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Steam Blocks Ghost of Tsushima PC Sales in Countries Without PSN

adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
Japan is still blocked on Staem.


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ShaiKhulud1989

Gold Member
The mindless protest really helped gamers in those countries, didn't it? /s
Thing is, the HD2 and GoT pages are still up in Kazakhstan (hi!). They are removed from sale but not delisted, and that hints at some internal discussions inside PS to somehow bring those games back after remaking the EULA or PSN account policy.

Hopium, I know, but it's not hardcore delisting nonetheless.
 
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Pop

Member
Again, this is incredibly stupid. The Northern Marianas, Guam, Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands, and the Minor Outlying Islands all have PSN support, since they are US colonies they get set up under the US when you make a PSN account.

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Also, Japan was removed from the restricted list.
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Ya very weird

So I wonder what Steam is doing here blocking countries that can use PSN.
 

Heisenberg007

Gold Journalism
If the protest didn't happen, people in those countries would be buying this and not have access to some or all parts of the game, leading to mass refunds.

So, yeah, the protest did work. 🤷‍♂️
No, because if those people could read, they'd know exactly what they were buying into. And if they had any issue, they wouldn't buy the game. Now their choice has been taken away.

Besides, literally every PS player in those countries has a PSN account. It's a free account that takes <5 minutes to create. They could easily create that account and link to it to play the multiplayer.

Even if they didn't want to play the multiplayer / create a PSN account, they could play the main draw of the game -- the single-player campaign -- without PSN. Now they can't play either.

Great success!
 

adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
Dude is trying to keep the fuckery, fair and balanced.

As god intended.

No, because if those people could read, they'd know exactly what they were buying into. And if they had any issue, they wouldn't buy the game. Now their choice has been taken away.

Besides, literally every PS player in those countries has a PSN account. It's a free account that takes <5 minutes to create. They could easily create that account and link to it to play the multiplayer.

Even if they didn't want to play the multiplayer / create a PSN account, they could play the main draw of the game -- the single-player campaign -- without PSN. Now they can't play either.

Great success!

They may not enforce it strong enough, but using inaccurate address information is a ban-able offense per their ToS.

Ultimately this is just Steam covering their asses.
 

adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
PSN has been inherently tied to only their own hardware until now so they haven't bothered with countries that they aren't selling hardware in.

If they intend to reach the global Steam market, something's gonna have to give. Either they're gonna have to change their PS linking policy or go in knowing that their PC sales will only reach the same countries they were already hitting console sales in.
 
The whole Helldivers subreddit was asking for this, because the fact that you had to break ToS to play the game was their only leg to stand on. They told Sony that this isn't right and they listened.

These were people who had access to PSN, they just didn't want to use it.

Everyone knew what the consequences would be, they just didn't give a fuck. It's disgusting, especially since they touted support for this minority in the playerbase as the main driving factor.

Now people lose access to play these games.

But yeah Sony is the sole problem because they didn't drop their whole PC roadmap and magically upgraded their infrastructure.

Making an out of region PSN account is no different from putting in 1/1/1901 as your birthdate on any website that required age verification.
 

rkofan87

Gold Member
True, but the Multiplayer part of the game is blocked. Doesn't look like Steam guys want to risk it.

Who knows, this could change in an hour.
imo steam is being a pussy i know the mp is good but the sp is the main draw i do not think fans will wine about wanting the cash back for having no mp in the game.
 
I see alot of people say these countries are irrelevant in other threads before in regards to helldivers, but there is still estonia, belarus, bosnia, serbia, monaco, lithuania, japan. especially the eastern countries are big pc gamers. just dont get why they dont give up the psn integration on this if it removes this much of the market.

Probably because it's not worth the revenue giving up PSN sign-in. Sony has all the data so they know what the sales look like and they know what they can get from the PSN data. They decided the PSN data is worth more.
 

Topher

Gold Member
Lokos like it's the same countries where the Helldivers 2 issue happened a few days ago.



edit: Japan is no longer on the list.







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Valve states that regional restriction on retail CD keys vary by each individual publisher. So how is Valve the one placing regional restrictions on this game when those keys originate from Steam? Are you making an assumption here?

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Also, already a thread....

 
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Aenima

Member
PSN has been inherently tied to only their own hardware until now so they haven't bothered with countries that they aren't selling hardware in.
In Philippines the PS5 is oficially sold there but thers no oficial PSN there yet. what Sony recomend the players to do is create an account from other country. So i dont really know why this is a problem on Steam when players can create accounts from whatever countries they want. I have PSN accounts from 4 diferent continents.
 
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adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
Valve states that regional restriction on retail CD keys vary by each individual publisher. So how is Valve the one placing regional restrictions on this game when those keys originate from Steam? Are you making an assumption here?

I'm assuming you meant to quote someone else here, cause I didn't say either Valve or Sony are blocking in the OP.
 

adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
That's how the title is being read by some here....

eyVZGBg.png



🤷‍♂️

Steam, the platform, is actively blocking purchases in those regions, at this point we don't know which party requested it.

Also your picture was about purchasing Keys from other retailers, which is what that GMG thing was about. This is Steam, as a storefront, blocking it, I don't know if it's the same thing.
 
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Topher

Gold Member
🤷‍♂️

Steam, the platform, is actively blocking purchases in those regions, at this point we don't know which party requested it.

Also your picture was about purchasing Keys from other retailers, which is what that GMG thing was about. This is Steam, as a storefront, blocking it entirely.

Yeah, but those keys still originate from within Steam and are activated on Steam. Seems pretty clear that the publisher is the one setting the restrictions. Not sure why Valve would even be involved unless there was some kind of currency pricing issue.
 

adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
Yeah, but those keys still originate from within Steam and are activated on Steam. Seems pretty clear that the publisher is the one setting the restrictions. Not sure why Valve would even be involved unless there was some kind of currency pricing issue.

I have no horse in the cart but based on the HD2 thing, it just seems like it's more likely a Valve move.

Despite the HD2 requirement being lifted, it's still unavailable to buy in those countries still, if it was a Sony thing, they would have probably requested Valve to remove those restrictions at the same time as they made their Monday tweet.
 
In Philippines the PS5 is oficially sold there but thers no oficial PSN there yet. what Sony recomend the players to do is create an account from other country. So i dont really know why this is a problem on Steam when players can create accounts from whatever countries they want. I have PSN accounts from 4 diferent continents.
It only became a problem when it caused PC Capital-G Gamers to remember they were playing and enjoying, god forbid, a PlayStation game made for those peasants.
 

Topher

Gold Member
I have no horse in the cart but based on the HD2 thing, it just seems like it's more likely a Valve move.

Despite the HD2 requirement being lifted, it's still unavailable to buy in those countries still, if it was a Sony thing, they would have probably requested Valve to remove those restrictions at the same time as they made their Monday tweet.

So Valve is setting region restrictions on the game in Steam, but publishers are setting region restrictions on Steam keys? That makes no sense.
 

adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
So Valve is setting region restrictions on the game in Steam, but publishers are setting region restrictions on Steam keys? That makes no sense.

Neither Valve nor Sony are officially commenting on this so it's an unclear situation. Sucker Punch were tweeting about how linking isn't required to play SP, I don't think a first party studio would be putting that out if they knew the game was going to be blocked by their parent publisher.
 
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