Sony cancelled the PSN account linking requirement for Helldivers 2

We are still learning what is best for PC players

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We are constantly limit-testing what level of exploitation our players can endure

It's weird how collective action works so well but they only choose to do it for this linking requirement. You could get the rootkits gone as well, gamers.
- Most people don't know what they're installing or don't care about their privacy, which is why there's not enough people rising up against kernel level AC's. Also, not being able to play until you create an account is much more upsetting to most people, than just clicking 'update' in League of Legends.
- the problem with that is that the people playing thoose games have no idea what a rootkit is
- This! God, please.
Brooooo this victory is an absolute game-changer for us die-hard Xbox fans, and it's downright exhilarating! Sony's constant blunders pale in comparison to the countless triumphs of team Xbox, and this might just be the knockout blow that finally converts those Lamestationers to our side. Brace yourselves for an epic shift as the unrivaled supremacy of our console dazzles and dominates, pulling every gamer into its unstoppable vortex of pure excitement and adrenaline-fueled gaming bliss!👊👊
- Whoa, this gave me some late 2000s nostalgia.
- "Annnnnnnd post!"
- Great shitpost!
- I can’t tell if you’re being downvoted by dorks who don’t realise you’re joking or by dorks who DO realise you’re joking and feel attacked. Either way, sad, silly down voters.
- This sounds like a chatGPT post ngl
- Lmaooo
- Get back in your hole console peasant and Xbox shill
- Thanks, definitely not Xbox employee.
- The amount of downvotes this has makes me worried about Lemmy’s sense of humor
- Doritos Dew It Right!
- Why is this downvoted, this is great!
- Phil Spencer, is that you?
And they already got a bunch of new accounts
Like an emotionally abusive partner.
That's part of the enshitifcation process.

This shows the power of steam reviews with it being driven by the actual community. People tried to downplay and belittle its effectiveness, but it being front and center on the store page does have more impact than there would be without steam reviews. If there were no steam reviews the PSN requirement would have been pushed through with it being easier to ignore some random internet comments on social media than a store page.

Reviews aren't pointless, but their impact only goes so far. I am assuming the massive amount of refunds had more to do with it, tbh.
- I suspect someone in accounting ran the numbers and decided they stand to lose more to reduced microtransaction sales than they would have gained via selling scraped data.
  Though I agreed with you. It's still a win, but we have to be careful not to conflate this with Sony "caring".
- It's probably a bit of this and a bit of that. I mean the game went from one of the best revied games to one of the worst in a day. There were refunds and a drop in players all at the same time.
- I'd imagine that there's math to be done on sales for a mixed review game vs. a overwhelming positive one, and its not favorable.
It's a good reminder that collective/democratic bargaining works. It's about time we bring back unions and cooperatives.
The sony communities I saw poopooing the whole thing flipped immediately into "WE DID IT" mode, pretending they actually cared about the people that were going to lose access.
This is why Steam reviews should be taken much more seriously. This was impossible to avoid due to the enormous amount of bad press and devs themselves jumping on the hate train, but I’m betting that a lot of review bombing attempts have been quietly offset by the company just paying people for fake reviews. It’s especially obvious when the game has relatively low reviews for months and months, then suddenly bad stuff happens and along with the justified dump of negative reviews, positive ones also skyrocket (99% of which composed of “good game”, random memes or ascii art).

Negative reviews should remain until the purchase restrictions put in place on Steam for non-PSN countries have been reverted.

Until then this looks like a temporary move for damage control and they'll try this again when refunds are less likely and wont be from restricted countries.

https://steamdb.info/sub/137730/history/?changeid=23416542

Democracy has not won yet.

There was a theory that the purchase restrictions were put in place by Valve, not Sony (because those countries couldn’t make an account without violating TOS). If so, Valve might shortly remove the restrictions.
- Would the publisher not have to request the game not be sold in those countries before Valve restricts the sale of it?
  I believe that Valve may be the ones who do it, but just doing it without permission sounds... Illegal and out of their jurisdiction.
  I know Valve controls their storefront and can absolutely pull games down, just looking for some clarification on whether this could be true or not.
Honestly I’m keeping my negative review permanent. The game is great and I enjoy it, but besides a temporary back lash I want the sting to stick around to hopefully teach companies about fucking around and finding out.
- They won't learn anything. They only nulled their bullshit because it would hurt their financial quarter because their biggest cash cow game at the moment is bombing. They only way to maybe make them learn would be if every single one of the "outraged gamers" would just uninstall and never play it again, but that won't happen and Sony knows that (which is why they can try pulling that shit in the first place).
  Good for the peeps in non-PSN countries tho. For them, this is a real win.

"We're still learning what is best for PC players"

Well PlayStation staff member, it definitely isn't having people create another account when they already have a Steam account.

Also gaming on a PC is 40 years old, what do they still have to learn?
- How much less bullshit PC players are willing to put up with compared to their console counterparts, apparently.
- They are used to playstation players who buy a console for twice the price it's worth through discord bots. I don't think they even know what a backlash is
- It's all a fucking smokescreen. Man, people just eat that shit up. Every time. It's almost like the game is saturated in satire and we're spooning it down ourselves.
  Oh, wait. fuck.
- "You guys actually want to play these things? Yeeesh."
- Maybe a company that has (mostly) made consoles isn’t exactly playing games or has people on staff on the executive level that play(ed) on a PC. I’m 30 and outside of a brief time I tried to play on a PC I’ve pretty much been console my entire life. My first gaming experiences were all on console. It’s completely logical for a company to make a move like this when they have specialized in one area for a time.
- They are learning what level of bullshit PC gamers will tolerate.

Just another nail to the bootlicker's coffin of "review bombing does nothing".

God I hate bootlickers. Fuck em.
Review bombing and mass refunding too. Hit them where it hurts

We're still learning what is best for PC players

We'll keep you updated on future plans

Behind the scenes coming up with the future plans:

Getting abusive parent vibes from the language of Sony's post.

Corporate PR speak always sounds cringe and I despise it. Just be humans you fucking pricks.
- Tbf, I've seen what happens to indies when they're just humans in how they talk to their customers/fans. HR speak exists for a reason unfortunately
- Nah, I'd rather they keep speaking like this. Makes it really obvious from the get go who I'm dealing with. If they speak normally, they might blend in
Always is. They went too far. They scale back and try again when the dust has settled.
Oldest trick in the books
Starting off with “we’ve heard your feedback” is something I’ve never heard from an abusive parent?
- “I understand you’re upset but…”
- Naw it's more like "we did something we knew would make you incredibly uncomfortable; but now that you're screaming we're worried about the neighbors hearing it and we don't want the cops called on us, so we'll back off until a more opportune time."

Glorious Victory ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Major Order Completed! +50 Medals

For now... 🖕🏽 They worded that so weasely, they're just waiting for the storm to pass and for Legal to come up with some compelling reason why they're totally "obligated" to make it happen, "hands tied" "so sorry" and all that.

Fuck Sony. They made this SOP way back when, and there's no way they let this stop them forever. It's all about profit, not what "we" want.

Backfire 2, Steam refund boogaloo when?
- You don't lower your guard just because the fight is over. It's not like Sony has morals or any trustworthiness to keep to this even in the midterm.
- Seriously. Jesus Christi, peopke
Sounds about right.

Where are the: "just make an account bro" people now? Probably pre ordering skyrim the definite edition

I'd imagine some of them are here:
(edit: forgot to un-dox the user)
- I’d love to shut up and play Starship Troopers: The Game. But unfortunately, I don’t have a PS5 or gaming PC. Still holding out hope that this will come to Xbox one day.
- And here
I was one of them to begin with but once I found out about the whole thing with people of certain countries not able to have an account even though they had already bought the game and were even previously able to play are now locked out, then I was on board.
I'm not against just making accounts, I must have thousands across the internet, what would be one more if I hadn't already had a PSN account.
- what would be one more if I hadn’t already had a PSN account.
  One more attack vector to gain access to all your other accounts across the internet.
- Wouldn't it be nice to not have your info spread across thosands of accounts that you yourself even implied you don't keep track of?
  What sony pulled, and coporate moves like it, are at least in part a result of people saying "meh, what's one more account, I've already got thousands."
  We as a community aren't an immaculate entity. Companies don't just make these moves out of nowhere, they analyze what we're willing to do so they can take advantage of those things to make money. That's not some sleazy secret scheme, thats basic market research. If we collectively show we do actually care about this stuff and won't supoort their business when they do it, it might not happen so often.
- But the game isn't even available on PlayStation so why am I creating an account? At the very least it's pointless busy work. And apparently not even well thought out.
Demanding we apologize for the negative reviews now that Sony has reverted the change, if the discord server is anything to go by
Probably just playing the game.
Playing sims

"Sorry, we'll have to do it in a few months again to see if you still can mobilize this much".

"You know that thing where the initial assault is just a ploy to draw people in for the real attack?"

Cyberbullying works 🎉

This has nothing to do with the shitstorm (it mostly hit Arrowhead anyway), and I think the review bombing didn’t affect their decision making that much. What I think happened was, Sony saw the massive refunds. They got hit right into the wallet 😩

This makes me smile.

Once again, Arrowhead decided to go with Sony as publisher, they agreed with PSN account linking. No offense, they are are an independent studio, they did not need to do that. It is sad they lost money, but the developers already got paid. The worst thing that can happen is they have to switch jobs.
- Arrowhead did not have the infrastructure for this many people. Sony barely pulled it off at launch and cross play still sucks.
The refunds may have hurt, but what hurt more was the fact that in the last week HD2 went from #1/2 on the Steam global top sellers to #11. The big red "Overwhelmingly Negative" next to a title is a huge turnoff to new buyers.
Some executive somewhere has a chart showing daily sales numbers and watched them fall off a cliff in the last week.
- Point taken.
That's what pisses me off with the steam review bombing.
If that's the only way to express discontent then that will fucking sucks for everybody involved in game development.
If at least review bombing was a last resort but now it's the norm. These reviews will have a lasting effect on the game even though the drama bubble has now popped.
- These reviews will have a lasting effect on the game
  Good, let them learn their actions have consequences.
- This type of review bombing is actually against steams terms of service for reviews in the first place, they've stepped in a few times now to hide campaigns like that, I expect they will do the same with this one. Basically it'll keep the recent review metric but, it will hide the reviews from the historical and the overall metric. So worst case out of this will be it has a negative recent reviews for awhile.
  your last sentence is actually the exact reason they implemented that policy and they moreorless quote it in their forum post where they talk about how the new system works
- These reviews will have a lasting effect on the game even though the drama bubble has now popped.
  Steam has a specific thing that appears when you keep playing a lot on a game that you’ve negatively reviewed asking if you want to change it. I think a game is rarely impacted long-term by review bombing for a resolved issue, unless the reviewers actually dropped the game and went on with their lives.

The fact that they specifically mention that date makes me think they're simply pushing the date back

They are just being clear and accurate with their comms. No need to over think it.
They specifically said "not moving forward". Seems pretty clear and concise. No PSN requirement.
- And they also said "We're still learning what's best for PC players [...]"
  They'll be back.
You just know that there used to be an "…at this time" at the end of that sentence and some good PR folk edited it out because managers are out of touch douches.

This has the "fuck you" energy without the actual word

It does?

OK now they can go ahead with plan B where they allow you to link your PSN account to get some super cool cosmetic. I wonder what the reaction of the consumers will be then.

I think that's entirely fair and similar to store loyalty cards. You get something in exchange for your datas at least.
- Except now many loyalty cards are now required to get sale prices that were previously available without them. It is a bleak world where folks have to potentially choose between affording groceries and protecting their privacy.
That's allright tho.
People actually thought that this was a very cool solution. People are the worst.
- I really don't see the problem, provided it is cosmetic. If you don't want to link, you don't get a glittering, whatever in game. If you don't mind sharing your datas, then you get the shiny thing (and everyone knows you don't mind sharing your datas).
- There are legitimate reasons for the devs and Sony to want your psn account linked. It's also reasonable to not want to do so. Why not offer a compromise, like any healthy relationship, and allow, not force, account linking, with a little incentive? Where is the downside to either party?
Wasn't that already the case? That's what they did in most of their other pc ports at least

Have they reinstated the games back in the 177 countries they delisted it in? Can those people who paid for the game still play it?

Short answer: Yes.
Longer answer: The access hadn't been removed yet, as the update that would enable account linking wasn't pushed yet. As for the Steam side, I'm pretty sure people who already had the game installed should've had access still, although updates and general unsureness definitely could be obstacles. With this tweet, however, the update is no longer coming, and were just waiting for Sony/Valve to lift the selling/installing restrictions in those countries.
- Steam only removes games from the store, and doesn't remove games from anyone's library. Those affected people, if they didn't refund, will still have HD2 in their library. There is also never install restrictions/blocking.

Nice! Guess I can add it back to my wishlist and consider buying it soon! Been holding off on it too long

"too long"? The game is 4 months old.
Hot take, don't buy any games which were only released in the last 12 months. Matured games are far more stable
I remember when people on this site were saying Helldivers was already GOTY back on release week, hilarious.
If it wins after this situation, it's definitely not the players choice.
- I'd agree with this statement for most games, but the best way to enjoy Helldivers 2 specifically is to play it when the playerbase and the hype is at its peak. The gameplay will still be just as good a year from now, sure, but you'd miss the emergent story being built right now
- !patientgamers@sh.itjust.works

So, someone in my Discord channel posted a tweet that maybe alters perspective a bit;

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/575881390999207956/1236869629008412714/not-surprised-but-damn-v0-jjr7xh7eqlyc1.png?ex=663a3cdb&is=6638eb5b&hm=3f4ff94b3a29dceb2e973e1e61abcf84c92220571d32a7b05c2966b74ccb241b&

To summarize or if the link breaks, one of the devs “knew beforehand” they’d have to require PSN accounts post launch, but disabled them for a smooth launch. That’s interesting, but as long as Sony was acting as publisher I feel like the blame still goes on them for selling the game to non-PSN countries initially.

FYI l: That's the CEO of Arrowhead, who made the game.

Yeah but now people will get right back to spending money on the game. So at the end of the day it's still Sony laughing all the way to the bank.
Shit like this should result in a boycott not in "at least it's not as bad as it could've been".
- I never ended up refunding my copy, but I'm certainly not gonna give a single cent to the live service side of the game. I already hadn't paid for anything, but was considering it before this shitshow. Now, I think I'll just buy copies of Magicka and throw them at friends to try and support Arrowhead.
- Boycotting the game would hurt Arrowhead far more than Sony, and they were forced to do this. Like beating a dog because the owner upset you.

It's still packaged with that awful and invasive nProtect GameGuard garbage though, so be be aware of what you're buying before you make the choice.

Or just run linux. While that comes with other potential issues... Anti-cheat isn't one of them. Either the game doesn't work (and thus safe from the terribad rootkits), or the "anti-cheat" is stuck in it's sandbox(and thus safe from the rootkit).

PC gamers with the W for not folding to bad choices. More gamers need to do this.

I think there'd have been a lot less pushback if the gamers had got something in return, like Steam/PSN cross-buy on Sony published titles.

It's not even like they could claim it being needed for cross-play, because it demonstrably works without it.

Good. I hope this collaboration will kick all 3rd party ~~launchers~~ stuff from Steam in the future.

It never required a 3rd party launcher, just a PSN account to link to a Steam account.
- I know. I was talking about all 3rd party bullshit on Steam. My bad, I could've written more clearly.