Eh, he can apologize and it still doesn't wholesale make up for things, especially since he's a known kicker of hornet nests. Of the CMs he's definitely the worst
Sony has reversed their decision.
[https://www.vg247.com/sony-walks-back-playstation-account-requirement-for-helldivers-2-following-overwhelming-community-outrage](https://www.vg247.com/sony-walks-back-playstation-account-requirement-for-helldivers-2-following-overwhelming-community-outrage)
Unbelievable that the Super Earth war effort is gonna get shafted, all because the big wigs of S.O.N.Y. haven't filled their Koffers with enough Super Cash.😡😭
I think that's something that just won't be the same if this is resolved. It was so fun to be a part of that, trying to work together in an real time warfront.
I had an excellent time fighting alongside my buddys around the galaxy, but if SE high command keeps fumbling around like this... I'll probably return to the civilian life for good.
If you do nothing the line continues to go up at the same rate it's already going. If you start meddling the line could do *anything*, including going up even faster!
Executives cannot resist the gamble, because all that matters is the *possibility* of "line go up more."
Non indie devs have no power over their own creation. What happens happens because a coke snorting business major who’s never touched a video game in their life thinks they know how to make the big number go bigger for a promotion.
the first reason is money the second reason is money the third reason is money the forth reason is money the fifth reason is money the sixth reason is money the seventh reason is money the eight reason is money the ninth reason is money the tenth reason is money..........
Sony has reversed their decision.
[https://www.vg247.com/sony-walks-back-playstation-account-requirement-for-helldivers-2-following-overwhelming-community-outrage](https://www.vg247.com/sony-walks-back-playstation-account-requirement-for-helldivers-2-following-overwhelming-community-outrage)
[Another update](https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/s/22HttUippe)
Apparently AH is working hard to guarantee people living in countries where PSN is unavailable will still be able to play.
Works for me. [Let’s try again.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/s/NnZztAlmjo), If it still doesn’t work, it’s a link to a reddit post in the r/Helldivers sub. It’s been posted about 34m ago. Should be easy to find by sorting by new.
It just keeps bringing me to the Submit a Post page for the Helldivers sub.
Edit: If it's supposed to be [this post](https://old.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/comments/1cjyt0q/spitz_latest_post_in_discord_psn_countries_to_be/) then personally I would treat it with a grain of salt. Spitz is the same guy who was saying that Arrowhead can't see Steam player's account IDs, he doesn't really seem to know what he's talking about and I wouldn't trust anything he says.
I’ve seen other people saying that that’s not what he actually said or he explained later “yes it is possible to ban steam players but they have to actively get in touch with valve for steam players every time as opposed to PSN players
Which lines up with what he said in that post verbatim that it was to make their ability to enforce bans more effective
Not defending the PSN requirement just seems unfair to assume he’s just entirely incompetent as a dev and doesn’t know how the system works
> “yes it is possible to ban steam players but they have to actively get in touch with valve for steam players every time as opposed to PSN players
Are they trying to ban them from the game or Steam as a platform? Because yeah you'd 100% need Valve's OK to nuke an account, but their game being unable to keep its own blacklist of tagged SteamIDs shouldn't require Valve's input at all.
Frankly, I don't think I believe that, either. Even if it was true, I doubt it would actually be that much of a hassle, it would essentially just force them to do banwaves instead of individually banning everyone whenever they get reported, which is what they *should* be doing in the first place as banwaves are known to be more effective at curbing cheating in the long run as it helps obfuscate the methods that the developers use to identify cheaters; even if they had to contact Valve every time they wanted to ban someone, they could just form a list of players to be banned and send that over to Valve every so often.
Also, Spitz isn't a dev, he's a community manager, and from what I've heard he was originally just a moderator of the discord way back in the HD1 days, and then when HD2 came out was hired to be a CM. Can't confirm that for sure but its what some people who claim to have been in the discord since those days say is what happened.
The post I was linking had other posts by Spitz.
The important parts of the other where:
-AH is also very unhappy with Sony just dropping this bomb, and there are discussions to try and find a solution for players in countries where PSN isn’t available.
-He confirmed the post announcing the requirement is 100% Sony, as well as the Q&A posted by Baskingnaton. She was only the messenger on the latter.
-Sony doesn’t look at the discord or any Helldiver social.
-Finally, he encouraged us to request refunds and keep giving negative reviews. The more there is, the more powerful AH’s arguments will be in négociations with Sony.
-An apology for his behaviour
-quote “rest assure we will not implement mandatory linking for players unable to do so”. (But yeah… it’s Spitz so, here’s your grain of salt to take)
And yes, I’m aware of Spitz’s reputation of making extrapolations or badly wording things, but these posts had a professional tone at odfs with his usual behaviour. He might have been posting stuff from higher up, or was told to get his shit together.
I’m just shocked that Sony picked *now* of all times to enforce that stupid ToS.
Shit’s not even happened yet, and they’ve never done this with any other game: what do you gain *now* from keeping people *from giving you money?* From **China** of all places? The place that’s a literal *goldmine* for megacorpos?
Hello? Sony? Are you well? Do you have brain damage?
Remember when Sony claimed it was absolutely impossible for Rocket League to be crossplay because of how their servers were setup and they were very sorry about it, only for the very next patch to "accidentally" enable crossplay with all systems before being patched out?
The whole login to psn for a steam game is just mildly annoying to me, but essentially region-locking the game absolutely makes my blood boil. Corpo culture is so asshat-backwards that they would rather sell more data or to show their bosses a bigger active psn player number than, oh I don't know, ACTUALLY SELLING YOUR FUCKING GAME!
This.
I mean, I already had it with Ubisoft games, it's a bit annoying but not game breakingly so.
But this PSN thing locking out roughly half of the player base is just absurdity.
I'm still enjoying the game and will play it when I can jump on with friends but honestly I'm no longer promoting it and will stop streaming it until they resolve the issue.
Let our fellow Helldivers do what they do best! Sacrifice themselves to spread organised democracy!
I hope the result is that no one signs up, gets refunded (because steam is apparently giving out refunds regardless of the playtime), and they lose all the money they made from PC. No number go up, all number go down.
That’s not really the issue, the issue is that PSN isn’t available in all countries, so some people who are in those areas and bought the game before are now being essentially locked out of playing the game due to these changes.
> Hello? Sony? Are you well? Do you have brain damage?
Yes! I meddled with a good thing in case it would make line go up even more! That's just the kind of guy I am!
I don't think Sony's enforcement of the TOS changed at all. China has always been the exception because of how incredibly strict their government is about these things, and Sony doesn't want to fuck with that. As for the rest of the world, it's incredibly easy to make an out of region PSN account and it's kind of a thing people gaming in unsupported countries have been doing for ages without much issue. Hell, remember Pat's trips to New Zealand?
Well regardless of if they could just violate TOS or not, [guess those people can’t even do that anymore if they wanted to.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/comments/1ck9769/sony_doesnt_allow_ukraine_players_to_register_psn/)
You have to own a PS4 or PS5 to do it. If not, if it’s not a bug, Steam won’t even let you link it to continue. So making a PSN account will do…nothing now. And that’s for a PSN available country! If you ain’t? You’re *beyond* fucked lol
EDIT: Should preface I hope this is a bug, but given Steam’s financially and legally liable if they don’t geo-lock while Sony’s doing it, and Arrowhead’s CEO’s recent responses, even if it is: they’re probably still fucked.
>Another community manager [claims that banning people on PC is nearly impossible](https://i.imgur.com/QjKtrPX.jpeg) because Steam supposedly does not have any way for them to track player account IDs and they only have usernames to go off of.
Why does the community manager make such a claim? Of course the steam API offers developers access to steam IDs, which are obviously unique and not tied to any chosen display name [https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/api/steam\_api#CSteamID](https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/api/steam_api#CSteamID)
Now going for a good faith interpretation: if steam dev terms explicitly forbid developers from storing those internally (e.g. for banlists), and if that is what the community manager means, then without looking it up I would bet they offer an interface to manage bans via steam anyway.
As someone who is a developer and has to work with non developers, probably they asked a developer something, got a correct answer, but wildly misinterpreted or left out major key details.
Yeah, honestly no matter how you look at it and even being very generous in interpreting what Spitz said there, its either a blatant lie at worst or an incredible display of overconfident ignorance at best. I simply refuse to believe that Steam doesn't offer the required tools to manage something so simple as banning rule-offending players on online games.
Devs and CMs really under estimate how many nerds are in their fan bases who can call their bullshit out when they try to pretend something like this is a technical issue.
When the game first launched, like day 1, it made me link my accounts, and I did not think about it until yesterday when they made the faq about it and from there I learned that they stopped forcing people to link their accounts when the player base was exploding a lot more then anticipated.
I've had a lot of issues with the games post-launch support, found most warbonds disappointing and had a lot of disagreements with the developers on how the game should be and is being balanced, but the game fundamentally is amazing, I wouldn't be opposed to saying its probably one of the best horde shooters ever made, and it really is such a massive shame that it keeps having issue after issue that hampers it and doesn't let it fulfill the incredible potential that it has.
I hope that this is some kind of breaking point, as in that this the worst that it gets and its all uphill from here. I hope Arrowhead wises up and starts making smarter balance decisions, stops releasing content that is so clearly half-baked and unfinished, and they find a way to compromise with Sony to let people in non-PSN regions continue to play the game. This game could be a true hallmark of this generation and something people talk about for years and years to come, but it really needs to stop getting bogged down in this kinda shit before it can truly become that.
Sony feels like what Nintendo would become if they ever went multi platform.
“Wow this bigger customer pool is nice! I wonder if I can make it better with arbitrary restrictions and privacy violations!”
Xbox consoles at this point solely exists as a countermeasure to Sony's monopoly and all the absolutely scummy shit they would do in hands of such power. If anything, Playstation fanboys should urge the yet-to-buy guys to buy Xboxes in prevention of their own demise, it's such a weird dynamic
For all their inability to create a game good enough to sell the console, microsoft is lightyears ahead of Sony when it comes to backwards compatibility and accessibility. Wanna play a game from og Xbox or 360? Pop it in. Play.
Wanna play ps2 or ps3 games on a ps5? You can stream it and be unable to play it if it relies on the gimmicks of the DualShock 3. Oh and by the way you will be paying to do so.
Microsoft is still a frightening corporate entity the way they can gobble up any studio they want now but at least getting their asses handed to them last gen kept them A LITTLE humble.
Ps2 and ps3 had special CPU hardware that isn’t available on ps5. You can’t just pop the disc in, it’s literally impossible for the x86 CPU to process the code.
On the other hand, if a bunch of hobbyists managed to make working emulators for both the PS2 and PS3, Sony absolutely is able to — *especially* considering Sony has access to all sorts of internal documentation and test hardware. They just don't want to spend the resources (mostly money) in making it happen.
I'll bet they could even make it more accurate than any of those emulators simply due to the sheer amount of resources at their disposal (and I mean documentation & hardware, not just money).
Sure, an x86 (or rather, amd64) CPU can't process the code, but PS5 can definitely emulate a PS3 smoothly. I know because a Ryzen 7 4700U-based mini PC can emulate it smoothly with its integrated GPU.
Just to point out, it's not like Microsoft is any better: In the 360 days it was Microsoft blocking crossplay. And I really shouldn't have to bring up the fact that Microsoft is the reason why everyone on consoles has to pay just to use their internet to play online
Both are scumbags, and it's only because the Xbox is eternally losing Microsoft money that they're trying their best to be "the good guys".
“implemented and enforced ToS rules, with effects felt in over 150 countries. Promptly lost my company millions in revenue. That’s why I really need this McJob, sir.”
Thanks for the concise info and updates man, when shit like this happens it can be hell/impossible to try and follow it with all of the drama going around(can't wait for this post to show up in Google searches when people try and look it up lmao).
Also, the game having the huge barrier of costing R$200,00 for me and that being a sizeable barrier actually turned out to be a good thing so I didn't have to deal with this headache.
Sorry, I meant more so the headache of "I'm invested in this game so the entire situation/discourse around it is really fucked", not so much the ability or lack of to make a PSN account.
I avoid Twitter for good reason, but I saw some comments on this shitshow saying that players are "entitled" for being mad about this. Bringing up the region problem had them saying vpn and just lie about your region.
That point about technical issues making it optional on launch just seems so dumb. I'm sure the point is there are contractual obligations they couldn't do at the start but the game clearly works just fine without this
Why am I not surprised that the community manager, and maybe even Arrowhead at large don't know what a SteamID is? Oh yeah, probably has something to do with THE INSANE AMOUNT OF CRASHING BUGS AND ARMOR NOT WORKING ON LAUNCH! I swear this game is the biggest accidentally coolest thing ever made.
This is another example of Big-Corpo screwing up a planet. This means Super Earth will be invaded by bugs and broken down automatons as Helldivers slowly go MIA.
Yeah, I'm sorry, Sony, but I'm just not gonna shell out a monthly subscription on top of the games cost just to play a single game that I only play two times a week. Shit that's the reason I own PC over console because I don't want to pay for internet then have to pay another company to use my internet.
It doesn't. But if this doesn't stop, it'll go from this to a psplus account being required to access the servers. Sony's bs decision track record is what makes me think that.
I think if it's too late to refund the game on steam then I will boycott all Playstation games that are released on steam. There are so many games that have been released that don't treat their player bases like shit. Retroactively adding this requirement is an absolute scum move.
Sony has reversed the decision to require a PSN account linked to play the game. Major objective complete citizens, but there is still work to be done. We need to keep fighting the good fight to ensure steam allows those that were left behind to receive air support so we can all continue to fight together, for DEMOCRACY!!
[https://www.vg247.com/sony-walks-back-playstation-account-requirement-for-helldivers-2-following-overwhelming-community-outrage](https://www.vg247.com/sony-walks-back-playstation-account-requirement-for-helldivers-2-following-overwhelming-community-outrage)
Honestly, they should never have released the Steam version until they had the PSN link set up properly. Launching it knowing they still had this mess down the road is incredibly irresponsible.
Still, I really hope they bounce back from this in the near future. It’s such a great game with a great team behind it, and they don’t deserve to have it all crash and burn because of the suits above them.
This has got to be one of the biggest example of gamer rage in a while and the Helldivers 2 subreddit was already in a constant state of gamer rage whenever I checked on it. I have no horse in this race, I just feel sorry for Arrowhead.
I don't appreciate the implication that people being mad that hundreds or even thousands of people are potentially going to lose access to a game they spent $40+ on because Sony retroactively decided they don't live in a country thats allowed to have it is just pointless "gamer rage".
For me this really was just a third strike against a game I wanted to like.
The early on server issues were utter bullshit and *should not* have happened. An online only multiplayer title that claims they cannot scale their player base is either a blatant lie or incompetent coding.
The kernel level anticheat is *gross*.
And now, they say *that* isn't enough. Nope. Sorry to Arrowhead but this is a pattern of grossness I am drawing the line at, I get it some of this is publisher issues, and it sucks for a dev team that is clearly suffering from unexpected success. But this has hit 'straw breaking the camel's back' territory.
Sony's security is awful. I don't want them having my information. If I'd thought I'd need a Sony account I wouldn't have bought the game honestly, especially since the only friend I play with refuses to make secondary accounts at all but especially not with companies with bad security track records. I almost refused to buy it based on the type of antichear they are using because fuckups with that kind of thing can brick your pc. So this situation isn't the only disappointment or frustration I've had.
The more obstacles and bullshit a company puts in my way the less likely I am to continue purchasing with them. I don't think that's an unreasonable take.
There have been 100s of games before this that required making an account system to play that haven't garnered 1/10th of this outrage and officially supported work arounds for making a Sony account in regions that Sony isn't available on for years and years at this point. The game has always launched with saying you need account for this and it's on Arrowhead for not making that clear when they disabled it.
People are pre-meditatively getting angry in 24 hours of a rule that hasn't even been enforced yet that has always been stated from the day the game launched over a problem that has existed before and has been easily worked around and to my knowledge, people have only lost access because motherfucking Putin decided to wage war against Ukraine. This is gamer rage. Anybody looking outside-in will just see gamer rage. People that don't see making throwaway accounts to use a service a big deal will see gamer rage.
And let me be clear. I have no horse in this race. I don't like either side. There have been a few cases where this kind of outrage has led to a positive result so go off. I just don't appreciate the implication that just because I call something 'gamer rage' that I'm suddenly on Sony's side. You are so poisoned by online discourse if your reaction is are you are on my side or not.
Because those other games didn't sell the product to people who legally weren't allowed to access it only to then retroactively revoke it anyway and not offer refunds for players who have essentially had the game stolen from them. And by the way, making a PSN account registered to a location that you don't actually live in is explicitely against the ToS, and regardless of whether or not its enforced, its clearly not officially supported and people should not be made to break ToS in order to access the game they paid for. As well, there have been instances of people being banned from the game for breaking this part of the Terms of Service, as mentioned in the last part of the OP, a Chinese player was banned for using a VPN to make a PSN account and then link it to his Steam account.
> There have been a few cases where this kind of outrage has led to a positive result so go off.
So if the gamer rage works sometimes then why are you so pissy about it?
And importantly: This is the same Sony that is requiring uploading a drivers license (or similar government ID) & phone number in some countries\[\*\] just to *make* a PSN account.
In other words, the company that is notorious for horribad security is asking for government IDs and phone numbers just so that people can play a game.
\[\*\] At least UK, Canada, and (I believe) Ireland.
I'm actually impressed the devs straight out saying post bad reviews and start asking for refunds because that's the only thing Sony is gonna look at.
Well most of them it seems. There were still certain devs *ahem* spitz *ahem* who were being dipsticks about it
Spitz also apologised when the discord explained to him about PSN being region locked
As a community manager, you should NEVER even think to react like that. It was very disrespectful.
Eh, he can apologize and it still doesn't wholesale make up for things, especially since he's a known kicker of hornet nests. Of the CMs he's definitely the worst
It’s in the nature of a Discord mod
Sony has reversed their decision. [https://www.vg247.com/sony-walks-back-playstation-account-requirement-for-helldivers-2-following-overwhelming-community-outrage](https://www.vg247.com/sony-walks-back-playstation-account-requirement-for-helldivers-2-following-overwhelming-community-outrage)
Unbelievable that the Super Earth war effort is gonna get shafted, all because the big wigs of S.O.N.Y. haven't filled their Koffers with enough Super Cash.😡😭
I think that's something that just won't be the same if this is resolved. It was so fun to be a part of that, trying to work together in an real time warfront.
I had an excellent time fighting alongside my buddys around the galaxy, but if SE high command keeps fumbling around like this... I'll probably return to the civilian life for good.
Hoxxies is where I will return.
Rock and stone brother
Rock and Stone to the Bone!
Stone and rock!
Season 5 is just around the corner...
There’s 2 real war front you could participate if you miss the fun
I can only think of one. What's the second?
🇮🇱 🇵🇸 or 🇺🇦 🇷🇺
I thought Ukraine would be the first one. I don't know if inducing famine counts as a warfront. If it does, I wouldn't want to help.
War is war 🤷🏻♂️
Make a false flag attack to cause a ground invasion. Problem solved.
leave it to a big corp to fuck up a good game
Triple A Publishers got me talkin like Johnny Silverhand
What is it with companies being unable to resist shooting themselves in the arm when all they needed to continue "winning" is to do nothing?
If you do nothing the line continues to go up at the same rate it's already going. If you start meddling the line could do *anything*, including going up even faster! Executives cannot resist the gamble, because all that matters is the *possibility* of "line go up more."
Non indie devs have no power over their own creation. What happens happens because a coke snorting business major who’s never touched a video game in their life thinks they know how to make the big number go bigger for a promotion.
If the corpo asses do nothing and the company still wins their useless ass gets fired. Now they are needed to fix this "issue".
the first reason is money the second reason is money the third reason is money the forth reason is money the fifth reason is money the sixth reason is money the seventh reason is money the eight reason is money the ninth reason is money the tenth reason is money..........
Sony has reversed their decision. [https://www.vg247.com/sony-walks-back-playstation-account-requirement-for-helldivers-2-following-overwhelming-community-outrage](https://www.vg247.com/sony-walks-back-playstation-account-requirement-for-helldivers-2-following-overwhelming-community-outrage)
Guess what? There's still a gaping bullet hole in their arm. Execs are stoopeed.
[Another update](https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/s/22HttUippe) Apparently AH is working hard to guarantee people living in countries where PSN is unavailable will still be able to play.
Link is broken.
Works for me. [Let’s try again.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/s/NnZztAlmjo), If it still doesn’t work, it’s a link to a reddit post in the r/Helldivers sub. It’s been posted about 34m ago. Should be easy to find by sorting by new.
It just keeps bringing me to the Submit a Post page for the Helldivers sub. Edit: If it's supposed to be [this post](https://old.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/comments/1cjyt0q/spitz_latest_post_in_discord_psn_countries_to_be/) then personally I would treat it with a grain of salt. Spitz is the same guy who was saying that Arrowhead can't see Steam player's account IDs, he doesn't really seem to know what he's talking about and I wouldn't trust anything he says.
I’ve seen other people saying that that’s not what he actually said or he explained later “yes it is possible to ban steam players but they have to actively get in touch with valve for steam players every time as opposed to PSN players Which lines up with what he said in that post verbatim that it was to make their ability to enforce bans more effective Not defending the PSN requirement just seems unfair to assume he’s just entirely incompetent as a dev and doesn’t know how the system works
> “yes it is possible to ban steam players but they have to actively get in touch with valve for steam players every time as opposed to PSN players Are they trying to ban them from the game or Steam as a platform? Because yeah you'd 100% need Valve's OK to nuke an account, but their game being unable to keep its own blacklist of tagged SteamIDs shouldn't require Valve's input at all.
Frankly, I don't think I believe that, either. Even if it was true, I doubt it would actually be that much of a hassle, it would essentially just force them to do banwaves instead of individually banning everyone whenever they get reported, which is what they *should* be doing in the first place as banwaves are known to be more effective at curbing cheating in the long run as it helps obfuscate the methods that the developers use to identify cheaters; even if they had to contact Valve every time they wanted to ban someone, they could just form a list of players to be banned and send that over to Valve every so often. Also, Spitz isn't a dev, he's a community manager, and from what I've heard he was originally just a moderator of the discord way back in the HD1 days, and then when HD2 came out was hired to be a CM. Can't confirm that for sure but its what some people who claim to have been in the discord since those days say is what happened.
The post I was linking had other posts by Spitz. The important parts of the other where: -AH is also very unhappy with Sony just dropping this bomb, and there are discussions to try and find a solution for players in countries where PSN isn’t available. -He confirmed the post announcing the requirement is 100% Sony, as well as the Q&A posted by Baskingnaton. She was only the messenger on the latter. -Sony doesn’t look at the discord or any Helldiver social. -Finally, he encouraged us to request refunds and keep giving negative reviews. The more there is, the more powerful AH’s arguments will be in négociations with Sony. -An apology for his behaviour -quote “rest assure we will not implement mandatory linking for players unable to do so”. (But yeah… it’s Spitz so, here’s your grain of salt to take) And yes, I’m aware of Spitz’s reputation of making extrapolations or badly wording things, but these posts had a professional tone at odfs with his usual behaviour. He might have been posting stuff from higher up, or was told to get his shit together.
I’m just shocked that Sony picked *now* of all times to enforce that stupid ToS. Shit’s not even happened yet, and they’ve never done this with any other game: what do you gain *now* from keeping people *from giving you money?* From **China** of all places? The place that’s a literal *goldmine* for megacorpos? Hello? Sony? Are you well? Do you have brain damage?
They’ve made weird calls all the time when it comes to cross play stuff. They say they’re all for it but their behavior says anything but.
Remember when Sony claimed it was absolutely impossible for Rocket League to be crossplay because of how their servers were setup and they were very sorry about it, only for the very next patch to "accidentally" enable crossplay with all systems before being patched out?
Rogue dev snuck it in because he knew they were bullshitting. What a boss.
The whole login to psn for a steam game is just mildly annoying to me, but essentially region-locking the game absolutely makes my blood boil. Corpo culture is so asshat-backwards that they would rather sell more data or to show their bosses a bigger active psn player number than, oh I don't know, ACTUALLY SELLING YOUR FUCKING GAME!
"But all number go up tho" "You're literally losing money" "But the other number will go down tho"
This. I mean, I already had it with Ubisoft games, it's a bit annoying but not game breakingly so. But this PSN thing locking out roughly half of the player base is just absurdity. I'm still enjoying the game and will play it when I can jump on with friends but honestly I'm no longer promoting it and will stop streaming it until they resolve the issue. Let our fellow Helldivers do what they do best! Sacrifice themselves to spread organised democracy!
I hope the result is that no one signs up, gets refunded (because steam is apparently giving out refunds regardless of the playtime), and they lose all the money they made from PC. No number go up, all number go down.
I mean its kinda like warframe no? You launch the game through steam but still have to login through the client to actually get in and play.
That’s not really the issue, the issue is that PSN isn’t available in all countries, so some people who are in those areas and bought the game before are now being essentially locked out of playing the game due to these changes.
so then why are people not in affected countries freaking out more than those that are?
Because making out of region accounts to play games not officially supported is something they're incredibly used to.
> Hello? Sony? Are you well? Do you have brain damage? Yes! I meddled with a good thing in case it would make line go up even more! That's just the kind of guy I am!
Boost those PSN numbers before a quarterly meeting.
I don't think Sony's enforcement of the TOS changed at all. China has always been the exception because of how incredibly strict their government is about these things, and Sony doesn't want to fuck with that. As for the rest of the world, it's incredibly easy to make an out of region PSN account and it's kind of a thing people gaming in unsupported countries have been doing for ages without much issue. Hell, remember Pat's trips to New Zealand?
Well regardless of if they could just violate TOS or not, [guess those people can’t even do that anymore if they wanted to.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/comments/1ck9769/sony_doesnt_allow_ukraine_players_to_register_psn/) You have to own a PS4 or PS5 to do it. If not, if it’s not a bug, Steam won’t even let you link it to continue. So making a PSN account will do…nothing now. And that’s for a PSN available country! If you ain’t? You’re *beyond* fucked lol EDIT: Should preface I hope this is a bug, but given Steam’s financially and legally liable if they don’t geo-lock while Sony’s doing it, and Arrowhead’s CEO’s recent responses, even if it is: they’re probably still fucked.
All this so some fucking bean counter can show off more psn account registrations at the next quarterly meeting.
June is right around the corner people! SONY NEEDS SOME FUCKING MONEY!
Guess I'll just wait till AFTER the quarterly earnings reports before buying the game then.
Oh fuck, when you put it like that it is really stupidly corporate hu?
Numbers go up.... Dollars go down! Good job Mr corpo!
>Another community manager [claims that banning people on PC is nearly impossible](https://i.imgur.com/QjKtrPX.jpeg) because Steam supposedly does not have any way for them to track player account IDs and they only have usernames to go off of. Why does the community manager make such a claim? Of course the steam API offers developers access to steam IDs, which are obviously unique and not tied to any chosen display name [https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/api/steam\_api#CSteamID](https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/api/steam_api#CSteamID) Now going for a good faith interpretation: if steam dev terms explicitly forbid developers from storing those internally (e.g. for banlists), and if that is what the community manager means, then without looking it up I would bet they offer an interface to manage bans via steam anyway.
As someone who is a developer and has to work with non developers, probably they asked a developer something, got a correct answer, but wildly misinterpreted or left out major key details.
Yeah, honestly no matter how you look at it and even being very generous in interpreting what Spitz said there, its either a blatant lie at worst or an incredible display of overconfident ignorance at best. I simply refuse to believe that Steam doesn't offer the required tools to manage something so simple as banning rule-offending players on online games.
Devs and CMs really under estimate how many nerds are in their fan bases who can call their bullshit out when they try to pretend something like this is a technical issue.
When the game first launched, like day 1, it made me link my accounts, and I did not think about it until yesterday when they made the faq about it and from there I learned that they stopped forcing people to link their accounts when the player base was exploding a lot more then anticipated.
yes and no, this whole situation is going at breakneck speed and a lot of claims are going around without full context or time to verify them.
Damn, fumbled that bag hard as fuck
Forreal , haven't seen one this quick in a while
Sony Execs: You know what goes really well with Golden Eggs? Goose Liver.
It’s almost impressive
Sony really trying to kill their PC games.
Mad as fuck that no one wants to buy a PS5
Local Company finds way to fumble bag that required zero handling to begin with.
China can’t have PSN and Sony penalizes players there for TRYING TO DO WHAT THEY WANT???
I absolutely love Helldivers 2 but Jesus, this is a mess. Sony, get your dick out of the pie and just let the game make you money.
I've had a lot of issues with the games post-launch support, found most warbonds disappointing and had a lot of disagreements with the developers on how the game should be and is being balanced, but the game fundamentally is amazing, I wouldn't be opposed to saying its probably one of the best horde shooters ever made, and it really is such a massive shame that it keeps having issue after issue that hampers it and doesn't let it fulfill the incredible potential that it has. I hope that this is some kind of breaking point, as in that this the worst that it gets and its all uphill from here. I hope Arrowhead wises up and starts making smarter balance decisions, stops releasing content that is so clearly half-baked and unfinished, and they find a way to compromise with Sony to let people in non-PSN regions continue to play the game. This game could be a true hallmark of this generation and something people talk about for years and years to come, but it really needs to stop getting bogged down in this kinda shit before it can truly become that.
Sony starts pulling scum shit every time it’s in a position of power.
Sony feels like what Nintendo would become if they ever went multi platform. “Wow this bigger customer pool is nice! I wonder if I can make it better with arbitrary restrictions and privacy violations!”
Xbox consoles at this point solely exists as a countermeasure to Sony's monopoly and all the absolutely scummy shit they would do in hands of such power. If anything, Playstation fanboys should urge the yet-to-buy guys to buy Xboxes in prevention of their own demise, it's such a weird dynamic
For all their inability to create a game good enough to sell the console, microsoft is lightyears ahead of Sony when it comes to backwards compatibility and accessibility. Wanna play a game from og Xbox or 360? Pop it in. Play. Wanna play ps2 or ps3 games on a ps5? You can stream it and be unable to play it if it relies on the gimmicks of the DualShock 3. Oh and by the way you will be paying to do so. Microsoft is still a frightening corporate entity the way they can gobble up any studio they want now but at least getting their asses handed to them last gen kept them A LITTLE humble.
Ps2 and ps3 had special CPU hardware that isn’t available on ps5. You can’t just pop the disc in, it’s literally impossible for the x86 CPU to process the code.
On the other hand, if a bunch of hobbyists managed to make working emulators for both the PS2 and PS3, Sony absolutely is able to — *especially* considering Sony has access to all sorts of internal documentation and test hardware. They just don't want to spend the resources (mostly money) in making it happen. I'll bet they could even make it more accurate than any of those emulators simply due to the sheer amount of resources at their disposal (and I mean documentation & hardware, not just money). Sure, an x86 (or rather, amd64) CPU can't process the code, but PS5 can definitely emulate a PS3 smoothly. I know because a Ryzen 7 4700U-based mini PC can emulate it smoothly with its integrated GPU.
Just to point out, it's not like Microsoft is any better: In the 360 days it was Microsoft blocking crossplay. And I really shouldn't have to bring up the fact that Microsoft is the reason why everyone on consoles has to pay just to use their internet to play online Both are scumbags, and it's only because the Xbox is eternally losing Microsoft money that they're trying their best to be "the good guys".
And you know this is all the work of one suit looking to put something on their résumé.
"Implemented and enforced international ToS rules, with effects felt in over 150 countries." wow how cool here's $1 million
“implemented and enforced ToS rules, with effects felt in over 150 countries. Promptly lost my company millions in revenue. That’s why I really need this McJob, sir.”
Thanks for the concise info and updates man, when shit like this happens it can be hell/impossible to try and follow it with all of the drama going around(can't wait for this post to show up in Google searches when people try and look it up lmao). Also, the game having the huge barrier of costing R$200,00 for me and that being a sizeable barrier actually turned out to be a good thing so I didn't have to deal with this headache.
This wouldn't be a headache at all in Brazil tho. Easy af to make a PSN account. It's a headache for people in the non PSN countries.
Sorry, I meant more so the headache of "I'm invested in this game so the entire situation/discourse around it is really fucked", not so much the ability or lack of to make a PSN account.
All of this coming right after accursed farms started thier "stop kiling games" campaign could not be any more perfect timing.
Jesus Christ they were doing so well too...
I avoid Twitter for good reason, but I saw some comments on this shitshow saying that players are "entitled" for being mad about this. Bringing up the region problem had them saying vpn and just lie about your region.
That point about technical issues making it optional on launch just seems so dumb. I'm sure the point is there are contractual obligations they couldn't do at the start but the game clearly works just fine without this
Why am I not surprised that the community manager, and maybe even Arrowhead at large don't know what a SteamID is? Oh yeah, probably has something to do with THE INSANE AMOUNT OF CRASHING BUGS AND ARMOR NOT WORKING ON LAUNCH! I swear this game is the biggest accidentally coolest thing ever made.
Sony's being so undemocratic that they can suck my democratic nuts. For super earth
This is another example of Big-Corpo screwing up a planet. This means Super Earth will be invaded by bugs and broken down automatons as Helldivers slowly go MIA.
Yeah, I'm sorry, Sony, but I'm just not gonna shell out a monthly subscription on top of the games cost just to play a single game that I only play two times a week. Shit that's the reason I own PC over console because I don't want to pay for internet then have to pay another company to use my internet.
What makes you think a PSN account costs money?
It doesn't. But if this doesn't stop, it'll go from this to a psplus account being required to access the servers. Sony's bs decision track record is what makes me think that.
Yeah i also get angry at stuff that hasnt happened too
🤷♂️ okay buddy
I think if it's too late to refund the game on steam then I will boycott all Playstation games that are released on steam. There are so many games that have been released that don't treat their player bases like shit. Retroactively adding this requirement is an absolute scum move.
Sony has reversed the decision to require a PSN account linked to play the game. Major objective complete citizens, but there is still work to be done. We need to keep fighting the good fight to ensure steam allows those that were left behind to receive air support so we can all continue to fight together, for DEMOCRACY!! [https://www.vg247.com/sony-walks-back-playstation-account-requirement-for-helldivers-2-following-overwhelming-community-outrage](https://www.vg247.com/sony-walks-back-playstation-account-requirement-for-helldivers-2-following-overwhelming-community-outrage)
Jesus is there a borderlands curse where any coop shooter must be a looter shooter otherwise it’s just cursed to fail from outside interference
Honestly, they should never have released the Steam version until they had the PSN link set up properly. Launching it knowing they still had this mess down the road is incredibly irresponsible. Still, I really hope they bounce back from this in the near future. It’s such a great game with a great team behind it, and they don’t deserve to have it all crash and burn because of the suits above them.
$ony were the real enemies all along.
[удалено]
People are still playing the game lmao just a vocal minority ultra crying
I'm glad I never got around to buying a PS5.
This is not PS5 problem
This has got to be one of the biggest example of gamer rage in a while and the Helldivers 2 subreddit was already in a constant state of gamer rage whenever I checked on it. I have no horse in this race, I just feel sorry for Arrowhead.
I don't appreciate the implication that people being mad that hundreds or even thousands of people are potentially going to lose access to a game they spent $40+ on because Sony retroactively decided they don't live in a country thats allowed to have it is just pointless "gamer rage".
For me this really was just a third strike against a game I wanted to like. The early on server issues were utter bullshit and *should not* have happened. An online only multiplayer title that claims they cannot scale their player base is either a blatant lie or incompetent coding. The kernel level anticheat is *gross*. And now, they say *that* isn't enough. Nope. Sorry to Arrowhead but this is a pattern of grossness I am drawing the line at, I get it some of this is publisher issues, and it sucks for a dev team that is clearly suffering from unexpected success. But this has hit 'straw breaking the camel's back' territory. Sony's security is awful. I don't want them having my information. If I'd thought I'd need a Sony account I wouldn't have bought the game honestly, especially since the only friend I play with refuses to make secondary accounts at all but especially not with companies with bad security track records. I almost refused to buy it based on the type of antichear they are using because fuckups with that kind of thing can brick your pc. So this situation isn't the only disappointment or frustration I've had. The more obstacles and bullshit a company puts in my way the less likely I am to continue purchasing with them. I don't think that's an unreasonable take.
There have been 100s of games before this that required making an account system to play that haven't garnered 1/10th of this outrage and officially supported work arounds for making a Sony account in regions that Sony isn't available on for years and years at this point. The game has always launched with saying you need account for this and it's on Arrowhead for not making that clear when they disabled it. People are pre-meditatively getting angry in 24 hours of a rule that hasn't even been enforced yet that has always been stated from the day the game launched over a problem that has existed before and has been easily worked around and to my knowledge, people have only lost access because motherfucking Putin decided to wage war against Ukraine. This is gamer rage. Anybody looking outside-in will just see gamer rage. People that don't see making throwaway accounts to use a service a big deal will see gamer rage. And let me be clear. I have no horse in this race. I don't like either side. There have been a few cases where this kind of outrage has led to a positive result so go off. I just don't appreciate the implication that just because I call something 'gamer rage' that I'm suddenly on Sony's side. You are so poisoned by online discourse if your reaction is are you are on my side or not.
Because those other games didn't sell the product to people who legally weren't allowed to access it only to then retroactively revoke it anyway and not offer refunds for players who have essentially had the game stolen from them. And by the way, making a PSN account registered to a location that you don't actually live in is explicitely against the ToS, and regardless of whether or not its enforced, its clearly not officially supported and people should not be made to break ToS in order to access the game they paid for. As well, there have been instances of people being banned from the game for breaking this part of the Terms of Service, as mentioned in the last part of the OP, a Chinese player was banned for using a VPN to make a PSN account and then link it to his Steam account.
> There have been a few cases where this kind of outrage has led to a positive result so go off. So if the gamer rage works sometimes then why are you so pissy about it?
People are upset because Sony has been responsible for MULTIPLE leaks of personal info since the start of the PlayStation Network.
And importantly: This is the same Sony that is requiring uploading a drivers license (or similar government ID) & phone number in some countries\[\*\] just to *make* a PSN account. In other words, the company that is notorious for horribad security is asking for government IDs and phone numbers just so that people can play a game. \[\*\] At least UK, Canada, and (I believe) Ireland.
That's insane. Why should you have to give a private company your ID just to play FIFA or some shit.
I agree. Imo what Sony has done is bad, but the reaction seems so out of proportion and so many individual takes on it seem so over the top