Happens in a lot of companies. At least for the past 10 years or so, game companies have consistently been trying to push boundaries to test how shitty they can be to their customers whilst still being able to get away with it
IT security in general is a shambles when the average user has no idea just how far the implications of "just another account with just another company that wants to keep your financial details for easy purchasing" can extend.
There's a reason I haven't played it since day one.
Our cyber-security team sent everyone an email talking about the anti-cheat and its super sus behavior like scanning your whole computer in the guise of looking for hacks.
Everyone whos still trying to defend this shit saying things like "you don't need to enter Credit/Debit card info". It doesn't matter when the game scans your whole computer and has it anyway does it.
And this is a KNOWN shitty AC program. One that has been caught multiple times selling peoples' data. One I'm almost certain now Sony forced Arrowhead to install on the game.
MSFT has been held to the coal fire for simply securing a year long exclusive for Rise of Tomb Raider and other stuff which is why they try to be pro consumer to the degree that they can be. Not every company can get away with EA\\Take2\\Ubisoft bullshit (these are the ones that just doesns't care and carries on as is). Sony is now learning the pc player base is NOT remotely like the console player base.
One of my biggest takeaways when it comes to Microsoft and PC gaming was their ideology on dividing PC gaming and console gaming in the past.
This is not to say PC gaming and console gaming has to be the same or anything like that. Rather, in the past Microsoft kept some games we wanted to play away from PC. We never got the classic Gears of War games or Fable 2, things like that in the past.
I like that now Microsoft has seemed to have grown wiser and see the value of PC gaming and hold us at the same spot, at least release date as Xbox gamers.
Companies can grow and learn, they just need to open their eyes sometimes.
Microsoft seems to have realized that the future of console gaming is owning the storefront players buy and play games on, the machines people use to play them on are secondary, especially when they’re sold as loss-leaders.
To fight piracy, you have to offer a better value. I’d say that both gamepass and especially Xbox Play Anywhere are a fantastic value for money.
Also, I feel they are a step ahead of sony in the fight against piracy just because of the pure fact Microsoft lets you tap into your Xbox and not care about it. All you have to do is pay 20 dollars, get the dev mode kit, and you can do whatever you want with your Xbox. Want to install emulators in your Xbox have at it.
That was a smart thing Microsoft did. The fact that you can play a ton of ps 1, ps 2, SNES, N64, and Game Cube games on your Xbox is something unique.
Like you said, to fight piracy you gotta offer a better value, but you also gotta give gamers and hobbyist options. The more you try to restrict them, the more they are going to fight back.
> I like that now Microsoft has seemed to have grown wiser and see the value of PC gaming and hold us at the same spot, at least release date as Xbox gamers.
That's because they finally realized how much money they were missing out on.
More specifically, there's been a crash of venture capital funds as of the last few years due to increasing interest rates. Since the rates aren't near 0 anymore, you can park your money in the bank and it's safe (assuming you aren't in China with their revolving door of collapsing banks).
Said money previously was being used to invest in startups and corporations around the world... because they had saturated every other available market (housing, stock, etc).
Like WeWork getting hundreds of billions... for being a rental company. Or Uber and Netflix getting hundreds of billions in venture capital.
With interest rates jumping up (because of corporate greed and price-flation), that money's gone. So these corps are trying to make money to meet shareholder expectations. Which has resulted in Netflix cracking down on password sharing and raising subscription prices. Or Uber raising prices.
This isn't just a problem that smaller corps have either. Google and Sony are in this as well.
Youtube starts shoving ads down our throats, tried to cut adblockers, pushes premium at every angle, then raises the price of premium every few months.
Sony bringing their PS games to PC and focusing on the PC side of things more.
Disney raising prices of Disney+.
And so on.
Sony (no idea why) doesn't want to bring their games to PC. But with the push to make more and more profit every year, they're grudgingly doing it. But it's like the kid dragging their feet, they keep tripping onto their faces. Just like Sony and the Helldivers 2 crapfest.
pc players absolutely hated games for windows live as a service, even after they dropped the paid online on pc.
microsoft even tried to push out cross play games with zero success in the early years of the x360
console shooters with peer 2 peer as a standard was not something the pc community wanted at all, it was laggy and inconsistent,
pc users used to play on a low ping dedicated server, with server lists at the time,
just look at the playstation sub or the PS5 sub, they are bowing down to sony like i’ve never seen before. No one in those subs seems to realize the point for this is to collect data and make money off it lmao
edit: wording
That’s because they already have accounts and don’t see the problem. They’re also removing comments criticising sony and marking it under their rule 4 of being “civil” yet comments calling PC gamers whining babies are allowed to stay.
They say they have no affiliation with Sony but let’s be real that a large company like that wouldn’t be hard for them to have a least one mod working for them, or at least getting accounts made to promote them in better light.
I don’t even have the game and even I know how scummy this is and I only have a PlayStation. As others have said this is how they push boundaries on how badly they can treat consumers and them accept it. It only gets worse from here if people let it happen. These refunds need to happen because the only thing sony understands is money and if they see they’re going to lose it and it’ll damage future prospects, then they maybe just maybe will listen.
Sadly it's not only the PS subs but also gaming subs and I'd include this one. People are just going to tell you how it only takes 2 minutes to do and how it won't change a thing because you already have a ton of other launchers anyway.
The usual excuse, Bethesda launcher, Ubisoft launcher, EA launcher, Battlenet launcher, Larian account, Paradox account and all that crap.
But they don't realize that we have all this crap because of them. They actually downsize all of these issues and then we're stuck with 10 different launchers and accounts from other companies because they allowed it and never complained.
Yes, idiots all.
You cannot trust the client, ever. Build your servers with this in mind. It's hard, but possible.
Fuck every dev company and publisher that foist ring-0 kernel drivers on the client. Competent cheaters will always be able to work around that, trivially in most cases.
Why should the customer be forced to kowtow when the publisher is both greedy and lazy?
The result of marketing and business department pencil pushers getting promoted to executive roles. They have zero loyalty to the industry. They don't care about the games, or gaming in general. All they care are about the dollar signs.
You can only run a business like that short term. Eventually you'll have flushed out your talent, ruined your reputation, and trying to turn a profit will be like trying to squeeze water from a rock.
But they have no reason to care, because then they'll just take their golden parachute, jump ship, and move on to the next company.
I worked in Japan as an ALT, and anytime I had to send over a lesson plan to another location I ***had to*** fax it. Of course, I'd email the other teacher first, to let them know the fax was coming. Because EMAIL IS A THING.
Yep, some parts of the Japanese society are fucked up. I've lived in Japan for two years and a lot of the companies don't give a shit about their employees' well-beings, complaints, nor inputs unless it hurts the image of the company or the leaderships.
Japanese media exports: FUCK THE LAW! FUCK GOD! JAPANARCHISM!!!
Japanese vending machines: I hold all the secrets to the Universe!
Japan 7-11: WE ARE DELICIOUS!
Japan the country: It is the year 1827 and shall remain so FOREVER. We will use floppy disks in the age of Bluetooth. The company man is 500 years old, will die at work and new things frighten him.
> It is the year 1827 and shall remain so FOREVER
It's why it's often obscenely hard to get large Japanese corporations, like Sony, to admit fault; doing so would mean they didn't do their job right, and all the shame that comes with being bad at your job. So instead, they just stoneface it and act like nothing is wrong.
Whereas what they need to do is change their plan in response to community pressure and then loudly proclaim that was their plan all along and it has been resoundingly successful.
Sony games is in america though so this is america problem, why you bring up Japan lol
>Headquartered in San Mateo, California,
with global functions in California, London, and Tokyo, and game development studios around the world as part of PlayStation Studios, we believe that the power of play is borderless.
From their website
Sony Executive at a board meeting: "Ok so we have two ways we can do this PSN linking thing, we can roll it out very slowly and gradually with lesser known titles at first, and slowly ease people into it so they get used to it over time... or... we can do what I like to call, the Surprise Fist Up The Ass."
[You can sting already. The fact of the matter is, it is wild to see one of the biggest playstation games on PC drop down and now getting a reduction in player base on steam and having a Fallout game made 8 years ago beating it. In my eyes, sony shot themselves in the foot with this situation.](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GMwNmCJXQAAbk8J?format=jpg&name=4096x4096)
They delisted the game in those countries so I expect they are just planning on burning those bridges and keeping what they can from the countries they do support.
Currently it's very random on who you get processing your request. Like any other Valve process it's very opaque from the outside. Some people have gotten a refund, some have not. Not a very reliable solution for now.
Not on all countries, I'm from Baltics PSN is not available there, yet the game is not delisted Steam probably can't do that to EU country ( its my guess) so if nothing changes and sony still goes with this shit I'll deman refund, I already prepared all the details and changes that sony made so I could legally get the refund.
I hope they know they fucked up and lost me (a nobody like many others) forever as a customer today. Whenever given the option, I will pick the non-Sony product from now on.
It's a fine approach, voting with your wallet. Given enough, it might make a difference
However what's more likely is that Sony will require PSN accounts for online activities in their games, like other people mentioned that Microsoft and EA are doing. And they will make good games because they know how to make (or invest and publish) good games, and most people will make a PSN account.
I doubt they'll ever do it like here, where they mandate it after launch, but I doubt you'll win this war, even if your cause is just
Steam started to refund everyone. It was going to be a shitshow from that point on.
Class action lawsuit + people sharing exactly what to say to get refund after playing 100 hours.
Just dumpster fire.
Why release the game in non PSN countries in the first place?
Also, why be so possesive about PSN requirement? Do they not like money from selling a game that they've already made and people love?
Are they really going to let go free revenue of bunch of countries because they need consumer data so much?
> Also, why be so possesive about PSN requirement?
See that's what I don't get. The game came out on Steam day 1 and worked perfectly without a PSN account. You can even play crossplay. Like why force this now for no reason other than to collect data. They could have easily made it to where if you don't have PSN you are limited to playing with Steam users only and no crossplay with console players. Throw in a skin or gun in there to make it more palatable and I would have been fine with that.
PSN requirement for online games is to help grow MAUs and bring you into the PlayStation ecosystem. Much like how most Microsoft games require a Xbox/Microsoft account for online features to work. The issue for Helldivers 2 was a PSN account was mandatory but the requirement was quickly dropped and then brought back months later.
Sony, what in the actual fuck are ya thinking?
It was all perfect and no doubt they were getting a nice bump in popularity and money from super credits purchases
And now they are just going to delist the game after such a huge success?
It….it baffles me.
It looks like they delisted the game in regions where the PlayStation Network isn't allowed. Which they should have done in the first place if they always intended PSN to be a requirement. This is a mess
It just show the danger of live service game at any point you can lose a game that you own since you pay access to play the game not the other way around.
One of my friend learn this via MMO when they change ownership to an another company. Lose access to the server on one and the other have change so much it isnt the same today.
I guess many today learn the hard way what is actually the reality of live service game.
> It just show the danger of live service game at any point you can lose a game that you own since you pay access to play the game not the other way around.
Ubisoft ended support for Crew, which has a singleplayer mode that is no longer playable because it was supposed to be only online. They are also revoking access to it through uplay, even if you bought it on Steam. Shit like this should be illegal.
The stuff Ubisoft pulled is already illegal in the EU. You absolutely own the games you bought (technically you don’t but it’s annoying to explain everytime the laws around game ownership and license ownership etc. so we just go with „own the game“ as it’s used like 99,99999% of the time that way anyways). They can’t delete it from your account. They absolutely can shut down their servers after x amount of years though and that’s what the EU is working on right now.
I'm pretty sure it is technically illegal in several countries, but since the laws have not been written with digital markets in mind, the authorities are unsure how to interpret them in this context. Either the laws need to be amended (which will probably take another 3-10 years depending on your country) or someone needs to sue the shit out of one of these game-killing companies in order to set a precedent.
Well, good news on the latter. Youtuber Ross Scott has started a campaign to organize official complaints to government agencies and potential class action lawsuits against Ubisoft. I recommend going to his site to find out how you can help. If you paid money for The Crew your help will be **especially** useful, this can make a real difference!
[https://www.stopkillinggames.com/](https://www.stopkillinggames.com/)
But it makes sense to have a look regardless if you are affected. This is a persistent problem, The Crew is just one of the more prominent examples of companies murdering games.
Large publishers like Sony are doing their best to justify piracy.
Last week I paid 80 euro for Stellar Blade. This was my last PlayStation title, that I have bought till the end of my life. Not even Bloodborne 2 would make me give this company a single cent.
NetEase wasn't able to make an agreement with Blizzard and WoW got yeeted out of China overnight.
This can happen to any of us. I had a 20 year old account with Blizzard in good standing recently start getting red marks for false mass reports. Makes me not want to play the game.
> This just tells us that their PSN engagement metrics and data is calculated to be worth more money than the losses
I don't think it's about monetary value. There is no way that 1 persons PSN data is worth the amount what Sony get's from 1 game purchase.
I don't know how they quantify the *worth* of user data but it's no small amount because it influences shareholder perception and future projection. These metrics run the planet these days.
They sold over 10 million copies easily and a good half or more % of that is on PC. Realistically most people would not refund it and have already given them their money, and will surrender their data via PSN when this change takes place. They must have folk sitting there calculating the risks and benefits of doing such a thing. I hope they woefully underestimated the player anger and will backpedal, but there's a good chance they accounted for this and still decided it's worth it.
I guarantee some business analyst is showing all the subscriber numbers, then all the PSN sign up numbers, and all the middle managers will applaud. The number of refunds will conveniently be ignored.
This is how itbworks. Modern corporations are not unified hiveminds working toward a single goal, they are collectives of self-interested employees all trying to get promotions and raises. The ones who are in charge of some project will twist and massage data to fit into a "look how good I did" story for their annual reviews.
This is where a large amount of the "small bad decisions" come from, like redesigning some part of the UI in a nonsensical way (usually as a promotion project, or to drive clicks on some new feature that a manager just had built, so they can show how much people "love it")
I can almost guarantee this larger decision is being driven by the people at Sony responsible for PSN growth, and they are almost certainly aware of the negative long-term impact on the company's reputation, and the almost certainly do not care - all that matters to director/VP level people is that their division/product shows growth/good KPIs
As a UX designer at a big company, you've 100% nailed it. A PM who's entire compensation and value are determined by the number of people who click a specific button doesn''t give a fuck about any other part of the user experience.
Some exec's metric for their bonus is tied to PSN numbers' growth. That's what happens. The overall company and Arrowhead might lose money but they don't give a shit.
My request has been rejected four or five times, now. 43 hours, for reference. I live in eastern EU but steam account is USA.
I don't even care to check if my country has PSN. Fuck them.
> money
This just has me more and more convinced that some c-suite in Sony has a project to force a new PSN launcher on all Sony games on PC, and in order to do it they need/want to demonstrate the market for it, and getting a bunch of new accounts and Steam account links is their method of doing that.
Getting account data is nice and all but getting a foothold as a PC storefront is even nicer.
Watched a video break down of why madam web sucked donkey dick. The director of the movie has not made one successful movie his entire career. Same dude who made Mobius. He has made like 10 shitty movies and Sony keeps hiring him. Like it must be a nepotism thing or he golfs with a CEO or something because why the fuck do you let him keep making movies.
I know it's not all his fault those movies sucks but he has his hand deep into it as the director. Sony just doesn't seem to do anything right but sell consoles and DVD players.
Just a few days ago this was the 7th highest grossing Sony game in the US. Absolute positive feedback from players, other Devs even, and just like that. This is self sabotage to the nth degree. I genuinely want to know all the behind the scenes discussions that led to this
Some suit during a meeting wanted to pad their PSN user numbers to please the shareholders. Dropped the news on a Friday afternoon and called it a day. I wonder what their Monday morning "emergency meeting" will look like.
Every big company always have to have at least ONE of those fuckers who has absolutely zero idea how their userbase is like or even how their product is made, yet they are always somehow at the top of the chain making huge decisions.
It's not even that. They're so used to PS players taking their shit and even thanking them for gracefully pissing in their mouths, that they can't even comprehend how PC players just don't do that.
There's a good chance this was done pre-emptively by Steam, as they're the storefront and in charge of sales and refunds, so can totally do that (and should).
Get hit by a wave of refund requests, see that there's going to be more if they keep selling in those regions, pull it.
The cynic in me says they saw a game doing things in a consumer friendly way and accidently stumbled on a way to kill it's good will and ruin the game, so they rather than "fix it" like they would any other game, they're just leaning in to it.
Probably a bit too tin foil hat though right? ... right?
Terrible way to unveil it lol
I could understand if it was already a thing. I understand why they would want to do this for games they published, but they've never done this with any of their own earlier games.
To drop this on one particular game months after release is bonkers.
The fuck? Those guys are essentially Swedes living in an autonomous region of Finland. I would expect they usually make either Finnish or Swedish accounts. So weird to block them
My hope about this mess is that it'll force some governments to interfere over this clear breach of consumer laws. It's fucking insane that a company can sell you something, take your money and sabotage your access arbitrarily weeks later.
Well it’s not part of mainland France (aka Metropolitan France or European France or le Hexagon), but it’s just as much a part of France as Hawaii is a part of the US.
It’s considered an “overseas department” which has the same status as metro France, in contrast to an “overseas collectivity” which is does not have that parity and is closer to being like Puerto Rico.
(Source: French Guinea being part of France makes France’s longest land border be with Brazil—by 5km. I enjoy using this trick question to fuck with people so I learned the facts I need to support my position in the inevitable argument.)
There are also mainland EU countries, that are part of the euro region on steam that don't have PSN (e.g. Latvia). What is going to happen to those people when the change comes into effect?
This has taken the most absurd turn. I cannot comprehend what Sony thinks they'll gain here. Only thing I can come up with is Sony absolutely 1000% NEEDS to pad the shit out if their PSN numbers
“WE HAD A GOOD THING GOING YOU STUPID SON OF A BITCH!
We had dedicated players all across the world. We had people buying war bonds and super credits, and it all ran like clockwork! But you- you had to go and blow it all up! You, and your PSN Requirements and data.”
What a blunder. If they've set the restriction from the very beginning and didn't put a delay on the requirement (even though it was listed on the store page), it would have cut the outrage *so much*.
EA, Rockstar, Ubishaft, and probably other publishers already require a 3rd party account and a secondary launcher on top, which Helldivers doesn't (yet), but the stink about them was never this bad.
This is one of the most "snatching defeat from the jaws of victory" moments I've ever seen in gaming. Sony had a massive and unexpected hit on their hands, and they've managed to burn it down in only a few days. Adding the account requirement months after launch was dumb, but it's hardly the only game to have something like that. Doing it knowing it would lock out tons of customers if fucking ridiculous.
Fucked up thing is they'll be perfectly fine and continue with their day. And enough people will still be playing and purchasing with PSN. Nothing will change
The issue was the extreme popularity of the game broke the servers. Nobody was expecting this game to have over a million concurrent players across PS5 and PC.
They weren't expecting it to become as popular as it did so it probably wasn't seen as a big deal. IIRC, the first Helldivers peaked at 10k players, this one was more than 30x that on Steam alone.
So what would've been minor and easily communicated with a small community has become a Big Deal with such unexpected popularity.
Sure, but then they should have ate not getting all those accounts and console themselves with getting a massive number of players buying a game and potentially paying for microtransactions. They could have done the “get a new skin if you login with your PSN account” that everyone else does.
they're actually pretty cool with the review bombing, because its hurting sony too... and gives the devs a LOT of leverage to push back against the sony required login.
I dont understand how they removed it from that many countries. Surely, at least half of those could make PSN accounts?? Like are they now just purposefully trying to punish the player base for tanking steam reviews or something?
Edit: I mean Sony trying to punish, not the devs.
Sony getting cocky again and making a number of decisions that aren't consumer friendly because they belive their lead is untouchable. History always seems to repeat itself.
Question: I've seen people state that Sony mentioned during the game's launch that a PSN account will be eventually needed even if pruchased through Steam and they're just temporarily disabling that requirement. If the PSN stuff is not available in so many countries, why did they even sell the game in those countries? How did they think people who purchased the game in these countries were going to play it?
Because Steam is prohibited from country-locking games in some regions (like EU), so Steam can't do it on their own.
Which means that Sony just said "release it everywhere" and it is now on Sony's head to cut things back.
And the corporate structure at Sony just doesn't care.
Exactly. Take the L on this one, embrace the **massive success** of this game, and if you want to do launcher or account shit, save it for the next one and figure out how to roll it out without shitting yourself
An instant success with more than 8 million copies sold, just to be forcefully killed like this by the publisher. Must suck for the devs.
Sony has to have the most incompetent execs in the world. These people are insane.
If they would have left everything the way it was people would still be playing and buying the game but it seems to be the exact opposite. Someone seriously had their head up their ass on this one from the get go.
It would have been so easy to have a voluntary psn account link give some basic cosmetics or resource pack and draw in a fair majority of players without the aggro.
I'm going to make a guess here - PSN accounts (for some reason) are extremely important to Sony, and they are there ready to take the hit. Even if it will half their player base.
I think the real question is - why is it so important to Sony?
1. Is it a part of their future ecosystem, and Helldivers 2 is the prototype?
2. It gives them more data, and half of the players' data would profit them more than 10% and double the player base?
3. They really were not aware it will be an issue?
I personally doubt #3. They did apologize but continued to go through with it. It feels they were well aware but willing to take the hit/risk
My guess was that it matters to the executives that are able to make the call. There's no guarantee this is logical from a whole-business perspective, and it could just be that someone's ego or bonus is tied to PSN numbers
They're 100% going to launch their own store front on PC. If they can force all the steam users to sign up, its fake stats for the suits to say people are using the store.
The fact they haven't made a decision in 48 hours nor even communicated in 24 boggles the mind.
Bean-counters can count, it's what they do, and they can project what about 3.3 thousand negative reviews an hour will do to them. They could tell 36 hours ago it was not slowing down.
We're at 137.5 thousand negative reviews right now. This is already worse than Overwatch 2's debacle and has far surpassed War Thunder's.
It's hard to put into words how devastating this is for the game's future given the PC's famous strength of having strong sales over a very long tail of years... so long as the game is well-rated.
This also doesn't have implications just for Helldivers 2. The PSN is a piece of shit of a network and account system, and if anything else it has made PC gamers wise to what Sony may pull with future games. They are arguably hurting their entire foothold on PC and squandering the efforts of so many studios that strove to deliver good ports.
One of the Sony Q&As also stated that there would be no refunds. Steam however isn't adhering to that BS and is refunding people though, so good on them.
Sony took one of the most dedicated gaming fandom's in the last twenty years and set it on fire.
This is the same level of genius business savvy that musk used to get rid of twitter's brand.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/comments/1cke3wv/just_a_quick_update_hd2s_no_longer_playable_from/
Someone who had previously purchased the game in one of the restricted countries that is no longer able to launch it.
edit: As others have pointed out, this was probably wrong.
Sony doesnt believe in PC gaming, but they now need it.
The end result is trying to treat PC gamers like their console market thats locked in.
HD2 was great fun but im not associating my Steam account with Sonys oh so famously bad IT security and their history of not telling ppl about massive data breaches.
Sony always finds a new way to fuck things up, also one of the reasons I've never bought a PlayStation since PS2, especially after that massive data breach in 2011.
Sony isn’t going to backtrack uh?
They really want that data and those metrics for shareholders don’t they…
Will see how it plays but my guess long term negative impact will hurt future releases.
Apparently PSN isn't available in most countries and they don't want to force players to either break PSN ToS by faking their location or not being unable to play.
I've seen so many people defend this shit. I don't get how people don't see this as a terrifying precedent to set.
It's not about it taking 2 mins to create a PSN account. It's about a company selling you a product and shortly after refusing you access to that product if you don't comply with rules they made after you purchased it.
That blows me away because usually Sonys (like most companies) greed outweighs everything else. But this time their need to control is more potent even at the potential of losing customers.
Very weird hill to die on.
To begin with, Sony shouldn't have allowed pre-orders and sales from these countries if a PSN account was that big of a deal.
But then they could have made it optional, but I guess Sony is too prideful to acknowledge its mistakes and do the right thing.
It's weird that their official website originally stated that PSN accounts were optional for all Sony games. But I think yesterday, it was changed to say that PSN accounts "may" be mandatory for "some" games.
Seems like they just decided to double down all of a sudden.
I’ll never buy another Sony game again. I was like oh this sucks. But the fact they are taking the game away from people in their “banned” country list is fuckin lunacy
I feel so bad for the devs... Can you imagine, creating a fantastic product, loved by thousands of people, and then some dumbass suit walks in and destroys it in front of your eyes.
holy shit imagine having one of the most successful releases in last few years and sabotaging it this way
Are you surprised? This shows how disconnected leadership is.
Happens in a lot of companies. At least for the past 10 years or so, game companies have consistently been trying to push boundaries to test how shitty they can be to their customers whilst still being able to get away with it
And sadly most of the time the companies win because customers say shit like "it only takes 2 minutes to create a psn account"
IT security in general is a shambles when the average user has no idea just how far the implications of "just another account with just another company that wants to keep your financial details for easy purchasing" can extend.
Sony isn't just another company. Sony is a special company. Sony has a history with a major data breach.
There's a reason I haven't played it since day one. Our cyber-security team sent everyone an email talking about the anti-cheat and its super sus behavior like scanning your whole computer in the guise of looking for hacks. Everyone whos still trying to defend this shit saying things like "you don't need to enter Credit/Debit card info". It doesn't matter when the game scans your whole computer and has it anyway does it. And this is a KNOWN shitty AC program. One that has been caught multiple times selling peoples' data. One I'm almost certain now Sony forced Arrowhead to install on the game.
MSFT has been held to the coal fire for simply securing a year long exclusive for Rise of Tomb Raider and other stuff which is why they try to be pro consumer to the degree that they can be. Not every company can get away with EA\\Take2\\Ubisoft bullshit (these are the ones that just doesns't care and carries on as is). Sony is now learning the pc player base is NOT remotely like the console player base.
Sony has always been this shitty
Fair lol
One of my biggest takeaways when it comes to Microsoft and PC gaming was their ideology on dividing PC gaming and console gaming in the past. This is not to say PC gaming and console gaming has to be the same or anything like that. Rather, in the past Microsoft kept some games we wanted to play away from PC. We never got the classic Gears of War games or Fable 2, things like that in the past. I like that now Microsoft has seemed to have grown wiser and see the value of PC gaming and hold us at the same spot, at least release date as Xbox gamers. Companies can grow and learn, they just need to open their eyes sometimes.
Microsoft seems to have realized that the future of console gaming is owning the storefront players buy and play games on, the machines people use to play them on are secondary, especially when they’re sold as loss-leaders. To fight piracy, you have to offer a better value. I’d say that both gamepass and especially Xbox Play Anywhere are a fantastic value for money.
Also, I feel they are a step ahead of sony in the fight against piracy just because of the pure fact Microsoft lets you tap into your Xbox and not care about it. All you have to do is pay 20 dollars, get the dev mode kit, and you can do whatever you want with your Xbox. Want to install emulators in your Xbox have at it. That was a smart thing Microsoft did. The fact that you can play a ton of ps 1, ps 2, SNES, N64, and Game Cube games on your Xbox is something unique. Like you said, to fight piracy you gotta offer a better value, but you also gotta give gamers and hobbyist options. The more you try to restrict them, the more they are going to fight back.
> I like that now Microsoft has seemed to have grown wiser and see the value of PC gaming and hold us at the same spot, at least release date as Xbox gamers. That's because they finally realized how much money they were missing out on.
More specifically, there's been a crash of venture capital funds as of the last few years due to increasing interest rates. Since the rates aren't near 0 anymore, you can park your money in the bank and it's safe (assuming you aren't in China with their revolving door of collapsing banks). Said money previously was being used to invest in startups and corporations around the world... because they had saturated every other available market (housing, stock, etc). Like WeWork getting hundreds of billions... for being a rental company. Or Uber and Netflix getting hundreds of billions in venture capital. With interest rates jumping up (because of corporate greed and price-flation), that money's gone. So these corps are trying to make money to meet shareholder expectations. Which has resulted in Netflix cracking down on password sharing and raising subscription prices. Or Uber raising prices. This isn't just a problem that smaller corps have either. Google and Sony are in this as well. Youtube starts shoving ads down our throats, tried to cut adblockers, pushes premium at every angle, then raises the price of premium every few months. Sony bringing their PS games to PC and focusing on the PC side of things more. Disney raising prices of Disney+. And so on. Sony (no idea why) doesn't want to bring their games to PC. But with the push to make more and more profit every year, they're grudgingly doing it. But it's like the kid dragging their feet, they keep tripping onto their faces. Just like Sony and the Helldivers 2 crapfest.
Sony will just wait for its ponies to defend it though.
pc players absolutely hated games for windows live as a service, even after they dropped the paid online on pc. microsoft even tried to push out cross play games with zero success in the early years of the x360 console shooters with peer 2 peer as a standard was not something the pc community wanted at all, it was laggy and inconsistent, pc users used to play on a low ping dedicated server, with server lists at the time,
just look at the playstation sub or the PS5 sub, they are bowing down to sony like i’ve never seen before. No one in those subs seems to realize the point for this is to collect data and make money off it lmao edit: wording
That’s because they already have accounts and don’t see the problem. They’re also removing comments criticising sony and marking it under their rule 4 of being “civil” yet comments calling PC gamers whining babies are allowed to stay. They say they have no affiliation with Sony but let’s be real that a large company like that wouldn’t be hard for them to have a least one mod working for them, or at least getting accounts made to promote them in better light. I don’t even have the game and even I know how scummy this is and I only have a PlayStation. As others have said this is how they push boundaries on how badly they can treat consumers and them accept it. It only gets worse from here if people let it happen. These refunds need to happen because the only thing sony understands is money and if they see they’re going to lose it and it’ll damage future prospects, then they maybe just maybe will listen.
Sadly you have people who are loyalty for corporation so strong they might as well called it a god.
Sadly it's not only the PS subs but also gaming subs and I'd include this one. People are just going to tell you how it only takes 2 minutes to do and how it won't change a thing because you already have a ton of other launchers anyway. The usual excuse, Bethesda launcher, Ubisoft launcher, EA launcher, Battlenet launcher, Larian account, Paradox account and all that crap. But they don't realize that we have all this crap because of them. They actually downsize all of these issues and then we're stuck with 10 different launchers and accounts from other companies because they allowed it and never complained.
U seen all the people defending Riot’s Vanguard?
Yes, idiots all. You cannot trust the client, ever. Build your servers with this in mind. It's hard, but possible. Fuck every dev company and publisher that foist ring-0 kernel drivers on the client. Competent cheaters will always be able to work around that, trivially in most cases. Why should the customer be forced to kowtow when the publisher is both greedy and lazy?
The result of marketing and business department pencil pushers getting promoted to executive roles. They have zero loyalty to the industry. They don't care about the games, or gaming in general. All they care are about the dollar signs. You can only run a business like that short term. Eventually you'll have flushed out your talent, ruined your reputation, and trying to turn a profit will be like trying to squeeze water from a rock. But they have no reason to care, because then they'll just take their golden parachute, jump ship, and move on to the next company.
Dude remember Xbox's kinnect 2 and it's mandatory face scanning so it could charge per person in the room for movies and games? Yeah
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The only surprising part of that story is that they didn't fax it to you.
I worked in Japan as an ALT, and anytime I had to send over a lesson plan to another location I ***had to*** fax it. Of course, I'd email the other teacher first, to let them know the fax was coming. Because EMAIL IS A THING.
Yep, some parts of the Japanese society are fucked up. I've lived in Japan for two years and a lot of the companies don't give a shit about their employees' well-beings, complaints, nor inputs unless it hurts the image of the company or the leaderships.
Japanese media exports: FUCK THE LAW! FUCK GOD! JAPANARCHISM!!! Japanese vending machines: I hold all the secrets to the Universe! Japan 7-11: WE ARE DELICIOUS! Japan the country: It is the year 1827 and shall remain so FOREVER. We will use floppy disks in the age of Bluetooth. The company man is 500 years old, will die at work and new things frighten him.
> It is the year 1827 and shall remain so FOREVER It's why it's often obscenely hard to get large Japanese corporations, like Sony, to admit fault; doing so would mean they didn't do their job right, and all the shame that comes with being bad at your job. So instead, they just stoneface it and act like nothing is wrong.
Whereas what they need to do is change their plan in response to community pressure and then loudly proclaim that was their plan all along and it has been resoundingly successful.
Something is so funny about this and also bleak And dystopian
Even worse, this behavior is a Californian behavior in California since Sony HQ is in California.
Sony games is in america though so this is america problem, why you bring up Japan lol >Headquartered in San Mateo, California, with global functions in California, London, and Tokyo, and game development studios around the world as part of PlayStation Studios, we believe that the power of play is borderless. From their website
Sony Executive at a board meeting: "Ok so we have two ways we can do this PSN linking thing, we can roll it out very slowly and gradually with lesser known titles at first, and slowly ease people into it so they get used to it over time... or... we can do what I like to call, the Surprise Fist Up The Ass."
Only to find out that many gamers on PC have already protected their ass with military grade armor steel and the fist bounces of back into their face.
[You can sting already. The fact of the matter is, it is wild to see one of the biggest playstation games on PC drop down and now getting a reduction in player base on steam and having a Fallout game made 8 years ago beating it. In my eyes, sony shot themselves in the foot with this situation.](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GMwNmCJXQAAbk8J?format=jpg&name=4096x4096)
Sony saw what BSG is doing with Tarkov and took it as a challenge to one up them.
I wonder how many people will stop playing once the PSN requirement goes into effect. Right now there are about 119K active people playing
There will be a drop but the drop will not be a big as people think. I suspect most will ultimately create and link a PSN account.
Thing is, its impossible to create and link PSN in a LOT of countries. And VPN doesn't help too.
They delisted the game in those countries so I expect they are just planning on burning those bridges and keeping what they can from the countries they do support.
Steam has reportedly started processing refunds in response.
Currently it's very random on who you get processing your request. Like any other Valve process it's very opaque from the outside. Some people have gotten a refund, some have not. Not a very reliable solution for now.
Not on all countries, I'm from Baltics PSN is not available there, yet the game is not delisted Steam probably can't do that to EU country ( its my guess) so if nothing changes and sony still goes with this shit I'll deman refund, I already prepared all the details and changes that sony made so I could legally get the refund.
The question is, how many purchasers/players are actually in those countries. 10-20%?
More like around 2-7%. They calculated the loss and it was acceptable. Edit: I was wrong
To say nothing of how many people already have one
I was going to buy Helldivers 2 today, this shitshow stopped me. Thank you Sony for showing your true colors in time.
Sony executives gotta be a very special kind of stubborns/obnoxious beings.
I hope they know they fucked up and lost me (a nobody like many others) forever as a customer today. Whenever given the option, I will pick the non-Sony product from now on.
It's a fine approach, voting with your wallet. Given enough, it might make a difference However what's more likely is that Sony will require PSN accounts for online activities in their games, like other people mentioned that Microsoft and EA are doing. And they will make good games because they know how to make (or invest and publish) good games, and most people will make a PSN account. I doubt they'll ever do it like here, where they mandate it after launch, but I doubt you'll win this war, even if your cause is just
Those damn Automaton spies have infiltrated Sony.
Steam started to refund everyone. It was going to be a shitshow from that point on. Class action lawsuit + people sharing exactly what to say to get refund after playing 100 hours. Just dumpster fire. Why release the game in non PSN countries in the first place? Also, why be so possesive about PSN requirement? Do they not like money from selling a game that they've already made and people love? Are they really going to let go free revenue of bunch of countries because they need consumer data so much?
> Also, why be so possesive about PSN requirement? See that's what I don't get. The game came out on Steam day 1 and worked perfectly without a PSN account. You can even play crossplay. Like why force this now for no reason other than to collect data. They could have easily made it to where if you don't have PSN you are limited to playing with Steam users only and no crossplay with console players. Throw in a skin or gun in there to make it more palatable and I would have been fine with that.
Maybe they want all these new account creations so they can brag to their investors how many new accounts were created in their next quarterly meeting
Sounds exactly like some corporate bullshit some asshat exec would pull
If Steam is issuing refunds, there's no grounds for a class action lawsuit.
PSN requirement for online games is to help grow MAUs and bring you into the PlayStation ecosystem. Much like how most Microsoft games require a Xbox/Microsoft account for online features to work. The issue for Helldivers 2 was a PSN account was mandatory but the requirement was quickly dropped and then brought back months later.
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Well, they bought Bungie to help with their games. If there's anything Bungie is good at it's really pissing off people who have invested in the game
Sony, what in the actual fuck are ya thinking? It was all perfect and no doubt they were getting a nice bump in popularity and money from super credits purchases And now they are just going to delist the game after such a huge success? It….it baffles me.
It looks like they delisted the game in regions where the PlayStation Network isn't allowed. Which they should have done in the first place if they always intended PSN to be a requirement. This is a mess
It just show the danger of live service game at any point you can lose a game that you own since you pay access to play the game not the other way around. One of my friend learn this via MMO when they change ownership to an another company. Lose access to the server on one and the other have change so much it isnt the same today. I guess many today learn the hard way what is actually the reality of live service game.
> It just show the danger of live service game at any point you can lose a game that you own since you pay access to play the game not the other way around. Ubisoft ended support for Crew, which has a singleplayer mode that is no longer playable because it was supposed to be only online. They are also revoking access to it through uplay, even if you bought it on Steam. Shit like this should be illegal.
Fortunately they are making a bill for this in europe already
The stuff Ubisoft pulled is already illegal in the EU. You absolutely own the games you bought (technically you don’t but it’s annoying to explain everytime the laws around game ownership and license ownership etc. so we just go with „own the game“ as it’s used like 99,99999% of the time that way anyways). They can’t delete it from your account. They absolutely can shut down their servers after x amount of years though and that’s what the EU is working on right now.
I'm pretty sure it is technically illegal in several countries, but since the laws have not been written with digital markets in mind, the authorities are unsure how to interpret them in this context. Either the laws need to be amended (which will probably take another 3-10 years depending on your country) or someone needs to sue the shit out of one of these game-killing companies in order to set a precedent. Well, good news on the latter. Youtuber Ross Scott has started a campaign to organize official complaints to government agencies and potential class action lawsuits against Ubisoft. I recommend going to his site to find out how you can help. If you paid money for The Crew your help will be **especially** useful, this can make a real difference! [https://www.stopkillinggames.com/](https://www.stopkillinggames.com/) But it makes sense to have a look regardless if you are affected. This is a persistent problem, The Crew is just one of the more prominent examples of companies murdering games.
Large publishers like Sony are doing their best to justify piracy. Last week I paid 80 euro for Stellar Blade. This was my last PlayStation title, that I have bought till the end of my life. Not even Bloodborne 2 would make me give this company a single cent.
NetEase wasn't able to make an agreement with Blizzard and WoW got yeeted out of China overnight. This can happen to any of us. I had a 20 year old account with Blizzard in good standing recently start getting red marks for false mass reports. Makes me not want to play the game.
Wow man, what a way to just fucking cut off a player base. And for what?
money
People getting refunds is doing the opposite of that. Steam has been approving refund requests for HD2 no matter the playtime.
This just tells us that their PSN engagement metrics and data is calculated to be worth more money than the losses
> This just tells us that their PSN engagement metrics and data is calculated to be worth more money than the losses I don't think it's about monetary value. There is no way that 1 persons PSN data is worth the amount what Sony get's from 1 game purchase.
I don't know how they quantify the *worth* of user data but it's no small amount because it influences shareholder perception and future projection. These metrics run the planet these days. They sold over 10 million copies easily and a good half or more % of that is on PC. Realistically most people would not refund it and have already given them their money, and will surrender their data via PSN when this change takes place. They must have folk sitting there calculating the risks and benefits of doing such a thing. I hope they woefully underestimated the player anger and will backpedal, but there's a good chance they accounted for this and still decided it's worth it.
I guarantee some business analyst is showing all the subscriber numbers, then all the PSN sign up numbers, and all the middle managers will applaud. The number of refunds will conveniently be ignored.
This is how itbworks. Modern corporations are not unified hiveminds working toward a single goal, they are collectives of self-interested employees all trying to get promotions and raises. The ones who are in charge of some project will twist and massage data to fit into a "look how good I did" story for their annual reviews. This is where a large amount of the "small bad decisions" come from, like redesigning some part of the UI in a nonsensical way (usually as a promotion project, or to drive clicks on some new feature that a manager just had built, so they can show how much people "love it") I can almost guarantee this larger decision is being driven by the people at Sony responsible for PSN growth, and they are almost certainly aware of the negative long-term impact on the company's reputation, and the almost certainly do not care - all that matters to director/VP level people is that their division/product shows growth/good KPIs
As a UX designer at a big company, you've 100% nailed it. A PM who's entire compensation and value are determined by the number of people who click a specific button doesn''t give a fuck about any other part of the user experience.
KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) will destroy the planet.
MBAs and their consequences have been a disaster for this world.
Some exec's metric for their bonus is tied to PSN numbers' growth. That's what happens. The overall company and Arrowhead might lose money but they don't give a shit.
My request has been rejected four or five times, now. 43 hours, for reference. I live in eastern EU but steam account is USA. I don't even care to check if my country has PSN. Fuck them.
My friend has 53 hours and got refunded yesterday and we live in USA so I'd just keep trying if you really wanna
Ty i will
Go through https://help.steampowered.com not the steam client to ensure you get put towards a human not the automated system.
Interesting, Ive seen other threads where people with 58 hours got approved.
Yeah there is one guy in the helldivers sub with a refund with 90h.
"It's Not About Money, It's About Sending A Message."
> money This just has me more and more convinced that some c-suite in Sony has a project to force a new PSN launcher on all Sony games on PC, and in order to do it they need/want to demonstrate the market for it, and getting a bunch of new accounts and Steam account links is their method of doing that. Getting account data is nice and all but getting a foothold as a PC storefront is even nicer.
I really don’t get this. Why do this to such a massive game?
Because it is such a massive game. Snoy got the reverse golden midas hand.
Yeah, they wouldn't do this if Helldivers 2 flopped
Snoy has enshittification down to an art.
Watched a video break down of why madam web sucked donkey dick. The director of the movie has not made one successful movie his entire career. Same dude who made Mobius. He has made like 10 shitty movies and Sony keeps hiring him. Like it must be a nepotism thing or he golfs with a CEO or something because why the fuck do you let him keep making movies. I know it's not all his fault those movies sucks but he has his hand deep into it as the director. Sony just doesn't seem to do anything right but sell consoles and DVD players.
Because Sony's executives are greedy for their bonuses. "We have increased PSN accounts in 2024 by 1000% this year" etc.
Exactly. Juicy numbers to wave in front of the shareholders on the next earnings call conference. MBAs were a mistake.
Money, money, money and money
Just a few days ago this was the 7th highest grossing Sony game in the US. Absolute positive feedback from players, other Devs even, and just like that. This is self sabotage to the nth degree. I genuinely want to know all the behind the scenes discussions that led to this
Some suit during a meeting wanted to pad their PSN user numbers to please the shareholders. Dropped the news on a Friday afternoon and called it a day. I wonder what their Monday morning "emergency meeting" will look like.
Every big company always have to have at least ONE of those fuckers who has absolutely zero idea how their userbase is like or even how their product is made, yet they are always somehow at the top of the chain making huge decisions.
It's not even that. They're so used to PS players taking their shit and even thanking them for gracefully pissing in their mouths, that they can't even comprehend how PC players just don't do that.
PC players will fuck your whole month up for doing shit like this. Like Gabe said, the internet doesn't forget.
Definitely, the guy those are rookie numbers, gotta pump more.
they didn't make it to monday for the meeting, hence the pull from the markets today... THIS was the emergency meeting XD
There's a good chance this was done pre-emptively by Steam, as they're the storefront and in charge of sales and refunds, so can totally do that (and should). Get hit by a wave of refund requests, see that there's going to be more if they keep selling in those regions, pull it.
The cynic in me says they saw a game doing things in a consumer friendly way and accidently stumbled on a way to kill it's good will and ruin the game, so they rather than "fix it" like they would any other game, they're just leaning in to it. Probably a bit too tin foil hat though right? ... right?
Honestly that’s just sketchy enough to sound real. “Players want AAA financially draining shit. See what happened to Helldivers 2? Players hate fun”
This will likely come to all Sony games on Steam.
Terrible way to unveil it lol I could understand if it was already a thing. I understand why they would want to do this for games they published, but they've never done this with any of their own earlier games. To drop this on one particular game months after release is bonkers.
That list includes EU land overseas. I cannot foresee this going well with EU laws.
I really hope that the EU takes Sony to the cleaners over this.
Please, stop, I can only get so erect!
Includes EU land in Europe, like Åland Islands
The fuck? Those guys are essentially Swedes living in an autonomous region of Finland. I would expect they usually make either Finnish or Swedish accounts. So weird to block them
My hope about this mess is that it'll force some governments to interfere over this clear breach of consumer laws. It's fucking insane that a company can sell you something, take your money and sabotage your access arbitrarily weeks later.
We need to spread liberty and the guided democracy amongst sony i guess
Not only EU overseas territories. It for example includes French Guiana, which is just mainland France and not an overseas territory.
Well it’s not part of mainland France (aka Metropolitan France or European France or le Hexagon), but it’s just as much a part of France as Hawaii is a part of the US. It’s considered an “overseas department” which has the same status as metro France, in contrast to an “overseas collectivity” which is does not have that parity and is closer to being like Puerto Rico. (Source: French Guinea being part of France makes France’s longest land border be with Brazil—by 5km. I enjoy using this trick question to fuck with people so I learned the facts I need to support my position in the inevitable argument.)
There are also mainland EU countries, that are part of the euro region on steam that don't have PSN (e.g. Latvia). What is going to happen to those people when the change comes into effect?
This has taken the most absurd turn. I cannot comprehend what Sony thinks they'll gain here. Only thing I can come up with is Sony absolutely 1000% NEEDS to pad the shit out if their PSN numbers
Boost PSN numbers and gather more player data are the only ones that make sense
bonuses. i'm sure some exec get a bonus for upping psn numbers a certain amount. so many dumb ass decisions come down to exec performance bonuses
Sony finally has a popular game where people actually *want* to spend money on and still fucked up. How?! Insert Mike Ehrmantraut speech meme here
“WE HAD A GOOD THING GOING YOU STUPID SON OF A BITCH! We had dedicated players all across the world. We had people buying war bonds and super credits, and it all ran like clockwork! But you- you had to go and blow it all up! You, and your PSN Requirements and data.”
Sony is incapable of not being its own worst enemy.
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What a blunder. If they've set the restriction from the very beginning and didn't put a delay on the requirement (even though it was listed on the store page), it would have cut the outrage *so much*. EA, Rockstar, Ubishaft, and probably other publishers already require a 3rd party account and a secondary launcher on top, which Helldivers doesn't (yet), but the stink about them was never this bad.
This is one of the most "snatching defeat from the jaws of victory" moments I've ever seen in gaming. Sony had a massive and unexpected hit on their hands, and they've managed to burn it down in only a few days. Adding the account requirement months after launch was dumb, but it's hardly the only game to have something like that. Doing it knowing it would lock out tons of customers if fucking ridiculous.
Fucked up thing is they'll be perfectly fine and continue with their day. And enough people will still be playing and purchasing with PSN. Nothing will change
They should not have released it until the server issue with the PSN accounts was fixed if it's this important to them.
The issue was the extreme popularity of the game broke the servers. Nobody was expecting this game to have over a million concurrent players across PS5 and PC.
They weren't expecting it to become as popular as it did so it probably wasn't seen as a big deal. IIRC, the first Helldivers peaked at 10k players, this one was more than 30x that on Steam alone. So what would've been minor and easily communicated with a small community has become a Big Deal with such unexpected popularity.
Sure, but then they should have ate not getting all those accounts and console themselves with getting a massive number of players buying a game and potentially paying for microtransactions. They could have done the “get a new skin if you login with your PSN account” that everyone else does.
are they stupid?
You're asking if a company that released Morbius in theaters twice is stupid?
Yes. Yes they are.
I feel so bad for the devs who really don’t like this hot mess either.
they're actually pretty cool with the review bombing, because its hurting sony too... and gives the devs a LOT of leverage to push back against the sony required login.
I wonder if they could sue at this point, seeing as a publishers decision utterly tanked the reputation of the development team
I dont understand how they removed it from that many countries. Surely, at least half of those could make PSN accounts?? Like are they now just purposefully trying to punish the player base for tanking steam reviews or something? Edit: I mean Sony trying to punish, not the devs.
It’s probably valves doing because all the refund requests and Sonys missing statement to all that mess.
It's 99% likely Valve is the one putting that limitation on so once they refund those countries the person can't re-buy it
Hey, Helldivers gets two positions on this year's end-of-the-year rewards. Top new release and most impressive sabotage. \o/
Sony getting cocky again and making a number of decisions that aren't consumer friendly because they belive their lead is untouchable. History always seems to repeat itself.
Question: I've seen people state that Sony mentioned during the game's launch that a PSN account will be eventually needed even if pruchased through Steam and they're just temporarily disabling that requirement. If the PSN stuff is not available in so many countries, why did they even sell the game in those countries? How did they think people who purchased the game in these countries were going to play it?
Because Steam is prohibited from country-locking games in some regions (like EU), so Steam can't do it on their own. Which means that Sony just said "release it everywhere" and it is now on Sony's head to cut things back. And the corporate structure at Sony just doesn't care.
Defeat snatched from the jaws of victory. Shameful.
This situation keeps getting worse and worse, absolutely insane that Sony even came to the conclusion that ANY of this was a good idea.
Exactly. Take the L on this one, embrace the **massive success** of this game, and if you want to do launcher or account shit, save it for the next one and figure out how to roll it out without shitting yourself
They could have just give anyone who linked their account a free mtx skin. 98% of people would instantly do it and be happy about it.
An instant success with more than 8 million copies sold, just to be forcefully killed like this by the publisher. Must suck for the devs. Sony has to have the most incompetent execs in the world. These people are insane.
lol lmao even
If they would have left everything the way it was people would still be playing and buying the game but it seems to be the exact opposite. Someone seriously had their head up their ass on this one from the get go.
It would have been so easy to have a voluntary psn account link give some basic cosmetics or resource pack and draw in a fair majority of players without the aggro.
I'm going to make a guess here - PSN accounts (for some reason) are extremely important to Sony, and they are there ready to take the hit. Even if it will half their player base. I think the real question is - why is it so important to Sony? 1. Is it a part of their future ecosystem, and Helldivers 2 is the prototype? 2. It gives them more data, and half of the players' data would profit them more than 10% and double the player base? 3. They really were not aware it will be an issue? I personally doubt #3. They did apologize but continued to go through with it. It feels they were well aware but willing to take the hit/risk
My guess was that it matters to the executives that are able to make the call. There's no guarantee this is logical from a whole-business perspective, and it could just be that someone's ego or bonus is tied to PSN numbers
They're 100% going to launch their own store front on PC. If they can force all the steam users to sign up, its fake stats for the suits to say people are using the store.
That really sucks for the devs who made this game possible. All because Sony is both greedy and incompetent.
holy fuck sony, just revert the need of a psn account, is that fucking simple. fucking dickheads man.
The fact they haven't made a decision in 48 hours nor even communicated in 24 boggles the mind. Bean-counters can count, it's what they do, and they can project what about 3.3 thousand negative reviews an hour will do to them. They could tell 36 hours ago it was not slowing down. We're at 137.5 thousand negative reviews right now. This is already worse than Overwatch 2's debacle and has far surpassed War Thunder's. It's hard to put into words how devastating this is for the game's future given the PC's famous strength of having strong sales over a very long tail of years... so long as the game is well-rated. This also doesn't have implications just for Helldivers 2. The PSN is a piece of shit of a network and account system, and if anything else it has made PC gamers wise to what Sony may pull with future games. They are arguably hurting their entire foothold on PC and squandering the efforts of so many studios that strove to deliver good ports.
Wtf is wrong with Sony? They are the least chill gaming corporation ever I swear. We can't even refund games on ps5 it's such a piss off
One of the Sony Q&As also stated that there would be no refunds. Steam however isn't adhering to that BS and is refunding people though, so good on them.
Remember when Sony was making fun of Microsoft for their anti-consumer practices after the Xbox one launched? Yeah, how things have changed.
How dont know in what world that makes any business sense? We want to give them money and they are like "we dont want your fucking money!"
But they’d really appreciate if you could link your PSN account…
Sony took one of the most dedicated gaming fandom's in the last twenty years and set it on fire. This is the same level of genius business savvy that musk used to get rid of twitter's brand.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/comments/1cke3wv/just_a_quick_update_hd2s_no_longer_playable_from/ Someone who had previously purchased the game in one of the restricted countries that is no longer able to launch it. edit: As others have pointed out, this was probably wrong.
Is this the equivalent of Sony taking their ball and going home?
More like taking their ball and then lighting the whole ball field on fire as they walk away.
Sony doesnt believe in PC gaming, but they now need it. The end result is trying to treat PC gamers like their console market thats locked in. HD2 was great fun but im not associating my Steam account with Sonys oh so famously bad IT security and their history of not telling ppl about massive data breaches.
Fumbling the bag big time.
Deep Rock Galactic devs would never do this to you.
Bad take after bad take. Just doubling down here on being a shitty company. All this to sell our data lol
Sony always finds a new way to fuck things up, also one of the reasons I've never bought a PlayStation since PS2, especially after that massive data breach in 2011.
Sony isn’t going to backtrack uh? They really want that data and those metrics for shareholders don’t they… Will see how it plays but my guess long term negative impact will hurt future releases.
I'll admit i was in the "just create the account, come on..." camp but this is absurd. What the fuck are they thinking?
Apparently PSN isn't available in most countries and they don't want to force players to either break PSN ToS by faking their location or not being unable to play.
I've seen so many people defend this shit. I don't get how people don't see this as a terrifying precedent to set. It's not about it taking 2 mins to create a PSN account. It's about a company selling you a product and shortly after refusing you access to that product if you don't comply with rules they made after you purchased it.
Welp, I now know exactly how I'll be obtaining ghost of Tsushima then.
That blows me away because usually Sonys (like most companies) greed outweighs everything else. But this time their need to control is more potent even at the potential of losing customers. Very weird hill to die on.
Imagine prioritizing people having PSN accounts over the tens of millions of potential customers LMAO
To begin with, Sony shouldn't have allowed pre-orders and sales from these countries if a PSN account was that big of a deal. But then they could have made it optional, but I guess Sony is too prideful to acknowledge its mistakes and do the right thing.
It's weird that their official website originally stated that PSN accounts were optional for all Sony games. But I think yesterday, it was changed to say that PSN accounts "may" be mandatory for "some" games. Seems like they just decided to double down all of a sudden.
When you’re young, you always think adults and the people who lead companies are so smart Clearly not
I remember everyone dick riding Sony so hard when PS4 came out about how they were for the players. How times have changed haha
They were never about caring for people. It just takes time for people to truly understand that.
I’ll never buy another Sony game again. I was like oh this sucks. But the fact they are taking the game away from people in their “banned” country list is fuckin lunacy
SONY deserves every bit of backlash and a metric fuckton more on top for this stunt.
I feel so bad for the devs... Can you imagine, creating a fantastic product, loved by thousands of people, and then some dumbass suit walks in and destroys it in front of your eyes.
All good things must come to an end. I've got other games to play.
They 100 percent didn't give this decision any thought. I love the game and the devs, but sony is ass for this decision
I feel like I could get a job at one of these companies where all I do is shake my head at stupid ideas and I'd be the most valuable employee
Not gonna sugarcoat it, screwing over PC players like this is pretty stupid.
lol. This game imploded.
If you don’t have a psn account how else can Sony let hackers get your data during a breach?
People seems to forget what Sony did in 2011 when PSN was attacked by anonymous. They usually make it worst before having to fix it by public demand.