12 ms·

Helldivers 2 Removed from Purchase on Steam in over 150 Countries

245 points by marijnz 2y ago

miohtama 2y ago
I'd like to meet the person at Sony who thought this was a good idea
- pawelduda 2y ago
  Probably their pay depends on showing cool charts with PSN account activations go up. Great success, ready to cash in bonus
Caligatio 2y ago
As a Helldivers 2 PC player who also owns a PS5, this new requirement doesn't bother me personally. However, adding a requirement (it was previously optional) is boneheaded, maybe illegal. It must be terrible to be Arrowhead; they have to sit by and watch while their player base implodes because of a Sony edict.
- terramex 2y ago
  Requirement was always there, just not enforced due to „technical issues”. https://web.archive.org/web/20231207163847/https://store.steampowered.com/app/553850/HELLDIVERS_2/ https://web.archive.org/web/20231207163847/https://store.ste... > „Requires 3rd-Party Account: PlayStation Network” However, making it purchasable from countries not supported by PSN accounts was big error on their part.
  - Caligatio 2y ago
    https://direct.playstation.com/en-us/buy-games/helldivers-2-pc https://direct.playstation.com/en-us/buy-games/helldivers-2-... Do I need a PSN account to play PlayStation games on PC? No, you currently do not need a PSN account to enjoy PlayStation Studios games on PC, but you will need a Steam account to redeem your voucher code. Some of our PlayStation Studios titles also offer incentives for linking your Steam and PSN accounts.
    - gambiting 2y ago
      Irrelevant - the product page says otherwise and the game itself was explicit in telling you that a PSN account is required on launch.
      - twixfel 2y ago
        How is it irrelevant if it's coming from Sony itself?
        gambiting 2y ago
        Because the consumer is presented with correct info on the product page by the party actually selling the product - Valve. It's the same when buying a car - the information presented to you at the dealership takes precedence over whatever the manufacturer's website says, because the legal assumption is that you are basing your purchase decision on what is in front of you when buying the car by the party actually selling it.
        Caligatio 2y ago
        You can literally buy it from Sony and they email you a game key. They're changing all their documentation to match their new announcement: https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/comments/1cjlnn1/sony_trying_to_cover_their_mistakes_in_the_wrong https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/comments/1cjlnn1/sony_tr...
        cma 2y ago
        If you offer a nationwide fast food discount in an ad you have to disclaim 'at participating stores only' in order to not make it binding everywhere.
        shkkmo 2y ago
        > you will need a Steam account to redeem your voucher code. This is an official page where Sony themselves sell the game via providing voucher codes for steam. You can buy the game here without ever visiting the steam page. This clearly qualifies as false advertising.
  - zamalek 2y ago
    Unenforced rules are a murky area. It's not as clear-cut as you suggest. Another issue that has been raised is that Sony is notoriously incompetent with customer data.
    - SXX 2y ago
      Sony is one of the most customer-hostile companies in existence. Betting on them not banning you one day for breaking ToS is not an option.
  - bun_terminator 2y ago
    true in legal terms. But it was hidden and the reason given for the change was a blatant lie. They were deceiving users until they could no longer refund. Something like that is often called a scam or fraud
    - gambiting 2y ago
      >>But it was hidden When you start the game, you literally get a full screen banner that says a PSN account is required to play and you must sign in. It's just that until now you could click cancel and the game would still launch. How can anyone call it "hidden" is literally beyond me. It's not hidden on page 527 of the EULA or something - it's literally said explicitly on a full screen banner shown to every player who has started the game. Not to mention it's mentioned on the Steam store page.
      - bluefirebrand 2y ago
        Two things: 1) This dialog only showed one time, the very first time you launched the game 2) This dialog was skippable If you skipped it one single time, it let you play for months now without ever seeing it again. If they wanted to make it clear it was mandatory eventually then the wording and behavior should have made this clear every single time you open the game Allowing to skip means it's not mandatory, regardless of whatever language is written down on the UI, the TOS, on the steam page, or whatever else If this was enforced upfront, people would have had an opportunity to refund immediately. If it was communicated clearly that the Skip was temporary, people could have made an informed choice about playing
        hiccuphippo 2y ago
        Yes, how is it a technical difficulty to remove a skip button? Players from countries that can't legally acquire a PSN account, or don't want to get one, would have been able to return it ASAP. I guess it was easier to inflate their numbers.
        bluefirebrand 2y ago
  - RobotToaster 2y ago
    IANAL, but couldn't non enforcement create an implied-in-fact contract?
    - leereeves 2y ago
      I'm not a lawyer either, but Wikipedia says that requires "a meeting of minds". It seems pretty clear that Sony always intended to require a PSN account (although that wasn't always communicated well, it was stated on the Steam store page, at the end of news articles, and in the game itself) so there was no meeting of minds. Just confusion.
- re-thc 2y ago
  > they have to sit by and watch while their player base implodes because of a Sony edict. Happens all the time. Sony is the publisher. A lot of publishers "ruin" games.
- junon 2y ago
  Arrowhead has sold out before with e.g. Magicka, so I'm sure they're somewhat used to it by now. You're not a developer that signs with a publisher like Sony without knowing the risks.
  - Hugsun 2y ago
    What happened with magicka?
    - klik99 2y ago
      It’s still playable but overrun with the worst kind of paradox dlc. Arrowhead are great devs but their biz side comes off as explorative. I was happy to see HD2 actually does a good job at post game monitization because they did such a sloppy job with mahicka
- CaptainOfCoit 2y ago
  > It must be terrible to be Arrowhead; they have to sit by and watch while their player base implodes because of a Sony edict. Or, you know, don't make agreements that will upset your player base? I'm sure they never were forced to do anything Sony says, except if they entered into a business agreement with Sony, which again, is their own choice, and the developer knew about these requirements from the beginning, but made the requirement optional as they didn't get the technical details right at launch to require PSN. It must great to be Arrowhead, where players seemingly blame the publisher like the developer has no responsibility over their own game.
  - boesboes 2y ago
    This. Everyone defending AH as if they are the victim here. Smh
  - shkkmo 2y ago
    Not only this, but I am not convinced that Arrowhead are entirely on the up and up about blaming Sony. I've seen too many places where the Sony messaging is pretty clear about accounts not being required. It seems very strange that Sony decides to make the policy change with this game without updating the policy.
- gambiting 2y ago
  It was clearly advertised on the steam page, but also on launch you had a full screen banner that said you MUST sign in with a PSN account to play this game. It's just that until now you could click cancel and the game would still launch. So no, nothing was "added".
  - shkkmo 2y ago
    Sony was/is selling steam codes on their own store with a QA that clearly explains that PSN accounts are not required for PS games on PC > https://direct.playstation.com/en-us/buy-games/helldivers-2-pc https://direct.playstation.com/en-us/buy-games/helldivers-2-...
unpopularopp 2y ago
I hope one day the EU will go after Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo. If iOS is a walled garden then consoles are prison.
- viraptor 2y ago
  iOS only matters in this case, because they have close to monopoly in some areas. But at you listed, in the EU you've got Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, and the whole PC market. Consoles are really not a prison in this case. (I agree the behaviour would be regulated a bit either way. But it's not even close to "prison")
  - greenish_shores 2y ago
    They are prison, and it has nothing to do with either regulation or using the laissez-faire approach. You are being sold a computer which is controlled by someone else, even after the sale takes place. That's essentially it. Maybe it would even require no additional regulation, just interpretation of current regulation (the essential basics of civil law, that is) which would make a contract of sale of such device invalid, as you're not controlling it, treating it de-facto more like as a indefinite rent contract.
    - surgical_fire 2y ago
      > You are being sold a computer Videogame consoles are typically not marketed as general purpose computers. Out of the box, the only thing I can do on my Nintendo Switch is play videogames.
      - greenish_shores 2y ago
        Not even this. It probably has a full-fledged browser pre-installed, making its classification as a general-purpose computer pretty obvious even for an average user, and far less "hackish" than otherwise.
        2y ago
sigmoid10 2y ago
This really sucks for some people, but the true impact may be overreported and is definitely blown out of proportion by the review bombing. While all this is hugely controversial on reddit, if you look at steam charts, the player count did not take any obvious hit. In fact it follows the natural trend after every content release. So at least on steam the delisting seems to have affected almost no active players. It's very possible that whoever is responsible looked at the data, saw the true player numbers from those 100 countries and decided it was worth taking the L in favour of tightening the online service to make future development easier. Especially since this "requirement" was in there already from the beginning, they just didn't enforce it (likely because they never thought the game would see this much success).
- flohofwoe 2y ago
  > ...in favour of tightening the online service to make future development easier. I really doubt that there is a single technical reason behind the decision, it's more likely that it has been enforced by Sony business peeps.
  - sigmoid10 2y ago
    There is no business reason to cut down your own market unless it comes with additional expenses due to technical reasons. I'm pretty sure someone weighed these numbers again after the game's huge upgrades in infrastructure due to its unexpected success and decided differently this time.
    - flohofwoe 2y ago
      Maybe somebody at Sony needs to push those PSN user numbers up to get ahead in the rat race.
      - sigmoid10 2y ago
        How would removing players from steam push their numbers? Especially since it is obvious from the charts that the removed countries contributed almost nothing to the active playerbase?
flohofwoe 2y ago
I wonder why the number of countries doesn't add up. PSN is available in 73 out of 195 countries, while Steam is available everywhere. Shouldn't that put the number of countries where the game isn't available anymore at 122 instead of 177? (not that it matters much in practice of course)
- out_of_protocol 2y ago
  > Valve says that Steam is avaible in 237 countries. there are territories that are considered countries by valve that arent recognized by the world as being their own separate country like Taiwan From Google, 2017.
  - DEADMINCE 2y ago
    I'd be curious to see their list. They have almost 40 more countries than most agencies would consider to exist.
    - out_of_protocol 2y ago
      List made by scraping account profiles (7 years ago): https://github.com/RudeySH/SteamCountries/blob/master/json/countries.json https://github.com/RudeySH/SteamCountries/blob/master/json/c...
      - xyst 2y ago
        Why scrape profiles when steamcommunity offers a list of selectable countries in the profile edit page?
        out_of_protocol 2y ago
        Well it doesn't for me. Just says you can contact support
    - skissane 2y ago
      A lot of enterprises define “country” as “has its own ISO 3166-1 country code”. ISO 3166-1 includes 249 entries: sovereign states, their dependent territories, and “areas of special geographic interest” (e.g. Antarctica). The English term “country” is ambiguous. In a narrow sense it means only sovereign states, but in a broader sense includes overseas territories and even some subnational divisions (e.g. the four countries that make up the UK)
kstenerud 2y ago
[flagged]
- apt-get 2y ago
  This Japanese stereotyping would be a little more credible if Sony Entertainment's headquarters hadn't moved to California years ago...
  - pi_mai 2y ago
    HQ location means nothing. It's still being controlled by Tokyo. If Anything, SE will be the sacrificial lamb that will be used to be sent to the slaughter house. They did this with the mobile division in Sweden. Blame, cut and relocate.
    - Uvix 2y ago
      If it’s being controlled by Tokyo, why do they keep censoring Japanese games but not Western ones?
      - remram 2y ago
        Why not? Regardless of the conversation above I don't understand this argument. Toyota sells car with the driving wheel on the left in the USA. Does that make them less of a Japanese company?
        Uvix 2y ago
        No, but it's a terrible analogy. The equivalent would be if Toyota started selling only left-hand drive cars in Japan.
        remram 2y ago
        That would be if they censored games to Japanese standards everywhere, which they don't. They use different censorship rules (and wheel positions) in different countries. I'm not going to argue how to do analogies on the Internet on a dead thread, but I'm confused about everything you say.
pyinstallwoes 2y ago
Sorry, I lack context, what happened?
- flohofwoe 2y ago
  A multiplayer game that's very successful on Steam - but published by Sony - suddenly has a requirement to have both a Steam and PSN account in order to log into the game - a couple of months after the game was released. As a PC gamer I would be pissed too tbh (on the other hand, it's the same bullshit that Ubisoft pulls for their games released on Steam).
  - Laaas 2y ago
    The somewhat bigger issue is that PSN doesn’t support all countries that Steam does apparently. In the end I suspect affected players will get a refund. It isn’t as big a deal as the gamers are making it seem.
    - SXX 2y ago
      This is a big deal because PSN not even available in all EU countries. E.g there is no PSN in: Andorra, Estonia, Latvia. In Ukraine for example you can only register PSN account if you own PlayStation.
      - temp84858696945 2y ago
        Also, they legally cannot sell the game in some EU countries and not others, due to EU single market rules. So yah, they are kinda fucked if the EU comes after them legally.
  - aarroyoc 2y ago
    And not just that. They required PSN accounts on countries where PSN is not available (and using a VPN to create it goes against the ToS, and people get banned). So in those countries they have effectively banned you from playing the game you purchased weeks ago.
sunaurus 2y ago
I've always found it ridiculous that Sony is allowed to sell their consoles and games in my county without allowing me to create a PSN account. They even sell the digital PS5, which REQUIRES a PSN account to get any games. And then, even if you break their TOS and create an account in another country, you're still constantly inconvenienced - you can't pay for games using your local payment method, for example, and a useful Playstation mobile app is not even listed in the local app store. IMO they should either provide the same level of service in all countries, or be forced to charge significantly less when selling their hardware in unsupported countries.
- arlcode 2y ago
  It's reasonable to ask for that and it would probably be up to a local government agency to enforce such a rule. (In fact Meta's Quest was not available in my country for a few years until Meta changed their mind and removed the need to have a Facebook account as well). To make Sony care about small countries it would be best for them to band together and act as a group on that. It must hurt them economically
  - gruez 2y ago
    If Sony doesn't have any presence in those countries, as evidenced by the fact that you can't create PSN accounts for those countries, do those countries even have jurisdiction over Sony? More practically, what leverage do they have to enforce compliance? Meta (Facebook) doesn't have any presence in China, so they can safely ignore any takedown requests from them, even if they are actually violating Chinese law.
- _heimdall 2y ago
  > IMO they should either provide the same level of service in all countries, or be forced to charge significantly less when selling their hardware in unsupported countries. Who would force the price change though? It seems more reasonable for anyone in a country that doesn't have access to PSN just wouldn't bother buying a PS5 regardless if the price.
  - 2y ago
bravetraveler 2y ago
When I saw marketing material that looked like a carbon copy of Destiny I knew what to expect The game that plays you, too
- resource_waste 2y ago
  Modern video games are scary like that. They arent designed for your fun necessarily, but rather addictive mechanism that keep you coming back. Obviously dopamine from slot machine mechanisms and winning. Oxytocin from online gaming... These companies know how to make addiction.
  - SXX 2y ago
    Let's be honest Helldivers 2 is a really good PvE game with AFAIK only cosmetics via microtransactions. It's not some addictive MMORPG to earn money from whales. Whole issue here is not about game at all, but about Sony being player hostile company and just plain breaking some customer protection laws.
    - shkkmo 2y ago
      Micro transactions allow easier unlocking of functional upgrades via "warbonds" that you buy eith premium currency "Super Credits". This currency is easily available in game and I have unlocked all the warbonds without any micro transactions. Even if you do buy the warbonds, you still need to play the game to earn "medals" to unlock the items within the warbond. All in all, it is a pretty reasonable and non-exploitative monetization and is about the limit for what I would tolerate in a game I already paid for.
  - npteljes 2y ago
    Definitely the case with Genshin for example. Poster child for me for this new kind of game: always online (even if single player), low barrier to entry, designed to be addictive.
  - cess11 2y ago
    Not sure what you mean by modern, to me modernity started in the 1600s. If you mean something like 'contemporary', then I'd like to mention that casino-like elements where rather common in the video game boom of the 1990s. Could for example listen to how old-fashioned Sonic sounded: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gsa_4s3CjmI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gsa_4s3CjmI
d-z-m 2y ago
[removed]
- courseofaction 2y ago
  Do. This is predatory, go play a different game.
- leoff 2y ago
  I find the reaction to be appropriate, a large amount of people can't play the game anymore. What else would you expect? "I paid a considerable amount of money for the game and now I can't play it anymore, but the graphics were very nice on the small amount of time I played, 5 stars"?
  - d-z-m 2y ago
    In hindsight my comment was ill-considered. I'm removing it.
Laaas 2y ago
Can someone explain the logic behind not supporting all countries by default? What does Sony have to lose by letting people in tiny countries buy their games?
- WhyNotHugo 2y ago
  It sounds to me like they care more about people using a PSN account rather than just selling games. I can't imagine they the tracking data they get from accounts is more profitable than an actual sale. Perhaps they're convinced that forcing people to create accounts somehow leads to more future sales?
  - xyst 2y ago
    It’s likely one of the elements of requiring a PSN account. Also apparently in some countries, Sony will verify the age and identity of users by having them upload a govt id and add selfie. I don’t remember this step in USA based accounts though. So ymmv
- xyst 2y ago
  Probably the complexity of differing laws of each country. Helldivers 2 on ps5 requires at least a paid psn membership. In order to do that, a payment needs to be on file. This is just purely a guess, but I suppose Sony doesn’t have the appropriate licenses to operate in those countries and thus cannot take payment. They could take payment via ps gift cards but that user would have have to fraudulently claim they are located in another country and buy ps gift cards from that country to get the credits. Depending on country, user may pay more or less than what it would retail in user country.
jokoon 2y ago
I wonder if it breached the contract/TOS between the game company and valve. I guess lawyers at valve had to work extra to come up with a decision, because they're probably going to court over this.
- xyst 2y ago
  The future “Arrowhead/Sony vs Valve Software” litigation is going to be wild
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- SXX 2y ago
  Valve is well covered here. Like any other platform they only make payouts to publishers / developers after a big delay so they'll have plenty of Sony's money to cover refunds.
- Turskarama 2y ago
  Valve is already fully covered, they will honor refunds to the game and any loss they make will be taken out of future sales. Of course it's possible that future sales won't make up for the loss in this case, but Valve is still very unlikely to make a loss overall.
JohnMakin 2y ago
“Players shocked pikachu sony does something annoying.” any older users here may remember the SOE (sony online entertainment) days. They’d do evil stuff that would make this look like a rookie move.
- A4ET8a8uTh0 2y ago
  Ain't that the truth. For me it was a reminder that the values of the company that chose to install malware on your PC[1] are alive and well. I personally dropped PSN and started boycotting them after I would not get a refund on a toddler purchased game. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootkit_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootk...
- Agingcoder 2y ago
  Are you referring to the rootkit that came with audiocds in the early 2000s ?
- Degorath 2y ago
  The problem here is also that it's not just annoying, some EU member states are not supported for PSN accounts and according the TOS you can get your PSN account banned if you sign up with the wrong country!
  - pezezin 2y ago
    How is that even legal? Don't such practices violate the Digital Single Market?
henry_viii 2y ago
> in over 150 countries In 177 countries to be exact. For context, there are 195 countries in the world.
- Biganon 2y ago
  The list used by steam contains like 250 countries, because they split some countries in different regions, e. g. Mayotte is listed as a separate country despite being part of France
  - thefz 2y ago
    Same with Italy and Sardinia
Kim_Bruning 2y ago
On Steam: If there's little yellow boxes in the right hand column, someone somewhere is reserving the right to ruin your day in some way. Helldivers 2 has three of them: DRM, Third party account, and third party EULA. Best avoid games with little yellow boxes, especially if you prefer just playing games vs legal drama. (And of course gog.com doesn't have any little yellow boxes)
- neocritter 2y ago
  Can confirm. I bought Freespace 2 in 2009 and it's still there in my account with no DRM.
  - rchaud 2y ago
    Back then, PSN was free. Bought a PS3 over an XB360 because I didn't want to pay a subscription for the occasional multiplayer game.
    - Turskarama 2y ago
      PSN is still free but it only gives you access to the store and an account to keep user data, PS plus is an add on to it that costs money and is required for multiplayer. EDIT: I feel like I should point out that PC players don't need PS plus to play multiplayer, I think literally every copy would be refunded if they tried to pull that one.
- izzydata 2y ago
  If Helldivers 2 was on GOG it would still require a PSN account.
  - PoignardAzur 2y ago
    I think GP's point is more "if you're on Steam, here's how you can check that info".
  - adamzochowski 2y ago
    If it were on GOG, there would be no DRM or third party accounts required. With potential exception for online play. But most GOG games are single player offline games. Even online games would be more of the type where you run local server and connect with you friends by sharing IP:port combo.
boesboes 2y ago
I find the support for Arrowhead surprising. They went into business with Sony and allowed this. The CEO tweeting "We just want to make gaaameeees" is such a weak ass excuse. Take some responsibility for your choices.
- tietjens 2y ago
  The economics of games are complex. I don’t understand why Arrowhead should take the blame here.
  - nickphx 2y ago
    why should a company take blame for business decisions that impact their business? :D
  - piafraus 2y ago
    Why shouldn't they? Arrowhead are literally saying that requirement was always there, it was just temporary not enforced/supported. It's not Sony that suddenly introduced that new requirement. Arrowhead were the ones having this delayed-change-of-contract. Arrowhead allowed their game to be sold in countries where you will not be able to play.
    - ro_bit 2y ago
      > Arrowhead allowed their game to be sold in countries where you will not be able to play. This is the thing that I'm not sure of and that I think the question of whether to blame Arrowhead depends on. Who authorized selling it in non PSN countries in the first place? Is that Arrowhead's responsibility as a studio, or Sony's responsibility as a publisher? Considering you can find locations to buy the physical game on Playstation's official website, even in unsupported countries, I'm leaning towards the latter (https://www.playstation.com/en-ph/games/helldivers-2/ https://www.playstation.com/en-ph/games/helldivers-2/)
Der_Einzige 2y ago
I’m very happy to hear this. Too many good games have had their player bases gimped by the rise of stupid “one hit wonder” games like palworld or helldivers 2. The Finals is somehow struggling to maintain a decent player base despite being objectively one of the freshest and best game releases in a decade. I can’t get my friends to play it because they’re too busy memeing about space bugs on a mediocre shooter. Glad to see that these games time and time again shoot themselves in the foot. Good riddance!
- npteljes 2y ago
  Helldivers 2 would be a one hit wonder, if not for the successful predecessor, Helldivers.
- thefz 2y ago
  Your anger about The Finals does not make Helldivers 2 a bad game; instead if your friends are ghosting you to play it, it means that it is good.
- Kiro 2y ago
  You must be trolling. You're mad that people prefer something else than your own subjective opinion. Ridiculous.
  - Der_Einzige 2y ago
    Nope. It’s all Schadenfreude. I want peoples bad video game opinions to be punished, and it’s happening in this case! Yippie!
syngrog66 2y ago
This should not be on HN.
- Biganon 2y ago
  This should totally be on HN, it's about technology, economics,...
tumidpandora 2y ago
This was known right from the launch. no surprises here. https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/553850/view/4196868529806518741?l=english https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/553850/view/41968685... Attention Helldivers, Due to technical issues at the launch of HELLDIVERS™ 2, we allowed the linking requirements for Steam accounts to a PlayStation Network account to be temporarily optional. That grace period will now expire. See details below in this post. Account linking plays a critical role in protecting our players and upholding the values of safety and security provided on PlayStation and PlayStation Studios games. This is our main way to protect players from griefing and abuse by enabling the banning of players that engage in that type of behaviour. It also allows those players that have been banned the right to appeal. As such, as of May 6th, all new HELLDIVERS 2 players on Steam will be required to connect their Steam account to a PlayStation Network account. Current players on Steam will start to see the mandatory login from May 30th and will be required to have linked a Steam and PlayStation Network account by June 4th. PlayStation Network accounts are free and easy to set up using this link https://www.playstation.com/support/account/create-account-for-psn/ https://www.playstation.com/support/account/create-account-f... We understand that while this may be an inconvenience to some of you, this step will help us to continue to build a community that you are all proud to be a part of. Many thanks for your continued support of HELLDIVERS 2! Sony Interactive Entertainment
- rawling 2y ago
  > This was known right from the launch. That Sony was selling the game to 150 countries with the intention of making all of those purchases unusable?
- nurple 2y ago
  Sounds like It's not that they can't ban players without a PSN account, but the punishment of being banned from playing any of your PS games online is real motivator. I thought we realized eons ago that forced puritanism is the antithesis of humanity.
kibwen 2y ago
I still haven't forgotten the time that Sony deliberately and secretly infected millions of computers with a rootkit in order to enforce DRM that also introduced exploitable security vulnerabilities, and then lied about it, and then after the backlash shipped an "uninstaller" that just hid the rootkit better and introduced more exploitable security vulnerabilities. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootkit_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootk... I feel bad for Arrowhead, but let it be known that if you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas. Maybe next time they'll think twice before partnering with such a trash company.
rezonant 2y ago
There's so much coverage of this from the gamer crowd that entirely ignores that a PSN account was required from the beginning but waived because of the unexpected popularity of the game and how Sony couldn't handle it. To be fair, when they had problems and added a Skip button, they should have made it more clear that a PSN account would be required in the future, but given the willful ignorance of the facts by the sensationalist reports, I don't know that it would've mattered. Seems more like the gaming community was looking for a reason to be pissed off than this being an actual issue. I wouldn't be surprised if this was being stoked by the same folks trying to create antisemitic conspiracies about diversity consultants (check out NeverKnowsBest's Gamergate 2.0 video for context, https://youtu.be/CGmESJM6BFQ?si=RsfLWiewo7uXZY8r https://youtu.be/CGmESJM6BFQ?si=RsfLWiewo7uXZY8r )
- haunter 2y ago
  >entirely ignores that a PSN account was required from the beginning but waived because of the unexpected popularity of the game They shouldn't have sold the game on Steam in countries where PSN is not available.
  - FMecha 2y ago
    Even if they did that at launch, I can still smell backlash.
  - Zvez 2y ago
    >They shouldn't have sold the games on Steam in countries where PSN is not available yep, as simple as that this would have made the situation much better. Game would have gotten lower scores and player base overall. Doing it now and like this leaves the feeling, that they got enough money from sales and now they want to bring some traffic to psn
  - rezonant 2y ago
    Yes this is a puzzling part of the story, for sure. The handling of the situation overall is pretty poor (also for instance the community management response was pretty stupid)
bdw5204 2y ago
If you live in a country where you can't create a PSN account, just create one for another country. You can trivially find addresses to use online. To make digital purchases, you can import gift cards from the same region as your account. I believe Play-Asia sells those. If you buy games from multiple regions, you need an account for each region so you can access their DLCs. For many years, I wouldn't connect an actual payment to my account due to security concerns and would just go to the store to buy a gift card whenever I wanted to make a digital purchase. There's no reason why you can't import the gift cards. Basically, the whole "create an account in a different country" thing is an IQ test like the "enter an age of 13 or older to create an account" IQ test that was forced onto the internet by a stupid law the US government passed in the late 90s. Just use the obvious workaround to protect the company from legal liability over stupid laws like a normal person would.
- hiimshort 2y ago
  This is against Sony's TOS and can result in a ban. In fact, this is exactly what happened to a Chinese user who tried to do that.
  - bdw5204 2y ago
    Gaming web sites publish articles on how to create PSN accounts in other regions[0] because this is common practice for gamers who care about imports (hence why Play-Asia will sell you out of region PSN gift cards). I imagine China is a special case because of the totalitarian dictatorship's restrictions on gaming and the fact that Playstation does business there which means they have to keep Winnie the Pooh[1] happy. The Chinese version of the PS5 seems to be region locked[2] which is not the case for PS5s sold in other countries. [0]: https://www.siliconera.com/how-to-make-a-japanese-ps4-and-ps5-account/ https://www.siliconera.com/how-to-make-a-japanese-ps4-and-ps... [1]: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/07/china-bans-winnie-the-pooh-film-to-stop-comparisons-to-president-xi https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/07/china-bans-win... [2]: https://www.reddit.com/r/playstation/comments/x61kb7/ps5_chinese_region_locked/ https://www.reddit.com/r/playstation/comments/x61kb7/ps5_chi...
mirages 2y ago
"Added Holy See" I guess no Holy warriors in the crusade for defending Earth ?
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
thefz 2y ago
As usual, corporate bullshit. Capitalism is shit.
- ratsmack 2y ago
  Greed is not a requirement of Capitalism though.
  - tumsfestival 2y ago
    It actually is, capitalism wants infinite growth, if that's not greed then I shudder to think what is.
shermozle 2y ago
I tried to buy the game on Playstation's site a couple of weeks ago and kept getting this inscrutable error: Something went wrong. After digging into the network tab, seems I'm failing a fraud screen somehow. No way to get around it. Oh well, guess I won't buy your game. "errorCode": 3329793, "humanReadableCode": "failedFraudScreen", "humanReadableValidationErrors": [], "apiName": "purchase"

245 points by marijnz 2y ago

miohtama 2y ago

I'd like to meet the person at Sony who thought this was a good idea

pawelduda 2y ago
Probably their pay depends on showing cool charts with PSN account activations go up. Great success, ready to cash in bonus

Caligatio 2y ago

As a Helldivers 2 PC player who also owns a PS5, this new requirement doesn't bother me personally. However, adding a requirement (it was previously optional) is boneheaded, maybe illegal. It must be terrible to be Arrowhead; they have to sit by and watch while their player base implodes because of a Sony edict.

terramex 2y ago
Requirement was always there, just not enforced due to „technical issues”. https://web.archive.org/web/20231207163847/https://store.steampowered.com/app/553850/HELLDIVERS_2/ https://web.archive.org/web/20231207163847/https://store.ste... > „Requires 3rd-Party Account: PlayStation Network” However, making it purchasable from countries not supported by PSN accounts was big error on their part.
- Caligatio 2y ago
  https://direct.playstation.com/en-us/buy-games/helldivers-2-pc https://direct.playstation.com/en-us/buy-games/helldivers-2-... Do I need a PSN account to play PlayStation games on PC? No, you currently do not need a PSN account to enjoy PlayStation Studios games on PC, but you will need a Steam account to redeem your voucher code. Some of our PlayStation Studios titles also offer incentives for linking your Steam and PSN accounts.
  - gambiting 2y ago
    Irrelevant - the product page says otherwise and the game itself was explicit in telling you that a PSN account is required on launch.
    - twixfel 2y ago
      How is it irrelevant if it's coming from Sony itself?
      - gambiting 2y ago
        Because the consumer is presented with correct info on the product page by the party actually selling the product - Valve. It's the same when buying a car - the information presented to you at the dealership takes precedence over whatever the manufacturer's website says, because the legal assumption is that you are basing your purchase decision on what is in front of you when buying the car by the party actually selling it.
        Caligatio 2y ago
        You can literally buy it from Sony and they email you a game key. They're changing all their documentation to match their new announcement: https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/comments/1cjlnn1/sony_trying_to_cover_their_mistakes_in_the_wrong https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/comments/1cjlnn1/sony_tr...
        cma 2y ago
        If you offer a nationwide fast food discount in an ad you have to disclaim 'at participating stores only' in order to not make it binding everywhere.
        shkkmo 2y ago
        > you will need a Steam account to redeem your voucher code. This is an official page where Sony themselves sell the game via providing voucher codes for steam. You can buy the game here without ever visiting the steam page. This clearly qualifies as false advertising.
- zamalek 2y ago
  Unenforced rules are a murky area. It's not as clear-cut as you suggest. Another issue that has been raised is that Sony is notoriously incompetent with customer data.
  - SXX 2y ago
    Sony is one of the most customer-hostile companies in existence. Betting on them not banning you one day for breaking ToS is not an option.
- bun_terminator 2y ago
  true in legal terms. But it was hidden and the reason given for the change was a blatant lie. They were deceiving users until they could no longer refund. Something like that is often called a scam or fraud
  - gambiting 2y ago
    >>But it was hidden When you start the game, you literally get a full screen banner that says a PSN account is required to play and you must sign in. It's just that until now you could click cancel and the game would still launch. How can anyone call it "hidden" is literally beyond me. It's not hidden on page 527 of the EULA or something - it's literally said explicitly on a full screen banner shown to every player who has started the game. Not to mention it's mentioned on the Steam store page.
    - bluefirebrand 2y ago
      Two things: 1) This dialog only showed one time, the very first time you launched the game 2) This dialog was skippable If you skipped it one single time, it let you play for months now without ever seeing it again. If they wanted to make it clear it was mandatory eventually then the wording and behavior should have made this clear every single time you open the game Allowing to skip means it's not mandatory, regardless of whatever language is written down on the UI, the TOS, on the steam page, or whatever else If this was enforced upfront, people would have had an opportunity to refund immediately. If it was communicated clearly that the Skip was temporary, people could have made an informed choice about playing
      - hiccuphippo 2y ago
        Yes, how is it a technical difficulty to remove a skip button? Players from countries that can't legally acquire a PSN account, or don't want to get one, would have been able to return it ASAP. I guess it was easier to inflate their numbers.
        bluefirebrand 2y ago
- RobotToaster 2y ago
  IANAL, but couldn't non enforcement create an implied-in-fact contract?
  - leereeves 2y ago
    I'm not a lawyer either, but Wikipedia says that requires "a meeting of minds". It seems pretty clear that Sony always intended to require a PSN account (although that wasn't always communicated well, it was stated on the Steam store page, at the end of news articles, and in the game itself) so there was no meeting of minds. Just confusion.
re-thc 2y ago
> they have to sit by and watch while their player base implodes because of a Sony edict. Happens all the time. Sony is the publisher. A lot of publishers "ruin" games.
junon 2y ago
Arrowhead has sold out before with e.g. Magicka, so I'm sure they're somewhat used to it by now. You're not a developer that signs with a publisher like Sony without knowing the risks.
- Hugsun 2y ago
  What happened with magicka?
  - klik99 2y ago
    It’s still playable but overrun with the worst kind of paradox dlc. Arrowhead are great devs but their biz side comes off as explorative. I was happy to see HD2 actually does a good job at post game monitization because they did such a sloppy job with mahicka
CaptainOfCoit 2y ago
> It must be terrible to be Arrowhead; they have to sit by and watch while their player base implodes because of a Sony edict. Or, you know, don't make agreements that will upset your player base? I'm sure they never were forced to do anything Sony says, except if they entered into a business agreement with Sony, which again, is their own choice, and the developer knew about these requirements from the beginning, but made the requirement optional as they didn't get the technical details right at launch to require PSN. It must great to be Arrowhead, where players seemingly blame the publisher like the developer has no responsibility over their own game.
- boesboes 2y ago
  This. Everyone defending AH as if they are the victim here. Smh
- shkkmo 2y ago
  Not only this, but I am not convinced that Arrowhead are entirely on the up and up about blaming Sony. I've seen too many places where the Sony messaging is pretty clear about accounts not being required. It seems very strange that Sony decides to make the policy change with this game without updating the policy.
gambiting 2y ago
It was clearly advertised on the steam page, but also on launch you had a full screen banner that said you MUST sign in with a PSN account to play this game. It's just that until now you could click cancel and the game would still launch. So no, nothing was "added".
- shkkmo 2y ago
  Sony was/is selling steam codes on their own store with a QA that clearly explains that PSN accounts are not required for PS games on PC > https://direct.playstation.com/en-us/buy-games/helldivers-2-pc https://direct.playstation.com/en-us/buy-games/helldivers-2-...

unpopularopp 2y ago

I hope one day the EU will go after Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo. If iOS is a walled garden then consoles are prison.

viraptor 2y ago
iOS only matters in this case, because they have close to monopoly in some areas. But at you listed, in the EU you've got Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, and the whole PC market. Consoles are really not a prison in this case. (I agree the behaviour would be regulated a bit either way. But it's not even close to "prison")
- greenish_shores 2y ago
  They are prison, and it has nothing to do with either regulation or using the laissez-faire approach. You are being sold a computer which is controlled by someone else, even after the sale takes place. That's essentially it. Maybe it would even require no additional regulation, just interpretation of current regulation (the essential basics of civil law, that is) which would make a contract of sale of such device invalid, as you're not controlling it, treating it de-facto more like as a indefinite rent contract.
  - surgical_fire 2y ago
    > You are being sold a computer Videogame consoles are typically not marketed as general purpose computers. Out of the box, the only thing I can do on my Nintendo Switch is play videogames.
    - greenish_shores 2y ago
      Not even this. It probably has a full-fledged browser pre-installed, making its classification as a general-purpose computer pretty obvious even for an average user, and far less "hackish" than otherwise.
      - 2y ago

sigmoid10 2y ago

This really sucks for some people, but the true impact may be overreported and is definitely blown out of proportion by the review bombing. While all this is hugely controversial on reddit, if you look at steam charts, the player count did not take any obvious hit. In fact it follows the natural trend after every content release. So at least on steam the delisting seems to have affected almost no active players. It's very possible that whoever is responsible looked at the data, saw the true player numbers from those 100 countries and decided it was worth taking the L in favour of tightening the online service to make future development easier. Especially since this "requirement" was in there already from the beginning, they just didn't enforce it (likely because they never thought the game would see this much success).

flohofwoe 2y ago
> ...in favour of tightening the online service to make future development easier. I really doubt that there is a single technical reason behind the decision, it's more likely that it has been enforced by Sony business peeps.
- sigmoid10 2y ago
  There is no business reason to cut down your own market unless it comes with additional expenses due to technical reasons. I'm pretty sure someone weighed these numbers again after the game's huge upgrades in infrastructure due to its unexpected success and decided differently this time.
  - flohofwoe 2y ago
    Maybe somebody at Sony needs to push those PSN user numbers up to get ahead in the rat race.
    - sigmoid10 2y ago
      How would removing players from steam push their numbers? Especially since it is obvious from the charts that the removed countries contributed almost nothing to the active playerbase?

flohofwoe 2y ago

I wonder why the number of countries doesn't add up. PSN is available in 73 out of 195 countries, while Steam is available everywhere. Shouldn't that put the number of countries where the game isn't available anymore at 122 instead of 177? (not that it matters much in practice of course)

out_of_protocol 2y ago
> Valve says that Steam is avaible in 237 countries. there are territories that are considered countries by valve that arent recognized by the world as being their own separate country like Taiwan From Google, 2017.
- DEADMINCE 2y ago
  I'd be curious to see their list. They have almost 40 more countries than most agencies would consider to exist.
  - out_of_protocol 2y ago
    List made by scraping account profiles (7 years ago): https://github.com/RudeySH/SteamCountries/blob/master/json/countries.json https://github.com/RudeySH/SteamCountries/blob/master/json/c...
    - xyst 2y ago
      Why scrape profiles when steamcommunity offers a list of selectable countries in the profile edit page?
      - out_of_protocol 2y ago
        Well it doesn't for me. Just says you can contact support
  - skissane 2y ago
    A lot of enterprises define “country” as “has its own ISO 3166-1 country code”. ISO 3166-1 includes 249 entries: sovereign states, their dependent territories, and “areas of special geographic interest” (e.g. Antarctica). The English term “country” is ambiguous. In a narrow sense it means only sovereign states, but in a broader sense includes overseas territories and even some subnational divisions (e.g. the four countries that make up the UK)

kstenerud 2y ago

[flagged]

apt-get 2y ago
This Japanese stereotyping would be a little more credible if Sony Entertainment's headquarters hadn't moved to California years ago...
- pi_mai 2y ago
  HQ location means nothing. It's still being controlled by Tokyo. If Anything, SE will be the sacrificial lamb that will be used to be sent to the slaughter house. They did this with the mobile division in Sweden. Blame, cut and relocate.
  - Uvix 2y ago
    If it’s being controlled by Tokyo, why do they keep censoring Japanese games but not Western ones?
    - remram 2y ago
      Why not? Regardless of the conversation above I don't understand this argument. Toyota sells car with the driving wheel on the left in the USA. Does that make them less of a Japanese company?
      - Uvix 2y ago
        No, but it's a terrible analogy. The equivalent would be if Toyota started selling only left-hand drive cars in Japan.
        remram 2y ago
        That would be if they censored games to Japanese standards everywhere, which they don't. They use different censorship rules (and wheel positions) in different countries. I'm not going to argue how to do analogies on the Internet on a dead thread, but I'm confused about everything you say.

pyinstallwoes 2y ago

Sorry, I lack context, what happened?

flohofwoe 2y ago
A multiplayer game that's very successful on Steam - but published by Sony - suddenly has a requirement to have both a Steam and PSN account in order to log into the game - a couple of months after the game was released. As a PC gamer I would be pissed too tbh (on the other hand, it's the same bullshit that Ubisoft pulls for their games released on Steam).
- Laaas 2y ago
  The somewhat bigger issue is that PSN doesn’t support all countries that Steam does apparently. In the end I suspect affected players will get a refund. It isn’t as big a deal as the gamers are making it seem.
  - SXX 2y ago
    This is a big deal because PSN not even available in all EU countries. E.g there is no PSN in: Andorra, Estonia, Latvia. In Ukraine for example you can only register PSN account if you own PlayStation.
    - temp84858696945 2y ago
      Also, they legally cannot sell the game in some EU countries and not others, due to EU single market rules. So yah, they are kinda fucked if the EU comes after them legally.
- aarroyoc 2y ago
  And not just that. They required PSN accounts on countries where PSN is not available (and using a VPN to create it goes against the ToS, and people get banned). So in those countries they have effectively banned you from playing the game you purchased weeks ago.

sunaurus 2y ago

I've always found it ridiculous that Sony is allowed to sell their consoles and games in my county without allowing me to create a PSN account. They even sell the digital PS5, which REQUIRES a PSN account to get any games. And then, even if you break their TOS and create an account in another country, you're still constantly inconvenienced - you can't pay for games using your local payment method, for example, and a useful Playstation mobile app is not even listed in the local app store. IMO they should either provide the same level of service in all countries, or be forced to charge significantly less when selling their hardware in unsupported countries.

arlcode 2y ago
It's reasonable to ask for that and it would probably be up to a local government agency to enforce such a rule. (In fact Meta's Quest was not available in my country for a few years until Meta changed their mind and removed the need to have a Facebook account as well). To make Sony care about small countries it would be best for them to band together and act as a group on that. It must hurt them economically
- gruez 2y ago
  If Sony doesn't have any presence in those countries, as evidenced by the fact that you can't create PSN accounts for those countries, do those countries even have jurisdiction over Sony? More practically, what leverage do they have to enforce compliance? Meta (Facebook) doesn't have any presence in China, so they can safely ignore any takedown requests from them, even if they are actually violating Chinese law.
_heimdall 2y ago
> IMO they should either provide the same level of service in all countries, or be forced to charge significantly less when selling their hardware in unsupported countries. Who would force the price change though? It seems more reasonable for anyone in a country that doesn't have access to PSN just wouldn't bother buying a PS5 regardless if the price.
- 2y ago

bravetraveler 2y ago

When I saw marketing material that looked like a carbon copy of Destiny I knew what to expect The game that plays you, too

resource_waste 2y ago
Modern video games are scary like that. They arent designed for your fun necessarily, but rather addictive mechanism that keep you coming back. Obviously dopamine from slot machine mechanisms and winning. Oxytocin from online gaming... These companies know how to make addiction.
- SXX 2y ago
  Let's be honest Helldivers 2 is a really good PvE game with AFAIK only cosmetics via microtransactions. It's not some addictive MMORPG to earn money from whales. Whole issue here is not about game at all, but about Sony being player hostile company and just plain breaking some customer protection laws.
  - shkkmo 2y ago
    Micro transactions allow easier unlocking of functional upgrades via "warbonds" that you buy eith premium currency "Super Credits". This currency is easily available in game and I have unlocked all the warbonds without any micro transactions. Even if you do buy the warbonds, you still need to play the game to earn "medals" to unlock the items within the warbond. All in all, it is a pretty reasonable and non-exploitative monetization and is about the limit for what I would tolerate in a game I already paid for.
- npteljes 2y ago
  Definitely the case with Genshin for example. Poster child for me for this new kind of game: always online (even if single player), low barrier to entry, designed to be addictive.
- cess11 2y ago
  Not sure what you mean by modern, to me modernity started in the 1600s. If you mean something like 'contemporary', then I'd like to mention that casino-like elements where rather common in the video game boom of the 1990s. Could for example listen to how old-fashioned Sonic sounded: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gsa_4s3CjmI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gsa_4s3CjmI

d-z-m 2y ago

[removed]

courseofaction 2y ago
Do. This is predatory, go play a different game.
leoff 2y ago
I find the reaction to be appropriate, a large amount of people can't play the game anymore. What else would you expect? "I paid a considerable amount of money for the game and now I can't play it anymore, but the graphics were very nice on the small amount of time I played, 5 stars"?
- d-z-m 2y ago
  In hindsight my comment was ill-considered. I'm removing it.

Laaas 2y ago

Can someone explain the logic behind not supporting all countries by default? What does Sony have to lose by letting people in tiny countries buy their games?

WhyNotHugo 2y ago
It sounds to me like they care more about people using a PSN account rather than just selling games. I can't imagine they the tracking data they get from accounts is more profitable than an actual sale. Perhaps they're convinced that forcing people to create accounts somehow leads to more future sales?
- xyst 2y ago
  It’s likely one of the elements of requiring a PSN account. Also apparently in some countries, Sony will verify the age and identity of users by having them upload a govt id and add selfie. I don’t remember this step in USA based accounts though. So ymmv
xyst 2y ago
Probably the complexity of differing laws of each country. Helldivers 2 on ps5 requires at least a paid psn membership. In order to do that, a payment needs to be on file. This is just purely a guess, but I suppose Sony doesn’t have the appropriate licenses to operate in those countries and thus cannot take payment. They could take payment via ps gift cards but that user would have have to fraudulently claim they are located in another country and buy ps gift cards from that country to get the credits. Depending on country, user may pay more or less than what it would retail in user country.

jokoon 2y ago

I wonder if it breached the contract/TOS between the game company and valve. I guess lawyers at valve had to work extra to come up with a decision, because they're probably going to court over this.

xyst 2y ago
The future “Arrowhead/Sony vs Valve Software” litigation is going to be wild
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
SXX 2y ago
Valve is well covered here. Like any other platform they only make payouts to publishers / developers after a big delay so they'll have plenty of Sony's money to cover refunds.
Turskarama 2y ago
Valve is already fully covered, they will honor refunds to the game and any loss they make will be taken out of future sales. Of course it's possible that future sales won't make up for the loss in this case, but Valve is still very unlikely to make a loss overall.

JohnMakin 2y ago

“Players shocked pikachu sony does something annoying.” any older users here may remember the SOE (sony online entertainment) days. They’d do evil stuff that would make this look like a rookie move.

A4ET8a8uTh0 2y ago
Ain't that the truth. For me it was a reminder that the values of the company that chose to install malware on your PC[1] are alive and well. I personally dropped PSN and started boycotting them after I would not get a refund on a toddler purchased game. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootkit_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootk...
Agingcoder 2y ago
Are you referring to the rootkit that came with audiocds in the early 2000s ?
Degorath 2y ago
The problem here is also that it's not just annoying, some EU member states are not supported for PSN accounts and according the TOS you can get your PSN account banned if you sign up with the wrong country!
- pezezin 2y ago
  How is that even legal? Don't such practices violate the Digital Single Market?

henry_viii 2y ago

> in over 150 countries In 177 countries to be exact. For context, there are 195 countries in the world.

Biganon 2y ago
The list used by steam contains like 250 countries, because they split some countries in different regions, e. g. Mayotte is listed as a separate country despite being part of France
- thefz 2y ago
  Same with Italy and Sardinia

Kim_Bruning 2y ago

On Steam: If there's little yellow boxes in the right hand column, someone somewhere is reserving the right to ruin your day in some way. Helldivers 2 has three of them: DRM, Third party account, and third party EULA. Best avoid games with little yellow boxes, especially if you prefer just playing games vs legal drama. (And of course gog.com doesn't have any little yellow boxes)

neocritter 2y ago
Can confirm. I bought Freespace 2 in 2009 and it's still there in my account with no DRM.
- rchaud 2y ago
  Back then, PSN was free. Bought a PS3 over an XB360 because I didn't want to pay a subscription for the occasional multiplayer game.
  - Turskarama 2y ago
    PSN is still free but it only gives you access to the store and an account to keep user data, PS plus is an add on to it that costs money and is required for multiplayer. EDIT: I feel like I should point out that PC players don't need PS plus to play multiplayer, I think literally every copy would be refunded if they tried to pull that one.
izzydata 2y ago
If Helldivers 2 was on GOG it would still require a PSN account.
- PoignardAzur 2y ago
  I think GP's point is more "if you're on Steam, here's how you can check that info".
- adamzochowski 2y ago
  If it were on GOG, there would be no DRM or third party accounts required. With potential exception for online play. But most GOG games are single player offline games. Even online games would be more of the type where you run local server and connect with you friends by sharing IP:port combo.

boesboes 2y ago

I find the support for Arrowhead surprising. They went into business with Sony and allowed this. The CEO tweeting "We just want to make gaaameeees" is such a weak ass excuse. Take some responsibility for your choices.

tietjens 2y ago
The economics of games are complex. I don’t understand why Arrowhead should take the blame here.
- nickphx 2y ago
  why should a company take blame for business decisions that impact their business? :D
- piafraus 2y ago
  Why shouldn't they? Arrowhead are literally saying that requirement was always there, it was just temporary not enforced/supported. It's not Sony that suddenly introduced that new requirement. Arrowhead were the ones having this delayed-change-of-contract. Arrowhead allowed their game to be sold in countries where you will not be able to play.
  - ro_bit 2y ago
    > Arrowhead allowed their game to be sold in countries where you will not be able to play. This is the thing that I'm not sure of and that I think the question of whether to blame Arrowhead depends on. Who authorized selling it in non PSN countries in the first place? Is that Arrowhead's responsibility as a studio, or Sony's responsibility as a publisher? Considering you can find locations to buy the physical game on Playstation's official website, even in unsupported countries, I'm leaning towards the latter (https://www.playstation.com/en-ph/games/helldivers-2/ https://www.playstation.com/en-ph/games/helldivers-2/)

Der_Einzige 2y ago

I’m very happy to hear this. Too many good games have had their player bases gimped by the rise of stupid “one hit wonder” games like palworld or helldivers 2. The Finals is somehow struggling to maintain a decent player base despite being objectively one of the freshest and best game releases in a decade. I can’t get my friends to play it because they’re too busy memeing about space bugs on a mediocre shooter. Glad to see that these games time and time again shoot themselves in the foot. Good riddance!

npteljes 2y ago
Helldivers 2 would be a one hit wonder, if not for the successful predecessor, Helldivers.
thefz 2y ago
Your anger about The Finals does not make Helldivers 2 a bad game; instead if your friends are ghosting you to play it, it means that it is good.
Kiro 2y ago
You must be trolling. You're mad that people prefer something else than your own subjective opinion. Ridiculous.
- Der_Einzige 2y ago
  Nope. It’s all Schadenfreude. I want peoples bad video game opinions to be punished, and it’s happening in this case! Yippie!

syngrog66 2y ago

This should not be on HN.

Biganon 2y ago
This should totally be on HN, it's about technology, economics,...

tumidpandora 2y ago

This was known right from the launch. no surprises here. https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/553850/view/4196868529806518741?l=english https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/553850/view/41968685... Attention Helldivers, Due to technical issues at the launch of HELLDIVERS™ 2, we allowed the linking requirements for Steam accounts to a PlayStation Network account to be temporarily optional. That grace period will now expire. See details below in this post. Account linking plays a critical role in protecting our players and upholding the values of safety and security provided on PlayStation and PlayStation Studios games. This is our main way to protect players from griefing and abuse by enabling the banning of players that engage in that type of behaviour. It also allows those players that have been banned the right to appeal. As such, as of May 6th, all new HELLDIVERS 2 players on Steam will be required to connect their Steam account to a PlayStation Network account. Current players on Steam will start to see the mandatory login from May 30th and will be required to have linked a Steam and PlayStation Network account by June 4th. PlayStation Network accounts are free and easy to set up using this link https://www.playstation.com/support/account/create-account-for-psn/ https://www.playstation.com/support/account/create-account-f... We understand that while this may be an inconvenience to some of you, this step will help us to continue to build a community that you are all proud to be a part of. Many thanks for your continued support of HELLDIVERS 2! Sony Interactive Entertainment

rawling 2y ago
> This was known right from the launch. That Sony was selling the game to 150 countries with the intention of making all of those purchases unusable?
nurple 2y ago
Sounds like It's not that they can't ban players without a PSN account, but the punishment of being banned from playing any of your PS games online is real motivator. I thought we realized eons ago that forced puritanism is the antithesis of humanity.

kibwen 2y ago

I still haven't forgotten the time that Sony deliberately and secretly infected millions of computers with a rootkit in order to enforce DRM that also introduced exploitable security vulnerabilities, and then lied about it, and then after the backlash shipped an "uninstaller" that just hid the rootkit better and introduced more exploitable security vulnerabilities. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootkit_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootk... I feel bad for Arrowhead, but let it be known that if you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas. Maybe next time they'll think twice before partnering with such a trash company.

rezonant 2y ago

There's so much coverage of this from the gamer crowd that entirely ignores that a PSN account was required from the beginning but waived because of the unexpected popularity of the game and how Sony couldn't handle it. To be fair, when they had problems and added a Skip button, they should have made it more clear that a PSN account would be required in the future, but given the willful ignorance of the facts by the sensationalist reports, I don't know that it would've mattered. Seems more like the gaming community was looking for a reason to be pissed off than this being an actual issue. I wouldn't be surprised if this was being stoked by the same folks trying to create antisemitic conspiracies about diversity consultants (check out NeverKnowsBest's Gamergate 2.0 video for context, https://youtu.be/CGmESJM6BFQ?si=RsfLWiewo7uXZY8r https://youtu.be/CGmESJM6BFQ?si=RsfLWiewo7uXZY8r )

haunter 2y ago
>entirely ignores that a PSN account was required from the beginning but waived because of the unexpected popularity of the game They shouldn't have sold the game on Steam in countries where PSN is not available.
- FMecha 2y ago
  Even if they did that at launch, I can still smell backlash.
- Zvez 2y ago
  >They shouldn't have sold the games on Steam in countries where PSN is not available yep, as simple as that this would have made the situation much better. Game would have gotten lower scores and player base overall. Doing it now and like this leaves the feeling, that they got enough money from sales and now they want to bring some traffic to psn
- rezonant 2y ago
  Yes this is a puzzling part of the story, for sure. The handling of the situation overall is pretty poor (also for instance the community management response was pretty stupid)

bdw5204 2y ago

If you live in a country where you can't create a PSN account, just create one for another country. You can trivially find addresses to use online. To make digital purchases, you can import gift cards from the same region as your account. I believe Play-Asia sells those. If you buy games from multiple regions, you need an account for each region so you can access their DLCs. For many years, I wouldn't connect an actual payment to my account due to security concerns and would just go to the store to buy a gift card whenever I wanted to make a digital purchase. There's no reason why you can't import the gift cards. Basically, the whole "create an account in a different country" thing is an IQ test like the "enter an age of 13 or older to create an account" IQ test that was forced onto the internet by a stupid law the US government passed in the late 90s. Just use the obvious workaround to protect the company from legal liability over stupid laws like a normal person would.

hiimshort 2y ago
This is against Sony's TOS and can result in a ban. In fact, this is exactly what happened to a Chinese user who tried to do that.
- bdw5204 2y ago
  Gaming web sites publish articles on how to create PSN accounts in other regions[0] because this is common practice for gamers who care about imports (hence why Play-Asia will sell you out of region PSN gift cards). I imagine China is a special case because of the totalitarian dictatorship's restrictions on gaming and the fact that Playstation does business there which means they have to keep Winnie the Pooh[1] happy. The Chinese version of the PS5 seems to be region locked[2] which is not the case for PS5s sold in other countries. [0]: https://www.siliconera.com/how-to-make-a-japanese-ps4-and-ps5-account/ https://www.siliconera.com/how-to-make-a-japanese-ps4-and-ps... [1]: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/07/china-bans-winnie-the-pooh-film-to-stop-comparisons-to-president-xi https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/07/china-bans-win... [2]: https://www.reddit.com/r/playstation/comments/x61kb7/ps5_chinese_region_locked/ https://www.reddit.com/r/playstation/comments/x61kb7/ps5_chi...

mirages 2y ago

"Added Holy See" I guess no Holy warriors in the crusade for defending Earth ?

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

thefz 2y ago

As usual, corporate bullshit. Capitalism is shit.

ratsmack 2y ago
Greed is not a requirement of Capitalism though.
- tumsfestival 2y ago
  It actually is, capitalism wants infinite growth, if that's not greed then I shudder to think what is.

shermozle 2y ago

I tried to buy the game on Playstation's site a couple of weeks ago and kept getting this inscrutable error: Something went wrong. After digging into the network tab, seems I'm failing a fraud screen somehow. No way to get around it. Oh well, guess I won't buy your game. "errorCode": 3329793, "humanReadableCode": "failedFraudScreen", "humanReadableValidationErrors": [], "apiName": "purchase"