Sony Doubles Down on Helldivers 2 PSN Requirement by Taking It Off Sale for PC in Numerous Countries

The tears will flow, we can be sure of that

The initial reaction to the PSN requirement from gamers was embarrassing, but Sony's really gone and stuck its foot in it now with this move. Such a bad decision.

There's gonna be a massive uproar with this move

Not a good look.

Guess they like losing money.

Twitter's going to have fun with this news

Just when we thought console wars was over, Sony takes on the PC smooth brains.

Sony fanboys keep defending Sony. What a joke.

This is almost as if Sony is saying "If you don't want to play by our rules then we're taking our toys with us." They should at least issue refunds to those that want them.

Sony and Nintendo will dig in when they feel needed. Such craziness from consumer and provider alike

Crying about having to take 5 minutes to create an account is hilarious when they upgrade their PCs every other month. This is typical with many companies even Microsoft makes user create a account to play Minecraft multiplayer.

@Lavishturtle yet here you are on a sony news site dedicated to sony? why are you even here? its littearlly their game. i mean ms requires people to sign into an xbox account to play games on pc and ps5.

Holy *****, that's a bold move. Bizarre. Is the psn requirement necessary for anything other than trophy implementation? Are other pc ports requiring it? You don't need ps plus to play hell divers I assume right? Could this signal an attempt to monetize the ability to engage online play again with a ps plus requirement in the future? Otherwise I genuinely don't see why you wouldn't just forgo the requirement in regions it's not possible rather than lose the money on refunds and the micro transaction schemes.

Their has to be some ulterior corporate greed driven motive for all the this. Because they are souring the perception of many toward one of the only successful Sony published live service games ever for it.

@KundaliniRising333 cross play?

@twitchtvpat wait was cross play not possible before?

“How to kill a GOTY contender in 2 days”
-Sony eBook Publishing
On sale now*

*Requires PSN account to purchase

@KundaliniRising333 that’s the thing. PSN is required to play on PC, even without cross-play. That’s the whole controversy

lol this is hilarious, modern sony is off their rocker

Why even bother selling the game to people in these countries in the first place if you're just going to take away access from these people mere months later? Horrible idea that is probably illegal, they better either walk this back or at the very least start allowing refunds.

@Savage_Joe so these people were merely being able to play just because it was temporarily disabled or could they have still signed up for a psn account in those countries regardless. If so why would Sony delist rather than force the sign up regardless. To just delist and refund seems pretty insane. There must be some corporate legal red tape forcing this *****

@KundaliniRising333 - The cross-play system on Helldivers is terrible. You need to use random codes generated by the game to invite someone from another platform, the PSN thing would probably solve that by allowing people add others by using nicknames, just as every other game that has cross-play these days.

Anyway, Sony's relationship with Arrowhead probably died after this whole ***** show. Arrowhead released the game knowing that the PSN requirement would exist and is now acting like it didn't' know anything. Arrowhead community managers acting like any other fanboy on Discord will not help their talks with Sony going forward.

Sony weren't in the wrong for the PSN requirement as most big publishers require the same for their games that these PC players have no problem signing up to. The mass of negative steam reviews over the last couple of days are just pathetic especially when reading them, it's just abuse aimed at Sony, game is dying comment and even some making disgusting comments towards Japan.

I'm curious to know how many sales this will affect? Considering it's being removed from counties that don't have PSN I doubt it will be many.

This has to be one of the the most bat-s*** crazy moves I've seen from Sony. This was easily their most successful game in years, and they're choosing to tear the game out of the hands of people that already gave them money to play it. This move is going to go from people boycotting the game to outright boycotting Sony and their games. Stunts like this reassure my decision to buy my games exclusively through Steam and the Nintendo eShop, and not even think about buying the PS5 Pro or the PS6.

@ED_209 ahhh gotcha. Didn't realize cross play was that messy

@crashcontrol it seems people are getting automatic refund.

Looking at that list of countries I doubt there's actually many people playing Helldivers in any of them. Anyone from those countries should be able to get a refund if they want one, or if they've already made a PSN with a different region already they can just keep playing if they want but the Karen's who are complaining about creating a PSN in the countries it is actually supported in, need to get a grip.

Steam players and I guess PC exclusive players in general are the most entitled people. Seems like every week Steam players are making a mountain out of something while review bombing.

They even resorted to the copy paste "game is dying" comment on twitter.

@UltimateOtaku91 that's good but they honestly shouldn't of even bothered selling the game in those countries to begin with if they were planning this in the first place.

Also anyone buying the game on steam was pre warned that they would need a PSN account in the future, yet they bought the game anyway and still complained 🤦

Honestly, I applaud Sony and anyone else that refuse to capitulate to those that should be adults but choose to act like toddlers.

@crashcontrol They were pre warned on the games steam page that they would eventually need a PSN account, surely some knew their country didn't support PSN but still bought the game anyway.

@JohntheRaptor why would a PC player need a console account to play a pc vs pc match? It’s not “entitlement”; the whole thing doesn’t make sense. The real “Entitled” one is Sony in forcing such a thing.

@MrMagic I'd wager Sony have looked at the statistics and saw the low player counts for those countries before making this decision. If there was millions of players that would be effected then I think they would of stalled and came up with a workaround instead of automatic refunds.

@UltimateOtaku91 still doesn't make it right to sell the game in those countries to begin with. why even bother listing the game for like 2 months just to delist it and revoke access?

@KundaliniRising333 It isn't, I play on my PS5 with all my PC friends and it works fine, the crying+lying associated with gaming these days is embarrassing!!

No matter what happens, this whole fiasco might trigger a juicy class action against Sony, Valve and Arrowhead.

Less PC players are better.
good move.
less cheaters, less toxic brats, less drama.

@Savage_Joe With automatic refunds there won't be a lawsuit.

@UltimateOtaku91 - Well, the honest answer to that is probably they didn’t see it, but putting that aside for a second, what I want to know is why this requirement even exists? Last I checked, PSN accounts were for Playstation players, so why is there a requirement for PC players to get one, to play a game on PC?

@B_Lindz There are some people saying that it might be Steam that removed HD2 from those countries because of ehat Sony is doing.

Goddamn it Sony, I didn't see a problem in enforcing the requirement that was disclosed from the start but their answer/reaction to this is definitely creating a bigger problem than it is.

@FullMetalWesker Only thing I can see so far is the statement from Arrowhead on why they are using PSN

https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/comments/1cix0fr/playstation_account_will_be_required_to_play/

@Nepp67 Steam would never put in that much effort.

As I said earlier, the PC community has slowly grown more and more toxic since 2020. Every week they have new issues with games. Hopefully Playstation reduce their dependence on the market and start focusing towards consoles again.

@OnlyGaming You mean Xbox that requires an account to sign up to as well? like with Minecraft and Sea of thieves 🤦

@FullMetalWesker - In terms of development, the PSN requirement was probably for cross-play. There's a reason on why every company that offers cross-play these days requires an third party account.

But Sony's real reason behind this must be to have more monthly active users with PSN accounts (I don't know exactly why this is an important number, but shareholders seem to care a lot about it - Microsoft, Netflix, etc. always report the number of monthly users)

Well, it's similar to EA asking you to create an account to play WRC Rally, or 2k asking to create an account to play NBA2k2x, or Microsoft asking to create an account to play Minecraft. But for Helldiver, I find such requirement is a bit too much. It's not like PSN is directly linked to PlayStation rather than a game collection from a publisher.

@UltimateOtaku91 Yep there's probably so few players in those countries that this was an easy decision to make and as long as Sony offers the people in those countries a refund if they want one then I don't see the problem.

It also means anyone who is still crying about it in the countries where PSN is supported can't pretend they're angry on their behalf anymore and will embarrass themselves even further if they keep having a temper tantrum over it.

@FullMetalWesker Basically all the big publishers expect you to create an account with them these days, it isn't something new and most of the people complaining just want something to complain about.

@B0udoir - This practice is not new. Portal 2 required an Steam account for cross-play on PS3 back in 2011. The audience was just different back then.

They just can't take a long view when it comes to live games, can they? The hard part was making a game that everyone wanted to play. Now just get out of the way.

@MrMagic Seriously people in Afghanistan, Chad and Togo are probably dealing with far more important stuff like making a living to care about stuff like this. First world problems.

Overblown. Nearly every online game has some requirement for signing something. Kids these days.

@B_Lindz @B_Lindz LMAO you sound kinda crazy… people aren’t gonna boycott Sony games lmao PlayStation console players will still play their games. single player Sony games don’t do that well. And helldivers will still do fine

@OnlyGaming Xbox makes you create an account

@ValentinaMoore PlayStation made you create an account.

You see we are so alike!

Yeah, no turning back, this will now become a brand damage.

Remember how much money Sony bled during the PS3 years because of a brand damage? Expect the same thing to happen now.

I just hope the entire department who took this approach gets fired, they do not deserve to work ever again in this industry or any other.

At the very least an automatic refund should be giving to players who can't play it.

Talk about killing all the goodwill they gained with the game. This won't impact the PS5 playerbase of course but they may very well feel a big dropoff with PC numbers.

How's that slippery slope Sony?

Hope it's all worth it 🤣

@CielloArc I don't agree with this so not defending Sony but despite the damage the PS3 done early on Sony were able to gain all that goodwill back by the end of the PS3 lifecycle, long term there was no impact from those early PS3 years at all.

@UltimateOtaku91 The issue is Sony happily sold the game to countries where you can't make PSN accounts meaning they spent money on a game they now can't play, i mean you could say that's fraud on Sony's part.

I always know corporate malarkey when I see it, it usually starts with "for your security and safety"....

What a fiasco. Sony butt hurt because Microsoft required PS5 players to sign up for a Microsoft account to play Sea of Thieves. Then people in countries where they can't sign up for a PSN account will loose and not be able to play or buy the game. Geezes. Refund them immediately when it's cut.

@TrickyDicky99 It's not a slippery slope, it's only going to affect the PC community. No one else is even going to care.

Why even sell the game, in country's that would eventually be locked out of the game?

Something else for the pc master race to complain about 🙄 😂

They should have offered a full refund to everyone review bombing. Sit back and watch the majority of these clowns go, wait, what? No, you're supposed to remove the account creation we were made aware of from the start, why are you honoring our threats?

Then follow that up a week or two later by instructing Arrowhead to release some amazing content they can all miss out on.

For those saying they couldn't create an account because of location, providing them with a solution or advice on a workaround was probably the better approach here 😂

@TrickyDicky99 i mean sony never had to put this game on pc in the first place , they could have easily kept it on ps5.

The dark side of Democracy

I think there is NO ISSUE to those who played on Steam and PSN is available in their countries.. however I feel for those in some parts of the world in Asia for example where the only PSN accounts are only HK, SG, JPN (I think Indonesia has it as well) however for those in the Philippines they sell PlayStation products there but creating accounts on the PS4/5 automatically puts one in the HK region.

Sony is really based for this. My respect for them just went up.

@Steel76 because Sony and Steam are two separate entities. Sony control what is available on PSN and where, and Valve obviously control what is available on Steam and where.

I'd bet that Sony, with the PSN, have a harder time making the PSN available in certain regions due to government interference e.g. there may be no PSN in China due to the Chinese Communist Party wanting full access to the PSN and control over it. Other countries may impose similar restrictions and controls, or taxes/tariffs. PSN is built into the console.

Steam on the otherhand is a peice of software that gives you access to the store and games, it's not baked in and in theory can be downloaded anywhere, meaning Valve have less control and can move more freely i.e. it's harder for a government to impose restrictions on Valve when Valve themselves don't have full control over who downloads Steam and where they download it.

Sony pulling the game from certain regions, to me, is an indicator that they weren't aware of this issue. Games often get pulled from digital stores while issues get resolved. They may well be trying to figure out a solution and have pulled the game until then.

Sony seem determined to get the L here. They had a pretty much controversy free surprise hit, great community goodwill, now how to ruin it...Bingo.

The trolls are out in full force for this piece of news, and it shows exactly WHY I celebrate Xbox's transition to publisher. Every piece of news doesn't have to mired in polarising discussion.

The need for registration is because of moderation, the Arrowhead announcement declares. The good kind where trolls are handed a ban on playing for ruining others' experience.

I am surprised that so many people frequented a game review site to spend 5 minutes bombing the game they enjoy instead of... registering for 5 minutes.

Wtf are you doing sony, they really want to become the next anti customer corpo huh.

Hope pc players get what they want out of this.
I only hope Sony stop putting games on pc after this.
Had no problem before them doing it but now pc players dont deserve our games.

@UltimateOtaku91 @OnlyGaming One of the arguments against PSN implementation is that they are now more vulnerable to being hacked due to the once or twice that Sony has historically been hacked in years gone by. Microsoft on the other hand have no such bile and hatred currently being spewed in their direction, but if you literally search "Microsoft hack" on Google, Microsoft are currently being investigated by the American government for a series of breaches. Go figure.

I kinda respect Sony for doing this. Let them get their refund, but keep psn a requirement.

@get2sammyb Completely agree, like this is literally the worst way they could’ve handled it, not even an answer, notice or anything, there’s now people in those countries who bought and played the game but now are unable to access it, Steam will of course give them a refund but the stain is already there.

All of this does beg the question, if the requirement was going to be so heavily enforced why the heck the game was available in those countries for 3 months? Was it really that hard to make the exception for the people who would already be willing to create an account but can’t?

This is Sony burning bridges with the PC community and everyone claiming “respect” for Sony should remember that it’s a key market for growth and overall long-term stability for PlayStation, this ain’t good for anyone.

Sony should allow changing the region on an existing PSN account without creating a new PSN account, since for example Microsoft and Nintendo allow changing the region on an existing account.

@get2sammyb - To be fair, most publishers who do this don’t make hardware (e.g. Square-Enix, Capcom) so it makes a little more sense there to have an account for logistical purposes. Here though, the publisher is Sony, who are using their Playstation account system for people playing on PC, which to me doesn’t make sense. Why not create a Helldivers account system, or use their more generic Sony account system for this sort of stuff? Why add a requirement for a Playstation account, to play a game on PC?

@ED_209 - The number of monthly users sounds like a metric used to quantify success (e.g. “our service has 3000 monthly users this month, that’s a 30% increase over last month, isn’t that great?”) which is then used to incentivize more investment. That would make it valuable to companies, and seems the most plausible (though not logical) reason for the requirement.

The people who already bought it in these regions can still play the game btw.

It’s more likely this move was done by Steam, not Sony. They probably made it unavailable until the situation is clarified.

This makes very little sense to me. I guess we'll wait and see.

Well Sony has spent the last year absolutely grovelling to the PC crowd, even giving them special treatment over PS players so here you go Sony now lay in that bed you made 🤷

Well this is absolutely insane. It’s one thing to have you log into a PSN account. Delisting the game across entire swathes of the world? That’s just crazy to me.

@get2sammyb "but I hope people will maintain the same energy for all the other games which require an external login. There are many of them."

I hope they do.

Hoooly heck. This has echoes of "if ps3 is too expensive get a second job". Sony is managing to sabotage their PC business badly.

It started as an I'll advised honor system take of putting the requirements in the fine print but not enforcing it for technical reasons, which was never ever going to end well when they choose to enforce it. Nobody reads the fine print. But honest enough. Then became PC players reacting on the wrong way to it. But now... Sony just took a an angry mob and armed them to the teeth. They just demonstrated why the mob doesn't trust Sony and shouldn't. Never give people something and then take it away, it's better never to give it at all.

Not only does this heavy hand stuff not play out well in the PC world, but they're now crushing the sales of their biggest game directly, they're undermining their burgeoning PC market entirely and poisoning the well with the market. But they've now pretty much guaranteed an Anonymous attack on PSN.

Sonys multi platform strategy may have to mean something other than PC after this because their PC credibility is about to implode if they don't do a 180.

@DennisReynolds To be fair the only reason Sony was able to win all that good will back after PS3 was because Nintendo completely lost the script, and Microsoft jettisoned all their goodwill all at once by acting.... Basically like this. If Matricks antics hadn't killed Xbox in June 2023, and had Sony not ridden that failure into a marketing triumph to the early adopters, PS4 would not have shot up to the success it was. It would have been a far more uphill struggle. Not too downplay Kaz doing an amazing job saving the brand during PS3 itself, he did, but it took Kaz throwing out old management and digging in to save it along with Ms throwing it away to get where PS4 was. This isn't nearly as huge as the PS3 debacle but it's going to choke off a market they were planning to depend on harder than they could afford.

1. People are blowing this out of proportion. Steam will be fine. Sony will be fine. Arrowhead will be fine.
2. PC gamers could have shut up and just created psn accounts like they do for every other major publisher.
3. As for Sony and how they are handling this, I sense there are a lot of very young and inexperienced dudes on this site. We're talking about Sony here, the OG "don't give a @#%& about consumers and what they think" corpo. This is the same company that told us to get a second job to afford a ps3, then took a touted feature of that same device out with a firmware update. They literally took away what they advertised the device to be. It's Sony. A big corpo machine which doesn't care. The only time they appear to care is when they have the boot of their competitors on their face. Buy more xboxes if you want a better Sony (but this will take care of itself when the next xbox comes out in 2025 with an nvidia gpu; you read it here first, you're welcome dudes).

@CielloArc

This isn't anywhere near PS3 levels of brand damage lol. This has nothing to do with their console business and Sony's PC fanbase is miniscule.. The worst that can happen here is less PC ports.

Was it Valve or Sony who delisted the game? This looks more like Valve's doing.

Terrible movement not making PSN linking requires from the very beginning. It's very disingenuous to sell a product in a country blacklisted and then revoke their access 3 months later.

Internet crusaders are unbelievably embarrassing. If only they would apply the same outrage to real problems. It's childish at best.

@NEStalgia The PS3 was rapidly catching up with the 360 before that Gen ended, even the PSN hack didn't impact sales. Sony "were back" long before MS shot themselves in the head.

@DestructionAllstars How would you like it if Sony done something that meant a game you bought of them could now not be played? This is close to fraud on Sony's part and i wouldn't be shocked if a lawsuit happens if Sony don't backtrack.

Sure Sony’s Marketing team have really appreciated this decision. Ouch.

Removing access is thick. Stop defending Sony’s behaviour. They are withdrawing access to a game people have paid for. Just to get their MAU up to even compete with Xbox’s. Sony get hacked so often

Ultimate Otaku in full on damage control mode as usual. 😅

That's kind of a bad look for sure. Even if they offer full refunds to the players, it's not exactly nice when you have a game that you enjoy only for it to be taken away. I just don't see why they feel like they have to do this. Just let people play without PSN, and everyone would be happy.

Edit: And sure, you can keep playing it even if you're in one of the affected countries. But then you're forced to break the terms of service because the PSN isn't supported in your country. Not everyone is willing to do that. If they wanted to, they could even ban your account for something like that (although I don't know if they actually would).

Wow,everyone's too fast to pull the trigger here . This is a developing news story so I advice you to wait a few days.

The amount of ignorance in the comment section is astounding. While Sony has told everyone from the beginning that PSN was a requirement, PS Plus is available only in 69 countries and yet they sold the game to every territory.
People who can make PSN accounts and are complaining can be considered entitled, but those that have no literal way to make it are being punished due to Sony stubbornness.

To sell the game in territories where you know that it's impossible to access PSN just to later pull the rug from under them is an absurdly scummy attitude from Sony.

PC gamers are such a drag

@Pat_trick "PS Plus is available only in 69 countries and yet they sold the game to every territory."

You can't buy the game from Sony, through the PSN store, in countries that PSN isn't available unless you already have a PS5 and a PSN account set to a different region. The game has been sold in those countries by Valve on the Steam store.

It's quite likely a misunderstanding, with Sony not realizing that the game is being sold on Steam in regions that can't access PSN natively.

Sony should stick with having them make a psn, but don't should offer something free like a weapon or something. I understand taking it off the market in certain places, but I'm also not sure why psn isn't available in those countries already. But I have learned that pc gamers are a bunch of cry babies.

@Mortal If it is a misunderstanding, Sony is still accountable because it's a major blunder to not know in which territories your own game is being sold. Their whole handling of the situation has been one fumble after another. Hopefully they'll be mature enough to make Helldivers 2 the exception and void the requirement. If not they have done Arrowhead Studios dirty.

@TheDudeElDuderino the ps3 cost what it cost cause of what it came with. They pushed cost online gaming forward with certain decisions. Not defending Sony just being realistic. And the feature they took away is because morons like to cheat and ruin it for everyone.

Obviously been on the same training course as Microsoft with Xbox.
How to make dumb ducking decisions. 😂

Perhaps they got a group discount.

@LiamCroft SONY was desperately chasing for GaaS milk cow and while it (accidentaly) appears, they are trying to kill it. Can you please explain, to me and others, why???

Sony seems to me more and more chaotic circus, where clowns taken lead. I cannot find more reasonable explanation.

@Cutmastavictory
Ask those countries leaders cause most times its on them not allowing psn.

@Pat_trick
Sony dont have access to steam and can check where games are being sold.

People complain about Sony gets information on players if psn is used but also complain that Sony should know where players play from.

People cant have both.

Not having to have a psn account hasn't been an issue since launch so it's weird that Sony has just suddenly to make it a requirement... Mabey it's also to do with boosting the psn numbers 🤷

I'm sure I'm missing something but why are steam users so insensed at needing to sign up to PSN?

@Cutmastavictory the price of the ps3 is not the issue here dude. The way they go about it is and the messaging. Focus dude.
As for the feature, you can find a lot of excuses but that is a big no no and they got slammed with a lawsuit which they lost. Sony is like every corpo, intrinsically soulless.

@Fyz306903 they are not. It's the vocal minority.

@Neverwild That logic is very flawed. Sony knows that steam is available in almost every country in the world and should take rigorous steps to make sure their games are not sold in territories where it would be impossible to play it.

@Stickleman "hasn't been an issue since launch" ooooh my dear child, you have no clue about unresolved social features in HD2 which are not working and that's because you don't have a big number of helldivers in your friend list across systems. They absolutely need this to sort the issues out.

Really scummy move from Sony and a frankly bizarre act of self-sabotage.

@Pat_trick now they have done that and what happened, Sony got ***** for that too.

PC community should cool down, in the last years they seem interested to everything but gaming.

Horrible move from Sony. It makes them look salty. Why was it on sale in those countries in the first place? Sony Playstation have been taking L after L this generation. A vast contrast to the PS4 era.

The sweet tears of the master race. I will be bottling and selling them on fleabay.
On a Serious note tho, good on Sony. Im not really too happy that the the game has been pulled from country's that dont have access to an account but for those that do, it was fully stated that an account would be needed. Im sure these people that are moaning have never made an account before, Steam, MS, Amazon, Netflix, LG, Samsung etc. Everyones collecting data, watching you, listning in to conversations etc. If these people cant be bothered to make an account that takes 10 minutes out of their days and would rather boycott a game that they love playing with their friends etc then i say let them do it. In the words of Forest Gump "Stupid is as stupid does"

@TheDudeElDuderino I've got plenty of friends on it on steam and ps5 and I use both so except the launch mess I've never really had any social issues with inviting or playing or whatever it may be friends cross platform wise

I use them both, they've been connected for ages. I think the tears are silly. I don't like the fact that I can't play single-player games owned on steam deck offline as I need to sign in, looking at ea. But I don't raze the roof and demand daft things. We knew, we all knew, get over it.

@Kidfunkadelic83 No need to be rude. In addition to toxic fans, there are also reasonable people playing on PC, just as there are on Playstation, Nintendo or Xbox. It's okay to call out Sony in case they do something that hurts the player experience.

Hahahah PC gamers are CRYING

@FEWGEE1 and yet they are more successful than ps4, funny how that works.

@Stickleman consider yourself lucky. I on the other hand am using an alternate HD2 account on steam to bridge the problems between my prime on ps5 and my friends on steam which I lost the ability to "see" since a month and a half now.
I raised a support request with Arrowhead and they acknowledged the issue and are working on it. I am guessing the mandatory linking to psn and moving all social related database(s) transactions/messaging/status info whatever blabla is behind it over to PSN will solve this.

To everyone saying PC gamers are such drama babies, need I remind you what happened just last week with the (PS5 exclusive) Stellar Blade controversy?

Such a huge waste of energy all around.
This culture of being so entitled and spoiled and vindictive is just giving all gamers a bad name, and it's embarrassing at the very least.

@KoopaTheGamer do you say the same to all the PC gamers that use pushsquares comment sections to antagonise the console gamers? If you do then you obviously have very little time for anything else. I stopped playing games on my PC because they can be the absolute worst gamers on the face of the planet and I'm not saying console gamers are that much better. I'm certain @Kidfunkadelic83 could have been a lot ruder if he could have been bothered.

@Kidfunkadelic83 I bet corps like Sony love it when they have an army of fanboys willing to bend over backwards in defending them.

@DennisReynolds If Sony made clear from the start you needed a PSN account, but temporarily disabled that because of handling the huge playerbase, and now are refunding ppl, then why a lawsuit?

If it happened to me i certainly wouldnt be happy, but in the end it would be on me if i didnt read or had spend money on mtx while knowing this could happen. If i were Sony i wouldve handled it differently yes, but a lawsuit is ridiculous.

This feels like a tone deaf move, if they want to break into PC this is just plain silly and will hurt the massive momentum they created recently.

@DennisReynolds better than bending over to give Nvidia a grand or two every year just to be able to play the decent stuff.

PC toads are the worst and it's always fun to laugh at them making first world problems out of stuff like this 🤣

Imagine having a monstrously popular live service title on PC that's even penetrating markets where you don't have a console presence. You've gained a ton of good will with an enormous number of new players in a market you've been desperately trying to tap into.

Then you nuke that good will entirely, shut off access to multiple new and emerging markets, and severely damage your momentum in the PC space because you simply must, more than anything else, force integration with your own accounts, rather, than, say, providing incentives for account integration that would have probably still seen in a large uptick in PSN account numbers without all the self-inflicted damage.

The dumbest move I've seen in this industry in a long time.

Mr. Literature Club, nooo!! What an embarrassment. Way to sandbag one of the best things going for you, Sony. See y'all in the PC space after this generation.

And just when we thought PlayStation's leadership couldn't possibly get worse....

I bet the game is doing so much more than Sony budgeted that they’d be happy to lose the players upset over this move (or, if not ‘happy’ exactly, then willing, at least). The actual player numbers on Steam don’t seem to have been affected since the announcement and the review bombing.
The brigading of the game and the dev team in Reddit and Discord is very often disgusting, I’ll say that. People really need to think about how they say things, but that’s been true of social media since day 1.

@ATaco @crashcontrol
They are issuing full refunds as mentioned in the article,
"There are reports of PC users getting full refunds for the game despite having played significantly longer than the two-hour grace period Steam offers."

@Savage_Joe and hy do i need a Xbox account to play the Xbox games released on PSN? Microsoft wants it so who am i to complian.

@Northern_munkey Not entirely sure what your point is. I'm just saying that people should be more respectful to each other. Do you disagree?

@DennisReynolds Fraud in what way? Is it made clear you need to have a PSN account on the page? A yes or no is good enough.

@get2sammyb
"Very unfortunate all around, but I hope people will maintain the same energy for all the other games which require an external login."

Myself, would rather this level of energy on this subject is NOT maintained.

It's very divisive, why would you want that to continue?

You are an editor though, plenty of clicks to be had I guess.

@UltimateOtaku91
"anyone buying the game on steam was pre warned that they would need a PSN account in the future, yet they bought the game anyway and still complained"

Anyone know how prominent the "warning" was?
If it was included in the usual spiel that the vast majority of us agree to without taking an hour to read, it could have easily been missed by some.

@KoopaTheGamer all depends..

@WizzNL They knowingly sold a product in countries knowing full well the product won't work in a few months time. T&C doesn't really matter because T&C a lot of time go against your rights anyway. Fact is Sony took money for something that they knew months later won't work and yeah that's fraud, hiding the catch in T&C doesn't stop it being fraud.

If Stellar Blade suddenly stopped working in a few months time because in the T&C it said it would you would be ok with that? No you wouldn't.

A real helldiver would just get a PSN account

@Flaming_Kaiser Except it wasn't because it was hidden away and never made clear. Sony sold a product they knew would stop working so yeah that's fraud. Tell me why sell it in these countries in the first place?

@Pranwell That's a choice of a PC player to upgrade or not but here they don't have a choice, some players literally can't make a PSN account in their country meaning the game they spent money on won't work and Sony knew that.

Why are people defending Sony here? If MS done this you would all be tearing them down.

Would be nice if this backlash forced Microsoft to remove the Bethesda account requirement for DOOM Eternal.

@Americansamurai1 I haven't upgraded my pc in nearly a year actually

Not bothered in the slightest. I'll continue to enjoy my dives. The outcry has been hilarious.

@DennisReynolds If it said so in the T&C and i would get a refund, then yes i wouldnt even think of a lawsuit. Like i said, i wouldnt be happy, but a lawsuit would be ridiculous. Also with your example of Stellar Blade.

Im not arguing bout how it would feel like a customer, i fully agree. And i wouldve handled it differently. Selling the product in those countries was a mistake and they are correcting that mistake with a refund, so how do you think a lawsuit would go exactly?

Arrowhead CEO on twitter an hour ago, clearly advocating for those affected and distancing them from the decision taken.

"We are talking solutions with PlayStation, especially for non-PSN countries. Your voice has been heard, and I am doing everything I can to speak for the community - but I don't have the final say."

US led Sony is tone def, Japan led Sony was diplomatic.

I'm not some great business mind, but alienating a community that Sony greatly needs for future success seems counterproductive.

@Grumblevolcano Yeah. To be fair, whenever a game requires a Bethesda account login, a lot of people are not happy about it. Never got quite this big though, probably because they didn't add it after launch (as far as I know, anyway).

@NEStalgia nah. It's because they delivered incredible exclusives. Since mid ps3 Sony has had some of the best exclusives in the market, continuously getting game of the year awards. Unparalleled quality for mature audiences brought gamers back to Sony.

@Victor_Meldrew brings a whole new meaning to playing on PC 😋😋

@Deityjester that could be confirmation bias. I've seen the most vicious comments posted by Nintendo fans who couldn't accept that, for example, someone thought that Super Mario Galaxy 2 deserved a 9/10.

@Intr1n5ic meh I'd just buy the starship troopers game at that point honestly

If your in a country where PSN is available it's a bit silly to complain. However if your someone in a country PSN is not available and you purchased the game already? Yeah you definitely got a right to complain. Kind of a boneheaded move on Sony here.

Sony has long since lost its way, they think that they sell only because of the name but one of these days they will stop having the best-selling console.

@KoopaTheGamer im well aware of the fact that there are reasonable people that play on PC, im one of them along with my son. As stated 10 minutes and and my boy had an account created. Its a simple fact that if people want to play they need an account or else they have to play something else. Dont go moaning and spitting dummies out about something you were told was going to happen before you even paid for the game.

@Deityjester Sure you would 😂

@DennisReynolds it's not fraud when they said from the beginning you'd need a PSN account to play. It's also in the terms and conditions but people don't read them. It's PC players fault for accepting something they didn't read. Yes, it sucks for those people that can't get PSN in their country but then they shouldn't have bought the game without reading what they're buying first.

What an absolutely ludicrous response from PC players. Anyone in a country that has access to create a PSN account is being ridiculously childish. The only people with a legitimate reason to feel hard done by here are those in the more obscure places that can't make an account. You literally only have to link the account to steam and the game plays just the same as it always has. No delays, no extra fees, the exact same game. It's not like a launcher where you have to sign in every time you want to play. I for one will continue to enjoy this superb game Arrowhead have produced for us and stride forwards towards democracy.

Sony chosen violence here. If they were so hell bent on having this as a requirement, they should not publish the game where there is no PSN, and secondly, they should wait with the release where the log in issue is fixed. People would grumble, but it would be all transparent. The way they have done it was simply asking for whatever comes to them.

@Uncharted2007 But now it sucks for players in those countries who were on their best behaviour.? Why should they be denied?

@LiamCroft Yes, but if full refund is guaranteed those PC gamers have nothing to complain about

Sony's big mistake was allowing players from countries where PSN isn't available to purchase the game. What a colossal f'up from them.

How about don't release games until they are ready?!

This shouldn't have happened.

The game should have been delayed and released with the PSN requirement in place and only in countries where PSN is available - as I am sure there is some legal language somewhere that prohibits this being sold in countries where it's technically not "legal" to have PSN if it's required to play the game (despite being able to lie about your region when creating an account).

Now, I do think people have been blowing certain aspects of this out of proportion - it is the internet after all - but how it's being handled now certainly doesn't help things.

I hope the people from the pulled countries are allowed to get refunds, at least.

Seen some comments from Arrowhead devs throw Sony to the wolves by encouraging the review bombing to make their distaste heard.

It's now within the realm of possibility that Arrowhead buys the IP from Sony and breaks off, à la Destiny and Activision. This is the consequences of relying on 3rd party devs instead of your fully owned studios because there would be no backtalk from them.

It's fair to say Sony has pretty much brought a death sentence to both Concord and Fairgame$ on PC now.

@Deityjester

"the most toxic players i have seen have been playstation, people insulting others, being racist"

If you go to Steam right now you'll find plenty of comments saying that Japan should be nuked again. All this over a PSN account.

@truerbluer

They can't buy it if Sony doesn't agree to sell.

@KoopaTheGamer I think the backlash here being more is because Helldivers 2 is a viral hit. It's like how Fortnite adding crossplay between Switch and Xbox back in 2018 caused a massive backlash towards Sony's stance on crossplay because PS Fortnite players couldn't play with their friends on other platforms.

@DennisReynolds was it down to Sony to list the game in these countries or steam who decided? Genuinely curious

As a PC gamer the choice of an invasive anti-cheat software with root level access on my PC in a purely PVE game is more alarming than having to have a PSN account.

@Flaming_Kaiser and MS should get reprimanded as well. Though Sony did much worse for the fact that they sold the game to people who were not part of their audience, to then pull the rug on them. The game got taken out of my country’s Steam page as well, and my friends who only played the PC version are legitimately pissed.

Helldivers 2 is now unavailable for purchase in over 150 regions, and Steam is issuing refunds for the game, regardless of playtime.

Now, due to PSN not being available in over 150 countries where Helldivers 2 was previously purchasable on Steam, the game has been delisted in them, according to SteamDb.

Players are reporting that the service is issuing refunds for the game, regardless of playtime. Typically, players have two hours to decide whether or not they want a refund, but Valve has seemingly relaxed these rules in the wake of the PSN change.

That's all from VGC.

Whilst PSN may well have been 'required', until May 3rd, Sony themselves had stipulated PSN was 'optional' on their own website. From May 3rd, they changed that wording to say 'some' games may require a PSN account.

The 'reason' they gave on Twitter is to make it easier/quicker for them to BAN players - particularly those on PC/Steam. There is more 'legal' hoops to jump through to Ban players on other Platforms and impose their 'censorship' rules.

Doesn't matter if you bought the game on Steam, if Sony decides you can't play it anymore, this gives them that control.

To everyone saying 'well, other publishers have launchers too', perhaps this is the tipping point where that changes?

The additional launchers are universally disliked, even if they've been tolerated in other instances thus far. If consumer action gets publishers to think twice about it in the future that's a win for consumers everywhere.

It's fun to watch when big companies make stupid mistakes!

I bet Sony is trying to milk PS+ money off PC gamers

The reaction was by and large pathetic... however, I do wonder what the hell Sony was thinking in even selling the game in territories where PSN isn't available when the plan was always to implement mandatory PSN login

@Blackjay Bad apples ruin it for others because they're narcissists that don't care what their actions cause. I see it as, can't make everyone happy, but should definitely not make man children happy. Refuse to comply with these ridiculous people.

Really freaking sucks for the people in those countries. Wish the requirement was waived for them, and moved up for everyone else.

@UltimateOtaku91 the game should never have been listed in those countries if that were the case. Or the warning should have been more explicit, stating that your access to the game will be revoked at some point in the near future.

@PapaGlitch at best, it’s a massive oversight by Sony. At worst, it’s a deliberate attempt to exploit some of its customer base. If the game were on sale in an unsupported region, I think it would be pretty reasonable to assume that when this change were implemented, so too would support for psn be added.

@glennthefrog Yep purchased mass effect andromeda on steam the other month and had to use the ea launcher... Game wouldn't even start so refunded, have a friend who also can't seem to get ea games working and it's not a pc issue.

The melodramatics and infantile outrage over this is hilarious. No wonder some people still think gaming is just for kids.

@MrMagic all the recent activity in the gaming space has been childish. Even mainstream news outlets like Forbes and Vice have picked this up and also ran the Stellar Blade “controversy”. They’re laughing at gamers right now.

@TheTony316 That's one guy and he's clearly trying to be funny, I don't think the guys who are teamkilling calling people the n word and threatening people are doing that 🤔

The reputation of Playstation and Nintendo fans mirrors the reputation of Xbox as a brand.

@Intr1n5ic It's around the same price, first person perspective which is superior to third person and doesn't have dodgy cheapskate anticheat which doesn't work.

This whole situation just reeks of PC gamers using poor excuse to not make an account or to link PSN account. People suddenly caring about these counties where PSN is not available... Another case of "Look at us! We're championing for the little guy and the unheard. We're such good people". Once they get their way, they'll go back to not care about these places and acting like they don't exist. 80% of these counties probably don't have access to plenty of services anyway much less PSN. They are probably used to using VPNs and proxy services to create accounts to access these services. The only thing this did was cause more issue... Cause now these counties can't purchase the game period. Even if they had a PSN account that they created the one time they visited the US and have been using a VPN ever since to access it.

This is embarrassing. One terrible decision after another. They had a good thing going with helldivers 2 but they might be destroying that already. It's a shame too since it would be such an easy fix to just keep psn optional like it has been.

I wonder what Arrowhead thinks of this decision. That relationship might be damaged by this arrogance Sony is showing.

Absolutely torpedoed the review scores on Steam. "Mixed" overall reviews and "overwhelmingly negative" recent reviews. It will probably never be able to climb back into the "mostly positive" rating. Shed 50k (~33%) peak concurrents since last week.

All these Sony Playstation Console ONLY fanboys defending this. I wonder how they'd feel if you bought Battlefield/Fifa and several months later, EA demand you give your private details and link your PS account to EA or you won't be able to play the game you bought anymore. What if there is 'no' EA account in your region so that game you bought will cease to work for you.

What if the only reason EA want you link the account is so that they have more control over you/your access etc. The ability to ban/block you from playing on Playstation with more ease and efficiency instead of having to go through Sony...

Of course its not a 'big deal' if you play on Playstation because you have a PSN account to play on Playstation. You are already locked into what Sony allows you to play and has that Control to censor. Don't want you to see a bit more 'skin' on a Character, they can force devs to censor it for release on 'their' platform and that extends to censoring 'people'. Saying Playstation is for the 'kids' for example could get you 'banned' by Sony despite playing on Steam...

@BAMozzy What private details are they demanding?

PC master race ... more like PC crying baby race.

It's bank holiday weekend folks. Get yourself to the pub and this will all blow over.

@Deityjester Sounds great. 646 people are currently playing so have fun with that.

@Weebleman On route

Sony might want to look this word up:

Blunder - A gross error or mistake resulting usually from stupidity, ignorance, or carelessness.

Followed immediately by the words ‘Effective’ and ‘Communication’

Yikes

Typical PS5 era Sony move. 🙄

@Intr1n5ic My Email is 'Private' for example - and Sony don't have the best record for Data breaches.

Oh and in some countries, Facial pic and some ID (Passport, Drivers Licence etc) is required to verify age. That's also 'private' and shouldn't be required to play a GAME especially on another Platform - its purely to give Sony more control over who plays their Game even if you are not playing on Sony's Platform!

@EYEBALL my man

@Shepherd_Tallon this is the best kind of reaction. Just because we experience or notice something, it doesn't mean that it's as widespread as we think. Obviously, sometimes it is, but not always.

@BAMozzy They're not demanding your "private" email. If using that was a major cause for concern though, what's preventing you from creating a throwaway?

And thats how you kill a popular game, well done Sony slow clap This is actually insane on Sony's side tbh this feels like one of the those permanently damaging your reputation type of things, and honestly they deserve it.

@Deityjester

Playstation gamers saying racist ***** = disgusting pricks (they obviously are)

PC gamers saying a whole country should get nuked = They're just trying to be funny.

Ok got it.

You’ve gotta love social media 😂

@naruball good grief that reads like marketing copy. I love ps3 and its exclusives more than PS4 or 5 so I want to say you're preaching to the choir, but people, especially ps fans and their obsessive belief in exclusives, but also Xbox fans and their expectation that exclusives are the answer to everything are going to drive me to the asylum. There's "a" market that matters to but it isn't the majority of the market. I'll give you that it mattered more then than now though. But the PS3 was just so absolutely bad at playing almost any third party game, it's success really was an exclusives second console. Heck I didn't even WANT an Xbox back then, couldn't stand the Idea of an ms console like any self respecting pony. But eventually suffering with the poor third party handling I had to finally concede and get a 360 and ended up preferring it, using PS3 only for exclusives by the end. The kind of customer a platform doesn't actually want. So ironically much as I like the PS3, the PS3 is the reason a buy Xboxs at all. I love it but.....

@DennisReynolds PS3 was "catching up" largely due to the cheap models, Xbox already shooting themselves in the foot with trying to chase the Wii with Kinekt and forgetting their main audience, and people buying PS3 as a "second console" to play exclusives on. Which isn't what makes platforms money. If MS had fired on all cylinders in 2013 PS4 was still going to have a much more difficult challenge.

@PaperAlien

Steam concurrent players are still as high as always and console players aren't even affected by this. They'll obviously lose players but i wouln't say it's killed. Even if every single PC player stops playing, they'll still have the console audience.

@TheTony316 Yep, just under 99k currently playing, and no noticeable change to daily engagement compared to numbers right before the outrage began.

I would love to see the data on the individuals making the most noise.

I still am in awe of the level of PR self destruction involved here. Sonys name wasn't popular in PC before but this will have a long memory in the PC crowd. Not only did they just lop off sales of their one hit, they're actually rolling back the sales success of the past few months via refunds. How often do companies have to report negative revenue? All this without Jim. The whole California HQ is so woefully out of touch.

If this page were set to use a green theme and said this was a Microsoft decision for an Xbox game I would 100% believe it.

I still think the practice for live service requiring an account (PSN in this case) is fine, and the crowd outraged by this are just being entitled / or are fanboys jumping on the bandwagon (Sony is doing no different to anyone else) - single player games is a totally different thing and you should never need an account with the publisher/developer to play.

Not sure i agree with delisting in countries its already sold in - though i think this has been caused by a pretty silly mistake by Sony not realising the game would be sold in countries PSN isnt available in. Just having the PSN requirement in the T&Cs isnt enough here (ie countries without PSN) - unless a great big red warning came up before purchase.

The nonstop drama, in the modern gaming industry, is really exhausting and depressing. I thing I just need a LONG break from the internet...

Now all we need is a bit of parity, and for the game to require PS plus subscription to play on PC*
Lol

• unless you dont need PS plus on PS5 of course for HD2. No idea here, but there have been some rare past cases of this being true.

@Victor_Meldrew lmao you pay to use the internet you already pay for

PC and mobile gaming are the only areas of the industry showing growth. Sony continues to make easily avoidable errors.

@NEStalgia They'll just move on to the next thing they're outraged about.

Remember when this game first launched and there was an extremely vocal movement crying about anticheat, on twitter, gaming websites, message boards etc. Many were stating it's inclusion was a ridiculous decision and they weren't going to support the game as a result. Well, it's funny how quickly they shut up when they realised how enjoyable the game was.

This could have bigger implications (if this isn't fix immediately) as in Arrowhead is watching Sony in real time destroy their game, studio and reputation. They have no say in the matter yet are feeling the backlash, this could be the last time Arrowhead works with Sony.

I'm going to be brutally honest here and say that I just don't care.

I never get to say "I'm alright Jack" and now I can 😁 /s

The only issue I'm seeing here are those few countries left with no PSN service. Once we get the USA to invade and spread democracy then all will be fine 😌

In all seriousness this will likely be sorted soon(ish) or offered an alternative workaround so I'd reserve your hardest of judgements for now.

Thing is they said it was for safety and to be able to ban people etc but it's not it's about your data and how that data is incredibly profitable when showing shareholders the player data of the game.

That's the reason why they have argued about it it hasn't been needed since the games launch and a successful launch at that. Now Sony have stuck a right cluster in the works and it's getting reviewed bombed to let others know about it, it's the only way on Steam they can get that out as many don't look at the games forums.

@jmoss Irony is the game sold more on PC than PS5 because you didn't need to sign in with PSN and pay for plus to play.

Let's not forget: Arrowhead isn't entirely happy with the situation either (nor are they faultless, mind you), but at least one person at Arrowhead has... "encouraged" the review-bombing as a way to put pressure on Sony.

Every once-in-a-while Sony completely bumbles their way into a stupid decision - just remember the PS3 launch fiasco. We can hold them responsible for their poor decision-making.

Sony sold the game in those regions knowing they were going to require a PSN account after launch. The comments here placing blame on the end user for not keeping up with a requirement that didn’t exist when the game launched is a ridiculous notion.

Personally I’d rather have an account requirement as opposed to needing to install a separate program and needing it to run in the background to play the game, but I can still understand the frustration of needing to keep up with yet another account when previously I didn’t before. The lack of basic empathy among gamers and just humans in general is really sad.

This is from the top guy at Arrowhead.

"I do have a part to play. I am not blameless in all of this - it was my decision to disable account linking at launch so that players could play the game. I did not ensure players were aware of the requirement and we didn't talk about it enough.

We knew for about 6 months before launch that it would be mandatory for online PS titles."

So who's to blame again? 🤔, after all of this it could also be down to steam themselves putting the games on store available for everyone without taking into account the future PSN requirement and the fact it's not supported everywhere. It seems like one big f**k up with multiple parties to blame, but people are jumping the gun and rushing to solely blame Sony as that's the cool thing to do these days.

I don't get the moaning they had to make an account with steam why is so hard to make an account with sony to play their games? PC master race are a joke

I found the game very underwhelming anyway. Fun for 20 hours then you realise there's no real aim, progression, or point. It's just endlessly repeating the same stuff.

The people in the countries that can't buy it because they've been boxed into a situation where it's not possible are the ones I feel sorry for...bravo Sony...Bravo!

@Shepherd_Tallon Yeah it seems they couldn't handle putting the PSN requirement in place day one for some reason. I think there were better ways to deal with this though and that would have been to either delay the game until the PSN integration was up and running, or release the game on Playstation 5 first for 3-6 months and then on PC with the PSN requirement on release.

Haha, crazy man. This is why I rarely do digital. Gaming is really in a bad sorts right now. The customer seems ok purchasing a license to play for now, but then this type of stuff happens. Just crazy.

Sony really toasted this game and community. I get it, in an entirely cold, detached sort of capitalism prevails kind of way, but this is just the worst possible way to have handled this situation.

The player's reactions are both justified and completely predictable. The idea that most players were actually aware they would need a PSN account is laughable. It's like assuming players read the EULAs when you install a new game - I literally have no idea what I am agreeing to.

And people saying players need to grow up and take the 5 minutes, this is like if you bought a PS5 game and then needed a Ubisoft account to play something. Would I do it? Probably, but I'll moan about it the whole time.

So around 170 countries are just out of the picture. Almost a quarter million negative votes on Steam because of that.

Sony did it again, I think this belongs in the top 3 of ALL TIME stupid moves regarding video games. Sony made history.

Kudos!

@LiamCroft hmm but I delisting means it’s no longer to purchase, and if the game is gonna require a psn account to play (just like xbox games on pc require an additional account), then it kind of makes sense to have the game delisted/unavailable to purchase anymore with areas that can’t create specific additional console, etc. accounts. Though refunds for those cases should and are seemingly being allowed.

@Lavishturtle delisting just means it’s no longer to purchase, and if the game is gonna require a psn account to play (just like xbox games on pc require an additional account), then it kind of makes sense to have the game delisted/unavailable to purchase anymore with areas that can’t create specific additional console, etc. accounts. And refunds for those are being allowed.

@BAMozzy I just saw your edit.

What you're referring to is only applicable in the UK and Ireland, and it's to verify your age when creating an adult account. Not only can you completely skip that stage, making it a non issue with regards to this topic, but you can also use a mobile phone number instead if you don't want to provide photo ID. Any data you submit if you choose to complete that stage is immediately deleted after confirmation and isn't saved to your profile.

So again, nothing private is demanded from you to create a linked account.

@UltimateOtaku91 "So who's to blame again? 🤔"

Mostly Sony and partly Arrowhead! 🤷

Their ultimate goal was to make a successful live service game and they did that, they should have changed course as soon as they saw the success and maybe postpone that requirement or just removed it (maybe making an exception just for Helldivers 2? like Xbox did for baldur's gate 3 and one of their mandates!)

Now their very successful live service game is imploding by their own hand, this could potentially make it harder for future Sony live service titles to blow up as well. It's a giant mess and we don't even have Jim Ryan to blame this time.

@ED_209 @IOI @Nepp67 @OnlyGaming @B_Lindz If the game is gonna require a psn account to play (just like xbox games on pc require an additional account), then it kind of makes sense to have the game delisted/unavailable to purchase anymore with areas that can’t create specific additional console, etc. accounts. Though refunds for those cases should and are seemingly being allowed.

@Daft_Klebenflw

Please help us recall any instance in which Microsoft have ever released a game and have taken it away from any market because of a Microsoft account enforcement.

You can't think of any instance?...right!

Simply because an account policy shouldn't ever trump the bigger picture which is customer satisfaction.

@UltimateOtaku91 It seems like AH is at least partly responsible for the lack of clear communication regarding PSN signup requirements in regions where such accounts can be created. And obviously for allowing the requirement to not be implemented initially.

However, Sony as publisher is absolutely at fault for allowing the game to be available on Steam in regions where they knew PSN doesn't have a presence, which is actually the more serious issue here. It's a publisher's job to deal with the complexities of getting a title into stores, including online storefronts, and so it's their fault that the game was available in places it shouldn't have been. AH wouldn't have a hand in that or else they'd be their own publisher.

It's also very clearly Sony's fault the requirement is not being relaxed. AH is signalling they're fine with just dumping the PSN requirement entirely, but they don't get to make that call.

So overall I'd say it's probably 80/20 with majority fault lying with Sony. They really should just take the L and give in, even Forbes is covering the topic and in a manner that isn't very sympathetic towards Sony. The C suite doesn't pay much attention to reddit, discords, etc. but I'm sure a few of them will be upset that Forbes, the world's foremost corpo boot licking magazine, thinks they're making a financial mistake. HD2 has been a massive success story, no reason for Sony to die on that hill over something so inconsequential. They had a money printer on their hands and they're letting hubris clog up the gears.

this have to be the most idiotic internet drama in gaming ever. people are dumb.

@Daft_Klebenflw That does make sense, better to delist them instead of getting more angry people because they bought something they can't play at all.

@Intr1n5ic I think it would have blown over more if Sony hasn't just stuck their foot in it like this. It won't be OMGeddon like this specifically on this game forever, but I think the PC crowd doesn't easily forget archenemy companies, and the lingering stretch of this will fester through future PC releases and especially Sonys launcher. Trying to turn PC games into your walled garden that market already rejected won't be easily forgotten in that space, and Valve can do no wrong in that camp as much or more than Sony can do no wrong in this camp.

Yet MS requires an account for some of their games, even not on XBox, and nobody blinks an eye.

Man, these developers can't catch a break. First there was the issue with servers, then the drm (nprotect gameguard I think it was), and now this whole thing. It's great they had success but it sure hasn't been without headaches.

Uh that makes a lot of sense with the Steam reviews now that I didn't know about before and was confused. I feel for the developers.

Yet Sony is pushing console related logic to PC, they can't expect people to just bend over for them they aren't the same audience. Sure people do overreact but I mean why should they when any other game you won't have to encounter this so why should they have to Sony's games.

Also those in particular countries that's even more sad.

For trophies or PS+ Extra or PS Now prior a PSN account made sense and trophies on PC are optional so I'd say sure but in general nah I don't blame PC gamers here. People may Xbox games but they have a Microsoft account on Windows anyway (Linux and likely Mac users try their best to ignore them like with the Minecraft account situation, let alone many Windows users WANT offline mode but Microsoft refuses/wants to hide it all the time/removes the possibility).

That and those that don't use Gamepass/Xbox related services and just Steam/others instead never have to encounter this.

They never had to before, why would they for a select few games they have plenty on their platform/launchers to play without ever having to engage with this.

Sony feels like Microsoft here you can't treat the PC community like your console one and Microsoft does the same you can't treat many things on console like Windows. Think outside the box because each audience is different per platform any idiot knows that.

I mean I questioned the same with Ubisoft accounts or EA accounts. We just want to play games not have a bunch of data sending TOS/EULAs when we buy a game, so might as well just check with the demos or footage and just never buy them.

So having PSN as an requirement when no other PC game has that. Sony are just stupid and think an audience that never had to deal with it will gladly accept it, I mean people could say oh they should just get used to it, but they really want to annoy people when they could just play offline (probably not even that if they change is that widespread for the game to access it even offline not just online) or not play it/refund depending.

@Cloud7794 The only poor decision making done here was Sony putting their games on PC.

They gonna find out quick that most PC gamers hate Playstation and this whole PC initiative is just a waste of time.

Wow nice to see a literal army of trolls in the comment section @antdickens you might want to close these comments down because this is NOT a good look for the community.

So, Xbox been forcing their ACC for games on pc for forever and nobody cared. Sony does it and now it's end of the world.

The arguments are so weak too.

'country not supported', 'sony will leak my information'

Lmao, just stay humble. All you have to do is reg ACC that takes no more than 2 mins and link it in game ONCE.

Don't use VPNs, just choose any country you want to and that's it... I saw some people saying you need id and phone number. It's only UK and Ireland that's rolling it out on new registrations, but you can bypass it with their own website.

Just use the link https://id.sonyentertainmentnetwork.com/id/create_account_ca/#/create_account/wizard/entrance?entry=create_account

Make username and use trash email of yours.

Are you worried that someone will steal your username and spoof email?

You literally don't need any other information.

@glennthefrog it doesn't matter if psn supported in your region or not. You can make any region ACC and play in your country..people been doing it for over a decade now. Myself have ACC from all over the regions where I buy games and play them for 10 years plus now and no bans or hacks or whatsoever.

It's just made up drama to stir it and bring hate on Sony and arrowhead. People don't even think and just jump on the hate train. Very typical, knowing that most of the hate comes from children most likely.

@Lavishturtle pc fanboys making drama from nothing. Very typical

@crashcontrol why not? Game works, you can just make any countries acc that is nearest to you that supports PSN and link it. You don't get banned for making accounts in countries you don't live lmao. This is literally the pc players making up to stir the drama. Make the acc that takes 2 minutes and carry on.

@Deityjester you dinosaur. How can you even live with ancient hardware

@Intr1n5ic they can even bypass the requirements completely with this link https://id.sonyentertainmentnetwork.com/id/create_account_ca/#/create_account/wizard/entrance?entry=create_account

All my friends on pc already used it and registered to UK and they aren't even in countries that PSN is supported. Guess what, we can all play and no one got banned too. Must be miracle

Why is Helldivers 2 even available for countries without PSN in the first place?

Well that matches much better honestly. Folks were mad that they were told up front they would need a PSN account eventually since they could buy the game in places that didn’t have PSN accounts. So now the sale of the game matches the PSN requirement and people got their money back. Problem solved as it is doubtful that the PSN requirement will be walked back. (Edit: guess I was wrong about this part but that is surprising) Honestly this sounds like Valve might have opened the game to the wrong regions from the start and Sony didn’t notice until the complaints rolled in. Sucks but is fixable by giving people their money back, which they are doing.

By the way, I think it was valve that took it off for purchase, not sony.

@Lavishturtle Trolls keep trolling. What a joke.

@zhoont too true. Mostly console fanboy and executive tears today, though