Update: 06/05/24: Sony gives up on forcing PlayStation Network for Helldivers 2.
Original article below:
The HELLDIVERS 2 situation is an increasingly messy one, and it's only getting worse for Arrowhead Game Studios thanks to Sony.
As a reminder on what's going on: since release, HELLDIVERS 2 has stated on the Steam page "Requires 3rd-Party Account: PlayStation Network (Supports Linking to Steam Account)". It has been there all along, although you do have to scroll down a bit to see it. However, due to overwhelming demand initially when it released, they didn't force it. An announcement was posted on the Steam page recently mentioning it will now actually be forced, which interestingly was signed by "Sony Interactive Entertainment" rather than the developer as usual.
The Steam page for HELLDIVERS 2 at time of writing has amassed a crazy 134,069 negative reviews over the last few days. This has pushed the recent reviews into Mostly Negative, with an overall Mixed score.
Now, Sony seem to be doubling down on this. As shown on SteamDB the game is no longer available for purchase in 177 locations. Why? PlayStation Network is not available in a lot of places, and so forcing this will mean players in these regions will be unable to play the game.
Valve has also reportedly begun approving refunds for players not happy about it. Even people with many tens of hours in the game, which is quite unusual for Valve. It makes sense though, Valve likely don't want the legal headaches of potentially thousands of people suddenly unable to play their purchase because of a newly enforced restriction.
Writing on X (formerly Twitter), the Arrowhead CEO posted:
This forcing of the account system comes from Sony directly, not from Arrowhead Game Studios, and clearly the team at Arrowhead are rather unhappy about it too. Writing in Discord, some of their team have been posting updates on it like:
A clear case in how to destroy something great. Hopefully Sony do the right thing here and make steps to fix the situation to improve the experience for players.
It's worth noting that the player counts on Steam have barely changed (SteamDB) at all during this time.
Interestingly. Sony updated their PSN sign-in on PC help page too recently. Originally it stated:
Do I have to sign in to PSN to play a PlayStation game on PC?
Signing in to PSN is optional when playing a PlayStation game on PC.
Then it was changed around May 4th to read:
Do I have to sign in to PSN to play a PlayStation game on PC?
Some PlayStation games may require you sign in and link to an account for PSN.
And now it's back to saying it's optional again. So they changed it and then changed it back.
I'm also hoping this is a wake-up call for Valve too on forced 3rd-party accounts. A single mention in the Steam page sidebar is clearly not enough to inform buyers. My basic idea is to add it clearly during checkout too, above the price and payment info. Something that cannot be skipped. There's quite a lot of games on Steam now that require an extra account, so it would make sense for Valve to have a much more prominent statement on it.
Update: 05/05/24 14:47 - The Arrowhead CEO, Johan Pilestedt, posted on X (formerly Twitter) to confirm "We are talking solutions with PlayStation, especially for non-PSN countries. Your voice has been heard, and I am doing everything I can to speak for the community - but I don't have the final say.".
And in reply to a user mentioning they should have known about this, Pilestedt replied: "I do have a part to play. I am not blameless in all of this - it was my decision to disable account linking at launch so that players could play the game. I did not ensure players were aware of the requirement and we didn't talk about it enough.
We knew for about 6 months before launch that it would be mandatory for online PS titles."
On top of that, just to be clear, another user asked why they sold it in unsupported regions to which Pilestedt replied: "We do not handle selling the game.". So once again, how this is being handled is down to Sony.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
and clearly the team at Arrowhead are rather unhappy about it too
Are they? There's a thread on reddit showing how another community manager was pretty happy about it. https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/comments/1cjvw1s/arrowhead_community_manager_misty_admits_that_the/
I think it's the typical good cop + bad cop PR for damage control and effectively going through their common decision, or a public stunt to increase the game's exposure even more and then stepping down by making the mandatory requirement "optional" again, followed by comments of the type "Thank you AH and Sony for listening to your fans, I'm going to buy 4 more copies now because you guys rock".
Last edited by sudoer on 5 May 2024 at 5:51 pm UTC
I don't participate in review bombing games, but if Sony does not look at Discord, do they look at the Steam forum? So, I can sympathize that it may be the only effective way to get attention unfortunately, even though the gameplay does not deserve bad reviews.There comes a point where even if the gameplay does not deserve bad reviews, the game does.
Certainly for people in regions that can't have PSN accounts, if they bought the game and then retroactively get hit with a requirement to have a PSN account, that they can't have, in order to play it . . . then for them the game has no gameplay. I think a game that cannot be played at all is worth a bad review. The fact that it's an evil corporate decision causing it, rather than say poor design that makes it crash automatically, does not make the game any more playable.
If it's just that you have to pointlessly do an annoying thing to play the game . . . well, arguably that still makes the overall experience worse. I'd say if it was a result of technical problems people would still give bad reviews until the thing causing it got fixed.
…I'm not signing up or downloading a shitty launcher for playing my games.Does this also include Steam® Client™?
The moment players accepted that it is OK that their games are gated by one client closed-source program with online capabilities and the ability to "verify" legitimacy of game launches (you know, "Digital Rights Management") the Pandora's Box had been open.
Sony gives up:
https://twitter.com/PlayStation/status/1787331667616829929
I guess it took enough complaints from players to oppose this change when it should've never happened in the first place.
Last edited by ToddL on 6 May 2024 at 6:04 am UTC
Does this also include Steam® Client™?
The moment players accepted that it is OK that their games are gated by one client closed-source program with online capabilities and the ability to "verify" legitimacy of game launches (you know, "Digital Rights Management") the Pandora's Box had been open.
I see the point you want to make, but the simple fact is that without any DRM then very few major developers/publishers would release on PC. Instead they would opt to only publish on consoles where they have near complete control. At least with Steam, Valve seems to genuinely care about customers and Linux; the fact they allowed refunds for Helldivers 2 for players with 100+ hours proves they aren't as bad as nearly every other major gaming company.
Last edited by CalebQ42 on 6 May 2024 at 6:35 am UTC
Sony gives up:
https://twitter.com/PlayStation/status/1787331667616829929
Now we know it takes only a quarter million negative reviews over the course of a couple days to change Sony's mind.
…I see the point you want to make, but the simple fact is that without any DRM then very few major developers/publishers would release on PC.Ultimately, this is a bargaining process. They try to get our money, we try to get ourselves some games. They present their terms, we present ours. They insist on DRM and the fact that they are our masters and we are their slaves. They can make any rules, change the rules at any given time, retract their promises, ban us from their "intellectual property" (remember, games are being licensed to players, not purchased by them) for whatever reason (hate speech? bad sportsmanship? wrong country? wrong region? …or old and trusty "violating the rules of our community" :) ) and we have no say in it. And we agreed.
In an alternate reality we could say "No, this is unacceptable! Either you respect us or you are not getting any sales." And they would have no choice than to agree because between DRM-free releases and no sales at all they would be forced to settle for the former. I believe this is called "Vote With Your Wallet".
Remember, digital games are ultimately just a vanity, they are not needed for survival. And for each oh-so-brilliant AAA "Absolutely Can Not Miss" GOTY award-winning game with slavish DRM there are 100 fun and interesting DRM-free games (some are even Open Source). And we only have 24 hours per day.
Instead they would opt to only publish on consoles where they have near complete control.They can. And I can refuse their "generous" offer (which I in fact did).
At least with Steam, Valve seems to genuinely care about customers and Linux; the fact they allowed refunds for Helldivers 2 for players with 100+ hours proves they aren't as bad as nearly every other major gaming company.Oh, Valve® is a in-for-a-profit entity, it cares for money. And reputation/market dominance, which translates into "more money". And in this case Valve sensed that other 3rd-party in-for-a-profit entity has just tried to abuse its "cash cow" and lure customers from Steam™ into PSN, essentially hijacking the control (you may "bought" our game from Valve, but it is us, Sony, who really control the game with our PSN account, ha-ha-ha!!!). So, that's bad for PR and needs to be stopped. Nothing personal, just business.
I believe, this can lead Valve to clean Steam from 3rd-party account poisoning.
Given Sony, I'm sure that information will come in handy in the future.Sony gives up:
https://twitter.com/PlayStation/status/1787331667616829929
Now we know it takes only a quarter million negative reviews over the course of a couple days to change Sony's mind.
And for each oh-so-brilliant AAA "Absolutely Can Not Miss" GOTY award-winning game with slavish DRM there are 100 fun and interesting DRM-free games (some are even Open Source). And we only have 24 hours per day.
Ultimately everyone has their own preference, but for me personally I'd take a Breath of the Wild or Sekiro over 100 "good" games every single time. Yes we only have 24 hours in a day, but after 8+ for work, 8 (very -ish) for sleep, not to mention the other hours taking care of yourself and others; most people don't have much time to play games and it's worth using that time on the highest quality, most fun games available.
At least with Steam, Valve seems to genuinely care about customers and Linux; the fact they allowed refunds for Helldivers 2 for players with 100+ hours proves they aren't as bad as nearly every other major gaming company.Oh, Valve® is a in-for-a-profit entity, it cares for money. And reputation/market dominance, which translates into "more money". And in this case Valve sensed that other 3rd-party in-for-a-profit entity has just tried to abuse its "cash cow" and lure customers from Steam™ into PSN, essentially hijacking the control (you may "bought" our game from Valve, but it is us, Sony, who really control the game with our PSN account, ha-ha-ha!!!). So, that's bad for PR and needs to be stopped. Nothing personal, just business.
I believe, this can lead Valve to clean Steam from 3rd-party account poisoning.
I disagree as to Steam's reason for allowing refunds; if they don't want to allow 3rd party logins and accounts they could easily just ban it from their store. A PSN login isn't an attempt to draw people to a different platform and besides we can see that Steam allows games to attempt such things as all EA and Rockstart games launch through their launchers. Though I didn't refund Helldivers, I have refunded a game I played 100+ hours in back when Rust dropped Linux support. Let's not forget that the biggest consoles (Sony and Nintendo) don't formally allow refunds.
Obviously Valve is for-profit and will mostly work towards making more profit, but it's worth keeping in mind that they are still privately held. That's important because public companies are legally obligated to make as much money as possible which often leads to short-sighted, anti-consumer decisions. I genuinely believe that Valve takes the trust that people have in them seriously and will make decisions that are unprofitable in the short-term to maintain that trust. Yes ultimately it's about money, but focusing on the long-term profits allows them to care about the consumer (to a certain extent). Ultimately no for-profit company is your friend, but I'd much rather put my trust in Valve instead of a publicly traded company.
Good news for everyone in those 177 blocked countries without PSN access, and all the rest of us who liked to play the game with them. Just hope people fix their reviews now (400k bad reviews in the span of 3 days needing cleanup)
Playstation/Sony just announced some hours ago they would be walking back, and not force the PSN linking.
Good news for everyone in those 177 blocked countries without PSN access, and all the rest of us who liked to play the game with them. Just hope people fix their reviews now (400k bad reviews in the span of 3 days needing cleanup)
The mob got exactly what they wished for. They said that they were scammed because they have bought Helldivers 2 in a country where PSN is not available, so Sony removed these countries to match the availability of PSN.
You get what you wish for (and don't complain afterwards). This also applies to any consequences what may come in addition.
And no, I also dislike the requirement, but this was already on the Steam store page from day one. The neutering of the enforcement was a decision of the Arrowhead CEO (he admitted that in a recent Twitter post) due to stability issues of the horde of players that overloaded the servers.
Also, this was the only game what demanded PSN, all other published games of Sony either don't have a PSN login at all or it is really optional for fluff.
The mob got exactly what they wished for. They said that they were scammed because they have bought Helldivers 2 in a country where PSN is not available, so Sony removed these countries to match the availability of PSN.
I suspect the removal of countries was valves doing, and that needs to get restored asap.
Personally, I never saw an issue with linking PSN and I did just that when I booted up the game first time.
That said, I think a huge part of the blame for this situation lies in the out of touch Community Managers and/or Discord Moderators who been fueling the fire and acting pretty unprofessional during the whole time. They really gone out of their way, by incompetence or otherwise, to instigate outrage and really outdone themselves this time. They are the biggest enemy to the game, much more so than Sony ever was...
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