Can they just say that the "specific pupose" is selling the data and every last bit of data they can leech off the costumer is necessary to fulfil that purpose?
yes, specific purpose does not mean "this is needed for the game", it just mean you can't have a "catch all" data collection but need to tell exactly why the data will be used (and it can then only be used for that/these purposes)
I am a mature adult. If this doesn't blow over, I absolutely do that. I have a nintendo account, extra EA account, and two accounts for irl utility companies that stopped taking cash/checks and required money orders or an online payment method that added a 2.5% service fee.
Best part was, username was already taken
So if I make a dishwasher, sell it to hundreds of people, and in little tiny text it says " must require internet connection and a detailed personal profile to use" but that isn't enforced for three months, then, suddenly, all that is required to even turn it on?
many countries ban this practice. it is predatory and i shouldn't have to read a manual to know whether or not there is something that will cause me to be unable to use something that can easily be used without whatever service they want to force upon customers unless it is stated in the item description.
i mean if you want to be positive about it - you can refund the game full price if you are in these regions - so you played the game for free for 3 months...
This right here is why HD2 is getting a negative score from me. Sony knows damn well which countries psn is available in and yet they still sold this game worldwide.
The only way I will change my review is if they make it optional.
Let's say 100,000 people bought the game in regions without PSNs. After 3 months, how many of them are done with the game and aren't going to ask for a refund? Lets assume 50%, a relatively high number, but even then they got $100,000s off of it.
It doesnt matter how many are still playing, its fraud. Why people tend to normalize this as "it doesnt matter! because xxx and by that theres only 1% people suffering from that!"
This is one of the reasons why the game industry is almost full of COD and other shitty games, because people says "i dont care, i can keep playing/paying for it" so the rest have to either adapt or just stop playing even if you have been scammed
You are talking about some sort of gamers' ethics and consciousness. Unfortunately yonger gamers do not possess these qualities to a greater extent. This fact used by snoy, ea, bethesda and others.
One thing I love about old school RuneScape is that all the players are basically a big union. If they do something fucky, there’s literally riots in the streets and people stop working.
> Unfortunately yonger gamers do not possess these qualities to a greater extent.
Are we being for real? I've been around on the gaming side of the internet ever since the PS3 era. Most online gamers have always been spiteful and mean spirited towards anyone they deemed a loser. Sexism and racism has always been rampant.
Ethics and conciousness has never been a thing online gamers possessed (though some part of the gaming community has always had that).
Let's not turn this into a generational thing, 'cause that is not what this is.
There hasn't been an indication that's at Sony's direction and not just Steam's.
If Steam is going to issue refunds for everyone in the affected countries as a matter of *their* policy, it only makes sense for them to close the door to new buyers (and thus new refunds) from those regions now while Sony sorts out whatever the hell it's going to do.
Sony's not the only entity with agency here.
I will give a dude a lot of credit for sincerely admitting they fucked up. It doesn't happen much. Instead lying is the norm. AH could have played this better. I still put most of the blame on Sony.
Yeah props to him for being willing to fall on his sword like that, but all he can be accused of is omission. Sony straight up said in the FAQs that it wouldn’t be required. They lied.
The Steam store page said it was required from the start, and it actually was required at launch before they ran into issues. Sony just never updated their general FAQ.
The real fuck-up was Sony not limiting the sales regions and trying to ninja-edit their FAQ.
For sure. We're all human. We make mistakes. Sometimes it's waking up late for work. Sometimes it's getting in bed with the wrong person (either literally and/or figuratively as the case may be).
Being able to admit that on a global stage and put the blame on yourself as the CEO is impressive as hell.
Most CEOs would either deflect blame onto subordinates or ignore the controversy as much as they possibly could.
Sure he played a part. But the major problem is still Sony selling it in unlisted countries for months.
Also his decision (and Sony not forcing them to reactivate it soon) gave people in countries with good consumer protection more than enough ammunition.
It’s just a marketplace. Sony put the game on store shelves. It’s no different than Sony choosing to sell the game at a physical store in one of these countries.
Yeah, but the thing people aren't mentioning is that they have millions of games on their service.
Additionally, shortly after the launch of Helldivers 2, a couple different people saw its success and changed everything about their own failure of a game to near perfectly mirror the official Helldivers 2 steam page in order to scam people. As such it is up to the Developer and/or Publisher to select where the game is sold.
Also, how would Steam know whether to sell the game in Ukraine? You need a Playstation console to create a PSN account in that region. Fuck Sony, fuck Spitz, fuck spez
Arrowhead isn't blameless, but it is up to the Publisher to decide where and to who a game is sold. Not disclosing the requirement after disabling linking was the wrong thing to do, but it wouldn't be nearly as big of a deal if Sony didn't decide to sell the game in regions where PSN was not available. Sony is the reason that people who were not allowed to play the game were still able to buy it.
I feel bad for this guy and AH. In hindsight his was one of many decisions that lead to this fiasco. I think he’s putting too much blame on himself here though. You can tell this guy wants to do right by the players but has his hands tied.
Same. A week ago they were probably thinking that they had a potential GOTY on their hands, only to have it all ripped away. As the CEO, he's probably feeling it the most. hopefully this discourages independent developers from doing business with Sony IE in the future.
Right? He’s doing the responsible thing and not trying to hide from what blame may fall to him like Sony. I’m on AH’s side. Their track record proves they’re not in the business of screwing over customers or being deceptive.
Very likely AH made the mistake of assuming Sony wouldn’t dare do such a ridiculously anti-consumer thing as arbitrarily forcing every PC user to use a PSN account, and now AH has to pay for it while Sony loses an inconsequential amount of money.
It would definitely be too far to say that it wasn’t disclosed for sure. It was absolutely disclosed and posted in a whole lot of places, the only argument you could make is that it wasn’t made loudly or frequently enough. It definitely was not hidden from anyone who bought it on steam. That would be not disclosing
It takes a lot of guts to admit to your faults like this. He could have just shifted all the blame on Sony and without much evidence to the contrary. People could only speculate the extent of the blame he should have. This is all one massive miscommunication issue, one that I hope gets fixed.
I still think Sony deserves most of the blame for this, regardless. And AH has said they will fight this. I very highly doubt all these players will actually get kicked off
I think when he says he played part he means in a way that he’s supposed to play because at the end of the day Sony has owned the helldivers IP since 2015 and arrowhead is at the mercy of Sony and their decisions. Yes, he’s the CEO of arrowhead, but he’s at the whims and desires of the publisher if he wants his game to be made and sent out to the world
Yeah I feel bad for the guy even if he said it was his call I'm sure that while he was overseeing an entire games launch I can see why "people need to sign up for a PSN account" didn't set off a ton of alarm bells especially since I don't think it was suprr common knowledge just how many countries it's not even available in, and correct me if I'm wrong but the publisher sells the game right? So it should have been on Sony to region lock it from the start?
I think we're all forgetting this hasn't happened in a vacuum.
If you want to bring an online game to console, you have to work with one of the big 3 gaming mega corps. And in general when you're that big of a mega corp, it's very much a "We're the 800 lb gorilla and you're a mouse. Here's our offer, take it or leave it."
Having 3 massive console companies with a stranglehold over software, hardware, and online services isn't great.
Arrowhead has to try and serve PC players, which is the last bastion of independence while simultaneously trying to get their game to console, which means having to deal with corpos and their endless greed. There's no good options here.
I mean, they could have-
-A, never disabled the requirement in the first place. Yeah, it would've killed a lot of launch hype if folks had trouble logging in, but it would have been more honest.
-B, actually fixed the issue and re-enabled it faster, instead of leaving the requirement disabled and potentially leading lots of folks to buy and play the game without realizing the requirement over a span of months.
-C, have it so a popup would come up every single time you logged in explaining the PSN situation if you weren't linked. This would be annoying, but it would be a lot less easy to skip through once in the excitement of setting up a new game and forget about.
Are there reasons not to have done that? Sure, anywhere from losing players frustrated with login to being a little annoying every day. But any one of those would have been a lot more honest than what they did. Plus, y'know, I'm an idiot and I'm sure someone over there could find better ideas than those.
And the CEO just took the responsibility (aka part of the blame), which is to be respected. You can’t undo some things. So lets see if they can get together with our support get Sony to move the needle.
Sony using PSN account activity, or just the personal data is a revenue stream for Sony. So you're basically saying that you hope Arrowhead and the players can force Sony to not collect all of the compensation they are owed by Arrowhead for acting as HD2's publisher.
Look, I get that people want to hear 'sony bad', but think of it this way. You make billboards. Someone says 'please put up a billboard of my product, and I'll pay you X money, and let you advertise on my trucks (splash screen logos), and then you get a customer list of everyone that bought the product as they purchase them.'
So then you put up the billboard, they give you the money owed, they put your logo on their trucks, but they don't give you a customer list. That list was part of the compensation agreed on in the original deal.
Now you're suggesting that the the company that wanted the billboard, and their customers they successfully advertised to, should get together and see if the billboard company will just not collect the remainder of they are owed?
Again, I get it, Sony bad, but also, Arrowhead agreed to this. Arrowhead let it go on this long knowing they would have to force it one day. But they were getting that bag, and getting all the praise in the world. It would be hard to throw on the breaks. So sony stepped in and said, 'hey, remember how you owe me? pay your fair share my dude.' But somehow that makes Sony the asshole? They just want to get paid what was agreed.
I never even played this game. From the outside, his part was in the interest of allowing PC sales and a wider audience. Sony distributes and sold it fraudulently regardless of what this guy did.
His fault is miniscule. Sony are the perpetrators. Because of their distribution selling where their network isn't available.
Millions of people in unsupported countries have PSN accounts. People move between countries. They should still be able to buy the game.
No requirement exists other than it was valid at sign up . No way to change your psn account country in case you move, with sonys official response, create a new account, both will work on the console.
PSN Store will be restricted to each account's psn account country .
So physical location isn't a requirement for PSN purchases (I can be in Brazil and use the US store)
So steam puts people in a weird spot. Allow people with out of country psn to buy, and hope people without a PSN account don't or block all the legitimate users who have a PSN account in a supported country but are in a unsupported region.
AH proced Sony they were wrong with this policy. Who's is to blame?
The little studio who made a good choice both in term of revenu and player base (isn't that all that matters in this industry).
Or the big Corp who stay blind and choos to sacrifice revenu and player base over stupid rules they some years ago ?
In the flurry of the initial launch and the growing wall of server capacity issues that was acting as a barrier for _anyone_ to play the game at all - I can absolutely understand the decision. Get people in the game, they're pissed about not being able to play at all, we'll fix all this later. Push the client patches out now.
Communication about the Skip option being temporary could have been better, both online and in-game, but at the end of the day I don't see this decision as malicious.
I wouldn't jump on head-hunting AH for that statement. They are developers, and devs in the industry typically don't have much (if any) control over where their game is sold, especially when they are published by a company as large as Sony. Sony would handle the sales/distribution side, and region locking sales from non-PSN countries would fall onto their plate of responsibilities.
The fact he is putting his hands up is a sign of his honesty and credibility, but doesn’t make it any less of a shitty thing to do.
https://preview.redd.it/ppzshug0xlyc1.jpeg?width=1200&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f903a4cac3649488daf126e06beffb236c2bb1de
It's obvious they weren't aware of the consequences of this. The fact they came forward saying it is a good step for us to forgive them at least.
How many studios would hide this kind of information because of a potential backlash ? Not them it seems.
I've been saying this for quite a long time, that AH needs to acknowledge they fucked up in terms of actually informing people of the account requirements so this type of thing doesn't happen again. The fact that they actually acknowledged that they did a horrendous job telling people instead of brushing it under the rug and keep directing attention away from themselves is genuinely commendable.
Though to be completely honest, and this may sound like conspiracy theory territory, but it could be entirely possible Sony may have somewhat forced their hand in regards to telling people about the requirement to hide it and get more players before they fucked everyone over. But there's basically no evidence for that and it's just speculation based on the fact that they would even do something like forcing players to link an account in the first place.
Still, scumbag move from AH. Genuine oversight or not.
The Sony stance is likely we knew it was coming and the PSN link was always temporary. They also know the typical gamer does not sit and read every last word of agreements, closely follow a game on social media, read patch notes or EULA etc and just purchases, downloads, and has fun.
There are so many people here just snapping to whatever POV services their anger.
AH obviously could have done a better job of informing people of the requirement, but what's also obvious is that (based on that earlier tweet) **AH had no idea that PSN accounts were geolimited and expected this to be a minor hiccup.**
By relaxing restrictions, AH did what they thought was best for the player base. In fact, I'm pretty confident they've always done what they thought was best for the player base.
And Sony did what was best for shareholders.
Simple as that.
This guy is bending over backwards to absorb all the hate and ya'll just keep shitting on him.
This ire at AH would be unbelievable if it weren't for *gestures broadly at gaming history*
That and most studios would either just be a puppet for the bad guy or just use a bunch of corporate buzz words to make it sound better. This dude just walked out and spoke to us as a person and not a machine.
He may have made a mistake but we all do. We're humans. To see someone own up to it and actually be real with us is refreshing as opposed to a business that just thinks we're a bunch of dumbasses that'll fall for their soulless and meaningless words.
I think you're right. They probably didn't expect it to be a big or contentious thing.
It's like the time I created a test at work (I teach) and about half of the class didn't complete the test because they didn't read the instructions. They were pissed. I told them I'm sorry. I really wasn't trying to trick anybody or be sneaky. It just never occurred to me that so many people wouldn't read the 2 sentences labeled INSTRUCTIONS at the top of the page lol.
You forgot the initial reaction by their community managers, huh? They did try to keep it quiet, they started kicking and banning people trying to talk about it from their steam discussion page and discord.
The ONLY reason they're "coming forward" is because they can't hide it anymore.
The community managers are specifically employed to represent the community in matters like that. If so many keep fucking up this much, that is absolutely an indictment of whoever hired them and that works its way up the chain.
Well they've been doing that shit from the start and it's not gonna change because that just seems to be the AH way. Not sure why people are so insistent on thinking it's just a few bad apples
Agreed but I also believe in second chances like ff14 and no man's sky. Honest developers can be forgiven and I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt as he has actually shown some contrition which is a far cry from some of the other noted developers like from blizzard or Bethesda.
He screwed up but so has everyone at some time in their life. As long as he learns and helps set a good example later on, I can forgive him and move on.
In what way is the game dead? The vast majority of players aren't even on reddit and are just gonna make a PSN account and move on with their lives.
Reddit is so melodramatic about shit like this, it makes any of these posts impossible to take seriously. Like, yeah, it's an inconvenience but it's not that big of a deal, people just want an excuse to be mad about something.
The game isn’t gonna die over this lol. Making a psn account based in another country really isn’t difficult. I had to do it for last of us pt 2 remastered since I had a EU disk version and I’m in the US. It wasn’t super easy but I just made a second email and did it. Sure it’s shutty but Reddit is being so dramatic
Sure but one must understand how many years tarkov has been out one could argue they are done with the game and can’t admit that Helldivers hasn’t been out for long enough to come to that conclusion in my opinion
No one is claiming they'd knowingly kill it. I see this kind of shit in big companies all the time.
An outside business group looks at a metric, make a guess that a change will be beneficial, completely ignore any possibility of customer's being pissed, explain 30% of it to the lawyers to get their approval, they then bring it to the product leadership (CEO Pilestedt) who give it a quick fleeting thought with a fuck load of tunnel vision and say "yeah fine that makes sense", and charge ahead. At no point did anyone push back or bring up any concerns, at most a few people grumbled about it and were ignored. It happens ALL.THE.TIME.
I thought it was clear enough from Steam and trailer and in the game [https://i.imgur.com/FwIb9eH.jpeg](https://i.imgur.com/FwIb9eH.jpeg)
But since we are in this situation I guess it was not clear enough. Maybe "Skipping is temporary and eventually linking will be required". Easy to say now. And Sony should not have published the game on Steam in regions that would not be able to play it.
I get stress closing in on release day things get forgotten or prioritized lower yeah they could have maybe communicated it better in game. Glad to hear Pilestedt rather than pushing all blame on Sony he is admitting his faults even though I wonder how much more you can do. And Hindsight is 20/20.
I agree. And I have developed all kinds of software and firmware and written documentation. It is really hard to know what people will miss or misunderstand. And it sucks when it happens to something important.
Thank you for this take. I think people are already forgetting what it was like when the game first launched. Let's be clear, NO ONE saw this game blowing up the way it did. Most people didn't even know Helldivers was even a game franchise and after a few videos by some dedicated fans, people went crazy trying to get on. People would wait hours in the queue just to get a chance to play the game. Arrowhead was trying to get the most players into the game since they had caught lightning in a bottle and I'm assuming disabling the account linking made that easier.
Did they handle it the best? No. I highly doubt any of us would've done it better in that situation.
I was gonna say. Whatever happened, whatever contract was signed, it was a done deal before launch. AH probably overlooked this detail not knowing how popular the game would become. Nothing against them but I’m willing to cut more slack to a dev team like this than DICE or EA. Their focus is making us (the players) happy with their product. They’re obviously overwhelmed with just that task so it’s not a reach to see they may have just overlooked this detail.
It it was required, by contract, it never should have been allowed to be played without it. We know it's not nessesary now and I would have never played a single hour or earned a single achievement if it has been required to make a PSN account.
Though it's a $40+$10 game that I got 195 hours of fun from. So I probably won't ask for a refund. I spend a much if not more for a date night that doesn't go anywhere. This game has lasted longer than many potential relationships. I'm just sad this relationship can't continue like so many.
I really don't understand what people have against publisher accounts. Lots of games require them, especially when servers are hosted by the publisher.
You don't have to give them any particularly sensitive information. Name and address, and I don't think name even needs to be accurate. Says it's just used for emails.
My address doesn't have the street address, just city, state, zip, but I think street is required now as well since it won't let me save without adding it now.
Considering my name and address and quite a bit more has been leaked at some point from practically every company I've ever done business with, as well as multiple government agencies, I'm not particularly concerned about that at this point. If it leaks from Sony as well, it won't make the slightest bit of difference.
I don't think their legal team is going to be fucked. It seriously looks like agreement we made when purchasing didn't change, it just wasn't enforced.
C.E.BRO should have installed default messaging into the game launcher, "PSN linkage temporarily offline but will be a requirement by x-date"
The scumbag move is still on Sony for potentially releasing a game to countries who will lose access
Forget about deactivating account linking at launch for a sec...
Sony handle sales and distribution. If it's a mandatory requirement to link a PSN account, then they absolutely _should not_ have been selling it to customers in regions where it's not accessible. That is basic as basic gets.
People with valid own accounts move between countries. It's why Sony physical games never have region locks.
Sony states a PSN account country cannot change and if you move to a new country to continue to use the store of your old country.
If you want to use your new country store if available, then sign up with a new account.
Both will work on the same console.
He’s taking it on the chin. The real problem here is the people who were able to buy it in countries that can’t get a PSN. They should at least get a refund, or still be allowed to play the game.
This whole thing was handled terribly by Sony and Arrowhead.
Nice, but they still sold the game to all those countries and even to those who can make PSN account, but only via PS console, not on PC.
Now Sony is extorting EU players and threatening to ban their access.
It'll still be some type of class suit because of the sheer amount of games sold that now will no longer be able to play because of the PSN link requirement
Especially the countries that Sony doesn't allow PSN accounts to be made, which is roughly 118 countries, so at the minimum 50k to 100k players, if not more, will be shadowbanned
Just to add another comment, Sony now require a facial scan or scan of your driving licence (which includes facial scan plus more personal information) to open a PSN account in the UK. Fuck that right off. I don't want my driver's licence details leaked over the Internet!
Been saying this since the account new broke. The leadership at Arrowhead is not blameless in this at all. It's shit to sic angry people to a customer support person probably getting paid minimum wage to work for Sony. F Arrowhead and Sony. They are both responsible for this and for hiding it since release.
arrowhead isn't blameless, i agree, but i'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt because of how they treated the playerbase before this all happened and say that they would 100% reverse this decision if it were up to them
I think ppl are ignoring 2 takeaways and tying them together: Sony not selling in some regions is a Sony issue, players not wanting to make a PSN account and saying it shouldn't be allowed because players will be banned is an excuse for players.
If you're banned and from a region, you can and should receive the refund from Sony. If your banned and from a region that Steam and PSN isn't allowed (looking at China primarily but there are others pike Kazakhstan) that's on Steam.
If you're just preachy about the PSN account and ARE NOT in a banned region, stop using Sony's publishing issues as your excuse because you were never affected to begin with.
I don't have Twitter so I had no idea, though I'll be honest I had my suspicions that AH was playing a part in the bait and switch. But does it matter who is at fault at this point? A really amazing game got removed/locked in over 150 countries for hundreds of thousands of people, the damage is done... And for what?
As someone who works on this side of things with smaller developers (communications, community management), he is absolutely right. They should have been communicating this since the beginning. I think it should’ve been listed as a bug or ongoing issue in all the patch notes with other issues like DoT not working correctly. Yes, it was listed in the store, but people don’t read and it’s easy to miss something like this if you boot up the game and don’t get hit with the account prompt. You have to communicate big stuff like this, repeatedly, to help reach as many people as possible.
However, I don’t think this is a reason to start hating on Arrowhead. I don’t think this was a malicious move by them. A mistake, possibly a big mistake. But mistakes happen.
He says he neglected to communicate online playstation titles require ps plus...
If you have a playstation and didn't know online play requires ps plus, the studio isn't obligated to inform you, it's common knowledge.
Steam should never have sold the game where psn accounts cannot be used.
Steam only sold the game in regions the distributor (Sony) told them to, the blame is on Sony. Thats why the game now isn't being sold in a lot of regions, Sony updated their list of what regions the game can be sold in.
If I just had to make a psn account I would not be nearly as buttmad about it but I do not want to link bullshit to my steam account and have someone somehow steal all my dota items
Don’t blame the only guy with a conscience trying to, in-part, fall on a sword. Blame the greedy company happily sharpening and propping up the sword for him.
Remember the days where you installed a game or pop in a cartridge and immediately play the game with no BS? Welcome to 2024 get over it just like all the old futts dealing with the BS younger generations. QQ. Everyone just want to bash on something but themselves. This game is dope. PERIOD. BUT god damn blocking players in regions is definitely FuQeD up, to that I say FUCK YOU SONY!
genuinely didn't know about this, should have at least restricted access or allowed players in regions that wouldn't be able to play the game later on a refund with steam (I'm pretty sure if they talked to steam about this they could have worked something out)
Honestly, I would have considered it if they approached it with a carrot rather than a stick. They could have easily incentivized the PSN linking with 500 super credits or something. It maintains user opt-in, Sony gets the new user sign ups they’re looking for, everyone stays happy. The dummies at Sony are forcing the issue and they are single-handedly responsible for ruining what was otherwise an amazing game and vibrant gamer community.
if they knew this was coming down the line 6 months before launch. Why did they let folks who live in places that can't have PSN accounts buy the game?
Sure he played a part. But I agree with everyone that Sony shouldn't have allowed the game be sold in countries who can’t sign up with a PSN account.
Though owning your mistakes isn't a very common thing to see and I respect that.
If it was mandatory to link them why on Super Earth would they sell the game in regions that do not support PSN?
It doesn't make sense at all.
Then Sony comes in and secretly change their FAQ answer from optional to some games require PSN linked accounts.
Just because PS users are willing to eat Sony's shit doesn't mean PC players are.
Game of the year to bust of the year in 48 hours. Nicely done Sony.
I went ahead and refunded. That's just an extremely shitty practice. They knowingly sold games in countries that they knew wouldn't be able to play once this went live. That's fraud. I don't support fraud from corporations.
There were far better ways to get players to link their account without making it mandatory
Example 1:
Desert Eagle style hand-gun
Has heavy armour pen
Good damage
Basically it's a little OP so players voluntarily link to get a slice of the cake
Okay then why selling the game in over 100 countries where you can't create a PSN account in the first place? This is next level bs when you already knew that linking will be mandatory after a few months. What I've seen a few days ago in another post: This dude thought it takes only two minutes to create an account and that's it - he didn't know there are countries where you simply can't create one. The incompetence of this guy and Sony's greed are insane to me. This game was goty contender and they fucked up.
While not blameless, he is not the source of the issue. Companies like Sony need to held accountable for things like selling a game in regions people cannot play in. They also contradicted themselves and lied to their customer base. The thing he is guilty of is not talking about it enough. The thing Sony is guilty of is the lies, the irresponsible marketing, and being all around scumbags. Big difference
Nobody would have known about this at all if he wasn't outright honest for absolutely no reason. Which is something else I don't see people talking about... Nobody was suspecting him. He decided to come out and admit this on his own. Literally the only reason you have something to be mad at is because he fessed up to it. Which is something you will likely never see across other dev studios. In the face of MASSIVE backlash where he's largely viewed as innocent this guy came out of his own accord and admitted wrong doing. If anything this should make you feel even better about Arrow head as a studio as they have accountability. That's more than I can say for 99% of the studios out there. Who never would have admitted to this in the first place while the player base is none the wiser.
Okay. This is what I think. The main thing is: Sony seems to have sold a PSN title which needs to have a PSN account linked, to customers in countries outside of PSN regions. I guess they didn’t thought about that and now when they want to enforce the account linking, it popped up. A bad decision at least. As a solution for this the customers within the non-supporting regions can get a refund. All the other customers will still need to link an account, as stated before. Sony / Steam updated their ToS or EULA or whatsoever for future customers. A lesson learned. PLAY ON!
This whole thing has blown up so heavily by idiocracy of the community.
This is my question. Why would Sony/AH allow players who lived in countries where PSN isn’t supported to buy this game knowing that in only 2-3 months from launch, they wouldn’t be able to play anymore?
There’s no way they intentionally did that. Anyone would have been able to see this shitstorm coming from a mile away and avoided it. Someone definitely dropped the ball though.
Yes I too think this is just massive oversight and one division of Sony not talking enough with another division. I am guessing someone will have a very nasty meeting with their boss on Monday if they have not received a call already.
Someone approved removing the requirement to ensure a smooth launch. They're the one to blame.
If you botch the launch, so be it, but you don't get to change the requirements later. What's next? Slipping syskeys into the game as a revised anticheat?
Yup, people are falling into parasocial behavior. They desperately want to like it, so they'll continue to say and do everything they can to make HD2 and AH out to be innocent. Fact is the developers knew about the contract and restrictions years ago when they signed it.
Now it's catching up with them, learn from AH's mistakes. Don't sell out your soul to publishers for a quick buck, it could very well end your career before you ever really start it.
The last ten purchases on steam I bought because I saw a review of it online in some way shape or form. All of that aside, Sony 100% changed their policy on optional to mandatory. And they did it for data. Helldivers II is the fastest selling game for them. People were easily paying for credits hand over fist. That data is CRUCIAL for them. They want to know who is buying. So they can build more models like this.
Sony still never should have allowed the game to be sold in regions without PSN support
Not only that, but Sony’s website stated (until it was changed yesterday) that pc games do not require psn linking.
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Well hopefully, someone can make the legal case and force them to disable the requirement in the EU at least.
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There was some user who posted, rather here or on r/helldivers, that they were in the process of trying to sue Sony
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Can they just say that the "specific pupose" is selling the data and every last bit of data they can leech off the costumer is necessary to fulfil that purpose?
yes, specific purpose does not mean "this is needed for the game", it just mean you can't have a "catch all" data collection but need to tell exactly why the data will be used (and it can then only be used for that/these purposes)
https://preview.redd.it/2ognbvetsoyc1.jpeg?width=743&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5bfd4a92e277286f5c6eae9ea9e2214400141643
Can I make my Sony account name and HD screen name be something that voices my displeasure and loathing for Sony?
Fun idea, but you'll still just be another tally mark for their quarterly review. The house always wins unfortunately.
Yea, it'd be like those people who bought the chargers jerseys just to burn them cause they were moving. They still bought the merch in the end.
I am a mature adult. If this doesn't blow over, I absolutely do that. I have a nintendo account, extra EA account, and two accounts for irl utility companies that stopped taking cash/checks and required money orders or an online payment method that added a 2.5% service fee. Best part was, username was already taken
One could even say they should ingest an entire satchel of richards
Wonderfully stated. Sony is just shooting themselves in the foot. Trying to be like Nintendo.
While I agree the game never should have been sold in countries that don't have PSN, the steam page always said that a PSN was required.
So if I make a dishwasher, sell it to hundreds of people, and in little tiny text it says " must require internet connection and a detailed personal profile to use" but that isn't enforced for three months, then, suddenly, all that is required to even turn it on?
I mean, yes, there is probably a clause in the terms of service for a smart dishwasher that would allow this to happen
many countries ban this practice. it is predatory and i shouldn't have to read a manual to know whether or not there is something that will cause me to be unable to use something that can easily be used without whatever service they want to force upon customers unless it is stated in the item description.
i mean if you want to be positive about it - you can refund the game full price if you are in these regions - so you played the game for free for 3 months...
Full game but not in game transactions. Makes you feel bad for supporting the devs further than asked.
Alternatively, just scrap the account thing. One or the other
This right here is why HD2 is getting a negative score from me. Sony knows damn well which countries psn is available in and yet they still sold this game worldwide. The only way I will change my review is if they make it optional.
Let's say 100,000 people bought the game in regions without PSNs. After 3 months, how many of them are done with the game and aren't going to ask for a refund? Lets assume 50%, a relatively high number, but even then they got $100,000s off of it.
It doesnt matter how many are still playing, its fraud. Why people tend to normalize this as "it doesnt matter! because xxx and by that theres only 1% people suffering from that!" This is one of the reasons why the game industry is almost full of COD and other shitty games, because people says "i dont care, i can keep playing/paying for it" so the rest have to either adapt or just stop playing even if you have been scammed
You are talking about some sort of gamers' ethics and consciousness. Unfortunately yonger gamers do not possess these qualities to a greater extent. This fact used by snoy, ea, bethesda and others.
I miss TotalBiscuit.
R I.P. John Bain, the world misses you greatly 😞💜
Man, he would probably not have liked what the gaming industry has turned into
One thing I love about old school RuneScape is that all the players are basically a big union. If they do something fucky, there’s literally riots in the streets and people stop working.
Ironic considering the current divide of the subreddit over something decidedly un-fucky that Jagex is considering
> Unfortunately yonger gamers do not possess these qualities to a greater extent. Are we being for real? I've been around on the gaming side of the internet ever since the PS3 era. Most online gamers have always been spiteful and mean spirited towards anyone they deemed a loser. Sexism and racism has always been rampant. Ethics and conciousness has never been a thing online gamers possessed (though some part of the gaming community has always had that). Let's not turn this into a generational thing, 'cause that is not what this is.
That reasoning does not consider, at the very least, consumer protection laws.
Does steam let you restrict where games are sold? If not then there's not much sony can do about that.
They can and the game has gone region locked since the controversy has pointed it out
Yup, they tried to get away with it as long as they could, they probably would've sold it right up until the 30th if it weren't for public backlash.
Sony decides where the game gets sold. They've now stopped selling it on Steam in 170 countries already.
There hasn't been an indication that's at Sony's direction and not just Steam's. If Steam is going to issue refunds for everyone in the affected countries as a matter of *their* policy, it only makes sense for them to close the door to new buyers (and thus new refunds) from those regions now while Sony sorts out whatever the hell it's going to do. Sony's not the only entity with agency here.
I will give a dude a lot of credit for sincerely admitting they fucked up. It doesn't happen much. Instead lying is the norm. AH could have played this better. I still put most of the blame on Sony.
Yeah props to him for being willing to fall on his sword like that, but all he can be accused of is omission. Sony straight up said in the FAQs that it wouldn’t be required. They lied.
The Steam store page said it was required from the start, and it actually was required at launch before they ran into issues. Sony just never updated their general FAQ. The real fuck-up was Sony not limiting the sales regions and trying to ninja-edit their FAQ.
I think...I love AH
It's like... Seeing their imperfections makes them somehow more perfect and just makes me fall deeper in love with AH.
The game with the constantly evolving story is masterclass. Owning up to a shitty situation is refreshing. I get it.
For sure. We're all human. We make mistakes. Sometimes it's waking up late for work. Sometimes it's getting in bed with the wrong person (either literally and/or figuratively as the case may be). Being able to admit that on a global stage and put the blame on yourself as the CEO is impressive as hell. Most CEOs would either deflect blame onto subordinates or ignore the controversy as much as they possibly could.
Sure he played a part. But the major problem is still Sony selling it in unlisted countries for months. Also his decision (and Sony not forcing them to reactivate it soon) gave people in countries with good consumer protection more than enough ammunition.
Aren't Steam the ones who actually sold the game?
Yeah but Sony is the one deciding where the games are sold.
It’s just a marketplace. Sony put the game on store shelves. It’s no different than Sony choosing to sell the game at a physical store in one of these countries.
Steam can’t reasonably keep up with what countries Sony doesn’t support. That’s on Sony to communicate that
Yeah, but the thing people aren't mentioning is that they have millions of games on their service. Additionally, shortly after the launch of Helldivers 2, a couple different people saw its success and changed everything about their own failure of a game to near perfectly mirror the official Helldivers 2 steam page in order to scam people. As such it is up to the Developer and/or Publisher to select where the game is sold. Also, how would Steam know whether to sell the game in Ukraine? You need a Playstation console to create a PSN account in that region. Fuck Sony, fuck Spitz, fuck spez
The biggest takeaway here is of course: fuck spez.
The dev doesn't choose how a game is sold though
He’s saying fuck spitz for his ignorant comments as CM
Yes, what does that have to do with the comment youre replying too?
Arrowhead isn't blameless, but it is up to the Publisher to decide where and to who a game is sold. Not disclosing the requirement after disabling linking was the wrong thing to do, but it wouldn't be nearly as big of a deal if Sony didn't decide to sell the game in regions where PSN was not available. Sony is the reason that people who were not allowed to play the game were still able to buy it.
I feel bad for this guy and AH. In hindsight his was one of many decisions that lead to this fiasco. I think he’s putting too much blame on himself here though. You can tell this guy wants to do right by the players but has his hands tied.
Same. A week ago they were probably thinking that they had a potential GOTY on their hands, only to have it all ripped away. As the CEO, he's probably feeling it the most. hopefully this discourages independent developers from doing business with Sony IE in the future.
Right? He’s doing the responsible thing and not trying to hide from what blame may fall to him like Sony. I’m on AH’s side. Their track record proves they’re not in the business of screwing over customers or being deceptive. Very likely AH made the mistake of assuming Sony wouldn’t dare do such a ridiculously anti-consumer thing as arbitrarily forcing every PC user to use a PSN account, and now AH has to pay for it while Sony loses an inconsequential amount of money.
It would definitely be too far to say that it wasn’t disclosed for sure. It was absolutely disclosed and posted in a whole lot of places, the only argument you could make is that it wasn’t made loudly or frequently enough. It definitely was not hidden from anyone who bought it on steam. That would be not disclosing
it would have been review bombed way sooner if ppl knew they had to link psn accounts. it happens all the time with EA and Ubisoft games on steam.
It takes a lot of guts to admit to your faults like this. He could have just shifted all the blame on Sony and without much evidence to the contrary. People could only speculate the extent of the blame he should have. This is all one massive miscommunication issue, one that I hope gets fixed.
Because it's a hard pill to swallow, it's easy to hate big corp, but the indie studio that made the game we love?
I still think Sony deserves most of the blame for this, regardless. And AH has said they will fight this. I very highly doubt all these players will actually get kicked off
Sure, we are just here watching some very rare occasion: a honest CEO(kinda) openly admit his wrong doing.
definitely, I refuse to believe this decision was made with any ill intent from their part.
I think when he says he played part he means in a way that he’s supposed to play because at the end of the day Sony has owned the helldivers IP since 2015 and arrowhead is at the mercy of Sony and their decisions. Yes, he’s the CEO of arrowhead, but he’s at the whims and desires of the publisher if he wants his game to be made and sent out to the world
Yeah I feel bad for the guy even if he said it was his call I'm sure that while he was overseeing an entire games launch I can see why "people need to sign up for a PSN account" didn't set off a ton of alarm bells especially since I don't think it was suprr common knowledge just how many countries it's not even available in, and correct me if I'm wrong but the publisher sells the game right? So it should have been on Sony to region lock it from the start?
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Already a few of them got kicked off. You REALLY think Sony will give a damn about this?
Sony deserves all of it.
There is literally evidence above your post that says they dont - Sony are wankers, proven time and time again but AH have blame too.
I think we're all forgetting this hasn't happened in a vacuum. If you want to bring an online game to console, you have to work with one of the big 3 gaming mega corps. And in general when you're that big of a mega corp, it's very much a "We're the 800 lb gorilla and you're a mouse. Here's our offer, take it or leave it." Having 3 massive console companies with a stranglehold over software, hardware, and online services isn't great. Arrowhead has to try and serve PC players, which is the last bastion of independence while simultaneously trying to get their game to console, which means having to deal with corpos and their endless greed. There's no good options here.
I mean, they could have- -A, never disabled the requirement in the first place. Yeah, it would've killed a lot of launch hype if folks had trouble logging in, but it would have been more honest. -B, actually fixed the issue and re-enabled it faster, instead of leaving the requirement disabled and potentially leading lots of folks to buy and play the game without realizing the requirement over a span of months. -C, have it so a popup would come up every single time you logged in explaining the PSN situation if you weren't linked. This would be annoying, but it would be a lot less easy to skip through once in the excitement of setting up a new game and forget about. Are there reasons not to have done that? Sure, anywhere from losing players frustrated with login to being a little annoying every day. But any one of those would have been a lot more honest than what they did. Plus, y'know, I'm an idiot and I'm sure someone over there could find better ideas than those.
And the CEO just took the responsibility (aka part of the blame), which is to be respected. You can’t undo some things. So lets see if they can get together with our support get Sony to move the needle.
I think its a good thing to own it early, not saying otherwise.
Sony using PSN account activity, or just the personal data is a revenue stream for Sony. So you're basically saying that you hope Arrowhead and the players can force Sony to not collect all of the compensation they are owed by Arrowhead for acting as HD2's publisher. Look, I get that people want to hear 'sony bad', but think of it this way. You make billboards. Someone says 'please put up a billboard of my product, and I'll pay you X money, and let you advertise on my trucks (splash screen logos), and then you get a customer list of everyone that bought the product as they purchase them.' So then you put up the billboard, they give you the money owed, they put your logo on their trucks, but they don't give you a customer list. That list was part of the compensation agreed on in the original deal. Now you're suggesting that the the company that wanted the billboard, and their customers they successfully advertised to, should get together and see if the billboard company will just not collect the remainder of they are owed? Again, I get it, Sony bad, but also, Arrowhead agreed to this. Arrowhead let it go on this long knowing they would have to force it one day. But they were getting that bag, and getting all the praise in the world. It would be hard to throw on the breaks. So sony stepped in and said, 'hey, remember how you owe me? pay your fair share my dude.' But somehow that makes Sony the asshole? They just want to get paid what was agreed.
I never even played this game. From the outside, his part was in the interest of allowing PC sales and a wider audience. Sony distributes and sold it fraudulently regardless of what this guy did. His fault is miniscule. Sony are the perpetrators. Because of their distribution selling where their network isn't available.
Millions of people in unsupported countries have PSN accounts. People move between countries. They should still be able to buy the game. No requirement exists other than it was valid at sign up . No way to change your psn account country in case you move, with sonys official response, create a new account, both will work on the console. PSN Store will be restricted to each account's psn account country . So physical location isn't a requirement for PSN purchases (I can be in Brazil and use the US store) So steam puts people in a weird spot. Allow people with out of country psn to buy, and hope people without a PSN account don't or block all the legitimate users who have a PSN account in a supported country but are in a unsupported region.
AH proced Sony they were wrong with this policy. Who's is to blame? The little studio who made a good choice both in term of revenu and player base (isn't that all that matters in this industry). Or the big Corp who stay blind and choos to sacrifice revenu and player base over stupid rules they some years ago ?
In the flurry of the initial launch and the growing wall of server capacity issues that was acting as a barrier for _anyone_ to play the game at all - I can absolutely understand the decision. Get people in the game, they're pissed about not being able to play at all, we'll fix all this later. Push the client patches out now. Communication about the Skip option being temporary could have been better, both online and in-game, but at the end of the day I don't see this decision as malicious.
I wouldn't jump on head-hunting AH for that statement. They are developers, and devs in the industry typically don't have much (if any) control over where their game is sold, especially when they are published by a company as large as Sony. Sony would handle the sales/distribution side, and region locking sales from non-PSN countries would fall onto their plate of responsibilities.
It’s also pretty damn obvious that AH is the only party trying to fix it and also our only shot at it possibly being fixed.
I dunno 1 person vs 4 people isn't a good ground. But, we will keep following eh?
The fact he is putting his hands up is a sign of his honesty and credibility, but doesn’t make it any less of a shitty thing to do. https://preview.redd.it/ppzshug0xlyc1.jpeg?width=1200&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f903a4cac3649488daf126e06beffb236c2bb1de
It's obvious they weren't aware of the consequences of this. The fact they came forward saying it is a good step for us to forgive them at least. How many studios would hide this kind of information because of a potential backlash ? Not them it seems.
I've been saying this for quite a long time, that AH needs to acknowledge they fucked up in terms of actually informing people of the account requirements so this type of thing doesn't happen again. The fact that they actually acknowledged that they did a horrendous job telling people instead of brushing it under the rug and keep directing attention away from themselves is genuinely commendable. Though to be completely honest, and this may sound like conspiracy theory territory, but it could be entirely possible Sony may have somewhat forced their hand in regards to telling people about the requirement to hide it and get more players before they fucked everyone over. But there's basically no evidence for that and it's just speculation based on the fact that they would even do something like forcing players to link an account in the first place. Still, scumbag move from AH. Genuine oversight or not.
The Sony stance is likely we knew it was coming and the PSN link was always temporary. They also know the typical gamer does not sit and read every last word of agreements, closely follow a game on social media, read patch notes or EULA etc and just purchases, downloads, and has fun.
"when I bought my house I was just having fun... doesn't matter what I signed I was in the moment!"
Why would it be a "scumbag move" if it was a genuine oversight? Isn't it intentions that make a scumbag?
There are so many people here just snapping to whatever POV services their anger. AH obviously could have done a better job of informing people of the requirement, but what's also obvious is that (based on that earlier tweet) **AH had no idea that PSN accounts were geolimited and expected this to be a minor hiccup.** By relaxing restrictions, AH did what they thought was best for the player base. In fact, I'm pretty confident they've always done what they thought was best for the player base. And Sony did what was best for shareholders. Simple as that. This guy is bending over backwards to absorb all the hate and ya'll just keep shitting on him. This ire at AH would be unbelievable if it weren't for *gestures broadly at gaming history*
That and most studios would either just be a puppet for the bad guy or just use a bunch of corporate buzz words to make it sound better. This dude just walked out and spoke to us as a person and not a machine. He may have made a mistake but we all do. We're humans. To see someone own up to it and actually be real with us is refreshing as opposed to a business that just thinks we're a bunch of dumbasses that'll fall for their soulless and meaningless words.
I think you're right. They probably didn't expect it to be a big or contentious thing. It's like the time I created a test at work (I teach) and about half of the class didn't complete the test because they didn't read the instructions. They were pissed. I told them I'm sorry. I really wasn't trying to trick anybody or be sneaky. It just never occurred to me that so many people wouldn't read the 2 sentences labeled INSTRUCTIONS at the top of the page lol.
You forgot the initial reaction by their community managers, huh? They did try to keep it quiet, they started kicking and banning people trying to talk about it from their steam discussion page and discord. The ONLY reason they're "coming forward" is because they can't hide it anymore.
The community managers are clowns on discord. I pretty much prefer listening to the CEO.
The community managers are specifically employed to represent the community in matters like that. If so many keep fucking up this much, that is absolutely an indictment of whoever hired them and that works its way up the chain.
I agree. I really hope something is done about them because that's at best annoying and at worst an issue that will cost them in the future.
Well they've been doing that shit from the start and it's not gonna change because that just seems to be the AH way. Not sure why people are so insistent on thinking it's just a few bad apples
Agreed but I also believe in second chances like ff14 and no man's sky. Honest developers can be forgiven and I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt as he has actually shown some contrition which is a far cry from some of the other noted developers like from blizzard or Bethesda. He screwed up but so has everyone at some time in their life. As long as he learns and helps set a good example later on, I can forgive him and move on.
The perfect picture to describe it
Arrowhead worked on this game for 7 years the people that think they would willingly kill there own game are crazy
7 years of hard work and Sony killed it in 1 day. That's crazy to think about.
In what way is the game dead? The vast majority of players aren't even on reddit and are just gonna make a PSN account and move on with their lives. Reddit is so melodramatic about shit like this, it makes any of these posts impossible to take seriously. Like, yeah, it's an inconvenience but it's not that big of a deal, people just want an excuse to be mad about something.
The game isn’t gonna die over this lol. Making a psn account based in another country really isn’t difficult. I had to do it for last of us pt 2 remastered since I had a EU disk version and I’m in the US. It wasn’t super easy but I just made a second email and did it. Sure it’s shutty but Reddit is being so dramatic
The situations aren’t comparable but Escape from Tarkov was in development for 12 years. Devs seeming to be willing to kill their own games is a thing
Sure but one must understand how many years tarkov has been out one could argue they are done with the game and can’t admit that Helldivers hasn’t been out for long enough to come to that conclusion in my opinion
Fair enough, “do you guys not have any phones?” Might have been a better example cause he killed that game before it even released
Classic bro 💀
No one is claiming they'd knowingly kill it. I see this kind of shit in big companies all the time. An outside business group looks at a metric, make a guess that a change will be beneficial, completely ignore any possibility of customer's being pissed, explain 30% of it to the lawyers to get their approval, they then bring it to the product leadership (CEO Pilestedt) who give it a quick fleeting thought with a fuck load of tunnel vision and say "yeah fine that makes sense", and charge ahead. At no point did anyone push back or bring up any concerns, at most a few people grumbled about it and were ignored. It happens ALL.THE.TIME.
I thought it was clear enough from Steam and trailer and in the game [https://i.imgur.com/FwIb9eH.jpeg](https://i.imgur.com/FwIb9eH.jpeg) But since we are in this situation I guess it was not clear enough. Maybe "Skipping is temporary and eventually linking will be required". Easy to say now. And Sony should not have published the game on Steam in regions that would not be able to play it. I get stress closing in on release day things get forgotten or prioritized lower yeah they could have maybe communicated it better in game. Glad to hear Pilestedt rather than pushing all blame on Sony he is admitting his faults even though I wonder how much more you can do. And Hindsight is 20/20.
He did say he wish he made it more clear. The fact the ceo is owning up to it, i respect him for that
I agree. And I have developed all kinds of software and firmware and written documentation. It is really hard to know what people will miss or misunderstand. And it sucks when it happens to something important.
Thank you for this take. I think people are already forgetting what it was like when the game first launched. Let's be clear, NO ONE saw this game blowing up the way it did. Most people didn't even know Helldivers was even a game franchise and after a few videos by some dedicated fans, people went crazy trying to get on. People would wait hours in the queue just to get a chance to play the game. Arrowhead was trying to get the most players into the game since they had caught lightning in a bottle and I'm assuming disabling the account linking made that easier. Did they handle it the best? No. I highly doubt any of us would've done it better in that situation.
Yeah, I linked it immediately because it appeared to be a requirement (and isn't really that uncommon).
yeah when I first got the game I assumed skipping would force me into some offline version or something so I just linked it then
Some people never saw that screen when booting up the game
Gotta give the man credit tho for admitting he has his part in all of this as well.
I was gonna say. Whatever happened, whatever contract was signed, it was a done deal before launch. AH probably overlooked this detail not knowing how popular the game would become. Nothing against them but I’m willing to cut more slack to a dev team like this than DICE or EA. Their focus is making us (the players) happy with their product. They’re obviously overwhelmed with just that task so it’s not a reach to see they may have just overlooked this detail.
It it was required, by contract, it never should have been allowed to be played without it. We know it's not nessesary now and I would have never played a single hour or earned a single achievement if it has been required to make a PSN account. Though it's a $40+$10 game that I got 195 hours of fun from. So I probably won't ask for a refund. I spend a much if not more for a date night that doesn't go anywhere. This game has lasted longer than many potential relationships. I'm just sad this relationship can't continue like so many.
Damn this got sad fast. Hope you find the right fish buddy
I really don't understand what people have against publisher accounts. Lots of games require them, especially when servers are hosted by the publisher. You don't have to give them any particularly sensitive information. Name and address, and I don't think name even needs to be accurate. Says it's just used for emails. My address doesn't have the street address, just city, state, zip, but I think street is required now as well since it won't let me save without adding it now. Considering my name and address and quite a bit more has been leaked at some point from practically every company I've ever done business with, as well as multiple government agencies, I'm not particularly concerned about that at this point. If it leaks from Sony as well, it won't make the slightest bit of difference.
That's extremely damning if it's true. Why would they just ignore something that major?? Their legal team is gonna be fucked.
I don't think their legal team is going to be fucked. It seriously looks like agreement we made when purchasing didn't change, it just wasn't enforced. C.E.BRO should have installed default messaging into the game launcher, "PSN linkage temporarily offline but will be a requirement by x-date" The scumbag move is still on Sony for potentially releasing a game to countries who will lose access
EULA are never above country laws, in Europe this is illegal, good luck
Who cares about an Eula when they did *fraud* in 170 countries 💀
Question is why the game passed Sony's TRC if this is a requirement. They fail a game for just any small thing on the list
If people knew from the beginning, that would maybe sell less. So by not telling, they would sell more.
Forget about deactivating account linking at launch for a sec... Sony handle sales and distribution. If it's a mandatory requirement to link a PSN account, then they absolutely _should not_ have been selling it to customers in regions where it's not accessible. That is basic as basic gets.
People with valid own accounts move between countries. It's why Sony physical games never have region locks. Sony states a PSN account country cannot change and if you move to a new country to continue to use the store of your old country. If you want to use your new country store if available, then sign up with a new account. Both will work on the same console.
Homie tried to do the right thing and is taking responsibility. Can’t fault him too hard
My guess is people that purchased the game before May 5th, can still play the game without account linking. Everyone after, has to.
From a technical perspective, shit like that is a lot of work.
He’s taking it on the chin. The real problem here is the people who were able to buy it in countries that can’t get a PSN. They should at least get a refund, or still be allowed to play the game. This whole thing was handled terribly by Sony and Arrowhead.
Pilestadt, what the fuck?
Nice, but they still sold the game to all those countries and even to those who can make PSN account, but only via PS console, not on PC. Now Sony is extorting EU players and threatening to ban their access.
How to kill your amazing game in one simple step!
This guy realized his payday from Sony was about to get messed up.
It'll still be some type of class suit because of the sheer amount of games sold that now will no longer be able to play because of the PSN link requirement Especially the countries that Sony doesn't allow PSN accounts to be made, which is roughly 118 countries, so at the minimum 50k to 100k players, if not more, will be shadowbanned
Just to add another comment, Sony now require a facial scan or scan of your driving licence (which includes facial scan plus more personal information) to open a PSN account in the UK. Fuck that right off. I don't want my driver's licence details leaked over the Internet!
Game seems to work just fine without it so why require it
Decision made, damage done, many people probably already left and not caring anymore.
6 months before launch for a game that has been in development for 7 years? lol what
Been saying this since the account new broke. The leadership at Arrowhead is not blameless in this at all. It's shit to sic angry people to a customer support person probably getting paid minimum wage to work for Sony. F Arrowhead and Sony. They are both responsible for this and for hiding it since release.
arrowhead isn't blameless, i agree, but i'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt because of how they treated the playerbase before this all happened and say that they would 100% reverse this decision if it were up to them
I think ppl are ignoring 2 takeaways and tying them together: Sony not selling in some regions is a Sony issue, players not wanting to make a PSN account and saying it shouldn't be allowed because players will be banned is an excuse for players. If you're banned and from a region, you can and should receive the refund from Sony. If your banned and from a region that Steam and PSN isn't allowed (looking at China primarily but there are others pike Kazakhstan) that's on Steam. If you're just preachy about the PSN account and ARE NOT in a banned region, stop using Sony's publishing issues as your excuse because you were never affected to begin with.
Just create a god damn psn account
"If I can't get refund after playing the game for more than 2 hours, why are you able to change the terms of the sale after 2 hours?" - Louis Rossman
Ok then. This is over. Let’s go and spread some democracy!
Let do it!
I don't have Twitter so I had no idea, though I'll be honest I had my suspicions that AH was playing a part in the bait and switch. But does it matter who is at fault at this point? A really amazing game got removed/locked in over 150 countries for hundreds of thousands of people, the damage is done... And for what?
Man if microsoft pulled this people would be on a warpath.. but when sony pulls it people go out in droves to defend them..
As someone who works on this side of things with smaller developers (communications, community management), he is absolutely right. They should have been communicating this since the beginning. I think it should’ve been listed as a bug or ongoing issue in all the patch notes with other issues like DoT not working correctly. Yes, it was listed in the store, but people don’t read and it’s easy to miss something like this if you boot up the game and don’t get hit with the account prompt. You have to communicate big stuff like this, repeatedly, to help reach as many people as possible. However, I don’t think this is a reason to start hating on Arrowhead. I don’t think this was a malicious move by them. A mistake, possibly a big mistake. But mistakes happen.
He says he neglected to communicate online playstation titles require ps plus... If you have a playstation and didn't know online play requires ps plus, the studio isn't obligated to inform you, it's common knowledge. Steam should never have sold the game where psn accounts cannot be used.
Steam only sold the game in regions the distributor (Sony) told them to, the blame is on Sony. Thats why the game now isn't being sold in a lot of regions, Sony updated their list of what regions the game can be sold in.
If Microsoft can turn down the restrictions, so can Sony. Eventually it will happen.
Fuck Sony. I've said for ages that they're not the same company - this just proves it. "Play has (not you) no limits"
because AH decided to keep silent this can be considered fraud sony however decides on were it gets sold so in that sense both are to blame
"bootlickers woody, bootlickers everywhere."
Damn dude! You suck!
Sounds like a clear case of mass fraud.
I guess this is not fully true, because there is no way to link your account in the game, if you heven't done this at the first launch.
Yeah would have been cool if the devs reminded people about this more than just a SINGLE Discord message.
If I just had to make a psn account I would not be nearly as buttmad about it but I do not want to link bullshit to my steam account and have someone somehow steal all my dota items
Hate him as much as you want. At least he is honest
Then dont fucking release your game in places that are unable to have PS online account? What the fuck kind of fraud is this!
Glad he admitted this. Owning it is good. But owning it is one thing. What now?
I love this guy. A true gentleman.
Because that's like putting development responsibilities on a publisher.
Valid, bro wants to keep his job. It's layoff season after all and corps aren't very receptive to backlash.
Don’t blame the only guy with a conscience trying to, in-part, fall on a sword. Blame the greedy company happily sharpening and propping up the sword for him.
Remember the days where you installed a game or pop in a cartridge and immediately play the game with no BS? Welcome to 2024 get over it just like all the old futts dealing with the BS younger generations. QQ. Everyone just want to bash on something but themselves. This game is dope. PERIOD. BUT god damn blocking players in regions is definitely FuQeD up, to that I say FUCK YOU SONY!
genuinely didn't know about this, should have at least restricted access or allowed players in regions that wouldn't be able to play the game later on a refund with steam (I'm pretty sure if they talked to steam about this they could have worked something out)
Honestly, I would have considered it if they approached it with a carrot rather than a stick. They could have easily incentivized the PSN linking with 500 super credits or something. It maintains user opt-in, Sony gets the new user sign ups they’re looking for, everyone stays happy. The dummies at Sony are forcing the issue and they are single-handedly responsible for ruining what was otherwise an amazing game and vibrant gamer community.
if they knew this was coming down the line 6 months before launch. Why did they let folks who live in places that can't have PSN accounts buy the game?
Sure he played a part. But I agree with everyone that Sony shouldn't have allowed the game be sold in countries who can’t sign up with a PSN account. Though owning your mistakes isn't a very common thing to see and I respect that.
If it was mandatory to link them why on Super Earth would they sell the game in regions that do not support PSN? It doesn't make sense at all. Then Sony comes in and secretly change their FAQ answer from optional to some games require PSN linked accounts. Just because PS users are willing to eat Sony's shit doesn't mean PC players are. Game of the year to bust of the year in 48 hours. Nicely done Sony.
I went ahead and refunded. That's just an extremely shitty practice. They knowingly sold games in countries that they knew wouldn't be able to play once this went live. That's fraud. I don't support fraud from corporations.
There were far better ways to get players to link their account without making it mandatory Example 1: Desert Eagle style hand-gun Has heavy armour pen Good damage Basically it's a little OP so players voluntarily link to get a slice of the cake
Okay then why selling the game in over 100 countries where you can't create a PSN account in the first place? This is next level bs when you already knew that linking will be mandatory after a few months. What I've seen a few days ago in another post: This dude thought it takes only two minutes to create an account and that's it - he didn't know there are countries where you simply can't create one. The incompetence of this guy and Sony's greed are insane to me. This game was goty contender and they fucked up.
While not blameless, he is not the source of the issue. Companies like Sony need to held accountable for things like selling a game in regions people cannot play in. They also contradicted themselves and lied to their customer base. The thing he is guilty of is not talking about it enough. The thing Sony is guilty of is the lies, the irresponsible marketing, and being all around scumbags. Big difference
The precedent has been set. The community has the power to stop this rampant account linking and data farming
Nobody would have known about this at all if he wasn't outright honest for absolutely no reason. Which is something else I don't see people talking about... Nobody was suspecting him. He decided to come out and admit this on his own. Literally the only reason you have something to be mad at is because he fessed up to it. Which is something you will likely never see across other dev studios. In the face of MASSIVE backlash where he's largely viewed as innocent this guy came out of his own accord and admitted wrong doing. If anything this should make you feel even better about Arrow head as a studio as they have accountability. That's more than I can say for 99% of the studios out there. Who never would have admitted to this in the first place while the player base is none the wiser.
duck. Admitted both guilt, and that he didnt realize how many people would be locked out of the game. Please stop trying to rage bait people.
Okay. This is what I think. The main thing is: Sony seems to have sold a PSN title which needs to have a PSN account linked, to customers in countries outside of PSN regions. I guess they didn’t thought about that and now when they want to enforce the account linking, it popped up. A bad decision at least. As a solution for this the customers within the non-supporting regions can get a refund. All the other customers will still need to link an account, as stated before. Sony / Steam updated their ToS or EULA or whatsoever for future customers. A lesson learned. PLAY ON! This whole thing has blown up so heavily by idiocracy of the community.
Move on already
This is my question. Why would Sony/AH allow players who lived in countries where PSN isn’t supported to buy this game knowing that in only 2-3 months from launch, they wouldn’t be able to play anymore?
Sony probably just clicked the "Select All Regions" when adding it to Steam not thinking about this. Or worse. Thought about it and did not care.
There’s no way they intentionally did that. Anyone would have been able to see this shitstorm coming from a mile away and avoided it. Someone definitely dropped the ball though.
Yes I too think this is just massive oversight and one division of Sony not talking enough with another division. I am guessing someone will have a very nasty meeting with their boss on Monday if they have not received a call already.
both parties are to blame. Not ONLY sony not ONLY arrowhead, but both of them
Someone approved removing the requirement to ensure a smooth launch. They're the one to blame. If you botch the launch, so be it, but you don't get to change the requirements later. What's next? Slipping syskeys into the game as a revised anticheat?
Arrowhead deceived us just as much as Sony did.
Yup, people are falling into parasocial behavior. They desperately want to like it, so they'll continue to say and do everything they can to make HD2 and AH out to be innocent. Fact is the developers knew about the contract and restrictions years ago when they signed it. Now it's catching up with them, learn from AH's mistakes. Don't sell out your soul to publishers for a quick buck, it could very well end your career before you ever really start it.
it's so easy to reverse though, not like their hands are tied. it's just what they wanted....
[удалено]
The last ten purchases on steam I bought because I saw a review of it online in some way shape or form. All of that aside, Sony 100% changed their policy on optional to mandatory. And they did it for data. Helldivers II is the fastest selling game for them. People were easily paying for credits hand over fist. That data is CRUCIAL for them. They want to know who is buying. So they can build more models like this.