Sony learned nothing from the Helldivers 2 shitshow
Well they learned to announce that it would require an account before releasing the game rather than after people had already bought it, which was the complaint with Helldivers, right?
this post was submitted on 03 Jun 2024
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It also smells a lot like always-online DRM for a game that otherwise exists entirely offline. The previous game is available on GOG.
While it was the complaint, the game did mention a required PSN account on all storefronts. This was disabled when auth/login was unplayably bad on launch week, then not re-enabled until a while later (with a week long heads up for new players and a month long heads up for existing players). Nobody actually got locked out of the game, and as my PSN account is registered somewhere I do not live, I don't think anyone would've been stopped playing by the change if it had been pushed.
What we "won" and sony "learned" is that they can't get accurate metrics on playercount since HD2's statistics aren't being tracked correctly by the game's session system and the playerbase is uncooperative. In this era where data is king, this just means we'll stop seeing Sony funded helldivers ads on youtube while they market their giants that correctly report the data they're looking for that helps them make a userbase that prints money.
Oh, and we marred the all-time and recent review score from overwhelmingly positive. Guarantee you the successful action was the steam refund count on the game - truly unsolvable problem. As refund requests that don't meet an automatic metric need a reply, and resolution usually takes ~an hour, the 6 digit refund count was not realistically solvable without rolling the requirement for a legitimate PSN account back. You can track how many total refund requests steam has day by day, as this is a public count in steam's support page. There were 800k more than the average weekend.
Tl;dr: while the complaint was this, the reality was not. The review bomb hurt arrowhead's relationship with sony more than it hurt sony. The refund bomb didn't cause steam to change policies this time but damn if it isn't justified now.
~~You can't make an PSN account in 175 countries.~~ What's why people don't this stuff.
EDIT I was wrong. You can't make an PSN account in 121 countries, https://insider-gaming.com/countries-that-dont-have-psn
TIL you can make a PSN account in North Korea.
I don't honestly understand why Sony is pushing this do hard.
There's definitely a CEO whose bonus depends on hitting a certain number of PSN accounts. I can only assume account info is being sold because why else would they care? It's either that or they eventually plan on charging PC players a monthly fee to play all their Sony games.
It’s either that or they eventually plan on charging PC players a monthly fee to play all their Sony games.
That would be hilarious, I'd love to see the backlash if they tried that.
It would sound an awful lot like the high seas, methinks.
They want your data so they can market you a PS5 better.
Marketing. They want to increase PSN account numbers to increase their valuation, to have more data, and to make it easier for customers to move to their products/services since the account creation is already done.
Not if I pirate it.
Cheaper, better
Not in a million fucking years Sony. I would have gladly given you my money, but apparently that's not good enough for you.
Well, another game I won't be playing in that case. Fortunately my backlog is large enough to keep me busy for the next couple of years, so I feel no need to play every new title. But still: my wallet thanks Sony for making the choice for me.
We'll help you pirate it, just ask.
Thanks, I know my way around the high seas should the need arise. But I can't play every game out there anyway, so as long as I can get my gaming needs satisfied through non-shittified legal means I prefer that.
Ragnarok
"... should the mead arise."
Oh, and also, it's only "illegal" because they have the money.
See: wage theft
I think they’re okay with that. The budget for these games has ballooned so much, they feel like they need a market goal beyond the $60 sale. Microtransactions are one approach, but pulling people into a gaming ecosystem like PSN is another. If you’re not interested in either, you’re not their target demographic.
just a couple of years... yeah...
It's hilarious, it's almost like they got so used to having their way with a captive console audience that they didn't consider PC players have a choice.
Booooooooooo
You're telling me a week of "protest" followed by gamers immediately forgiving the big corporation because they eventually backtracked didn't really change anything? :o
See you next week, when PSN accounts are required for Helldivers 2 again lol
Yeah ofc it does. Sony doesn't care about multi-platform accessibility. They just play the long con with releasing their games on PC.
The DELUSiONAL crack in my left pocket:
The seas are mighty fine this time of year, I might as well go for a sail.
Let me tell you what to do when the game drops on steam:
- Buy it at full price as soon as it releases.
- Press play, get to the PSN login screen or whatever it is.
- Close it.
- Immediately post a negative review saying it requires a PSN account.
- Request a refund from Steam, you'll basically get it automatically as you played less than 2 hours.
- ...
- Profit! Watch Sony squirm with those reviews.
another account another password to remeber
I’m honestly asking why people are so furious about the psn account. Is it because you don’t want to give your data to Sony?
I’d clearly understand with something like facebook or google, but I don’t think giving my data to Sony is the end of the world.
I’m not a pc gamer and I wouldn’t want to have every company pushing for their own account, but I don’t see why Sony is getting so criticized when (I think) Ubisoft or Electronic Arts have been doing this for years on PC.
Maybe with helldivers you can argue the cross play angle, but why require a PSN account for a single player game? Sony's also doing this with the new Until Dawn version which also is coming to steam.
This is what baffles me as well. Online game I can understand.... but offline single player.....???
Also, why in the 21st century does Sony not expand PSN world wide, and why is it only available in a handful of countries
Yeah PSN not being available everywhere is weird and not good for their sales then.
Sony has a long history of data breaches and hacks. https://firewalltimes.com/sony-data-breach-timeline
Lol a good chunk of those "breaches and hacks" are either unrelated to PlayStation (Sony Pictures being the most notable) or had no impact to users.
I don't care if they leak their source code for games or if their social media account gets socially-engineered. Even an outage from a DDOS isjust a minor inconvenience. According to the source you posted, they haven't had any issues leaking PlayStation user data since 2011, over a decade ago.
Security concerns are valid for everything you do on the Internet of course, but are you bringing that same energy to Valve for the security issues Steam has had over the years too? The 2023 issue with dev accounts getting hacked to inject malware. The 2020 issue with the "Steam Sockets" library. They had their own data breach similar to Sony's in 2011.
And that’s just what they’ve done by accident. There was also that time they installed rootkits on their customers’ PCs, lied about it, belittled their customers when nobody believed them, then put out a fake uninstaller that actually installed additional software and didn’t uninstall the rootkit.
I can't speak for others, but for me it's just a nuisance. I'm not furious about it. I avoid buying EA and Ubisoft games too. It's a small thing for one game on one account, but when you acquire a lot of games across a bunch of different accounts, all those different logins and launchers just become a bother.
I can only agree with this 👍
On PlayStation it ain’t a nuisance because the psn account is valid for every game, but on pc I agree with you.
It's funny to me because tons of PC-exclusive games also require accounts on Steam and no one cares.
The requirement is dumb, but the attention is also disproportionate because of console war fandom.
With how frequently they get hacked, Sony is the last company you want to trust with any of your data. Might as well post all of it on a public facebook page.