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Arrowhead Studios confirm PSN Account Requirement decision was on Sony - Game received over 15,000 negative reviews and is now 'Mixed' on Steam

Three

Member
Holy omitting context Batman!

The government of Iran banned several online games, Minecraft included, because people were using the in-game communication of the games to communicate during protests against the Iranian government. It has nothing to do with this topic.
deflecting from the issue again with an incorrect fact. It's not because of the protests. It's because MS does not officially allow the creation of accounts there. If you can read, since I know you don't live there. You can buy forgien accounts and access it with a bought in the black market regionally incorrect account. Its not a case of "Microsoft account is supported in Iran" like Adam said. Which is the issue. The Microsoft account requirement is preventing people from playing Minecraft.

I clearly said I don't live there and haven't tried first hand. Also, you're using an example where the State Department of the US intervenes and prevents sale of software in Iran as the same thing as Sony deliberately allowing sale of software in regions where PSN has never existed in the first place.
much like China, much like the SEC of the Philippines but what has this got to do with "waiting for the next project" and not retroactively requiring an unnecessary account login on a game that's been out for a while? You're making excuses again obviously about how it's somebody elses fault for adding that one and screwing those players for whatever reason.
Again, you haven't said a single line in this entire topic on how the publisher of the game can take any action to resolve this current HD2 issue, instead you've thrown blame at every which way and whataboutism'ed your way so far.

Let me ask you directly: Do you think the publisher is completely blameless here and there's nothing they could have, or can do now, to remedy it?
Except I correctly predicted exactly what they would do before they did it:
While I agree with you on this, this will ultimately mean the fix is to prevent steam sales of the game in those regions rather than the alternative of the user creating a PSN account in a different region (for example somebody in the Philippines selecting HK as their country)
Because it was the only possible way to do this legally but outrage people who probably didn't live there thought it best to make class actions and sony lawyers aware of the loophole that allowed people to access the game.
 

ManaByte

Gold Member
Fall Guys had it after launch with Epic accounts, though i dont know if Epic is available everywhere.

This is the first time a game people actually cared about waited 4 months to force it. The other games had it from the beginning.

No one was playing Fall Guys after a month of its meme status ended.
 
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Fabieter

Member
This is the first time a game people actually cared about waited 4 months to force it. The other games had it from the beginning.

No one was playing Fall Guys after a month of its meme status ended.

Imagine wanting it day one but doing the right thing for server stability and dont fuck people over just to get the biggest shitstorm of the decade xD.
 

adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
Honest question
Do you even own the game because I highly doubt you even cared about it before the outcry.

It's in my gamefly queue for what it's worth but I, alone, can't change anything that's happening here. 🤷‍♂️


Fall Guys had it after launch with Epic accounts, though i dont know if Epic is available everywhere.

Didn't they also yank the game completely from Steam to coincide with that change? Effectively meaning that the game was only accessible to people in places where EGS accounts could be made.
 

xHunter

Member
This is the first time a game people actually cared about waited 4 months to force it. The other games had it from the beginning.

No one was playing Fall Guys after a month of its meme status ended.
Even though Fall Guys was still popular when they made the change, doesnt the change the fact that I as an owner of the Steam Version had to login a year or so after purchasing the game to an epic account in order to continue playing. So yes there are games that did the same thing.

Didn't they also yank the game completely from Steam to coincide with that change? Effectively meaning that the game was only accessible to people in places where EGS accounts could be made.

You cant buy the game from steam anymore, but you can still play it and download it. It also gets every update. So no, if you are one of the people where you couldnt make an EGS accounts (dont know if that exists), but bought the game on steam you were essentially locked out.
 
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Taycan77

Member
The only one who benefit from a move like this is Sony. They likely want to boost MAU numbers and later lock people in more for an upcoming storefront and launcher and streaming service where the accounts is everything.
Well, of course they do.

It's a business decision to release PlayStation titles on PC.

In time I'm sure Sony want to take a massive chunk out of Steam's market share with their own storefront.

That will only happen if they take gamers with them.

They aren't in the business of propping up Steam and continuing with the status quo.

History tells us internet drama has little effect in the real world.

At the end of the day this either matters or it doesn't - we can easily monitor said effect with Steam player numbers.
 

rofif

Banned
It's in my gamefly queue for what it's worth but I, alone, can't change anything that's happening here. 🤷‍♂️




Didn't they also yank the game completely from Steam to coincide with that change? Effectively meaning that the game was only accessible to people in places where EGS accounts could be made.
gamefly?! renting ?!
that's stealing bro. It's like piracy (what I heard yesterday)
 

ManaByte

Gold Member
Even though Fall Guys was still popular when they made the change, doesnt the change the fact that I as an owner of the Steam Version had to login a year or so after purchasing the game to an epic account in order to continue playing. So yes there are games that did the same thing.

The Epic Account gave a FREE TO PLAY GAME cross-progression. So anything you unlock is shared across every platform the game is on (PC and console).

This linking does nothing to a $40 game. You don't get cross progression. It literally gives you nothing. There's no reason for you to do it other than being able to access a game you bought 4 months ago.
 
1. There is ZERO reason for linking a PSN account to your Steam account for Helldivers 2. There's no cross-progression, so what's the point? The game runs fine without it. It's all about that MAU/data and being able to ban players at ease.

2. They releases the game on Steam in regions that don't even support PSN, so those people who didn't want anything to do with consoles, will now have to make a PSN account JUST to carry on playing their game, with zero difference. Problem is, they would need to make an account in another region and risk their account getting banned.

3. These are PC players. They want to run the game and not have to sign up to 1000 different services. Xbox does it well where your saves are saved on the cloud and you can play your game across any device. Sony doesn't do this for Helldivers 2, so there's ZERO reason to force players to link a PSN account.
Im still confused. You voiced a good point with the region thing. The save thing needs to be handled too. But what I’m not understanding is of people finally get the games from Sony consoles and this warrants all of this? I could understand if they were making you play for PlayStation plus. But again I can’t comment on how others feel about making a free account.
 

nosoynadie22

Gold Member


both sides made mistakes

Arrowhead should never have disabled the PSN requirement and Sony should not have continued selling Helldrivers II Steam when they started having problems with the servers, the ideal would have been to remove the game from sales until they had solved all their problems.
 

Fabieter

Member
It's in my gamefly queue for what it's worth but I, alone, can't change anything that's happening here. 🤷‍♂️




Didn't they also yank the game completely from Steam to coincide with that change? Effectively meaning that the game was only accessible to people in places where EGS accounts could be made.

Thanks I figured as much.
 
I dunno ... the thought of playing a game for a while and then being told I have to create an account on their network or I can't play it anymore (no refund btw) doesn't sit right with me. They would have avoided this fiasco if they had required this at game launch.
They did. It was causing issues so they are just enabling it now. It’s also in the information section that it’s a requirement. Been there since day one. I can get people being annoyed of having to do it now. But the truth is if you didn’t read it you can only be mad at yourself.
 

Three

Member
T Three is just going out of his way performing mental gymnastics to try and find a way to defend Sony. It's becoming more and more painfully apparent with each post.
Nah that's not even a defence, it's showing how "Microsoft Accounts are supported in iran" is complete bullshit from adam in his mental gymnastics to weasel his way out of why that retroactive account requirement differed and didn’t affect anyone.
Manabyte is even wrong about the reason too. It's a block on account creation there. Apple accounts too, and they don't even have voice chat as far as I know. It's sanctions.
 

near

Gold Member
Just got this email from Sony:

"How to defend us with the Helldivers 2 drama help sheet:

1). Remind people that Sony aren't the first to mandate 3rd party account linking on Steam
2). Tell people that we made it a requirement to link accounts even though we let people play without doing so
3). Puerto Rico, China, Philippines? Who cares about them, tell them to break our ToS and create fake accounts
4). Tell people PSN is required for security and moderation purposes
5). Question anyone's right to question us, call them crybabies, say anything that will be dismissive
6). Remember to lick our boots clean you peasants"

In Sony we trust.
 

ManaByte

Gold Member
Nah that's not even a defence, it's showing how "Microsoft Accounts are supported in iran" is complete bullshit from adam in his mental gymnastics to weasel his way out of why that retroactive account requirement differed and didn’t affect anyone.
Manabyte is even wrong about the reason too. It's a block on account creation there. Apple accounts too, and they don't even have voice chat as far as I know. It's sanctions.

Again, that has nothing to do with this topic.
 

adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
Thanks I figured as much.

Great, you can finally move on from trying to correlate this with other games having multiple logins now.

Nah that's not even a defence, it's showing how "Microsoft Accounts are supported in iran" is complete bullshit from adam in his mental gymnastics to weasel his way out of why that retroactive account requirement differed and didn’t affect anyone.
Manabyte is even wrong about the reason too. It's a block on account creation there. Apple accounts too, and they don't even have voice chat as far as I know. It's sanctions.

Again, you're conflating government mandated sanctions with a publisher selling software in region(s) knowing full well that they'll be impacted in a few months after *THEIR OWN* change.

You're using two completely and wildly different scenarios to do your "see, MS does this too" gotcha moment here.

Instead of focusing on the issue that this topic is about, you're going out of your way to find loopholes to blame other publishers.

It's just about as bad-faith as an argument can get.
 
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Taycan77

Member
The Epic Account gave a FREE TO PLAY GAME cross-progression. So anything you unlock is shared across every platform the game is on (PC and console).

This linking does nothing to a $40 game. You don't get cross progression. It literally gives you nothing. There's no reason for you to do it other than being able to access a game you bought 4 months ago.
It's pretty obvious this is a first step towards bringing their console and PC players together.

In time it would be pretty ridiculous if, for example, I put 1000hrs into GT7 on PS5, then had to start from scratch on PC.

I will only purchase PlayStation games on console OR PC if there is NO cross-save progression. With cross-save progression I'd pick up my favourite titles on both platforms.
 
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lordrand11

Member
You get cross progression down the line because of a change like this.

And there is a reason for Sony, they have no banning power over their own game. They have to submit names to Valve and have them ban them now, this would fix that.

I don't expect the average person to care about that, but it makes all the sense in the world for the publisher to want more direct control over their game.
Or.... You know, use VAC like the majority of other devs out there.
 

ManaByte

Gold Member
It's pretty obvious this is a first step towards bringing their console and PC players together.

In time it would be pretty ridiculous if, for example, I put 1000hrs into GT7 on PS5, then had to start from scratch on PC.

I will only purchase PlayStation games on console OR PC if there is cross-save progression. With cross-save progression I'd pick up my favourite titles on both platforms.

Ghosts of Tsushima has it. Helldivers 2 does not.
 

geary

Member


both sides made mistakes

Arrowhead should never have disabled the PSN requirement and Sony should not have continued selling Helldrivers II Steam when they started having problems with the servers, the ideal would have been to remove the game from sales until they had solved all their problems.

Thats crazy…Sony knew the PSN account will be mandatory 6 month before launch and they still sold it to countries where you cannot make the account…Greed and incompetence at its peek
 

xHunter

Member
The Epic Account gave a FREE TO PLAY GAME cross-progression. So anything you unlock is shared across every platform the game is on (PC and console).

This linking does nothing to a $40 game. You don't get cross progression. It literally gives you nothing. There's no reason for you to do it other than being able to access a game you bought 4 months ago.
My point was to prove, that there were games that did similar things before this, which you denied.
 

Mortisfacio

Banned
Thats crazy…Sony knew the PSN account will be mandatory 6 month before launch and they still sold it to countries where you cannot make the account…Greed and incompetence at its peek

Incoming post where Three defends selling it to countries they knew couldn't play it because one time Minecraft was affected by this due to foreign affairs, so it's OK.
 

bender

What time is it?


both sides made mistakes

Arrowhead should never have disabled the PSN requirement and Sony should not have continued selling Helldrivers II Steam when they started having problems with the servers, the ideal would have been to remove the game from sales until they had solved all their problems.


The biggest was mistake was offering this in territories who can't create PSN Accounts. A rocky launch is unfortunate and sadly expected in this day and age. They could have followed the same playbook with the inclusion of a notice upon launching the game that the PSN Account requirement has been temporarily suspended while they work past the server issues. Beyond regional sales, the biggest issue here is communication.
 
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Generic

Member
The Epic Account gave a FREE TO PLAY GAME cross-progression. So anything you unlock is shared across every platform the game is on (PC and console).

This linking does nothing to a $40 game. You don't get cross progression. It literally gives you nothing. There's no reason for you to do it other than being able to access a game you bought 4 months ago.
Sony is well know for gatekeeping cross-progression, they have been doing it for years.
 

Fabieter

Member
Great, you can finally move on from trying to correlate this with other games having multiple logins now.



Again, you're conflating government mandated sanctions with a publisher selling software in region(s) knowing full well that they'll be impacted in a few months after *THEIR OWN* change.

You're using two completely and wildly different scenarios to do your "see, MS does this too" gotcha moment here.

Instead of focusing on the issue that this topic is about, you're going out of your way to find loopholes to blame other publishers.

It's just about as bad-faith as an argument can get.

Yes I can accept and understand the fake outrage a little bit more now and move on with it.
 

ManaByte

Gold Member
terew58jbmyc1.png
 

Three

Member
Again, that has nothing to do with this topic.
Yes it does if you followed the conversation but I can see why you're brushing it aside after making things up about the cause of it. Read below as to why we're here.
Again, you're conflating government mandated sanctions with a publisher selling software in region(s) knowing full well that they'll be impacted in a few months after *THEIR OWN* change.
Says the guy who was posting China bans just yesterday. And MS requiring a MS account was their own change which resulted in those who had bought minecraft not being able to access minecraft and stopping them playing. For obvious reasons though you're having a really hard time conceding anything.

My only point was that "waiting for the next project" would have been an asnine reason to prevent cross progression work and PSN account requirements much like it would have been for MS and Minecraft because it's a live service game meant to be supported for years.

Unfortunately instead of maybe saying yeah I can see your point you said
"But that's not the same because, popularity, paid, blah blah blah"

I said it's exactly the same in almost every way and games were sold and subsequently made unplayable due to the requirement. You said give me an example, I said Iran. You said microsft accounts are supported in iran. I said no they aren't. You said but that's not MS fault why are you discussing whataboutisms' and here we are with the constant excuses from you. It's not about whataboutism. It's about the fact that your idea that they shouldn't have done it and waited for the next project is asnine and when I tried to convince you of that with your favourite executive you try and make excuses as to how retroactively adding accounts is somehow warranted there.
 
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near

Gold Member
Wow, so Sony sold to no PSN countries and now they force PSN

How can shills even defend this
To be fair, it's an oversight and not intentional. But an absolute major fuck-up as far as I'm concerned, and they deserve the boycotting/outcry coming their way.
 

Fabieter

Member
another one:


Is this a lawyer? Because I highly doubt a class action would be possible in any country with psn available Because they had the requirement on the shopsite and you accepted their stuff with playing the game. But in countrys with no access to psn I could see that.
 
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