I hope that Sony allows some levity here, the game already can function without linking, as it has been. it would be, development-wise, trivial to reverse it, nothing in the game actually relies upon it.
Sony just has to bite the bullet and do the right thing.
I think the way they had planned on banning players for cheating and potentially unwanted behaviour was through PSN. People are also fairly sure it is a requirement in the contract with Sony that PSN accounts are required. It's just due to server issues from popularity they removed the requirement.
So while it's possible from a technical standpoint, there's some non technical hurdles to overcome as well.
From what I have seen, Sony seems to mostly turn a blind eye to people from unsupported regions simply selecting a supported region.
However it is stupid to have made the game available for sale in those unsupported regions, I agree.
I think that it began as a "gentlemen's agreement" of sorts, but now that the game is SUPER POPULAR Sony wants all that juicy PII and that bump in active PSN accounts to appease shareholders.
Not sure if that last bit is meant as a joke, and while id love to see anything like that happen... I don't think they would stand a chance saying that, considering AH most likely new from the get go that PSN was not going to be optional, and should not have hidden that info away.
Also, what the fuck is up with them selling the game in other countries, if it truly was "mandatory from the get go" thats the part I just don't get.
Yup, I don't think it would be that difficult to have the unique steam id being logged as part of the application, just requires a bit of coordination and cooperation with steam.
This isn't a unique or one off thing other games have done this I'm sure, this is just game publishers once being greedy assholes and wanting more data to exploit.