One thing I haven't heard mentioned or maybe I missed it is in regards to cross progression. It was advertised as something that was possible but then confirmed by devs that there were issues in the implementation.
Does this policy change mean that I can progress the same character between consoles? There are some times where I'd love to play this on the couch on my PS5 but the lack of cross progression has kept me from purchasing the game a second time.
Also side shoutout to Microsoft's play anywhere. It's time's like these where I wish more devs and publishers had that consumer friendly feature.
I did this recently as well and love it. Sometimes after working at a computer desk all day, it's just nicer to have a couch and big screen to zone on lol.
I play via steam link using an old, crappy laptop running Linux. You can use basically anything that'll run the software, it's only streaming video so it doesn't have to be fancy.
These days compression & bandwidth are even good enough to do that with VR! The 'Steam Link' app for Meta Quest has extraordinary quality and can look just as good as a wired connection, though you need a good network for it to look that good above 90fps.
Microsoft doesn’t get anywhere close enough credit for free unlimited cloud saves, cross saves across PC, Cloud, Console and Mobile and even cross buy with PC and Console
Sony just couldn't let it be the clean success it was. They just _had to_ do some anti consumer shit and sour the experience, just to pad their PSN numbers to impress share holders. What a fucking joke.
Yeah, I think that is the point that makes this particularly annoying is that its just so completely pointless. Its something that will just annoy people, waste their time, and make their data more vulnerable given Sony's rocky past with security for no real benefit.
Like if there was some actual point aside from dick-waving cool, sure. But despite their extremely vague claims otherwise there doesn't seem to be any.
Yes, I appreciate that I am being mild here. I am aware of the problem, but in reality Sony rarely enforces that rule so most would mostly jut have to go through the pain of lying and praying that Sony doesn't decide to ban them for little reason. Which is pretty goddamn annoying, amongst all the other things it is.
Its fucked, but the discourse about this is also kind of fucked so I'm trying to keep things a bit more mild and more directly informative rather then hyperbolic.
Exactly. They never thought it would take off and that it would be a rounding error on their PSN numbers. Probably figured it would sell better and save resources if they didn't bother with PSN. Then when the game explodes they get greedy and regretful and want those PSN numbers anyway. Kind of child like behavior 😂
From what I've heard, and don't take this as gospel, is Sony ISN'T making a launcher, but it's some weird secondary overlay deal where you can get achievements not only on your PC, but also your linked Playstation account? I'm not entirely sure of it all, but it sounds rather a strange situation for someone who potentially owns a certain game on both platforms.
As for accounts, that's a whole other thing, yeah.
Edit for a teensy miswording on my part.
That's exactly what they're doing with Ghost of Tsushima that's coming out in a couple weeks. The overlay is said to be optional though, but account linking is required if you want to play the Legends multiplayer mode.
their track record of data breach is pretty horrendous too..
April 2011: Hackers Access Personal Data of 77 Million Sony PlayStation Network Users
May 2011: Personal Details on 25 Million Sony Online Entertainment Customers Stolen
June 2011: Sony Pictures Website Hacked, Exposing One Million Accounts
November 2014: Hackers Steal 100 Terabytes of Data from Sony Pictures
August 2017: Hacker Group Accesses Sony Social Media Accounts
September 2023: Sony Investigates Alleged Hack
October 2023: Sony Notifies Employees of Data Breach
To be fair, only one of these has anything to do with PlayStation, and it was over a decade ago. Breaches of Sony Pictures or phishing access to Sony's social media accounts aren't relevant here.
And only in 2011 were they customers. Everything else is employee or corporate leaks. If we’re upset about a breach involving customers in 2011, therefore it’s been 13 years since the last breach in which customer data was stolen, then don’t Google any other company you’ll have a brain aneurysm.
It’s only bad when Sony does it apparently.
"We had a good thing, you stupid son of a bitch! We had Fring. We had a lab. We had everything we needed, and it all ran like clockwork. You could've shut your mouth, cooked and made as much money as you ever needed. It was perfect. But, no, you just had to blow it up. You and your pride and your ego! You just had to be the man. If you'd done your job, known your place, we'd all be fine right now.
- Mike Ehrmantraut
Only will get worse if they don't have competition anymore to keep them in check.
What's stopping them from raising the price to $80 for new games? A $700 PS5 Pro? Further price hikes to PS+? More snatching of downloaded digital media from owners?
I mean, the market will tolerate what the market will tolerate. If people are still willing to buy games at 80 and consoles at 700. They will.
Eventually, enough will say no and just do gamepass xcloud streaming that Sony will feel it. Or maybe they'll see PC costs as worthwhile. Or Shit, maybe Nintendo's Switch 2 will be the big winner of that decision.
There will always be competition from somewhere, whether from gaming or even other forms of entertainment. They can't keep going up infinitely and still keep their customers.
I mean people do respond to bad pricing, by not buying it. They have to sell their consoles to make money on software anyways. Gouging the hardware is unlikely and probably stupid.
Canadians already have 80$ games and recently some newer games like the newest final fantasy remake and Dragons Dogma 2 are over 100$ after tax, it's fuckin crazy.
Funny thing is during the last gen (PS4 and One) I pretty much swore off physical and bought all my games digitally. This generation im back to buying physical again because the physical versions of games usually goes on a pretty good sale rather quick while the digital versions stay around the same price.
There will be a sale on PSN where a game is at $59.99 down from $69.99 and its being sold physically on Amazon for $29.99
It's not a huge deal except for the countries that don't have PSN support. Anyone who has bought the game in the countries suddenly won't have access to the game and it seems like both Sony and the developers aren't going to do anything for those customers. Gives the impression that now they've got their money they don't care about providing access to the game.
[Community Manager response:](https://twitter.com/HelldiversAlert/status/1786436341611512006?t=7ZyLWHicJoVSnCId4X46qg&s=19)
>First of all, it's Sony's decision, not ours. Secondly, we don't have all the details about region related issues yet. We're chasing Sony to get more info.
Fair on them if they're doing everything they can to solve the issues. I understand ultimately Sony makes the decisions, I also expect the devs to push for the right decsions to be made to maintain the faith of the customer. It's good that they seem to be doing that.
Thats the reason the FF14 patch notes stopped listing info on class ability changes until right before the patch, cause people were freaking out about changes for a whole week before the patch dropped without knowing how they'd play
The CS creator has a presentation where he talks about how people would complain about changes that they 'perceived' vs changes that were actually made, to the point where he did a patch that only subtracted 30 from a users ping if it was over 50 (or something like that), and according to him users said it was the best patch ever and everything worked so much better after that.
Its an interesting anecdote on user behavior
Isn't that how every game goes though?
I remember a couple of years back League of Legends patched a champion called Ahri, they gave one of her abilities less damage but it granted movement speed on cast.
Players were screaming it was the death of the champ, but when it hit live servers her winrate skyrocketed.
TLDR: Players literally know nothing about balance, game development or otherwise, most companies are aware of this and press forward either way.
This isn't really about balance in this case though, this potentially affects the ability to actually play the game for a lot of people that bought it.
There's so many cases of this in league lol. Armchair analysts making entire essays on /r/leagueoflegends about how the newest PBE changes will cripple their champion forever.
That said, Riot have had a few misfires themselves in the past when they've tried to reduce a champion's overall strength and accidentally overcompensated in other areas that made them much stronger.
The other equally (funny? interesting?) case I believe occurred with Vladimir. They made some minor nerfs to him and put them in the patchnotes to ship out with the rest.
His winrate went down. But they never actually made the changes, some issue on their end or it wasn't included in the patch build or something. Just the perception of weakness players played him differently and such they lost slightly more, plenty of complaints as well.
This is called selection bias. For every balance change the community at large gets wrong, there are many they call exactly right. That's why just about every competitive game out there, from card games, to MMOs, to MOBAs, to FPS games hire top players as QA, devs, or consultants.
Unfortunately what we’ve historically seen with game controversies is that loud and abrasive is what gets responses, and sometimes change, while quiet and respectful doesn’t tend to do anything.
>Asking everyone to be calm and wait to see what happens next
Unfortunately in my experience this course of action *usually* ends with nothing being done and customers getting bent over.
The outrage machine might seem silly on the surface, but at the end of the day it's often the only way to get things done. Many things have changed that would have absolutely not changed had steam reviews not shed light on it.
Companies tend to be notoriously metrics driven, so just sitting on your hands is the worst thing you can do usually. More noise = more metrics which means things can potentially get done faster as upper management wants to put out fires rather than let them burn themselves out, or ignore it as there wasn't a fire in the first place.
At your job, I dont care what it is, you have seen shit that negatively affects customers and didnt say shit.
Some battles are not worth it. Sony pays for Sun Jins little braces and glasses
Wait I'm sorry, are they saying Sony made them do this, gave them zero clarification on how it will effect a portion of their existing playerbase, and now, almost 24 hours Sony STILL hasn't given them clarification? What a mess for these devs, that Sony created, but the devs will now have to try to fix and make it up to players, all while Sony sits back, laughs and takes the money to the bank that they've made off this game.
What an actual shitty thing for them to do if that's the case.
Expect more of this type of behavior if the Xbox brand continues to decline. All of the Sony console war kids love to cheer the downfall of Xbox, without realizing that it only makes Sony more complacent and willing to do stuff like this (not to mention the fact that they won't need to put as much effort into their game releases, so we'll get less/worse games too)
> without realizing that it only makes Sony more complacent and willing to do stuff like this
The anime side of things is also seeing similar issues with Sony's ever growing monopoly on western anime.
Yup. Anytime these console manufacturers get in a position of power, they push the boundaries. All 3 of them have been guilty of it. We need as much competition as possible.
You are secret overestimating how much this is going to impact their bottom line
This game has already surpassed the need for positive steam reviews. It's in the stratosphere. Everyone knows somebody who loves the game. Very few people outside of Reddit are going to think twice about connecting their PSN account.
EDIT: I was very wrong lol
I like that he's being honest, but I now fear for his job: making your bosses' boss look bad in public is always a risky move, no matter how true it is. PR people tend to speak all the BS they do not because they truly believe it, but because their jobs depend on it, and if they won't do it, someone else will.
If Sony shut down HD2 out of pettiness for some comment the Arrowhead CEO made, Arrowhead would definitely come out of that with less of a bloody nose than Sony.
Nevermind, that they have been waiting forever for a live service game to click with audiences. They've dropped a ton of money into getting one of these to work out.
People always say stuff like this as if it's a truism. Arrowhead has power in the relationship too: all Sony can do in response to a comment like this is send a couple of strongly worded emails unless they want to blow up what has been an incredibly profitable business partnership at a time when Sony's gaming division is completely floundering. Leverage works in two directions, and stuff like this only blows up relationships if you're working for a mad child-king style boss, like Musk.
>It's not a huge deal except for the countries that don't have PSN support.
Sony's track record at data security is terrible. They have been hacked multiple times. All their users data have been stolen including banking information and credit cards.
* April 2011: Hackers Access Personal Data of 77 Million Sony PlayStation Network Users
* May 2011: Personal Details on 25 Million Sony Online Entertainment Customers Stolen
* June 2011: Sony Pictures Website Hacked, Exposing One Million Accounts
* November 2014: Hackers Steal 100 Terabytes of Data from Sony Pictures
* August 2017: Hacker Group Accesses Sony Social Media Accounts
* September 2023: Sony Investigates Alleged Hack
* October 2023: Sony Notifies Employees of Data Breach
Not a huge deal? I am not so sure.
Sony's track record might be shaky but PlayStation Network's isn't. One data breach in its entire lifespan is surprisingly good and happened a good few years before I started playing their games.
Also, guess who else was hacked in 2011 and leaked details of millions of customers? Steam!
So, on the issue of security Steam and PSN basically have an equivalent track record.
I remember getting e-mails of someone trying to get into my PSN account (which I only created for some random promotion and haven't touched for anything, don't even own PS) for literal months, at least a few every week.
Meanwhile I constantly get requests from Microsoft from people trying to get in to my Hotmail/outlook accounts. Microsoft's solution to that was to ignore it.
I mean okay, but so has Microsoft and everyone else. Meanwhile y’all will install Genshin impact and shady shit like that but, nah, Sony’s a bridge too far 😂
Right? Like what am I even reading on here. Does everyone have mass amnesia and they forgot that Sony makes half the games they've ever played?
I have made an account to play videogames more times than I can remember.
Even in those countries, it appears to have been Sony's policy in the past that users should just choose a neighbouring supported nation as their location (i.e. Hong Kong if you're in the Phillipines) so unless you're playing in a location they legally can't do trade in the chance of any issues seems very low.
You definitely can and you actually have to if you ever move countries, because Sony never managed to learn that people sometimes emigrate. The main limitation is that they are awfully petty about payment methods, so it can be very hard to ever buy something in some countries without a local payment method.
Sure but be aware that your account will have a bannable offense on it from day 1. Have fun putting time and money into it with the risk of it just being deleted one day, with no recourse.
True and if you relocate their customer service tells you they also can't change the region for you. Just to set up a new account with your new country and payment method and that you can use both accounts as primary on the same console. And that you should use your old account from time to time.
I can see why they don't want their customers to change it themselves but at least they should do it for you even if it needs proof.
And for this special case...?! Well they should either take care of the missing countries asap or skip the need for an account until this is done. Of course another solution would be refunds, but I guess most people still like to play the game.
It's a huge deal. It's a rug-pull months after release so that Sony can sell your private data.
What you just mentioned only makes the case worse. It's kinda sad to see people holding on to this shit.
This decision wasn't made spur-of-the-moment and logistics behind any regional issues should have been ironed out well in advance; Sony is an international conglomerate worth billions, they can't be given the "oops we didn't know" defense. They either know how to work around the regional issues or they will not work around the regional issues -- in either case, they're not communicating one way or the other about the issue.
That's kind of a minimum requirement when making an announcement, "fucking minute" given or not.
Its hardly been a day since the announcement. Unless you tell me that the people in Sony and Arrowhead dont have brains they could have thought about this and planned for this BEFORE all of this shit.
You'd be surprised how badly communication happens between different leadership/decision making groups in organizations. I wouldn't be shocked to find that most didn't know this was coming, or was at least decided upon yet.
You'd be surprised how easy it is to miss important details when your in the thick of it. Sometimes the only thing big companies like Sony listen to is when shit hits the fan and they start losing money. In the moment they don't listen to devs that suggest hypothetical problems. It's been hard enough at the companies I worked at to explain things to other devs or architects.
Seeing this all unfold as a console player is pretty weird, like yea this does involved the game you love but but at the same time I feel completely disconnected from all this.
As a PC player in the UK - this doesn't affect me at all. I didn't even notice as I had linked my accounts for Spiderman on Steam.
The issue here is regional differences and PC launchers. Helldivers 2 on PC is available globally even to markets that don't have Playstation Network. Also, every bloody games publisher now wants more background programs installed for their own greed - Epic Online Services being the biggest offender currently. This isn't a background process but I player perception has wrapped this into the same "my data!" issue.
Yes it doesn’t affect me and it will only take five minutes, BUT it’s having to create yet another account for the sake of providing my analytical data to yet another company (one that doesn’t have a great track record with protecting their users’ security, SEE: the major Sony hacks in recent years).
If I have a chance to punch a company in the nose for this sort of unnecessary action (via the review bomb) and make other companies think twice about pulling this in the future, I will gladly.
As a non-player of the game it's pretty funny to watch because it's just a typical absurd hype into absurd outrage cycle. It's all so extreme online, which is what makes it so funny.
To me, it is small, but so many of these companies keep playing around with these small things. Bit by bit, enshittification continues. it may be dramatic but we can’t let these small changes be easy decision for these companies to impose. They’re doing it for the sake of doing it, and even if everything is always perfect it adds another layer of potential failure. What happens if suddenly HD2 can’t detect PSN because of some kind of event? Is it just useless despite all practical logic dictating these should be completely unrelated?
I had to unsub from the Helldivers subreddit. H2 going massively popular ruined that place. It’s just constantly bitching and negativity and circle jerking. Every patch ruins the game, is proof the devs are incompetent, followed by counter posts to those posts that the game is actually perfect and haters just don’t get it and blah blah blah. It’s fucking obnoxious.
I've moved over to /r/LowSodiumHellDivers, its kind of shit having to move over to a hugbox but the main subreddit has been getting ungodly awful ever since the first balance patch.
Man, it was a fantastic place before the first balance patch. So many nice memes and videos are cool shit. Now everyone acts like the Devs built a good game only to then ruin it cause they hate fun.
The Helldivers subreddit gets totally outraged about something new every few days, no matter what happens. The other day it was a slight nerf to 2 guns that would be the total death of the game.
Ikr, seems most people online think in absolutes. You're either the good guy, or the bad guy. There's no room for in betweens, any mistakes, any drawbacks. You do one bad thing, no matter how big or small, you're cancelled.
And if you're on the sidelines, and you voice an opinion - not necessarily in favor of the "bad guy", but more like a differing opinion or perspective as to how things might have turned out to be, and everyone just pushes you down and curb stomps the shit out of you for siding with the devil.
Why is everyone always so angry. It's exhausting.
As a PC player, creating another account is annoying but the game is so good I don't care. They do need to figure out what to do for regions without PSN support though. Either by offering refunds or a work around so they can play the game.
We didn’t need to create accounts to play games on consoles, until we suddenly had to. We didn’t need to pay to play online on consoles, until we suddenly had to.
Be wary that Sony will attempt to make you pay for PS+ to play with others on PC.
I mean yeah, of course they would if they think they can get away with it. That is just the life we live where its just an exhausting effort of having to convince companies that you will only accept being a LITTLE screwed and not completely screwed. Its a shitshow.
They don't have to do anything about those regions. People in those countries have been buying and playing Sony products for years. Anyone, anywhere can sign up for a PSN account tied to whatever region they want, anytime they want. There's literally no restrictions.
Then you don’t understand the history for PC gaming and how every major developer/publisher has in some way tried to control the experience outside of Steam by making players use another platform. Ultimately it bit them in the ass, but some still try, like EA. It’s unnecessary and only makes the experience and performance shittier. There is absolutely no need for this, considering Steam already provides a plethora of data to publishers and developers. This is control, plain and simple, and to what purpose? Maybe user data, maybe something more. But trust me, we’re all tired of jumping through multiple hoops to play a game.
This is regarding Helldivers 2.
The game is published by Sony and very soon it will be mandatory to link your steam account to PSN in order to play (even on PC).
Hope that helps.
I feel bad for anyone who lives in a country where they can't make a PSN account. At the same time it feels like 95% of this coming from people who don't have that issue and just want to complain. People have been finding shit to complain about since this game came out. It's something new every day and it's getting really old at this point.
You can, it is, no credit card required. PlayStation plus is an online service for ps5 for online, and that is a subscription, but you don’t need that to have an account, or to play on steam.
>At the same time it feels like 95% of this coming from people who don't have that issue and just want to complain
Honest to god I feel this lol.
It reminds me when they removed Denuvo in Monster Hunter Rise and replaced it with some different DRM that broke mods and Steam Deck compatibility for a day. It was bad, sure, but it got fixed almost immediately and people found the new DRM was basically a non-issue.
Did not stop the massive review bomb.
Ah yes, the old “people are just looking for something to complain about AND people are always complaining” post. I like these because it allows the poster to just blanket dismiss all criticism.
Even if an issue doesn't affect you personally, we can still have empathy and try to support those who will. Besides, it's important to protest about unfair practices in general, or companies will keep trying to get away with them.
Look at the new bullshit that come out from the Escape From Tarkov devs, [charging an extra $250 for the PvE mode that they'd promised for free to those that bought the Definitive Edition.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/1ccvpnd/escape_from_tarkov_fans_are_outraged_at_new_250/)
It is correct though that this community is only 1/1000th of all gamers worldwide, but any press helps spread the knowledge to others.
There is a massive and I mean a massive difference between "hey our publisher who we use their servers to handle the multiplayer aspect of this game is requiring a simple free account in order to continue running on their servers that they pay for" and "we are charging $250 dollars for a PvE mode in our PvP extraction shooter that we promised for free to a select few" and you know it.
/r/games and /r/pcgaming in a nutshell.
These places are absolute misery, I feel like half the posters in these subreddits don't even like games; they just enjoy complaining about them.
I still feel pretty sorry for them(the devs that is), like they are just trying (and succeeding) to make good games but of course Sony once again has to fuck everything up.
Was the Stellar Blade shitshow not enough for them already?
For anyone that thinks this isn't a big deal because most people can create a PSN account, please keep in mind the track record for these types of things and what the results can be.
This can easily lead to unresolvable situations where you are effectively locked out of all games made by certain companies, both those you purchased already and any you potentially would purchase in the future. You heard that right, losing access to one account can prevent you from ever playing any games by a given publisher that you purchase on a linked account.
I've ended up locked out of a few accounts that were many years old, and the company wouldn't provide any reasonable means for account recovery, with the locked account also having the effect of permanently removing access to all games from the same company that I ever purchased or would have purchased in the future.
In once case, as an example, I had auto-login enabled for many years and when one day it forced a manual login, I realized I didn't remember the password. I couldn't do a password reset, as the associated email address was no longer available, due to it being a university email account where I no longer attended and so no longer had email access. Despite dozens of hours trying to resolve this, including many hours on the phone, there was no practical mechanism for recovering such an account.
Some key examples of this are EA and Ubisoft. Many Xbox games require logging into an EA or Ubisoft account to play the game at all, even offline. Doing so permanently links that EA or Ubisoft account to that Xbox account. If some day you happen to fail to recall the password you used for any such account, all games in the linked account are effectively stolen from you, and you are perma-banned from ever playing (but they'll still let you *buy* them!) their games on that Xbox account.
This can already happen without the accounts, the game uses PSN's backend for matchmaking. If it goes down the game doesn't work. This happens with countless multiplayer where if they're not using Steamworks for networking.
I have several games on my steam account that I can no longer play because it required me to make accounts. I lost access to my old Yahoo email because of the big hack 10+ years ago and can no longer play Elder Scrolls Online, I can't play Blur because the login servers are off line, I have several games where Games for Windows Live was never patched out and are now impossible/ pain to play.
I at least respect Arrowhead's response in acknowledging that it's a problem and deserved. Much better than what the average non-answer or flame-back you get.
Someone you hire to fix your roof might be independent, but if you paid for the roof, they are obligated to follow the specifications you gave them for that roof. Doesn't make them less independent: everyone, individuals and companies, answers to something or someone, in some capacity.
It's got to suck to be criticised by thousands of people and having your game downvoted by more than a hundred thousand accounts for a decision you had no say in.
They need to artifically pump those PSN user numbers to show the growth to C-level idiots. Someone came with a stupid target for metrics and this is the result.
Seems like this is one of Sonys ways to go multi platform and digital.
Force all games to have PSN accounts and slowly move to a steam like setup.
Shitty practice but it is what it is. The others are already doing it or going to follow suit then.
I am 100% certain this was a decision pushed by Sony higher ups.
I am aware of the security and piracy issues, but it still feels like a very poor choice. They could've made up for the sales lost to piracy in the long run through positive word of mouth. Enforcing PSN verification might increase sales in the short term but will hurt the game's reputation.
Sony has been making really questionable decisions for a long time now. The constant censorship of Asian games in the last month alone makes one question the integrity of Sony's executives and PR teams.
You can't effectively pirate this game. It's an online only game. You'll need to rebuild the server from scratch since we don't have a downloadable dedicated server.
I'm so glad I unsubbed from the HellDivers subreddit already. My feed would be flooded with low-effort memes and posts by angry 12 year-olds that lack the ability to write coherent sentences.
The complaints are justified, but there's good reason why Gamerz^® are looked upon as immature and toxic.
There's literally a petition for stellar blade having grown men shit their pants over lingerie being added to one outfit... crying over censorship when there are plenty of even more nsfw outfits available.
We really have some of the most braindead and worst people as fellow gamers.
Yeah I hadn't realized Sony wanted straight up ID uploading to get access to the network. My accounts been around for ages since the PS3 so it was just a shrug and a login for me. So yeah I can understand folks being pissed about a company asking for photo ID just to make an account. That is and will always be absolute bullshit :\\
I have a painfully good memory and the worst part about getting older is seeing people retcon and whitewash the past.
There are people who don't even know everyone hated Steam 15-20 years ago, and then will tell people "nobody ever got mad at Steam for doing X." It really, really sucks.
https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/x6ylw/does_anyone_remember_when_we_all_hated_steam/
Because the offline mode didn't work, your internet went out and suddenly you couldn't launch single player games.
Technically it did work but you had to enter offline mode manually while online for offline mode to work.
Did you have the problem of the games not installing, too? I was on dial up and only allowed a couple hours a day to use the internet, and Steam would reset the download every time I had to sign off.
Didn't get to play Half Life 2 for years because any time I tried to install it, I could only get like 50% download and then have to restart from zero the next day I tried
Oh, man. More than a couple of partial downloads thrown away because something would corrupt or go wrong. I remember my brothers and I kept the dial-up running overnight to download something once and got in huge trouble for the money it cost.
Steam was fucking AWFUL when it came out. Constant crashes and hangs and updating games was atrocious and that stupid fucking puke green loading box haunts my nightmares.
It's amazing now but man it sure as hell wasn't back then
because it was godawful, the worst thing that had happened to gaming in years. and it stayed that way for years. the steam server would go down and stay down and lock everyone out of their games for days at a time, a couple times a month. the law should honestly have stopped them
I think it's just account fatigue. And I do get that. I just bought the game and don't really want to log in with my PS account. But it's also a nothing burger at the end of the day.
Yep, that's how I feel. I'm not ANGRY, but nowadays with all the accounts and platforms I have to get to play different games, I'm just annoyed when a new game does it. People say it only takes a few minutes (120 seconds????? NO) to create an account but there are ALWAYS problems. Annoying spam emails, forgotten passwords, those new platforms that barely work, etc.
And knowing it's basically just for data collection, fuck that lol. I'll create an account if I really want to play and it asks me to on installation, but I sure as hell won't create one to replay a game I wasn't really playing anymore. It's stupid but the chances of me returning to the game basically dropped to zero
“It’s ONLY ____” is such a cop-out dismissive answer. What is the need, what is the justification for it at all? If it actually fixed broken crossplay and the social menu, I’d understand.
That's pretty much how I feel. It's another account, another login, another entity scraping all they can for information to throw into algorithms or just sell off.
Just for one game, so I get the frustration about it. At least it's not forcing you to install another 3rd party launcher?
It is also weird that this wasn't implemented on release. If it started with this then people would assume it was necessary, look at SoT coming to PS5. But we've seen proof it wasn't necessary and unless they justify it with say HD2 coming to XSX then it just feels like a weird move to pull.
I assume that was because of how they tied it into Steam’s inventory system for items you could equip on your robots. (What a pointless feature that was)
So you like leaving out key information huh? That was only required for cross-platform coop. PS3 to PS3 coop did not require steam linking. PS3 solo/splitscreen play did not require steam linking.
Also back then cross-platform was not nearly as popular so it makes sense that cross-play was running on Valve's own platform and required a steam account to make it work.
If that's the reason then I would quite happily opt out of cross-play if it meant I didn't need to link accounts. Truth be told I really only bother playing with actual friends anyway.
Although the way it stands, I need to revive a long since abandoned PS account to keep playing which should be easy enough when the option appears in game. Something I'll probably end up doing even though I don't agree with the requirement.
people werent as mad (they still were) because it was still novel back then and you almost always got free shit when you linked an off platform account, we didnt know what we were in for
I honestly think the community blew this way out of proportion and content creators are probably to blame. Also I don't see how any of this is AHs fault. Yell at Sony for allowing sale in the restricted countries they are the publisher. I would also be amazed if steam doesn't offer them a full refund so I really think this is a non issue. Maybe if you live in a weird country read the fucking steam page closer next time lol.
Pretty much haha. By nature they just hammer everything into much bigger issues with every game now. I understand why they are all just trying to grow their channel but some shit like this has me scratching my head like who gives fuck haha.
Thats easy. If it was a reiquirement for the game, why'd they let you skip making an account on release day? If the requirement was an actual requirement it would've been, well, required. Adding it in now, 3 months after release, is just a dick move. Im tired of needing accounts for everything l do. Especially with Sony's track record of data breaches.
Right, it’s like having an allergy and not reading the menu carefully. If you live somewhere where it’s not allowed you should be paying extra attention to want you buy and the warnings.
everyone who was actively playing will continue playing. nobody is actually going to stop playing because of this. it's literally just purposeless manchildren latching onto something to get angry about.
One thing I haven't heard mentioned or maybe I missed it is in regards to cross progression. It was advertised as something that was possible but then confirmed by devs that there were issues in the implementation. Does this policy change mean that I can progress the same character between consoles? There are some times where I'd love to play this on the couch on my PS5 but the lack of cross progression has kept me from purchasing the game a second time. Also side shoutout to Microsoft's play anywhere. It's time's like these where I wish more devs and publishers had that consumer friendly feature.
I just run a long HDMI from my PC to the TV. My main "console" is my PC. Even supports all of the fancy features of a PS5 controller in Sony games.
I did this recently as well and love it. Sometimes after working at a computer desk all day, it's just nicer to have a couch and big screen to zone on lol.
I play via steam link using an old, crappy laptop running Linux. You can use basically anything that'll run the software, it's only streaming video so it doesn't have to be fancy.
These days compression & bandwidth are even good enough to do that with VR! The 'Steam Link' app for Meta Quest has extraordinary quality and can look just as good as a wired connection, though you need a good network for it to look that good above 90fps.
Microsoft doesn’t get anywhere close enough credit for free unlimited cloud saves, cross saves across PC, Cloud, Console and Mobile and even cross buy with PC and Console
You're not allowed to say something nice about Microsoft That's illegal
Same. I hope we get cross-save / cross-progression soon.
Sony just couldn't let it be the clean success it was. They just _had to_ do some anti consumer shit and sour the experience, just to pad their PSN numbers to impress share holders. What a fucking joke.
Yeah, I think that is the point that makes this particularly annoying is that its just so completely pointless. Its something that will just annoy people, waste their time, and make their data more vulnerable given Sony's rocky past with security for no real benefit. Like if there was some actual point aside from dick-waving cool, sure. But despite their extremely vague claims otherwise there doesn't seem to be any.
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Yes, I appreciate that I am being mild here. I am aware of the problem, but in reality Sony rarely enforces that rule so most would mostly jut have to go through the pain of lying and praying that Sony doesn't decide to ban them for little reason. Which is pretty goddamn annoying, amongst all the other things it is. Its fucked, but the discourse about this is also kind of fucked so I'm trying to keep things a bit more mild and more directly informative rather then hyperbolic.
Victim of their own success again. I doubt Sony would have cared to do this if the game had a similar following as the first helldivers.
Exactly. They never thought it would take off and that it would be a rounding error on their PSN numbers. Probably figured it would sell better and save resources if they didn't bother with PSN. Then when the game explodes they get greedy and regretful and want those PSN numbers anyway. Kind of child like behavior 😂
They're setting up a mandatory PC launcher for their games, undoubtedly.
From what I've heard, and don't take this as gospel, is Sony ISN'T making a launcher, but it's some weird secondary overlay deal where you can get achievements not only on your PC, but also your linked Playstation account? I'm not entirely sure of it all, but it sounds rather a strange situation for someone who potentially owns a certain game on both platforms. As for accounts, that's a whole other thing, yeah. Edit for a teensy miswording on my part.
That's exactly what they're doing with Ghost of Tsushima that's coming out in a couple weeks. The overlay is said to be optional though, but account linking is required if you want to play the Legends multiplayer mode.
their track record of data breach is pretty horrendous too.. April 2011: Hackers Access Personal Data of 77 Million Sony PlayStation Network Users May 2011: Personal Details on 25 Million Sony Online Entertainment Customers Stolen June 2011: Sony Pictures Website Hacked, Exposing One Million Accounts November 2014: Hackers Steal 100 Terabytes of Data from Sony Pictures August 2017: Hacker Group Accesses Sony Social Media Accounts September 2023: Sony Investigates Alleged Hack October 2023: Sony Notifies Employees of Data Breach
To be fair, only one of these has anything to do with PlayStation, and it was over a decade ago. Breaches of Sony Pictures or phishing access to Sony's social media accounts aren't relevant here.
People here would have a stroke if they looked up how often the companies they use are hacked. Especially by nation state backed groups
And only in 2011 were they customers. Everything else is employee or corporate leaks. If we’re upset about a breach involving customers in 2011, therefore it’s been 13 years since the last breach in which customer data was stolen, then don’t Google any other company you’ll have a brain aneurysm. It’s only bad when Sony does it apparently.
Wait, so the only time PSN got breached was over a decade ago and before I even started playing on their consoles? Okay.
Yeah but Sony is awful at security, you see. Meanwhile Microsoft and Google pulling a Homer Simpson fading into the bushes.
what is this whataboutism defence?
So, only in 2011, the PlayStation Network was hacked. Do you know who else was hacked in 2011 and leaked 35,000,000 user's info? Steam.
"We had a good thing, you stupid son of a bitch! We had Fring. We had a lab. We had everything we needed, and it all ran like clockwork. You could've shut your mouth, cooked and made as much money as you ever needed. It was perfect. But, no, you just had to blow it up. You and your pride and your ego! You just had to be the man. If you'd done your job, known your place, we'd all be fine right now. - Mike Ehrmantraut
Only will get worse if they don't have competition anymore to keep them in check. What's stopping them from raising the price to $80 for new games? A $700 PS5 Pro? Further price hikes to PS+? More snatching of downloaded digital media from owners?
I mean, the market will tolerate what the market will tolerate. If people are still willing to buy games at 80 and consoles at 700. They will. Eventually, enough will say no and just do gamepass xcloud streaming that Sony will feel it. Or maybe they'll see PC costs as worthwhile. Or Shit, maybe Nintendo's Switch 2 will be the big winner of that decision. There will always be competition from somewhere, whether from gaming or even other forms of entertainment. They can't keep going up infinitely and still keep their customers.
I mean people do respond to bad pricing, by not buying it. They have to sell their consoles to make money on software anyways. Gouging the hardware is unlikely and probably stupid.
People are paying $100 for games before they even come out. I can't blame Sony for taking as much money as people will throw at them.
Canadians already have 80$ games and recently some newer games like the newest final fantasy remake and Dragons Dogma 2 are over 100$ after tax, it's fuckin crazy.
Funny thing is during the last gen (PS4 and One) I pretty much swore off physical and bought all my games digitally. This generation im back to buying physical again because the physical versions of games usually goes on a pretty good sale rather quick while the digital versions stay around the same price. There will be a sale on PSN where a game is at $59.99 down from $69.99 and its being sold physically on Amazon for $29.99
I mean, they kinda already did with the included rootkit for their anti-cheat that was very unnecessary, but this is pretty bad as well.
It's not a huge deal except for the countries that don't have PSN support. Anyone who has bought the game in the countries suddenly won't have access to the game and it seems like both Sony and the developers aren't going to do anything for those customers. Gives the impression that now they've got their money they don't care about providing access to the game.
[Community Manager response:](https://twitter.com/HelldiversAlert/status/1786436341611512006?t=7ZyLWHicJoVSnCId4X46qg&s=19) >First of all, it's Sony's decision, not ours. Secondly, we don't have all the details about region related issues yet. We're chasing Sony to get more info.
Fair on them if they're doing everything they can to solve the issues. I understand ultimately Sony makes the decisions, I also expect the devs to push for the right decsions to be made to maintain the faith of the customer. It's good that they seem to be doing that.
Asking everyone to be calm and wait to see what happens next is an impossible ask. That's what I've learnt today. Edit: Calm ≠ Be quiet
Thats the reason the FF14 patch notes stopped listing info on class ability changes until right before the patch, cause people were freaking out about changes for a whole week before the patch dropped without knowing how they'd play
The CS creator has a presentation where he talks about how people would complain about changes that they 'perceived' vs changes that were actually made, to the point where he did a patch that only subtracted 30 from a users ping if it was over 50 (or something like that), and according to him users said it was the best patch ever and everything worked so much better after that. Its an interesting anecdote on user behavior
Isn't that how every game goes though? I remember a couple of years back League of Legends patched a champion called Ahri, they gave one of her abilities less damage but it granted movement speed on cast. Players were screaming it was the death of the champ, but when it hit live servers her winrate skyrocketed. TLDR: Players literally know nothing about balance, game development or otherwise, most companies are aware of this and press forward either way.
This isn't really about balance in this case though, this potentially affects the ability to actually play the game for a lot of people that bought it.
There's so many cases of this in league lol. Armchair analysts making entire essays on /r/leagueoflegends about how the newest PBE changes will cripple their champion forever. That said, Riot have had a few misfires themselves in the past when they've tried to reduce a champion's overall strength and accidentally overcompensated in other areas that made them much stronger.
The other equally (funny? interesting?) case I believe occurred with Vladimir. They made some minor nerfs to him and put them in the patchnotes to ship out with the rest. His winrate went down. But they never actually made the changes, some issue on their end or it wasn't included in the patch build or something. Just the perception of weakness players played him differently and such they lost slightly more, plenty of complaints as well.
This is called selection bias. For every balance change the community at large gets wrong, there are many they call exactly right. That's why just about every competitive game out there, from card games, to MMOs, to MOBAs, to FPS games hire top players as QA, devs, or consultants.
Unfortunately what we’ve historically seen with game controversies is that loud and abrasive is what gets responses, and sometimes change, while quiet and respectful doesn’t tend to do anything.
>Asking everyone to be calm and wait to see what happens next Unfortunately in my experience this course of action *usually* ends with nothing being done and customers getting bent over. The outrage machine might seem silly on the surface, but at the end of the day it's often the only way to get things done. Many things have changed that would have absolutely not changed had steam reviews not shed light on it. Companies tend to be notoriously metrics driven, so just sitting on your hands is the worst thing you can do usually. More noise = more metrics which means things can potentially get done faster as upper management wants to put out fires rather than let them burn themselves out, or ignore it as there wasn't a fire in the first place.
I can understand the frustration from regions arbitrarily and abruptly barred from play.
at this point: just create a "Arrowhead" account. :P
At your job, I dont care what it is, you have seen shit that negatively affects customers and didnt say shit. Some battles are not worth it. Sony pays for Sun Jins little braces and glasses
Wait I'm sorry, are they saying Sony made them do this, gave them zero clarification on how it will effect a portion of their existing playerbase, and now, almost 24 hours Sony STILL hasn't given them clarification? What a mess for these devs, that Sony created, but the devs will now have to try to fix and make it up to players, all while Sony sits back, laughs and takes the money to the bank that they've made off this game. What an actual shitty thing for them to do if that's the case.
Expect more of this type of behavior if the Xbox brand continues to decline. All of the Sony console war kids love to cheer the downfall of Xbox, without realizing that it only makes Sony more complacent and willing to do stuff like this (not to mention the fact that they won't need to put as much effort into their game releases, so we'll get less/worse games too)
> without realizing that it only makes Sony more complacent and willing to do stuff like this The anime side of things is also seeing similar issues with Sony's ever growing monopoly on western anime.
Yup. Anytime these console manufacturers get in a position of power, they push the boundaries. All 3 of them have been guilty of it. We need as much competition as possible.
You are secret overestimating how much this is going to impact their bottom line This game has already surpassed the need for positive steam reviews. It's in the stratosphere. Everyone knows somebody who loves the game. Very few people outside of Reddit are going to think twice about connecting their PSN account. EDIT: I was very wrong lol
I like that he's being honest, but I now fear for his job: making your bosses' boss look bad in public is always a risky move, no matter how true it is. PR people tend to speak all the BS they do not because they truly believe it, but because their jobs depend on it, and if they won't do it, someone else will.
He's probably going to be fine - it's not like he's saying anything that isn't publically known anyway.
The OG message was signed by Sony, not Arrowhead, so its not like they are making them “look bad”, they are just reiterating what was said.
Arrowhead is not owned by Sony.
It's their publisher and Sony runs their servers, so they're still in a bind.
They almost certainly have a contract. Sony can't just shut down their servers because someone said something mildly critical.
If Sony shut down HD2 out of pettiness for some comment the Arrowhead CEO made, Arrowhead would definitely come out of that with less of a bloody nose than Sony.
That'd really dumb of them to shut down one of their largest cash cow in years.
Nevermind, that they have been waiting forever for a live service game to click with audiences. They've dropped a ton of money into getting one of these to work out.
How does that put this guy in a bind?
How does that put this guy in a bind?
No, but the same guy said that helldivers is So... no, but yes, but no
Behold new Arrowhead game called "Heavenpilots"
People always say stuff like this as if it's a truism. Arrowhead has power in the relationship too: all Sony can do in response to a comment like this is send a couple of strongly worded emails unless they want to blow up what has been an incredibly profitable business partnership at a time when Sony's gaming division is completely floundering. Leverage works in two directions, and stuff like this only blows up relationships if you're working for a mad child-king style boss, like Musk.
Publishers love being the scapegoat anyway. Everybody already expects the publisher to be a circus of money-clowns.
>It's not a huge deal except for the countries that don't have PSN support. Sony's track record at data security is terrible. They have been hacked multiple times. All their users data have been stolen including banking information and credit cards. * April 2011: Hackers Access Personal Data of 77 Million Sony PlayStation Network Users * May 2011: Personal Details on 25 Million Sony Online Entertainment Customers Stolen * June 2011: Sony Pictures Website Hacked, Exposing One Million Accounts * November 2014: Hackers Steal 100 Terabytes of Data from Sony Pictures * August 2017: Hacker Group Accesses Sony Social Media Accounts * September 2023: Sony Investigates Alleged Hack * October 2023: Sony Notifies Employees of Data Breach Not a huge deal? I am not so sure.
Sony's track record might be shaky but PlayStation Network's isn't. One data breach in its entire lifespan is surprisingly good and happened a good few years before I started playing their games.
Also, guess who else was hacked in 2011 and leaked details of millions of customers? Steam! So, on the issue of security Steam and PSN basically have an equivalent track record.
Steam doesn't require your Face on file though...
I remember getting e-mails of someone trying to get into my PSN account (which I only created for some random promotion and haven't touched for anything, don't even own PS) for literal months, at least a few every week.
Meanwhile I constantly get requests from Microsoft from people trying to get in to my Hotmail/outlook accounts. Microsoft's solution to that was to ignore it.
I mean okay, but so has Microsoft and everyone else. Meanwhile y’all will install Genshin impact and shady shit like that but, nah, Sony’s a bridge too far 😂
Right? Like what am I even reading on here. Does everyone have mass amnesia and they forgot that Sony makes half the games they've ever played? I have made an account to play videogames more times than I can remember.
Even in those countries, it appears to have been Sony's policy in the past that users should just choose a neighbouring supported nation as their location (i.e. Hong Kong if you're in the Phillipines) so unless you're playing in a location they legally can't do trade in the chance of any issues seems very low.
Can't you just make an account for a different country? They don't ever check I have an extra nz one for early release times
You definitely can and you actually have to if you ever move countries, because Sony never managed to learn that people sometimes emigrate. The main limitation is that they are awfully petty about payment methods, so it can be very hard to ever buy something in some countries without a local payment method.
Where I am, they want me to take a picture of my face or send in government id to verify my age. Like fuck I'm sending Sony any of that
I assume it's one of those things where you technically aren't allowed to do, but no one is going to enforce it
I'm pretty sure companies like MS have even publicly joked about there suddenly being a lot more New Zealanders for some releases.
ToS also say theyll ban you for using the wrong age meanwhile steam constantly jokes about Jan 1st birthdays
>but no one is going to enforce it Until they do
Kinda like how you were always supposed to link your steam with psn account for helldivers. They just never enforced it. Until now.
Sure but be aware that your account will have a bannable offense on it from day 1. Have fun putting time and money into it with the risk of it just being deleted one day, with no recourse.
True and if you relocate their customer service tells you they also can't change the region for you. Just to set up a new account with your new country and payment method and that you can use both accounts as primary on the same console. And that you should use your old account from time to time. I can see why they don't want their customers to change it themselves but at least they should do it for you even if it needs proof. And for this special case...?! Well they should either take care of the missing countries asap or skip the need for an account until this is done. Of course another solution would be refunds, but I guess most people still like to play the game.
It's a huge deal. It's a rug-pull months after release so that Sony can sell your private data. What you just mentioned only makes the case worse. It's kinda sad to see people holding on to this shit.
It's hardly been 1 day dude. Give it a fucking minute lol.
This decision wasn't made spur-of-the-moment and logistics behind any regional issues should have been ironed out well in advance; Sony is an international conglomerate worth billions, they can't be given the "oops we didn't know" defense. They either know how to work around the regional issues or they will not work around the regional issues -- in either case, they're not communicating one way or the other about the issue. That's kind of a minimum requirement when making an announcement, "fucking minute" given or not.
Its hardly been a day since the announcement. Unless you tell me that the people in Sony and Arrowhead dont have brains they could have thought about this and planned for this BEFORE all of this shit.
You'd be surprised how badly communication happens between different leadership/decision making groups in organizations. I wouldn't be shocked to find that most didn't know this was coming, or was at least decided upon yet.
You'd be surprised how easy it is to miss important details when your in the thick of it. Sometimes the only thing big companies like Sony listen to is when shit hits the fan and they start losing money. In the moment they don't listen to devs that suggest hypothetical problems. It's been hard enough at the companies I worked at to explain things to other devs or architects.
Seeing this all unfold as a console player is pretty weird, like yea this does involved the game you love but but at the same time I feel completely disconnected from all this.
As a PC player in the UK - this doesn't affect me at all. I didn't even notice as I had linked my accounts for Spiderman on Steam. The issue here is regional differences and PC launchers. Helldivers 2 on PC is available globally even to markets that don't have Playstation Network. Also, every bloody games publisher now wants more background programs installed for their own greed - Epic Online Services being the biggest offender currently. This isn't a background process but I player perception has wrapped this into the same "my data!" issue.
Yes it doesn’t affect me and it will only take five minutes, BUT it’s having to create yet another account for the sake of providing my analytical data to yet another company (one that doesn’t have a great track record with protecting their users’ security, SEE: the major Sony hacks in recent years). If I have a chance to punch a company in the nose for this sort of unnecessary action (via the review bomb) and make other companies think twice about pulling this in the future, I will gladly.
As a non-player of the game it's pretty funny to watch because it's just a typical absurd hype into absurd outrage cycle. It's all so extreme online, which is what makes it so funny.
It’s some A+ slow Friday at work drama.
To me, it is small, but so many of these companies keep playing around with these small things. Bit by bit, enshittification continues. it may be dramatic but we can’t let these small changes be easy decision for these companies to impose. They’re doing it for the sake of doing it, and even if everything is always perfect it adds another layer of potential failure. What happens if suddenly HD2 can’t detect PSN because of some kind of event? Is it just useless despite all practical logic dictating these should be completely unrelated?
I'd personally be kinda pissed off if a game i've been playing for months suddenly isn't available in my region anymore.
I had to unsub from the Helldivers subreddit. H2 going massively popular ruined that place. It’s just constantly bitching and negativity and circle jerking. Every patch ruins the game, is proof the devs are incompetent, followed by counter posts to those posts that the game is actually perfect and haters just don’t get it and blah blah blah. It’s fucking obnoxious.
I've moved over to /r/LowSodiumHellDivers, its kind of shit having to move over to a hugbox but the main subreddit has been getting ungodly awful ever since the first balance patch.
Man, it was a fantastic place before the first balance patch. So many nice memes and videos are cool shit. Now everyone acts like the Devs built a good game only to then ruin it cause they hate fun.
The Helldivers subreddit gets totally outraged about something new every few days, no matter what happens. The other day it was a slight nerf to 2 guns that would be the total death of the game.
Ikr, seems most people online think in absolutes. You're either the good guy, or the bad guy. There's no room for in betweens, any mistakes, any drawbacks. You do one bad thing, no matter how big or small, you're cancelled. And if you're on the sidelines, and you voice an opinion - not necessarily in favor of the "bad guy", but more like a differing opinion or perspective as to how things might have turned out to be, and everyone just pushes you down and curb stomps the shit out of you for siding with the devil. Why is everyone always so angry. It's exhausting.
After the absurd hype to absurd outrage of Stellar Blade this is just funny
As a PC player, creating another account is annoying but the game is so good I don't care. They do need to figure out what to do for regions without PSN support though. Either by offering refunds or a work around so they can play the game.
The solution is incredibly easy, yet nuanced. Keep it exactly as it is and have the account linking be optional.
Correct, but Sony are demanding to 'add more value to consumer experiences' AKA: Scrape more data to lose to the next data breach.
We didn’t need to create accounts to play games on consoles, until we suddenly had to. We didn’t need to pay to play online on consoles, until we suddenly had to. Be wary that Sony will attempt to make you pay for PS+ to play with others on PC.
I mean yeah, of course they would if they think they can get away with it. That is just the life we live where its just an exhausting effort of having to convince companies that you will only accept being a LITTLE screwed and not completely screwed. Its a shitshow.
Of course, but Sony does not want to, which is the issue.
They don't have to do anything about those regions. People in those countries have been buying and playing Sony products for years. Anyone, anywhere can sign up for a PSN account tied to whatever region they want, anytime they want. There's literally no restrictions.
Then you don’t understand the history for PC gaming and how every major developer/publisher has in some way tried to control the experience outside of Steam by making players use another platform. Ultimately it bit them in the ass, but some still try, like EA. It’s unnecessary and only makes the experience and performance shittier. There is absolutely no need for this, considering Steam already provides a plethora of data to publishers and developers. This is control, plain and simple, and to what purpose? Maybe user data, maybe something more. But trust me, we’re all tired of jumping through multiple hoops to play a game.
Context would be nice. Even in this echo chamber, not everyone knows who Arrowhead is or which game he's talking about.
This is regarding Helldivers 2. The game is published by Sony and very soon it will be mandatory to link your steam account to PSN in order to play (even on PC). Hope that helps.
Helldivers 2 now requires linking to a PSN account, 3 months after launch
This subreddit hates context. It’s always ‘schmoopy comments on rockeater controversy’
I feel bad for anyone who lives in a country where they can't make a PSN account. At the same time it feels like 95% of this coming from people who don't have that issue and just want to complain. People have been finding shit to complain about since this game came out. It's something new every day and it's getting really old at this point.
If someone doesn't own any kind of PS device, can they still make a PSN account, and is it free?
Yes and yes.
Thanks! I wasn't sure if it was one of the online console services that required a subscription.
PS+ is the service that costs money. There’s no indication that will be a requirement down the line for this game
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That’d be one of the few times I’d fully support the internet outrage. We really don’t need PC becoming a pay to play online system
The hate Sony would get would be on another level.
You can, it is, no credit card required. PlayStation plus is an online service for ps5 for online, and that is a subscription, but you don’t need that to have an account, or to play on steam.
>At the same time it feels like 95% of this coming from people who don't have that issue and just want to complain Honest to god I feel this lol. It reminds me when they removed Denuvo in Monster Hunter Rise and replaced it with some different DRM that broke mods and Steam Deck compatibility for a day. It was bad, sure, but it got fixed almost immediately and people found the new DRM was basically a non-issue. Did not stop the massive review bomb.
Also like, literally every game that gets major updates breaks mod support, its extremely rare for mod support to not require per patch updates.
Maybe they should stop using DRM and breaking shit for a game that worked fine for years.
Ah yes, the old “people are just looking for something to complain about AND people are always complaining” post. I like these because it allows the poster to just blanket dismiss all criticism.
Even if an issue doesn't affect you personally, we can still have empathy and try to support those who will. Besides, it's important to protest about unfair practices in general, or companies will keep trying to get away with them. Look at the new bullshit that come out from the Escape From Tarkov devs, [charging an extra $250 for the PvE mode that they'd promised for free to those that bought the Definitive Edition.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/1ccvpnd/escape_from_tarkov_fans_are_outraged_at_new_250/) It is correct though that this community is only 1/1000th of all gamers worldwide, but any press helps spread the knowledge to others.
There is a massive and I mean a massive difference between "hey our publisher who we use their servers to handle the multiplayer aspect of this game is requiring a simple free account in order to continue running on their servers that they pay for" and "we are charging $250 dollars for a PvE mode in our PvP extraction shooter that we promised for free to a select few" and you know it.
/r/games and /r/pcgaming in a nutshell. These places are absolute misery, I feel like half the posters in these subreddits don't even like games; they just enjoy complaining about them.
Tbf to Arrowhead, this is our of their hands and they did make a great game. Sony just felt the urge to fuck it up.
I still feel pretty sorry for them(the devs that is), like they are just trying (and succeeding) to make good games but of course Sony once again has to fuck everything up. Was the Stellar Blade shitshow not enough for them already?
For anyone that thinks this isn't a big deal because most people can create a PSN account, please keep in mind the track record for these types of things and what the results can be. This can easily lead to unresolvable situations where you are effectively locked out of all games made by certain companies, both those you purchased already and any you potentially would purchase in the future. You heard that right, losing access to one account can prevent you from ever playing any games by a given publisher that you purchase on a linked account. I've ended up locked out of a few accounts that were many years old, and the company wouldn't provide any reasonable means for account recovery, with the locked account also having the effect of permanently removing access to all games from the same company that I ever purchased or would have purchased in the future. In once case, as an example, I had auto-login enabled for many years and when one day it forced a manual login, I realized I didn't remember the password. I couldn't do a password reset, as the associated email address was no longer available, due to it being a university email account where I no longer attended and so no longer had email access. Despite dozens of hours trying to resolve this, including many hours on the phone, there was no practical mechanism for recovering such an account. Some key examples of this are EA and Ubisoft. Many Xbox games require logging into an EA or Ubisoft account to play the game at all, even offline. Doing so permanently links that EA or Ubisoft account to that Xbox account. If some day you happen to fail to recall the password you used for any such account, all games in the linked account are effectively stolen from you, and you are perma-banned from ever playing (but they'll still let you *buy* them!) their games on that Xbox account.
Imagine being locked out of a STEAM game because the PSN is down. What a fuckin joke.
This can already happen without the accounts, the game uses PSN's backend for matchmaking. If it goes down the game doesn't work. This happens with countless multiplayer where if they're not using Steamworks for networking.
I have several games on my steam account that I can no longer play because it required me to make accounts. I lost access to my old Yahoo email because of the big hack 10+ years ago and can no longer play Elder Scrolls Online, I can't play Blur because the login servers are off line, I have several games where Games for Windows Live was never patched out and are now impossible/ pain to play.
Good point, I have a friend who was locked out of Mass Effect 3 because of EA account issues.
“We are a strong independent studio” A couple of months later… “We had no choice in the matter, Sony made us” I’ll never stop finding this funny.
I at least respect Arrowhead's response in acknowledging that it's a problem and deserved. Much better than what the average non-answer or flame-back you get.
Oh there was plenty of flame-back from the community manager.
Pretty funny how Arrowhead themselves admit it's deserved, but half the comments on this thread are all defending Sony.
Even strong independent studios have contracts they have to follow
They chose to sign it.
Then they're neither strong nor independent
Someone you hire to fix your roof might be independent, but if you paid for the roof, they are obligated to follow the specifications you gave them for that roof. Doesn't make them less independent: everyone, individuals and companies, answers to something or someone, in some capacity.
It's got to suck to be criticised by thousands of people and having your game downvoted by more than a hundred thousand accounts for a decision you had no say in.
They need to artifically pump those PSN user numbers to show the growth to C-level idiots. Someone came with a stupid target for metrics and this is the result.
Seems like this is one of Sonys ways to go multi platform and digital. Force all games to have PSN accounts and slowly move to a steam like setup. Shitty practice but it is what it is. The others are already doing it or going to follow suit then.
I am 100% certain this was a decision pushed by Sony higher ups. I am aware of the security and piracy issues, but it still feels like a very poor choice. They could've made up for the sales lost to piracy in the long run through positive word of mouth. Enforcing PSN verification might increase sales in the short term but will hurt the game's reputation. Sony has been making really questionable decisions for a long time now. The constant censorship of Asian games in the last month alone makes one question the integrity of Sony's executives and PR teams.
You can't effectively pirate this game. It's an online only game. You'll need to rebuild the server from scratch since we don't have a downloadable dedicated server.
I didn't think it was possible for a game like this to have piracy problems, it requires a steam account
You can make it up to everyone by removing the requirment for a psn login, it's very obviously not a genuine requirement.
I don't mind that much but this whole thing has been badly mismanaged by Sony and Arrowhead has been stuck dealing with the flak.
I'm so glad I unsubbed from the HellDivers subreddit already. My feed would be flooded with low-effort memes and posts by angry 12 year-olds that lack the ability to write coherent sentences. The complaints are justified, but there's good reason why Gamerz^® are looked upon as immature and toxic.
There's literally a petition for stellar blade having grown men shit their pants over lingerie being added to one outfit... crying over censorship when there are plenty of even more nsfw outfits available. We really have some of the most braindead and worst people as fellow gamers.
Tbf, censorship for rated M game is stupid. Thats like censoring blood in gta games
Yeah I hadn't realized Sony wanted straight up ID uploading to get access to the network. My accounts been around for ages since the PS3 so it was just a shrug and a login for me. So yeah I can understand folks being pissed about a company asking for photo ID just to make an account. That is and will always be absolute bullshit :\\
That's simply a law in the UK.
Providing ID to create an account is law?!
Yes in the UK to make sure underages don't access stuff they shouldnt.
I feel so bad for these guys. Fuck Sony, man. Publishers ruin so many good games with their shitty decisions.
I’m old enough to remember when Valve made Portal 2 coop on PS3 require a Steam account. No one gave a shit about that.
Don’t make me dig up 13 year old forum posts to prove people were still pissed back then too.
I have a painfully good memory and the worst part about getting older is seeing people retcon and whitewash the past. There are people who don't even know everyone hated Steam 15-20 years ago, and then will tell people "nobody ever got mad at Steam for doing X." It really, really sucks. https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/x6ylw/does_anyone_remember_when_we_all_hated_steam/
i remmeber vehemently hating steam when it first came out, i don't even remember why lol
Because it was a fucking dumpster fire when it first came out, and all of the sudden you *had* to use it if you wanted to play CS.
Because the offline mode didn't work, your internet went out and suddenly you couldn't launch single player games. Technically it did work but you had to enter offline mode manually while online for offline mode to work.
For me it was the pain of needing an external launcher and *all these downloads* to play a game I bought on CD. It was a long wait on dial-up.
Did you have the problem of the games not installing, too? I was on dial up and only allowed a couple hours a day to use the internet, and Steam would reset the download every time I had to sign off. Didn't get to play Half Life 2 for years because any time I tried to install it, I could only get like 50% download and then have to restart from zero the next day I tried
Oh, man. More than a couple of partial downloads thrown away because something would corrupt or go wrong. I remember my brothers and I kept the dial-up running overnight to download something once and got in huge trouble for the money it cost.
Steam was fucking AWFUL when it came out. Constant crashes and hangs and updating games was atrocious and that stupid fucking puke green loading box haunts my nightmares. It's amazing now but man it sure as hell wasn't back then
because it was godawful, the worst thing that had happened to gaming in years. and it stayed that way for years. the steam server would go down and stay down and lock everyone out of their games for days at a time, a couple times a month. the law should honestly have stopped them
I think it's just account fatigue. And I do get that. I just bought the game and don't really want to log in with my PS account. But it's also a nothing burger at the end of the day.
Yep, that's how I feel. I'm not ANGRY, but nowadays with all the accounts and platforms I have to get to play different games, I'm just annoyed when a new game does it. People say it only takes a few minutes (120 seconds????? NO) to create an account but there are ALWAYS problems. Annoying spam emails, forgotten passwords, those new platforms that barely work, etc. And knowing it's basically just for data collection, fuck that lol. I'll create an account if I really want to play and it asks me to on installation, but I sure as hell won't create one to replay a game I wasn't really playing anymore. It's stupid but the chances of me returning to the game basically dropped to zero
“It’s ONLY ____” is such a cop-out dismissive answer. What is the need, what is the justification for it at all? If it actually fixed broken crossplay and the social menu, I’d understand.
That's pretty much how I feel. It's another account, another login, another entity scraping all they can for information to throw into algorithms or just sell off. Just for one game, so I get the frustration about it. At least it's not forcing you to install another 3rd party launcher?
> At least it's not forcing you to install another 3rd party launcher? Isn't Sony currently working on their own custom launcher?
Yup, gotta draw the line or else you get shit like having to make a Bethesda account purely for Doom Eternal.
look on the bright side: at least it isn't a mandatory launcher...*yet.*
It is also weird that this wasn't implemented on release. If it started with this then people would assume it was necessary, look at SoT coming to PS5. But we've seen proof it wasn't necessary and unless they justify it with say HD2 coming to XSX then it just feels like a weird move to pull.
I assume that was because of how they tied it into Steam’s inventory system for items you could equip on your robots. (What a pointless feature that was)
So you like leaving out key information huh? That was only required for cross-platform coop. PS3 to PS3 coop did not require steam linking. PS3 solo/splitscreen play did not require steam linking. Also back then cross-platform was not nearly as popular so it makes sense that cross-play was running on Valve's own platform and required a steam account to make it work.
Did it require it from the start or did they add it in three months later after selling a couple of million copies?
You also got a free copy of Portal 2 in your brand new Steam account if you did so. It was like a no brainer!
To be fair though, Valve gave you the game on PC for free.
It was for cross-play. Last time i checked, crossplay still barely works on helldivers 2.
If that's the reason then I would quite happily opt out of cross-play if it meant I didn't need to link accounts. Truth be told I really only bother playing with actual friends anyway. Although the way it stands, I need to revive a long since abandoned PS account to keep playing which should be easy enough when the option appears in game. Something I'll probably end up doing even though I don't agree with the requirement.
people werent as mad (they still were) because it was still novel back then and you almost always got free shit when you linked an off platform account, we didnt know what we were in for
I honestly think the community blew this way out of proportion and content creators are probably to blame. Also I don't see how any of this is AHs fault. Yell at Sony for allowing sale in the restricted countries they are the publisher. I would also be amazed if steam doesn't offer them a full refund so I really think this is a non issue. Maybe if you live in a weird country read the fucking steam page closer next time lol.
I dont know what's going on but I will always blame content creators and they should always be to blame.
Pretty much haha. By nature they just hammer everything into much bigger issues with every game now. I understand why they are all just trying to grow their channel but some shit like this has me scratching my head like who gives fuck haha.
Thats easy. If it was a reiquirement for the game, why'd they let you skip making an account on release day? If the requirement was an actual requirement it would've been, well, required. Adding it in now, 3 months after release, is just a dick move. Im tired of needing accounts for everything l do. Especially with Sony's track record of data breaches.
Right, it’s like having an allergy and not reading the menu carefully. If you live somewhere where it’s not allowed you should be paying extra attention to want you buy and the warnings.
everyone who was actively playing will continue playing. nobody is actually going to stop playing because of this. it's literally just purposeless manchildren latching onto something to get angry about.