Personally I'm of the later opinion, as I think Steam should be the only account you NEED to have to play a game. If you bought it on Steam and are playing it on Steam, why would you want or need a PSN account? Plus from my understanding PSN is blocked in some countries.
I think this is a really poor decision, I've been planning on buying the game for a while now but I guess not now. I'm glad I waited, else I'd be refunding. This seems very aggressive.
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You're all good, CelestialFlea. We want Just About to be a place where folks can discuss controversial issues, we just ask that they do so in a grown-up way and focus on the issues themselves, without making unfounded assumptions or throwing insults.
I think this post is a great example of how to raise these kinds of issues in the right way, so thank you 🙂
Hey CelestialFlea, nothing wrong with a bit of healthy criticism, so long as everyone plays nice😁
I find it a bit odd but it's been happening for a while now. Xbox Game Pass lets you play games by Ubisoft, EA etc, but they still require their own accounts. Do you think we'll start seeing hub-accounts that effectively bring them all together, much like Trillian does for instant messengers?
I think with gamepass it's a little different since it's basically free games, I don't think people mind an extra hurdle or two when the cost is negligible but not for a $40 game. There's a threshold. I think this is a little different from launchers like Epic/Ubisoft Connect though where games are often published exclusively on those platforms and require may them for online functionality / other features.
Helldivers 2 was sold directly via steam, and playable directly via the platform. It's basically a bait & switch. I know a lot of people on social media are saying "It's free bro, just do it" but that's appealing to triviality and ignoring the anti-consumer behavior of Sony. Which is in my opinion, exactly what this is.
My first thoughts were that the outrage seemed a little overblown, because you don't need to have a PlayStation console to have a PSN account.
However, you are absolutely correct: there are a lot of countries in the world where you simply cannot create a PSN account without using a VPN, and Sony reserves the right to ban those who try to circumvent that.
I do think for those of us in the UK/US etc. it's not a particularly big deal, but I also understand wanting to show solidarity and boycotting the game to stop this sort of thing from becoming more commonplace. Must admit it won't stop me playing the game though because Helldivers 2 is really fun.
Absolutely, it's not a HUGE deal for those of us with multiple launcher and platform accounts anyway, but Helldivers 2 worked without needing PSN from the start. Which is what I have an issue with and why it seems like a really odd decision to me.
Why would you want to alienate a playerbase that loves your game and drag your IP through controversy when everything was going well without it? Besides possibly some poor hiring choices on the community side of things. A lot of people are refunding too. Though certainly I don't blame anyone who keeps playing if they really enjoy it.
Does look like a fun game and I'll definitely reconsider buying if Sony reverses their decision!
Whenever I think of poor business decisions and shooting yourself in the foot - I think of Netflix and their decision to remove password sharing. It was a 'feature' based on good will especially during lockdown and I think a lot of people were displeased/ threatened boycott etc.
The result? - An uptick in Netflix subscriptions
I personally don't mind it. I think the time of having a console and inserting a disc/ cartridge to plug in and play is long gone and companies rather have players jump through hoops and live in their own eco-system. It's not consumer friendly to have so many launchers but it's great for companies to boast about their player base.
Personally signing up and logging on is a fairly harmless process, a few more steps sure. However if they start requesting fees for using the service that's when I think they have gone too far
The common narrative seems to be centered on "Sony want your data". And whilst that's probably part of the story (marketing, cross-selling and retention being other parts), I highly doubt it's the main reason. I think the main reason is actually what they've stated:
PlayStation have a duty of care to their gamers, and they care about the quality of experiences on their network.
Helldivers is an online environment where humans can interact. And if you are the kind of person who cheats or misbehaves in those environments, PlayStation want to be able to exclude you from their entire ecosystem. They can't do that unless they know who you are and how you're accessing their network.
And PlayStation have a history of moderation like this - they don't allow unvetted mods into the PlayStation ecosystem (see: Skyrim / Fallout), to this day they have a highly trained and very active trust & online safety team and they have very strignent rules on user generated content across the network.
They've stated that this linking system should have been in place from the start, and that they removed it because it became a blocker to gamers enjoyment when Helldivers 2 was scaling up (remember the server issues?). I think it's a good thing that they were willing to be flexible like that. And I strongly believe that this would have been a total non-issue had the need to link your PSN account been there from the start.
What does matter now is that they make sure that everyone who has paid for this game is able to continue enjoying it. Issues like PSN not being available in certain countries need working out - because folks from those countries have spent money and made contracts. There needs to be some follow up guidance, hopefully we'll see it soon.
Awesome response and some valid arguments. Though in my personal opinion, wanting to make it a "safe environment" is a bit of a smoke-screen as I haven't seen any issues of player toxicity that would need Sony intervening coming from The Helldivers community. If anything the toxicity has been coming from within the staff team itself, specifically the Community Manager though I'm not gonna go into details on that as I don't think it's a healthy topic for JA.
Nonetheless I think it has more to do with wanting to lock down their commercial interests on their platform to keep it from Xbox rather than gathering more customer data, the later would be fairly naive to assume that's all they were interested in. Wanting to stop cross-platform ban-evaders, griefers is likely just secondary.
I believe the numerous data breaches at Sony are also a big concern for many players who may not wish their data to be leaked, since Sony doesn't allow VPN usage.
I don't own the game however I also agree that this should not be a requirement and should come with an explanation as to why this is mandatory.
I think it makes perfect sense business wise.
The more complex, the less players are gonna continue or start playing helldivers 2.
Hello bud - At least you didn't post what you said on Discord xD Rich would have kicked you xD
But I agree with you IMO, this thing of buying games and then needing accounts elsewhere just increases the risk of hacking, personal data loss etc. I personally don't want a PSN account and luckily my 11-year-old has one so, I can use his, but I can see people being very put out about it.
Just about everything I say on Discord would get me kicked from here.
Sony had 3 breaches last year alone that were known about, more than enough reason to be concerned about wanting an account there. If something worked fine for months before (even if it was technically mentioned this would be a requirement), why risk causing a PR fustercluck at all when everything could just have been left and everyone would be happy?
Some more food for thought; PSN is also only available in 69 out of 190 countries. That's a ton of players who can't play anymore.
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