Helldivers 2 will require Steam players to sign in with PSN account, led to review bombing games & refunds. |UP| Gamers organizing to revert reviews.

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

This will definitely be an issue. And not only that, Bosnia and Serbia, while not in the EU, both have legal Steam support but no PSN support. Wonder if Steam will be forced to refund these games.

This is a PR disaster.

I wasn't even aware of the issue you and @ToTTenTranz mentioned, which actually makes the whole situation even funnier and more a problem for Sony.

Say they give exceptions for the countries where PSN isn't available....gamers in the non-exempted places will just use VPNs & set them to the exempted countries, to skirt around making a PSN account, defeating Sony's attempt at increasing MAUs through Steam anyway.

And if they don't make exceptions for those markets where PSN isn't available, or don't roll PSN out in those countries by the time the changes go into effect...yep, complete PR disaster and implosion incoming.

But like some others ITT are saying, it could be a 4D chess move to slide out of this PC initiative with a good enough excuse to do so. I wouldn't be completely against that...just at least make sure those countries without PSN are exempted first. No reason to face fines and lawsuits over all of this.

Though, I also wonder how Arrowhead feel about the move; I'd imagine they might not be too enthralled about it or maybe hoped the PSN stuff would be optional. They have a genuine community and wouldn't want to piss off a segment of them over a change like this, especially if they would like to have that segment around for future games they want to make. SIE should really take that into consideration because sure they may own the Helldivers IP, but Arrowhead are the ones who made the game what it is. You can't just easily transfer that dev DNA and style to a completely different studio no matter how talented they are.

Basically they better not risk doing to Helldivers what Microsoft did to Halo.

You can just choose any random country, it's not region-locked. PC gamers are the dumbest people on earth after the xbots lmao

Well if that's the case, a large degree of potential legal issues are non-existent then.

Even so, considering how late this change is coming, IMO it probably shouldn't be a forced change. I.e Steam users should probably have the choice to opt-in for a PSN account.

Yes they are a very petulant and stupid community, and their fanboys are almost insufferable, but Helldivers 2 was sold to them on the basis of not requiring a PSN account at the time they bought it. That was Sony's choice. So either only enforce the requirement for new purchasers once the rule goes into effect, or make it opt-in. Save yourself a PR disaster.

Or, just to rub salt on the wound, force it through and make online MP free again on PS consoles. That'd really get the Steam swamp-dwellers pissed

 

[voke]

I've had to do this with every multiplayer game i've ever bought.

Steam fanboys, are honestly even worse than bots. I could never imagine getting upset over this.

 

[ethomaz]

There's more to this

There are various countries where PSN is unavailable but Steam is, so they are essentialy kicking out thousands some users

Unless that country has some IP blocking to PSN (and people on these countries are sure using VPN even to Steam) then you can create a PSN account from anywhere in the world.

 

[ToTTenTranz]

You don't need to have PSN available in your country to create an account. You can create an account from another country, you only need an email address, the name of a city from there and one of its postal codes.

So all you need to legitimately play Helldivers 2 on Steam in a country without PSN is to create an illegitimate PSN account, promptly breaking Sony's own terms of service on PSN which if detected by Sony they're supposed to terminate the account.






Easy peasy.

It took me a whooping 90 seconds but only managed to do it because of my 17 years of experience working in tech.

I totally understand why PC players are upset. PS are the devil for submitting poor Steam players to such a gruesome process in exchange for FREE online play.

 

[Would_you_kindly]

For example, unless Sony/Arrowhead comes up with an easy solution, people in the Philippines can't play the game anymore, rendering their purchase as useless.

Can they not use a VPN to go to the site & create an account

 

[Gods&Monsters]

So all you need to legitimately play Helldivers 2 on Steam in a country without PSN is to create an illegitimate PSN account, promptly breaking Sony's own terms of service on PSN which if detected by Sony they're supposed to terminate the account.



View attachment 4884


Easy peasy.

Nothing will happen to your account. They literally write this in every TOS nobody reads or cares...until today

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

So all you need to legitimately play Helldivers 2 on Steam in a country without PSN is to create an illegitimate PSN account, promptly breaking Sony's own terms of service on PSN which if detected by Sony they're supposed to terminate the account.



View attachment 4884


Easy peasy.

Welp never mind then. The bigger problem (for Sony) still exists, then.

Either they make those countries exempt from the change, or get PSN in those countries, or make the PSN account opt-in (not mandatory) everywhere, or potentially face a massive lawsuit & see HD2 support go down the drain (on PC, its biggest platform).

Like I said then, deserved on both ends. I only really feel sorry for Arrowhead in this situation; very likely this wasn't their decision. But it could affect support for future games they make in a negative way. Hell it could spoil their partnership with SIE going forward.

This might just be the showcase Grubb was talking about

Nothing will happen to your account. They literally write this in every TOS nobody reads or cares...until today

But the fact it's even in the TOS means they can choose to enforce it anytime they want to, and who's to say they'll never enforce it?

So long as it's present there, the risk of enforcement is always present as well, meaning it's still a legitimate concern for affected users.

 

[ethomaz]

The fastest Sony left Steam better…

Easy solve this made up “issue”.

 

[ToTTenTranz]

Either they make those countries exempt from the change, or get PSN in those countries, or make the PSN account opt-in (not mandatory) everywhere, or potentially face a massive lawsuit & see HD2 support go down the drain (on PC, its biggest platform).

Yes, but if they only make certain countries exempt from the change the backlash will be legendary.

The only good way out of this for Sony (as the game's publisher) is to bow out of the whole thing.

Nothing will happen to your account. They literally write this in every TOS nobody reads or cares...until today

Irrelevant. Sony can't impose a change that forces its customers to violate Sony's own TOS. It's a massive backdoor for a massive class-action lawsuit happening.

 

[Would_you_kindly]

Good find, if true. I'm all for criticism but let's see if this gains any traction.

It's definitely true alot of games require you to sign in to a separate account on steam

 

[Would_you_kindly]

Look who suddenly has a problem with it never complained about Microsoft doing it

 

[Would_you_kindly]

You need an Activision account for cod , you need an epic account for Fortnite , you need a battle net account for diablo 4 , EA account for the Sims etc

 

[Entropi]

Look who suddenly has a problem with it never complained about Microsoft doing it

I just had to link my MS account to Sea of Thieves on my PS5. But yeah, Sony Sony Sony lol

 

[voke]

Im convinced ever since 2019, the general public has accepted PlayStation as the defacto console, but then hardcore gamers on the internet went the opposite direction. It always seems like people trying to hate on them. Narrtives everywhere.

Remember when PS5 would run games way worse than Xbox hardware this gen?
Remember when PS5 would meet it's grave because Sony needed to copy gamepass day and date?
Remember how PS5 wasn't gonna have any exclusives in 2024?
None of these were ever true, with common sense it's obvious.

And now today Sony has apparently ruined it's shot at PC gamers because they want you to login to their network. It's all so pathetic to me.

 

[Gediminas]

PSN is not available in a ton of regions. If you play Helldivers 2 on Steam and you live in a country that doesn't support PSN accounts, you are locked out of the game.

I think Steam is available in like 200 regions and PSN is in 74 regions or something like that.

and you can create account in any of those 74 countries. if PC guys are buffoons, doesn't mean that all people are buffoons and stop acting like they are.

we know how to use screwdriver and for sure we know how to create an account.

use your brains, i know, it is hard

 

[John Elden Ring]

 

[Johnic]

The biggest issue here is that they sold the game before forcing this. Not only is it a PR disaster, they could also face legal issues.

 

[voke]

imagine buying a playstation game and then being upset that you need a playstation account

 

[xollowsob]

You need an Activision account for cod , you need an epic account for Fortnite , you need a battle net account for diablo 4 , EA account for the Sims etc

I'm not one that's just havin a pop at Sony, but if the usual happens where Sony takes more stick than other companies, and it leads to the end of this bullshit, good.

Companies requiring multiple log ins are fluffing their numbers. Using the examples in your post is disingenuous as epic own Fortnite, battle net is diablo etc.

Now, what's bullshit is signing in with Xbox live/PSN and then having to sign in to battle.net (I won't do it). Signing in to multiple accounts is many people putting their hands into their pot to double the user numbers and mau. 1 Xbox user playing diablo + 1 battle.net user playing diablo = 2 mau on 1 account.

In this example, Sony have introduced this sign in requirement after the game has shopped, which is a bit shitty, which is what is pissing people off. Coming off of the back of the stellar blade rug pull doesn't look good.

 

[John Elden Ring]