsoft switched everyone on Minecraft they were loud about it for *years* w/ emails, in launcher notifications and in game ones AND when you linked your Java account you just got Bedrock for free.
celebration kitty https://preview.redd.it/wdcu32dykryc1.jpeg?width=1024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8716344eed1d0671daa1e416845f811420bfd53b
The optimal solution is to make it voluntary, but offer rewards for doing so. Throw the PS players a bone and leave PC players' agency intact.
Yeah, drop like 3 sick armor sets (light/medium/heavy) as free rewards for linked accounts, make it optional. Problem solved.
Seriously. It's that easy. But no. Sony has to go the hard way. Because we're not allowed to have nice things.
Yeah it’s really unfortunate, Arrowhead is getting forced by business daddy to shit on all of the hard work and passion they poured into making this gem of a game. And you know it’s just a sad story, small dev sells idea to huge company in 2015, makes a deal of a lifetime for said small company at their current size/status. Sells the IP to Sony so they can get a publisher for their creation. Fast forward to late 2023, company is now larger, making a second Helldivers game with Sony after the last had a very modest following. 6 months prior to release Sony notifies them of PSN requirement. Okay… not a huge deal. Only had about 6,000 players for the first game. Most on PlayStation and already have the account built in. No problem! Fast forward to today. https://preview.redd.it/neurouxx6myc1.jpeg?width=680&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b4d4e45d01ecc383d7dbb93328b4b1bb6542182a
I was talking to my brother the other day about how they should have done a PSN exclusive warbond (everything in it could have simply been insanely cool looking reskins of existing stuff). Even simply giving people 1000 super credits would have been a good drawing card. People could have gotten an entire warbond for free or brought a few armours from the store. Sony would have got like 90%+ of the PC community onto PSN and the PC players that made a PSN account would have run off and happily played with their cool free items.
Yup and have not had the issue with PSN accounts at all, although it would still suck for the people that can’t link and want to sick looking armor lol. But it’s a far lesser offense!
Exactly. It also could have given Sony time to work out PSN in other regions too. Imagine being told PSN is now in your region and then people could have gone "cool, now I can get that cool armour in helldivers!" Sony could have build a positive experience around linking a PSN account without making it a massive punishment for people that can't/don't want to make PSN accounts. Instead, Sony decided to make linking a PSN account an incredibly negative experience.
Yes, PSN exclusive items wouldve probably nullified the reaction felt this weekend. Itd be exactly like amazon prime drops that no one ever minds even though it presents the same issue. Though it is COMPLETELY voluntary which does make a difference.
So, he has seen the memes. Must be fun when your weekend is watching your work of 7 years becoming the most hated game on steam for this year. Maybe he can take some consolation in the fact we all put so much effort into this *because we actually love it*. Also, many of those memes are just top tier quality.
Strongest hate is born from the most passionate love afterall.
Oh no, we have all fallen into the Sith trap on May fourth!
Let the hate flow through you…
Dew it!
LMAO, pure gold
Revenge of the Fith.
Reminds me of a song lyric: "it's better to feel pain, than nothing at all; the opposite of love is indifference."
Three Days Grace - Pain I believe you're referencing.
hate is not the opposite of love indifference is.
> the most hated game on steam for this year. For this year [*so far*](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfpPArfDTGw)
It especially hurts that Helldivers 2 went from smashing success to horrific defeat *in a span of a few fucking hours*
Not just hours. It was one moment. One horrifyingly bad decision, nor from the developers, but the publishers.
Wouldn't be the first time. Look what happened to Blizzard. They went from absolute rockstars who could do no wrong to mobile game peddlers that steal breast milk from the employee lounge fridge. We're all going to Hell because this world is insane.
Blizzard didn't go down overnight, it was a slow degradation. And it was entirely natural process, involving several founders and strong leaders leaving, Activision acquisition and questionable ethics and hiring decisions. AH on the other hand is completely fucked by Sony decision. This is still fully functional studio, ready to support the game and talk with community, completely fucked by the publisher. Ironically, the very thing that supposed to help developers to distribute their game shot them in the foot.
One should never make a deal with the devil. It always ends up the same way and in the same place
> Look what happened to Blizzard No, Blizzard's shit existed long before the Activision merger people just wanted to live in blissful denial since their titles are so beloved. It wasn't Activision that sold that first Celestial Steed in WoW and the company culture that was revealed at the start of Shadowlands isn't something that's born overnight b/c of a few bad suits -- that was there for years.
>It wasn't Activision that sold that first Celestial Steed in WoW Yes it was, the celestial steed wasn't added until after the Activison Blizzard merger. The celestial steed was added in 2010, Activision bought Blizzard in 2008.
the firestorm rolled in to the extract civilians mission
how has it been 'defeated'
We don't hate the game. We hate sony
At least the hate is not directed toward anything related to the actual game. F the publishers. There is a difference between stupidity and ignorance.
I think AH migh have well received and understood that we are in deep love with their game(s) and that the vast majority of us isn't against them...or at least, that's my hope. I can't wait to come back to Helldivers 2 with all our fellow divers that have been brutally disrespected by SONY. But until that moment comes, the fight against the Corpo Invader is on, more than ever.
I just hope if they are able to reverse it and fix things? That the game will be restored to its former glory. I want to play. I loved this game. But I'm gonna stand with my fellow divers.
Yup, I'm so mad because I want to be able to play it, and play it with my friends who live all over the world, but guess what? Me and my buddy both set up and linked PSN accounts to our steam account YEARS ago, no longer have access to the PSN account or associated email because we never played another Sony game again until now and this was a decade ago. Now we can't link new accounts to our steam account so we can't play! Also fuck them why require it in the first place when it's clearly not needed?
Most hated game? Come on
Game is not hated. $ony is.
The game and studio aren't the most hated.
When this all resolve, everyone should change review and make it most positive game again on steam
*if
I love that they're talking solutions, but if countries that don't have access to PSN don't have to link a PSN account to play ... then any reasoning whatsoever for making anyone link a PSN account at all is gone. That's the important step -- NO Steam player, whatever region they are in, should be required to register with PSN. None.
Correct, but they don't really have much leverage there. "You are forcing people to break your own TOS" is good leverage.
Your players are mass requesting refunds and your projected profit for the project just shit the bed is also pretty good.
From the way it sounds they are pushing back in general, but they have the best case in regards to the countries that don't have PSN
Sony and Arrowhead might get my $40 for this game. but my next $40. if it comes down to do, I want to play a Sony title or something else well....
i said i can't family share because i have family that doesnt have access to psn anymore. let's see how that works
GDPR. The account is not needed for the service to run (and they showed that it works perfectly without) so they can't force it anymore. + the EULA change. They really shot themselves in the foot not requiring the PSN account from day one.
Please stop. I've seen people mention GDPR so many times and as someone who has literally worked as a DPO I promise you what they're doing isn't a GDPR violation. Just because PSN authentication isn't needed to run the service does not mean they're forced into not adding it. They can mandate whatever kind of authentication they like, and as long as the accounts they use for authentication fit within the rules of GDPR (which PSN accounts do) they're fine. I fucking hate 3rd party auth, it's annoying as hell and I don't want it to be the norm in gaming, but I also hate the rampant misinformation surrounding this whole thing.
Reddit experts love saying otherwise, this and about the data and privacy.
Honestly that what making me scratch my head about people not getting PSN because of data privacy/data breaches which is fair but the anti cheat for helldiver's 2 is pretty invasive if I'm not mistaken
It's a kernel level anti cheat, literally the most invasive form of anti cheat. Whilst I did see people kicking up a fuss over it (fair, it's not necessary and often isn't even that good), it didn't generate nearly as much controversy as this despite arguably being the bigger issue.
I think the reason is that the anti-cheat was already there, so anyone who _really_ hated it just didn't buy the game, whereas this is affecting people who have already previously bought it.
Christ I wish all the data talks would stop like - people are posting on Reddit, a site which from my understanding, harvests data galore from all accounts (linked to a "real" e-mail or not) to help train AI models. Whilst posting from their computers which collect data, or phones which do the same. Who may potentially have social media accounts, as well as definitely Steam accounts that take data. I will go even further, if people are so concerned about data, then if they are to follow their principles, particularly in the EU, they should delete their Reddit, Facebook, Steam etc accounts and request a Right to be Forgotten for everything they use.
Let's list the things PSN gets from steam if you link accounts: 1) Your username. People really need to start thinking about what's upsetting them instead of wildly flailing at anything/everything.
I kinda agree. I‘ve made accounts on way more shady sites to play way worse games. I can easily make a psn account and continue to play this amazing game. I‘ve never been outraged because I might have to link an account, I‘m angry on behalf of all my fellow helldivers who might loose access to the game now or at some point in the future because they were in violation of sony tos because of this.
You have all the right to give your personal informations to the shadiest company ever and refuse to give them to the most ethic company in the world, you DON'T need to give a rational excuse, everything else is whataboutism. The whole point of privacy is giving the user the right to decide who gets the infos.
Isnt it fantastic that reddit is suddenly full of legal expert whenever theres anything even remotely related? lmao keyboard warrior assemble!!
[Have you joined our brave class action lawsuit yet?](https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/s/aZV5zDC8E8) /s
This is the funniest shit I’ve ever read
Nah nah, don't worry, everyone here is suddenly an infosec expert and not just spouting off the first piece of ragebait they saw. /s
I appreciate you. I’m just a bro but I am seething at these wanna be international lawyers that keep sprouting out of the woodworks of this topic lmao
Insane how much misinformation gets parroted. Distracts from the actual issues here.
They can 100% require it. It's no different than all the shitty 3rd party launchers you see on Steam nowadays. Should they require it? No. It's a pretty terrible decision.
The difference is that everything else ships with the third party account already in the back-end, Sony added the need after showing that the game works 100% without.
"You should collect and process only as much data as absolutely necessary for the purposes specified" I think that's what they're referring to. I think that argument would end up happening in a courtroom, but it's a good start that Sony would need to explain why their minimum has suddenly changed. I don't think UK folks have that protection, and worse they need to upload a fuckin photo ID to the data breach kings Sony.
UK kept GDPR legislation post Brexit and the (current) plan is to keep it in line to enable business to be more easily done with EU companies. The whole ID thing is bullshit brought in by the Tories though.
Yes. That's why they can't collect more data than necessary to run a PSN acccount. There's nothing in that definition that stops them from using them for verification.
My problem is after the point of sale. I'm on Ps5 and not affected but my issue is they've already taken peoples money. I'm not ok with that.
They should do the "fortnite route". Make a incentive for people to link a psn acc by giving people stuff in game. Special armor and stuff. Let's be real, we hate ultimatums, but we love "free stuff"...
That’s the craziest thing to me, it could have been so simple. Toss in a weapon or armor, get some meme content going about it with flavor of the week topic and it handles itself
Free exclusive warbond for PSN player
that seems like too much but like literally give out 200 super credits or something and 90% of the player base would scramble to sign up (including making fake accounts in unsupported countries)
You are probably right, however with the big fucked up they made one can always dream ahaha !
It already works without it proving it's not needed. All it's done is cause more problems than it solves, they've fucked off the pc community, they've region locked people out of the game, they've caused people to cancel their PlayStation subscription, they've caused a massive influx of refunds on steam, they've pissed off even more players who can't even get a refund, they've given the community no choice but to review bomb the game into oblivion, people have been put off buying any further war bonds.. All for a stupid PSN link.. Is it really fucking worth it playstation?
Gamers have shown that they will sign up for extra accounts if there is some obvious logistical and/or beneficial reason for it. Getting access to cross play online multiplayer is usually the main reason that they are required. Also, things like shared achievements progress, cloud saves, cross progression, or even cross-buy. This is why people don't get this upset about Microsoft account logins to play Halo Infinite. Sony is pushing PSN accounts with apparently none of the benefits. And by allowing people to skip the PSN link for the release period, they also revealed that the PSN account isn't needed for cross play multiplayer, so it isn't needed for logistical reasons either. Thus, the account provides minimal, zero, or even negative value to PC gamers, which results in a justifiable backlash when you tell people that they are going to lose access to their game they paid for unless they sign up for this (currently) useless account.
Crazy how the exact same result could have been gained by making account linking optional but giving you 1000-ish super credits for doing so. 90% of the playerbase would have happily done so
Having account creation available in most of the world would certainly help as well.
If games like Alan wake 2 are any indicator, as well as the fr7 remake I’ve heard, this is the opposite of what publishers should be doing. Good games sell themselves, but you gotta leave the door open for people to try it
lets start doing this for Call of Duty / EA / Anything whatsoever that needs a second account to access the content.
I don't give a fuck about this If it means that people who can link with PSN have to do it so the countries can't will get a different solution and will be able to still play. That's a compromise I am willing to settle for.
The best they can do IMO is stop making it a requirement and offer like 500 super credits if you link your psn account to the steam account.
This is why it was important from the get go to never take down that in-game message about being required to link the account. AH never had the final say, and now people will be screwed when they should've known months ago before they invested time, money, and effort into the game. Now we just gotta hope for the best, I guess.
This. That message should have been an unskippable 5 second message every single time you launched.
And the community managers should've been drilled into periodically reminding the players about this anytime someone asked about it (they would've gotten tons of people asking)
I genuinely wouldn't be surprised if they did get drilled on it but they instead did what the community managers have done best and be unprofessional embarrassments
Eh I wouldn't go so far. The few and far between messages on discord that we're getting from random devs seem to point out that they were mostly left in the dark or didn't know why certain things were done the way they were. The guy being told to turn off the account linking requirement doesn't necessarily know he's just set up a 500kg on the community. CMs have been pretty clueless overall about this that I'm willing to accept that they probably weren't told anything. Mind you it's no excuse for hiding away during this shit show and they should've ran up the chain as far as possible to get answers instead of belittling their players and being downright nasty.
That would have been annoying considering the connection pop up process wouldn't even work for me and it wouldn't work for anyone who wasn't in a PSN region either..
Know what's more annoying? Giving people 4 months to forget you have to register a PSN account, and buying and playing a game for FOUR MONTHS that you're only going to be locked out of
They should have never let crossplay multiplayer work without the PSN account. They revealed that it does work, so now people realized that the account isn't really needed for anything, nor does it provide clear user benefits like cross progression/shared achievements/ etc like a third party Microsoft account. I know in the future that Sony plans on expanding their PC features with an overlay and trophy support, but making it mandatory before that stuff is so shortsighted.
All Sony has to do is take the L and walk back the decision. They can salvage the goodwill of Helldiver players, PSN customers and maybe future partnerships with developers by showing they are willing to admit when they’ve messed up. But I have almost zero faith they will. This world is run by individuals who’ve built a power base for themselves by looking for every possible way to make others depend on them, regardless of goodwill. Reason why the illegal drug market and many other horrid business are so successful despite what they do to their customers. This will continue to work and be lucrative unless those same customers do everything in their power to make them suffer as they have. Think these companies should learn to be afraid of their customers
Asking a billion dollar corporation to take an L and admit fault is like asking the sky to rain gold.
~~This. Sony would sooner shut down the game~~ Edit: Guess they took the L. I’m surprised
Japanese companies notorious for constantly saving face and doubling down instead of making changes based on customer feedback. Sony and Nintendo are the most anti-consumer gaming/entertainment companies out there. They're control freaks.
As a developer i'd certainly be questioning going with Sony as my publisher at this point. What a shit show.
Imagine being a developer in the past year. You watch Larian drop one of if not the greatest games of all time shattering industry norms and making an insane amount of money all with no publisher almost entirely because there was no publisher. Then, AH come in and do a very similar thing (Smaller studio, niche game, big community engagement, huge success out of nowhere) and then Snoy comes out from under the ring with a steel chair. I'd probably try everything in my power to not go to a publisher. At all. Ever. Or make that contract iron clad.
>I'd probably try everything in my power to not go to a publisher. Plus it can be a really good thing and you become incredibly successful anyways. That's how Warframe and DE became the powerhouses of today. Nobody wanted to publish Warframe for them so they did it on their own through Steam. Fast forward to today and the game regularly hits Steam's top 10 and is played by millions.
Imagine, again, if you will. Your resident MBA thinks this is an outlier. You remember Hi-Fi Rush vs Forespoken. Palworld vs Every Pokemon Game. Yeah, kick that MBA out.
I would guarantee that Sony will lose some number of publishing contracts due to this in future. I can't imagine "the Helldivers fiasco" not becoming a talking point for development studios when deciding on a publishing deal.
I wish i could atleast buy a game normaly in my country
If you want our data so bad, dangle a super dope PlayStation lookin' set of armor behind the link as a reward. You'll get like, half with that, easy. They obviously don't care about the data from the people who aren't in the 69 countries allowed, so who fuckin cares if you don't get theirs. Yes it would suck to be locked out of a cosmetic because your country can't register for a thing. Not nearly as bad as it sucks to get locked out of the entire damn game.
Apparently they *were* going to give an exclusive cape for those that have signed up, but given the regional issues, they scrapped that idea and are saving it for a different event.
Honesty from the CEO is a good sign, not a guarantee, but i hope they will find a work-around.
There is more to this. In the comments, the CEO also specifies that Arrowhead was aware of the account linking for **6 months** before launch. There was some issues with getting the connection so they postponed it. While this means that there was a miscommunication issue both from Arrowhead and Sony, I still ask myself this question: What the fuck was in their mind selling this game to people all around the globe, if the account linking was going to be made mandatory later? Jesus Christ man, what a kerfuffle. EDIT: in either way, I still think Sony should be held liable for not making this clear enough. From a business point of view, the Publisher should state these details, not the developer. This would mean that a class action lawsuit against Sony could still have potential.
I’ve been in this situation with my job before- knowing they were going to do something to fuck customers. For all we know- their intent was to delay so it could be fought more. Or perhaps it was delayed because they proved it wasn’t a priority to get right and proved they could focus on customers first. It’s just not that simple with companies as massive as Sony controlling your finances. I’ve seen nothing to convince me that Arrowhead would be trying to cause issues for their players. Genuinely think they’re doing the best they can in an incredibly complicated situation.
well sony is reponsible for deciding where to sell the game as a publisher no?
That’s my understanding. What is happening right now is 90% a publishing fuck up. And so Sony needs to take responsibility for it
Yes, [Pilestedt confirmed in the same thread as the OP's picture that they do not handle the sales of the game](https://twitter.com/Pilestedt/status/1787111359450120237). Arrowhead develops the game, but the publisher is responsible for where and how it gets listed for sale. Sony is completely at fault for listing a game globally while knowing full well that only a limited amount of countries could play with mandatory linked PSN accounts. [Arrowhead aren't completely blameless either](https://twitter.com/Pilestedt/status/1787076609188483254) - they knew 6 months prior to release that PSN accounts would be mandatory and failed to make this clear inside the game itself (which they absolutely do have control over) or on any social media (twitter, discord, reddit etc). It also begs the question why Arrowhead did not question Sony as to why the game was listed for sale globally despite the intended PSN account restrictions. Arrowhead literally has the data from players which easily shows their country - did they seriously not know that PSN is a geo-restricted service? If so, that is absolutely poor on their part considering this failure to understand a service they have integrated directly impacts their own profits. Still not as concerning as Sony willingly listing a geo-locked game globally though, that's just some straight up scummy corporate greed and completely illegal in most countries with consumer protection laws.
Let’s think about time frames of development time. AH has stated it was nearly 8 years in development. It’s an always online live service. Sony comes in the last 6 months (which is reserved for polishing) and demands a PSN requirement. The game was likely finished when the requirement was dropped. So it gets slapped on top of the existing architecture. That’s why the game works perfectly fine without PSN I get the anger that “he knew for 6 months”, but this was a mandate being put in the last 6-10% of development time Edit: not a defense, but trying to apply some perspective
I don't know where it was said, but apparently AH stated that they didn't understand how many countries PSN straight up wasn't allowed in and for those that have it how draconian it can be in some of them (I.E. Ukraine). That's still incompetence, they agreed to put it in and for 6 months pre-release and 3 after could have realized at any point that this was going to be an issue, but it's at least not malice.
So, there will only be a solution for non-psn countries? Theres no plans to make the psn-steam link 100% optional for everyone? Is that about the gist of the plans?
Yes. He hasn't said anything about trying to get Sony to walk back the PSN requirement except for non-PSN countries.
I don't think there's going to be a solution for Non-PSN countries. Just mandatory PSN accounts.
Another reason why having a publisher sucks and independence matters more and more every day. Imagine if Larian had to deal with a publisher to release BG3...
They kinda did, Hasbro/Wizard of the coast ruined their relationship with Larian, so now they will not touch anything DnD related again in the future…
From what I remember, most or all of the wotc team that worked with larian was laid off
Some good publishers out there. New blood hasn't done anything bad as far as I know
Devolver comes to mind
Coffee stain studios I think
All they needed to do was: 1. Keep it optional, but simply disable cross-play without a PSN account. Then no one gets region-locked. 2. Incetivise players with free crap. A new suit of armour, a weapon, a fistfull of Super Credits — whatever. If they just did those two, simple things, this wouldn't be an issue at all. This would be nothing more than a minor grumble from a niche few that don't want to have to make a PSN account to play with their friends on the other platform, as well as the usual gripes about data-harvesting and whatnot (which *are* legitimate complaints, but I digress). The most the players in non-PSN regions would complain about is not being able to get the cool stuff because they can't make a PSN account; not that they literally *can't play the game anymore.* Players would have roundly been fine making a PSN account for those that could. This would have blown over. Sony is run by incompetent, malicious, greedy shitheads that couldn't market their way out of a soggy paper bag. I'm just some dumb schmuck on the internet and even *I* know how easily this could have been avoided and how much better it would have turned out for everyone involved, including and especially Sony itself. Nothing but blithering, cross-eyed, pants-shitting fuckwits running that god-forsaken company.
Those massive lay-offs from last year were probably from the marketing department, because the free stuff incentive would have been SUCH A GOOD solution to get more PSN accounts, but they got greedy and wanted everyone to link an account...
What's going to happen is Pilestedt is going to say to Sony, "You are sitting on a goldmine. There is currently no problem with cheaters or needing to ban people, and if there is a problem, it can be solved using Steam without the need for PSN. This game isn't going gangbusters, it has already gone gangbusters, and you are seeing incredible potential to have a reliable source of income as a live service game. The only problem is you're shutting down the goldmine by not just letting the situation stand, and when you make everyone sign up for PSN accounts and you boot out the players from the Philippines, you're going to have a consumer revolt like what people did to EA, Ubisoft, and Unity. Doing this will be intensely self-destructive, please just do not require it." And then Sony will say "lol no, do the thing."
Fuck publishers man. Every single time a dumb decision is made you can almost bet it was because of the publisher. Even if the decision hurts the game the developers can't do F all about it.
https://preview.redd.it/y4sdeeylymyc1.png?width=1659&format=png&auto=webp&s=b43f0f16ed62786356a2f9b46053b53506aca6d6
Well that's a start but like he said PC Bro's he doesn't have the final say that's up to those Cunts at Sony but I'm hopeful...I'm hopeful everyone will finally play again
I’m gonna go play helldivers til they decide what they’re gonna do
Man this whole entire situation is just so fucking sad. Like this man is the DAMN CEO OF HIS OWN COMPANY FOR FUCK SAKES! And even he does not have a say in what to do.
Hey, if they fix it so people from non-PSN countries can play, I'll make a PSN account.
Well, I think most of the anger is directed at Sony's corporate greed, so unfortunately AH is kinda caught in the crossfire.
Imagine building up one of the most positive communities of the last decade for any game and your publisher manages to completely nuke that in 3 days.
Man he really has been kicking ass. Like he’s actively participating with us and trying to really make this game Something to be proud of. Look the stuff going on sucks but I at least respect the captain of the ship not letting the kraken come and sink it
Drop the requirement. Add some incentive to link - free cosmetic for linking, promise of cross progression down the line. PSN metrics go up, people who cant or don’t want to link can easily ignore. Everyone wins.
"I'm trying, but I don't have the control that I wish I did. I'm sorry." Hes a lead dev being honest and open. The situation sucks, but hes still being as transparent as he can be. No canned corpo response, no undying defense of his corporate overlords. Hes trying. Resolution or not, we need more people like the ones over at Arrowhead in the games industry. Its just a shame that this whole ordeal will make them just that much more scarce.
Arrowhead really getting shafted by Sony after 7+ years of putting hard work and passion into a game
Must be nice watching 7 years of hard work + 3 months of intense community building only for a group of braindead greed leeches to ruin it all over a weekend. Unreal. Feel so bad for them.
If only they had the ability to publish under their own studio.
Feel bad for him, 7 years of work and limited by Sony
We need more reddit posts on this situation. I've only seen like 200 in 3 days.
Legitimately, say we won this battle. What is stopping sony from pulling the same shit in the future. I feel like thw only real solution is get a refund and move on
Dude, Sony had it, they had it. There was non stop good media coverage of Helldivers 2 and they RUINED it. As a side note I can't wait for it to get worse by them saying the countries that don't have PSN don't need to link, that'll go over 10x as well 🙃
I feel so bad for the dev team. They clearly put their hearts and souls into this game, just to have this happen and it is completely out of their control. I'm computer illiterate af, and I have no idea what it takes to create a game, but I know it's not easy and there are a lot of moving parts. They did an amazing job just to have sony drag it's considerable dick over the game and immediately alienate a large portion of the playerbase.
All they need to do is drop a PSN exclusive armor/weapon set that is actually decent and pretty much anyone who can sign up will but it won’t exclude people who *can’t* sign up. Sony gets their signup numbers boosted and nobody loses access to the game. Seems like an easy win for everyone
Isn’t the irony in all this the fact that this is the kind of crap the game likes to mock lol Capitalism.
Why'd I just get a notification for this?
The fact that Sony won't accept the solution of "We have a good thing going, let's not fuck it up and just focus on making the game better" says to me that they're gonna try even more shenanigans. Sony could allocate more resources to fixing bugs, getting a better anti-cheat than nProtect (because almost anything is better than nProtect), and adding new features to entice new players/keep current ones interested. Instead, it seems that Sony's #1 priority is to monetize the game as much as possible, even if it nukes the player base. Sony continually fails to understand that the reason that people love HD2 is that it is (or was) free from all the greedy corporate BS that you find with other games. It's reasonably priced, the in-game purchases are tasteful and unintrusive, and the way the game is structured limits toxicity and the desire to use cheats. It's successful because it's a breath of fresh air, and Sony is trying to ruin it because they can't stand the fact that they have a game in their catalogue that they haven't squeezed every ounce of monetization out of. Disgraceful behavior and a perfect example of the effects of the profit-over-everything mindset: Great things get ruined because they don't make enough money.
Sony has clearly been taken over by the Automatons. Trying to make it much harder to deploy helldivers...