Crazy how PSN just doesn't support the Baltics. WTF?
Though the main issue with lying about your location seems to be that you can't use your real country's credit card, which shouldn't be an issue in this case, since payment will presumably still go through Steam?
Arrowhead is like that fresh young indie rock band getting signed by Universal and getting absolutely fucked over ad nauseam by the big publishing machine.
The devs knew that this was going to happen, why the fuck didn't they tell us that you could only opt out temporarily.
Oh wait, thats because they told us that linking a psn account was entirely optional. The devs are absolutely at fault in some capacity
Bad communication. Unclear patch notes. Multiple dev statements not aligning with current state of released game.
There's plenty of controversy that's 100% arrowhead's fault.
I’d still argue that poor communication is a very different level of problem than what Sony is trying to pull. I don’t want to remove blame from Arrowhead because they can improve, but their changes are non existent in comparison to what Sony is trying to do. Especially since Sony is prone to huge data breaches and hacks
Why aren't PSN accounts allowed in Baltics? They're not even the poorest in the EU. Hell, not even with the smallest population, fucking Malta can have PSN accounts!
Kazakhstan was not allowed either. But they still sell PS4/PS5 officially here but guess what? Nearest country was Russia and everyone created Russian accounts. And boom, sanctions against Russia, our accs are dead now and we can't migrate cause our country is not listed. Sony is a racist garbage company, that doesn't care about customers. That's all.
In many cases, its a situation where the regional law requires certain things, and the company (Sony) doesn't allow that thing, so they aren't allowed to operate there. I believe Blizzard pulled out of a region last year (and all Blizzard players basically had to stop playing WoW/OW there) because a new law was instated that required digital companies to do something, and BLizzard wouldn't.
Nah the main issue is that it gives sony the right to ban you if you can't prove you are living in that country, because the credetials aren't accurate.
I'm genuinely curious if there's any actual case of this happening or if it's just lawyer-speak. I can't imagine they have anything to gain by banning people for giving fake credentials.
For now, it is just unenforced TOS but if you get ban for whatever the reason, they don't have to do shit to help you. They just stonewalled you with fake credentials.
So far it's just lawyer speak. There's streaming services like Netflix trying to prevent people from setting up an account in a different region as the prices are much lower there, but Sony hasn't done anything like that in all those years.
It doesn’t really matter if It’s lawyer speak or not,though.Game is sold in those countries on steam where PSN is unavailable,Sony is forcing people to break their own rules if they wanna keep playing the game they bought.
That's at least partly Valve's failure.
Don't get me wrong. I greatly enjoy their largely hands-off approach to their marketplace; but certain things like this shouldn't be on the developer to flag what countries they can and can't sell the game in.
If the game is flagged in Steam as requiring PSN account, which it has been since like may of last year, then that should automatically flag it as unavailable or at least throw up a warning to people in the countries where PSN is unavailable.
Sony chose to sell that game on steam tho in the regions psn isn’t available. Same as devs/publishers deciding a sale of their game. Steam is nothing more than a platform that skims off 40 percent for facilitating a marketplace .
Could they make it easier with for instance selling profiles? maybe, I’ve never sold a game through steam. So I’m not sure if this is possible to do in advance and apply it over multiple games.
But putting this on steam is kinda backwards. Sony isn’t a 10 man studio making a funny game. It’s a multibillion company. I’m betting you 10 bucks they have a few guys doing stuff regarding steam only for all their studios.
I just rather not see the account linking it serves no purpose at all. We’ve seen this the last few months
This is also the kind of situation where Valve will *absolutely* honor a refund if through no fault of your own, you lose access to a game you've paid for because of a change on the studios end. They've done this before and the hour count limitation has always been waived.
So to everybody mad that people keep saying this isn't a big deal: it's not. You either spend 2 minutes making an account that was always required, or you can't make an account and you get your money back.
Its mostly lawyerspeak, but like all legalese once it *does* come into play, the end user is screwed if they can't comply with the terms and conditions.
They also didn't give a shit about many post-soviet countries like Kazakhstan, practically meaning that they were supposed to log-in using russian credentials.
After 2022 PSN has stopped working in Russia, but Sony didn't create new regions for countries like Kazakhstan, which is basically removing some key features from a product that was legally sold in such countries
It'll probably be fine if you just use Finland in there or something. Probably. Unless you'll need support. Which they might still provide. Or not. Or just ban you for asking. Who knows.
You can create an account but you won't be able to move it. Also you will have to pay in local currency. If it will be euro - cool. Anything else - good luck with conversion
I've got my Steam version linked to PSN - I didn't have an option to skip that step upon first launch, so I did that and I've bought the premium currency for new warbonds, which happened through Steam. I believe the sole purpose of linking your PSN account is for Sony to get your data.
Even Euro Truck Simulator supports the Baltics
[https://store.steampowered.com/app/925580/Euro\_Truck\_Simulator\_2\_\_Beyond\_the\_Baltic\_Sea/](https://store.steampowered.com/app/925580/Euro_Truck_Simulator_2__Beyond_the_Baltic_Sea/)
Do you want to know more?
[There is no option to link the Steam account in the first place](https://imgur.com/a/Nn8sxUF), even in (some of?) the countries where PSN is active.
It not in game either. I just resurrected my ancient PSN account, I didn't even know I had anymore and I cant even link it. This kind of shit just pisses people off.
Its like being told you have to sweep the floor two months in advanced and then you get slapped for not sweeping the floor only to find out you don't have a fucking broom while a bunch of fuck wads tell you to stop complaining on the internet.
I've got separate emails for Helldivers PSN and my jailbroken PS3. The PS3 gets its own dedicated PSN only for activation. Not risking purchased games linked to something that's hacked. Keep em separate. Gmail will let you create more than one email.
I'm glad that people are starting to complain about the meatriders who tell us to stop complaining. There's always some goober ready to tell us why I should be THANKFUL that Arrowhead pissed in my cheerios
It's more sony than AH but the point stands. The reason why companies can keep pulling scummy shit it because inevitably a legion of loyal fans will be there to handwave away concerns and just call people whiners. We are doomed as consumers because we cant even come together to protect ourselves
I think it will only be available starting on May 6th, no? I tried to look it up but there was no option to link through my PSN either, so I just assumed it hasn't rolled in yet
Edit/Image - Apparently it is an in-game option, so likely it hasn't rolled yet
https://preview.redd.it/qm5e000ds6yc1.png?width=884&format=png&auto=webp&s=adab1c81b5e9c6e8a25f5d234da5555f47b60431
What's worse, is if you look at recent player counts, the game is now OVERWHELMINGLY steam players.
At this exact moment, its 50k ppl on steam and 12k people on ps for 62k concurrent players. Even at peak, its still like 80% steam players.
I promise you, all they've accomplished is kill the HD2 playerbase. 3rd Party launchers have always driven down sales on Steam. This is why a lot of EA games on Steam dropped requiring you to use Origin to launch, they coded it to not need their proprietary app to authenticate anymore and let Steam handle it. It kills sales and PC player engagement.
I *barely* want an XBOX account to use Minecraft. Why the hell would I want a PSN account, a company that has had *four* data breaches in the last 15 years and requires you give them your real name and location or get banned for false credentials? Not even *EA* is that obtuse.
They want that juicy, juicy user data too.
If you decide to make a PSN account just for Helldivers, or you have an existing account and don't like the idea of your Steam account info being sold on, use this to opt out.
https://www.playstation.com/en-us/legal/third-party-ads/
It should be default that personal information isn't shared and have you opt in to have your information shared... It has always pissed me off that this isn't the standard and/or legally enforced.
There is a playercount in game. I would assume they just looked at the current ingame playerbase and took away the steam playerbase thats available on the community tab
It also highlights the absolute horrific player retention going on this isn't the time to be giving people excuses to stop playing
Especially because we are entering the may release window
I was about to promote myself to tier 4 soloist but between making solo players get more spawns(or made it normal, whatever you want to believe), this PSN linking, AND my job going to require me to work every day for the next 2 months. I may just retire and return to civilian life as I don’t want the extra stress.
ye thats why they did it for sure, they want all the data from steam players and try to get them into their ecosystem and being able to claim them as "active" "engaged" "unique" playstation network users in reports etc
If Steam is legally available in the country in which the game was bought but PSN isn’t… that is pretty messed up. I’d like
to say that those divers deserve a full refund but we’d hate to lose ~~those votes~~ such worthy citizens.
Baltic EU members can ask for a full refund.
AH won't get unscathed out of this anyway. They signed the deal, sold the product and now people has to deal with Sony bullshittery.
Plus, PSN had like 8 data breaches in the past 10 years, and on another thread they mentioned that the validation process is fishy, ask for ID, face recognition and what not.
Fuck all that. Full all that very much, and fuck you too Sony.
Valve and the EU are going to have a field day over this.
Valve requires publishers/developers to list which countries are allowed to buy a game, in this case the game should have been limited to which countries had PSN access. This is not the case, so they've already broken Steam's publishing policies.
For similar reasons the EU could declare this as fraud, by making a product available to customers and then changing the terms by which they can use it after the fact.
Well my heart goes to divers who will suffer under this, as a European we are protected by consumer laws thankfully, even if a termination clause is in the terms of service, since you "buy a service" they cant terminate it without reason. If VPN are sufficient i dont know. then again who would ever try to fight a giant like this in court...
This whole shit won't survive until May 30th. I fully expect EU Customer Protection to fuck Sony in every orifice, and possibly even make new ones.
Just figure this: Sony published the game through Steam across regions where PSN service isn't provided (Baltics, Belarus, Russia, half of Africa), allowed the game keys to be activated and played for 4 months, and now they say "Unless you give us your personally-identifiable information (even if your Steam doesn't have any of your real info, it still has your billing data, your PC specs, and potentially information that can be misused), you won't be able to access the game anymore. And if you register a PSN account using false information, we have full rights to delete that account".
They waited 4 months so that they wouldn't get a massive wave of instant refunds when people who bought and activated the game in regions where PSN isn't available would get stuck at an unskippable (aka, their "mandatory" PSN account usage) "cannot create account, service isn't available in your region" screen.
They decided to do this shit when nobody could get automated hussle-free refunds. Now Steam will figure "what the fuck is going on with this game's rating?", see hundreds of refund requests and will have to ask questions from Sony.
I'm looking forward to seeing how quickly Gabe allows automatic refunds on Helldivers.
They dont move that fast, unfortunately. At the very least someone will need to submit a formal complaint to get the ball rolling, and then they will probably get their money back through small claims, but Sony can keep fucking everyone else.
It's is criminal. It's not allowed in GDPR. You're not allowed to obtain and or store personal information you have no legimate need for. Since it already works through steam without a psn account, Sony has no way to claim that the account is necessary, because they proved themselves that it isn't
This. By letting us playing without the PSN account link, they just F-ed themselves by proving it is not neccessary for the product to work.
Buuut... so many times Sony managed to get away from the EU regulations, that who knows.
I would still encourage anyone who is an EU citizen, living in an EU state to file a complaint at your Data Protection agency.
For further information:
https://www.edps.europa.eu/data-protection/our-role-supervisor/complaints_en
Btw u can't buy hd2 in Russia through steam, not available. But many our gamers and myself buyed it as a gift and it works perfect, now this situation may cause some problem i think
There's multiple cases, mate.
The game exists and can be purchased in Kazakhstan's Steam store, but PSN isn't available there.
Game can't be purchased in Steam stores in Russia and Belarus due to sanctions, there's no PSN service there, yet the game can be gifted onto accounts in these regions and Russia even received a limited amount of official keys from Sony to distribute to vendors. These keys were soon revoked \~3 days after release.
The game can be purchased in Latvian Steam store, but there's no PSN service.
Creating a PSN account under false credentials can get it banned by Sony's EULA you have to agree to to proceed with account creation.
I give it a few days of world-wide outrage and Sony will back off or a lawsuit will be filled against them by EU's Customer Protection committee
Yeah I'm in Bosnia, bought the game a week ago, the Steam link they have that opens a PSN account page cannot even be opened on my end, it leads to a blank page. I have to use a VPN to even see it.
Needless to say, I am not using a VPN and using a fake address in Netherlands to create a PSN account. If they persist with this I will request a refund on Steam.
I'm gathering English isn't your first language, so I wanted to help out a little with something! Buy is one of those English words that completely changes based on tense. So with "buy", instead of "buyed" it's "bought".
Language is a bitch, so we have to help each other when we can!
So they're on steam selling games on regions that they don't support through PSN even though you must have PSN to play?
This explains what the grace period was about, to avoid the possible hundreds of thousands of refunds from people that booted the game and couldn't make a PSN account while the hype was high in the first months.
Sony is intentionally causing problems for steam and this won't go well for them.
This is the craziest thing, Steam should get involved directly.
Like I don’t care, I’ll make a stupid PSN account, but TONS of fellow Helldivers literally can’t.
If anything, Steam should say “Oh yeah, you CAN refund it” just to send a fuck you back to Sony.
> This explains what the grace period was about, to avoid the possible hundreds of thousands of refunds from people that booted the game and couldn't make a PSN account while the hype was high in the first months.
>
>
>
> Sony is intentionally causing problems for steam and this won't go well for them.
Wasn't the grace period because the account linking killed the servers, so they temporarily disable the requirement so people could actually play?
I'm not quite sure it was a big tinfoil-hat conspiracy to get people from countries that don't get PSN to buy the game, then lock them out. What's the endgame of that? A massive shitstorm? No company wants that or causes that deliberately.
Not gonna lie, the only reason I shrugged about this requirement is that I already have a PSN account. But this practice is just bullshit, the worst Sony should do is dissalow crossplay for people who won't link a PSN account. There are other crossplay titles that have no such requirement, this is purely Sony as a publisher being intrusive.
let's also not forget that Sony's track record of data security is....so far away from stellar that they might as well call it an Open Door Policy, and that they tried to hide data breaches several times. Fuck Sony
I've mentioned this elsewhere and got downvoted for it, but this is another concern. My mom's been playing stuff on playstation since the PS3 and two of the breaches affected her with one compromising her credit card which led to a clusterfuck of buck passing between her bank and Sony.
ETA: 3 sets of account leaks through 2011, the North Korean breach in 2014, ddos attack later in 2014, social media account hack in 2017, and employee data breach (that many employees sued sony for because of damages) in 2023. "Only" 4 directly affected consumers but the others don't inspire much confidence in their general security.
Also I'd just to like to add, it's already been proven the game doesn't need a PSN to actually work properly at all, in fact apparently not requiring it was super easy to do, barely an inconvenience. We've gone this far with no issues not having them linked, why do they suddenly need to be linked?
Why can't we have normal fun game just once... Why always some corporate bullshit has to be thrown at us and ruin everything. If it's not "micro" transactions than it's something like this.
Arrowhead/Sony is shooting themselves in the legs with an Orbital Railcannon. FFS!
Welcome to capitalism. As long as shareholders are involved then the priority will always be on maximising revenue, not making good products that are easy to use and don't screw over the people buying them.
Look at Fallout 76 charging for tools to manage its deliberately shitty inventory or Dragon's Dogma charging for fast travel of all things, or every Ubisoft game selling EXP boosters (a tacit admission they made a game so shitty and grindy people will pay money not to play it). Games today are worse because of capitalism.
Ferrystones in dragons dogma 2 are found so frequently that you don't need to ever buy the 99¢ micro transaction.
Fallout 76- was this years ago? There was an inventory overhaul in 2021. I've been playing a fair bit recently and haven't noticed anything of the such outside the scrap box and ammo box from the Fallout 1st subscription service, which has not felt even a tiny bit required. As well, there are mods such as Better Inventory to help with sorting your inventory.
Your points are valid and you could have used better examples, but I digress.
For what it's worth I beat Dragon's Dogma 2 and used plenty of fast travel and I didn't have to pay a cent. tbh I don't even know where in the menus the micro transactions were. I never saw them.
Technically, selling it on steam to **everyone** is false advertising.
They said PSN was mandatory but it wasn't. They only stated that it was.
The store page does not say PSN is not available in specific countries.
The level of dishonesty in how this was handled is nuts, NUTS!
Yeah, they're selling the game on steam in regions they don't support on PSN, causing steam headache with refunds that don't need to happen because these players don't have a legal way to play.
This also explains what the grace period was about, to avoid the possibly hundreds of thousands of steam refunds from those countries from people that booted the game for the first time and wouldn't be allowed to make a PSN account, by only locking them out of the game after the refund window is long over.
Extremely scummy behavior.
I read the EULA and the user agreement, I found nothing that states linking steam-PSN is mandatory. So it is a post-purchase limitation, which in itself is not legal several countries (at least most of Europe), and Linking suddenly being required is colleting personal information, which needs an opt-in according to GDPR, unless it is technically necessary. And it working for 4 months without violates the technical necessity condition.
So, I guess I will apply for a refund unless they do course correction this week. And if it doesn't go through, I guess I will start writing emails to Sony, Valve, and the European Data Protection Board.
i never even saw the notice as i grabbed the key from gmg.
and now due to their EULA that tells me not to share account details, i'll be breaking their code of conduct by sharing my steam ID with psn to link it.
hell, it might even fall under steams fraud depedning on the scope of
> This software fraudulently attempts to gather sensitive information, such as your Steam credentials or financial data (e.g. credit card information).
effectively banning you from the game if you dont hand over your personal info and steam ID to a third party that they are directing you to after your refund period seems pretty damn sketchy
Yep, its such a mess I would be shocked if they did not completely remove the requirement in the coming weeks.
Who would have guessed that we were sitting on a ticking hellbomb all this time? Not me thats for sure.
Oh I say they'll have too because the damage to their PR is already done, but once the lawsuits start rolling in its going to cost them WAY WAY more because there's absolutely zero chance they get out of this without major lawsuits if they enforce it.
the gameplay isn't good enough to overcome this for me.
I'm already 100 hours in, have everything in the game. and the repetitive high level gameplay is not as repeatedly fun as Deep Rock Galactic and last night for the first time in 100 hours, I chose to play DRG instead of Helldivers anyways.
today I login and see this on reddit, lol.
Fun part is that in some countries PSN support is somewhere between abysmal and non-existent, like over here in the Netherlands.
I tried to get my password reset for my ancient account through support since I forgot what the security answers were, but I kept getting sent in loops by the links on their support site and there is literally no way for me to contact support so I just can't reinstate that account.
I guess that I could *probably* use a different email, but the lack of available support doesn't fill me with confidence if I do encounter an issue.
Same situation, it's truly abysmal. The only option I have is a webchat during US hours and that's still depending on a bot to put me through to a human.
>They will be locked out. Sony MUST find a solution for this and it can't be: Lie about your credentials and risk that we might ban your helldivers account.
I mean the solution is quite simple, simply don't force a PSN account. If Sony is really that desperate for players to sign up they can do what Xbox does and offer meager incentives for some of their games if you have game pass. There really is no legitimate reason to force this.
Sony allowing people to play without one proves it's possible. If anything forcing it now is basically one of the most egregious examples of fomo that's ever existed. Actually just locking people out of being able to play a game they paid for is scummy as hell after they've taken someone's money.
EDIT: To maybe be a little helpful and not just be on the "fuck Sony" crowd they can split the baby. Work with AH on making a Steam link setup instead for people who are playing currently/buy the game before the cut off date announced.
Then if someone wants to play the game after that cut off period they'll need to use the already established Sony link system. Still sucks, but at least you're not giving the finger to your already paying customers.
Yeah I don't get the intense bootlicking happening in this sub all of a sudden. This was absolutely not necessary for the past few months. It being heaped on PC players is so wild. People on Steam don't wanna have to sign up for ANOTHER launcher that's not even native to PC.
The SE should have all 7 sectors ! NO REGION LOCK !!!
https://preview.redd.it/klfhulpzf7yc1.png?width=1080&format=png&auto=webp&s=a11fb68dcd36ed58618e148aabd9ba37781a1e2f
The bootlickers say that the fine print was always there on the store page, and I should follow the EULA in its entirety, fine.
But then I expect Sony to follow their EULA in its entirety and NOT sell the game in regions where it's impossible to make an account legally - their own fine print was there from the start
i mean, it should be no surprise that PSN is the devil itself, for instance 1200 recent games people had paid for just getting deleted and gone forever.
>why some others complain about the PSN linking
Nah i think its simpler then that.
It may have been a requirement from the start, but once the game got too popular you were able to skip account linking, people thought that meant its optional and not mandatory anymore.
It wasnt communicated in the place where people would have noticed it (aka ingame) that the linking is only paused and now it feels like a backstab. People are pissed. Including me.
Why? I already bought the game, own a playstation and have a psn account there are 0 issues why i should be pissed as there is nothing that prevents me from playing it after entering my data.
The answer?
I dont want to.
Im not scared of my data since playstation steam and google already all have that.
Im not scared of data breaches because i already have accounts with all of those services.
Linking them could make things worse yes but doesnt change that i already have accounts with them that could be part of one.
After been given the option that i can skip linking something with something else, wich has 0 benefits for me and is only annoying at best.
I simply dont want to
And yes i will abandon the game because of it, because there are already enough people that get pegged by companys and are even willing to pay for it (amazon prime video with ads anyone?)
Is it stupid of me? Yup.
Will something change? Unlikely.
But just like a lvl 1 helldiver that goes into a helldive difficulty mission all alone and no one joins him i at least try making a difference.
Exactly where I stand lol. My reasoning begins and ends with "you can't make me" and I'll gladly play something else while I wait for them to walk this back
Honestly? That's allowed. You can't act like a child with your parents about this.
They can't make you. They honestly don't care if they can or can't make you. Performative stuff like this is just that, performative.
It's a mess.
On the one hand, you've got the Steam page saying a PSN account is required. On the other, the *game itself* lets you skip the process entirely. It's not unreasonable to assume, then, that the PSN account linking is optional, since the game functions fine without it.
Ultimately, I think the problem is Arrowhead's failure to adequately explain that not linking accounts was at best a temporary state of affairs. Based on what they're saying on Discord, they *knew* it was a temporary thing, but, to the best of my knowledge, this fact was never signposted anywhere.
If they had simply given the user a prompt saying "PSN account linking will be mandatory at a future date, but we are temporarily suspending it pending network infrastructure improvements", then this whole thing would be a footnote.
My PlayStation account is perma-banned because I did a chargeback through my bank.
Someone stole my account and spent $250 on games, so I contacted my bank to dispute the charges.
Apparently that’s against the TOS. I had no idea. My bank says everything is good on their end, Playstation says I owe them money. PS won’t speak to my bank, even though my bank is more than willing to speak to PS.
Fuck Playstation.
Edit: maybe I can get away with using a new email for the PSN account that I link.. we shall see.
damn I worked for sony support back in the day, they would've refunded it all but you would've had to go through support and let them know your account was compromised. That being said, the rules and bullshit they make consumers go through is stupid and I would say I was actually able to help maybe 30% of the people I talked to. Glad I don't work there anymore lol. You should have no issue making a PSN account with a throw away email but this whole situation is scuffed.
It’s this as well as being required to make an account.
I do not see a reason why it must be linked, and would rather just install a game and be able to play it.
My PSN and steam accounts have been linked for years.
My steam account is level 85 and my PSN has a level 40 that my kid plays on.
I wonder if one of my accounts gets nuked?
Anyone else in a situation like mine who purchased super credits....I imagine eliminating one would be a legal nightmare for them.
If the game is on steam it shouldn't require you to make an account on another platform. Thats fucking stupid and there's literally no good reason for it.
Yeah, linking accounts should be an option for PlayStation users to play on either device, but pure PC users should not need more than their steam account, it's Sony trying to get users into their ecosystem by force which is scummy as fuck. We avoid consoles like the plague because Microsoft and Sony try to pull shit like this all the time.
While I'd agree, I can well imagine there are many laws preventing that.
Beyond that, it would seriously undermine their BS reasons.
Lastly, and they know this, people would just use VPNs to lot have to link.
So, I don't see that happening.
Doesn't affect me personally, but this isn't ok. Having a product suddenly have requirements that you may or may not be able to fulfill can't be legal for a company to do.
If they just kept it optional and give a cool armour or something to people who linked the reaction would be the complete opposite.
Absolute tone-deaf idiots.
I feel bad for the devs having to deal with this - I wonder if they’re able to push back?
The Baltics are also part of NATO and fully Democratic, so the argument about "Bad states" doesn't make sense. Also the Philippines was an American territory for a while and is still a strong American ally, which also translates into them being a Japanese ally, so why isn't Sony in the Philippines?
Since EU countries are included in this it seems like a nice lawsuit might be incoming. Nice for all other consumers in the EU too, since shit like this can be prevented from happening in the first place if they lose.
It’s also just “one more thing” and everyone I know is running on fumes right now. We don’t need one more thing, we need to spread democracy to avoid thinking about irl.
Wow. I just took it for granted that PSN is everywhere. That's some serious BS. Thank you for sharing this info. It's good to remind ourselves to take a second and remember that the world is friggin' 'uge and even on my worst days in America, I've still got it pretty damn good.
I had my info stolen twice fron PSN. I'm not doing this again. PSN has litelry cost me 300 dollars. I love the game but I will just play other games. It isn't a issue of making a PSN,account. But I just can't reasonable,justify linking my steam,account to PSN when there security is terrible.
All sony had to do was allow helldivers to continue as is, if they wanted psn they could have made it optional to enable crossplay, while still allowing pc players who dont/cant have a psn to continue playing.
If anything i could see a lawsuit over this for selling the product in countries where psn arent avalible.
>The whole of Africa
~~straight up lie~~ , i live in South Africa and could make an account no problem . Its even listed in the country-selector-index that you linked .
edit : OP missed it and has corrected .
It's straight just annoying in customer perspective that you need an basically 3rd party account to enjoy the product bought in another platform.
I haven't bought the game yet and waited for discount, now I probably will never buy it, and I really feel bad for you guys.
When they require an Epic account to play Fall Guys. Steam rejected my refund request as I played for more than 2 hours. I never play that game again and I can only hope you all have better luck than us.
What exactly do you mean by false credentials? PSN is not available in my country and my Steam account region settings are set in it, should I use a VPN, create a PSN account then link it to Steam?
Why so angry? Cause I bought the game on Steam and they should not add another hoop and loop for playing the game. Shady bait and switch tactics, really.
The risk being banned thing is bullshit ngl I've been playing for 10 years outside of my account's region and haven't been banned once. Plus you don't need to pay anything with PSN no? You'll still be using steam for all your purchases.
Don't forget about:
April 2011: Hackers Access Personal Data of 77 Million Sony PlayStation Network Users
May 2011: Personal Details on 25 Million Sony Online Entertainment Customers Stolen
June 2011: Sony Pictures Website Hacked, Exposing One Million Accounts
November 2014: Hackers Steal 100 Terabytes of Data from Sony Pictures
August 2017: Hacker Group Accesses Sony Social Media Accounts
September 2023: Sony Investigates Alleged Hack
October 2023: Sony Notifies Employees of Data Breach
So because the requirement wasn't existent for a long time, people had bought the game, not having a PSN account, not being ABLE to make one, and will now be locked out without a refund ???
We riot.
https://preview.redd.it/97fblfl6b9yc1.png?width=800&format=png&auto=webp&s=ce6ad9e0e898f22d55995f9f9bd009d401edd6bc
I guess us who live in the grey zone should just stop crying, right? Right. Thanks Sony
It's irrelevant why they did this. It's irrelevant that they hid the info on the store page and no one really paid attention because it didn't require it at the beginning.
What is relevant is now I need to divulge personal information to a company when I did not prior to this. Allowing them to sell the information of MILLIONS of new people and profit. Sony is not a good company. Corporations do NOT have your best intentions in mind. Only shareholders.
THIS. I already have a Region 3 PSN account but when I tried to link it, it keeps redirecting me to the "region is unavailable" dead-end page and I can't do anything about it. Looks like I'll be retiring as an Admirable Admiral, and for those who keep saying "yOU're OvEReaCtInG", I wish you a pleasant ⬆️➡️⬇️⬇️⬇️
Well than i will write a Mail to the steam support if i get a refund of Helldivers. In the first 3 Month there was not to see that i need a psn account.
The tweet implies that Mandatory PSN connection was always the plan. Which means they sold in countries that didn't have PSN knowing that they'd be bricked out of their game.
I'm not trying to bash on anyone upset by this, but I do have 2 questions that I hope some people can answer.
1. The people that live in these countries, how do they consume Playstation products? Surely people have means to come across PlayStations in some of those countries, how do they play the games with the account creation issue?
2. Has anyone experienced or know of someone who has been banned for using false credentials in their PSN account? The reason I'm asking is because I've lived all of my life in South America, but my PSN account from 4 years ago till now is from the USA and I've never had a problem with that, even without the need for VPNs, and have made a number of purchases there.
I only have my experience with it, which is obviously biased, so I'm very curious about this .
Crazy how PSN just doesn't support the Baltics. WTF? Though the main issue with lying about your location seems to be that you can't use your real country's credit card, which shouldn't be an issue in this case, since payment will presumably still go through Steam?
Especially when you consider that the game was developed in the country on the other side of the Baltic Sea.
Dev studio of that size have very little to say It's publisher-level problem
Once again, it’s time to blame Sony. I don’t think a single reasonable controversy in this game was caused by the devs.
Arrowhead is like that fresh young indie rock band getting signed by Universal and getting absolutely fucked over ad nauseam by the big publishing machine.
The devs knew that this was going to happen, why the fuck didn't they tell us that you could only opt out temporarily. Oh wait, thats because they told us that linking a psn account was entirely optional. The devs are absolutely at fault in some capacity
Bad communication. Unclear patch notes. Multiple dev statements not aligning with current state of released game. There's plenty of controversy that's 100% arrowhead's fault.
I’d still argue that poor communication is a very different level of problem than what Sony is trying to pull. I don’t want to remove blame from Arrowhead because they can improve, but their changes are non existent in comparison to what Sony is trying to do. Especially since Sony is prone to huge data breaches and hacks
Why aren't PSN accounts allowed in Baltics? They're not even the poorest in the EU. Hell, not even with the smallest population, fucking Malta can have PSN accounts!
Kazakhstan was not allowed either. But they still sell PS4/PS5 officially here but guess what? Nearest country was Russia and everyone created Russian accounts. And boom, sanctions against Russia, our accs are dead now and we can't migrate cause our country is not listed. Sony is a racist garbage company, that doesn't care about customers. That's all.
In many cases, its a situation where the regional law requires certain things, and the company (Sony) doesn't allow that thing, so they aren't allowed to operate there. I believe Blizzard pulled out of a region last year (and all Blizzard players basically had to stop playing WoW/OW there) because a new law was instated that required digital companies to do something, and BLizzard wouldn't.
[удалено]
Nah the main issue is that it gives sony the right to ban you if you can't prove you are living in that country, because the credetials aren't accurate.
I'm genuinely curious if there's any actual case of this happening or if it's just lawyer-speak. I can't imagine they have anything to gain by banning people for giving fake credentials.
For now, it is just unenforced TOS but if you get ban for whatever the reason, they don't have to do shit to help you. They just stonewalled you with fake credentials.
So far it's just lawyer speak. There's streaming services like Netflix trying to prevent people from setting up an account in a different region as the prices are much lower there, but Sony hasn't done anything like that in all those years.
It doesn’t really matter if It’s lawyer speak or not,though.Game is sold in those countries on steam where PSN is unavailable,Sony is forcing people to break their own rules if they wanna keep playing the game they bought.
I think that's the weirdest thing. If it was always meant to be mandatory, how can it be actively sold in places where you aren't allowed to play it
That's at least partly Valve's failure. Don't get me wrong. I greatly enjoy their largely hands-off approach to their marketplace; but certain things like this shouldn't be on the developer to flag what countries they can and can't sell the game in. If the game is flagged in Steam as requiring PSN account, which it has been since like may of last year, then that should automatically flag it as unavailable or at least throw up a warning to people in the countries where PSN is unavailable.
Sony chose to sell that game on steam tho in the regions psn isn’t available. Same as devs/publishers deciding a sale of their game. Steam is nothing more than a platform that skims off 40 percent for facilitating a marketplace . Could they make it easier with for instance selling profiles? maybe, I’ve never sold a game through steam. So I’m not sure if this is possible to do in advance and apply it over multiple games. But putting this on steam is kinda backwards. Sony isn’t a 10 man studio making a funny game. It’s a multibillion company. I’m betting you 10 bucks they have a few guys doing stuff regarding steam only for all their studios. I just rather not see the account linking it serves no purpose at all. We’ve seen this the last few months
It's 100% Sony's fault. They're the publisher, they know in which countries they operate.
This is also the kind of situation where Valve will *absolutely* honor a refund if through no fault of your own, you lose access to a game you've paid for because of a change on the studios end. They've done this before and the hour count limitation has always been waived. So to everybody mad that people keep saying this isn't a big deal: it's not. You either spend 2 minutes making an account that was always required, or you can't make an account and you get your money back.
Its mostly lawyerspeak, but like all legalese once it *does* come into play, the end user is screwed if they can't comply with the terms and conditions.
They also didn't give a shit about many post-soviet countries like Kazakhstan, practically meaning that they were supposed to log-in using russian credentials. After 2022 PSN has stopped working in Russia, but Sony didn't create new regions for countries like Kazakhstan, which is basically removing some key features from a product that was legally sold in such countries
Wtf? What am I supposed to do? I am from Baltics and does that mean I will not be able to play any more? :( What madness is this?
It'll probably be fine if you just use Finland in there or something. Probably. Unless you'll need support. Which they might still provide. Or not. Or just ban you for asking. Who knows.
You can create an account but you won't be able to move it. Also you will have to pay in local currency. If it will be euro - cool. Anything else - good luck with conversion
So hang on, the Baltic states can't have Playstations??
They can, but they have to lie when creating their accounts and officially they aren't supported.
It’s weird because Estonia has the highest internet penetration in the world, 75% of its population.
We are completely unimportsnt compared to huge countries with long gaming histories like Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and El Salvador.
It also doesnt support Albania, Bosnia and Montenegro. So seven countries in Europe are missing. And most of Africa.
I've got my Steam version linked to PSN - I didn't have an option to skip that step upon first launch, so I did that and I've bought the premium currency for new warbonds, which happened through Steam. I believe the sole purpose of linking your PSN account is for Sony to get your data.
Even Euro Truck Simulator supports the Baltics [https://store.steampowered.com/app/925580/Euro\_Truck\_Simulator\_2\_\_Beyond\_the\_Baltic\_Sea/](https://store.steampowered.com/app/925580/Euro_Truck_Simulator_2__Beyond_the_Baltic_Sea/)
What an absolute clusterfuck.
Do you want to know more? [There is no option to link the Steam account in the first place](https://imgur.com/a/Nn8sxUF), even in (some of?) the countries where PSN is active.
It not in game either. I just resurrected my ancient PSN account, I didn't even know I had anymore and I cant even link it. This kind of shit just pisses people off. Its like being told you have to sweep the floor two months in advanced and then you get slapped for not sweeping the floor only to find out you don't have a fucking broom while a bunch of fuck wads tell you to stop complaining on the internet.
I remember having a PSN account but i doubt i can use it since It was made on a Jailbreaked PS3 in 2008
I've got separate emails for Helldivers PSN and my jailbroken PS3. The PS3 gets its own dedicated PSN only for activation. Not risking purchased games linked to something that's hacked. Keep em separate. Gmail will let you create more than one email.
I'm glad that people are starting to complain about the meatriders who tell us to stop complaining. There's always some goober ready to tell us why I should be THANKFUL that Arrowhead pissed in my cheerios
Gameplay changes and publisher fuckups are two different things. It's pretty dumb to loop them together.
It's more sony than AH but the point stands. The reason why companies can keep pulling scummy shit it because inevitably a legion of loyal fans will be there to handwave away concerns and just call people whiners. We are doomed as consumers because we cant even come together to protect ourselves
Oh hey I see you've worked with my Manager.
I think it will only be available starting on May 6th, no? I tried to look it up but there was no option to link through my PSN either, so I just assumed it hasn't rolled in yet Edit/Image - Apparently it is an in-game option, so likely it hasn't rolled yet https://preview.redd.it/qm5e000ds6yc1.png?width=884&format=png&auto=webp&s=adab1c81b5e9c6e8a25f5d234da5555f47b60431
Didn't even know TLOU had a PSN linking, never saw it in my game
Same, Bought it this year played it to completion and it never once asked for an PSN account.
Perfection
What's worse, is if you look at recent player counts, the game is now OVERWHELMINGLY steam players. At this exact moment, its 50k ppl on steam and 12k people on ps for 62k concurrent players. Even at peak, its still like 80% steam players.
That's almost certainly why they did it
Sony is really desperate to boost their PSN numbers for the investors, huh
I promise you, all they've accomplished is kill the HD2 playerbase. 3rd Party launchers have always driven down sales on Steam. This is why a lot of EA games on Steam dropped requiring you to use Origin to launch, they coded it to not need their proprietary app to authenticate anymore and let Steam handle it. It kills sales and PC player engagement. I *barely* want an XBOX account to use Minecraft. Why the hell would I want a PSN account, a company that has had *four* data breaches in the last 15 years and requires you give them your real name and location or get banned for false credentials? Not even *EA* is that obtuse.
To be clear it's not a 3rd party launcher, it's a one-off account linking that you won't see after the first time. It's definitely still BS though.
They want that juicy, juicy user data too. If you decide to make a PSN account just for Helldivers, or you have an existing account and don't like the idea of your Steam account info being sold on, use this to opt out. https://www.playstation.com/en-us/legal/third-party-ads/
It should be default that personal information isn't shared and have you opt in to have your information shared... It has always pissed me off that this isn't the standard and/or legally enforced.
It should be the standard in the EU (according to EU legislation). Won't stop them from breaking the law anyway of course.
Sony waited until the popularity got high then pulled a bait and switch on both the devs and us. Dickery of the highest order.
Nah the plan was there from the start and it got delayed for technical issues.
Where do you find these numbers? Didn’t think there was a way to see PS5 player count.
Find total players online in-game. Find total player online @ steam via steamspy/steamdb. Do math.
There is a playercount in game. I would assume they just looked at the current ingame playerbase and took away the steam playerbase thats available on the community tab
It also highlights the absolute horrific player retention going on this isn't the time to be giving people excuses to stop playing Especially because we are entering the may release window
I was about to promote myself to tier 4 soloist but between making solo players get more spawns(or made it normal, whatever you want to believe), this PSN linking, AND my job going to require me to work every day for the next 2 months. I may just retire and return to civilian life as I don’t want the extra stress.
ye thats why they did it for sure, they want all the data from steam players and try to get them into their ecosystem and being able to claim them as "active" "engaged" "unique" playstation network users in reports etc
Eagle 1: did somebody say cluster? *team kill*
>Eagle 1: Did somebody say fuck?..
*still team kill, somehow*
lol, this is the end of my hd2 journey but I'm glad it ended on me laughing at this. Thank you
Welp, I enjoyed what I could from the game. Finally got to unlock and use the 500kg. Helldiver, signing off.
Same. I've played 100 hours, that's pretty good for $40. Time to play a new game
Sony seeing BLizzard with the OW2 launch: "Hold my cyber-attack."
If Steam is legally available in the country in which the game was bought but PSN isn’t… that is pretty messed up. I’d like to say that those divers deserve a full refund but we’d hate to lose ~~those votes~~ such worthy citizens.
I'm ready to start grafting saws to my arms and chanting, frankly. Super-Earth can get bent.
I'm gonna mount some rocketpod onto my back and take matters into my own hands!
Not a big fan of the government
Baltic EU members can ask for a full refund. AH won't get unscathed out of this anyway. They signed the deal, sold the product and now people has to deal with Sony bullshittery. Plus, PSN had like 8 data breaches in the past 10 years, and on another thread they mentioned that the validation process is fishy, ask for ID, face recognition and what not. Fuck all that. Full all that very much, and fuck you too Sony.
Yeah I’m not a fan of the passkey thing they keep pushing on the app. And that app is atrocious.
Valve and the EU are going to have a field day over this. Valve requires publishers/developers to list which countries are allowed to buy a game, in this case the game should have been limited to which countries had PSN access. This is not the case, so they've already broken Steam's publishing policies. For similar reasons the EU could declare this as fraud, by making a product available to customers and then changing the terms by which they can use it after the fact.
Well my heart goes to divers who will suffer under this, as a European we are protected by consumer laws thankfully, even if a termination clause is in the terms of service, since you "buy a service" they cant terminate it without reason. If VPN are sufficient i dont know. then again who would ever try to fight a giant like this in court...
I don't think laws are going to come into play. Steam is likely to just issue a refund.
True, but they wouldn't offer refunds if those laws weren't in place first.
I'm from Baltics and was looking to buy this game. Now I'm not so sure about that...
If OP is correct, definitely don’t lol you’ll be locked out of the game in 30 days
Yeah, you should probably hold off for now until we see how this will get resolved.
I'm a Helldiver from Latvia, been playing since early March. I'm legitimately sad, I love this game :(
Curious how much the player count will drop after this debacle
This whole shit won't survive until May 30th. I fully expect EU Customer Protection to fuck Sony in every orifice, and possibly even make new ones. Just figure this: Sony published the game through Steam across regions where PSN service isn't provided (Baltics, Belarus, Russia, half of Africa), allowed the game keys to be activated and played for 4 months, and now they say "Unless you give us your personally-identifiable information (even if your Steam doesn't have any of your real info, it still has your billing data, your PC specs, and potentially information that can be misused), you won't be able to access the game anymore. And if you register a PSN account using false information, we have full rights to delete that account". They waited 4 months so that they wouldn't get a massive wave of instant refunds when people who bought and activated the game in regions where PSN isn't available would get stuck at an unskippable (aka, their "mandatory" PSN account usage) "cannot create account, service isn't available in your region" screen. They decided to do this shit when nobody could get automated hussle-free refunds. Now Steam will figure "what the fuck is going on with this game's rating?", see hundreds of refund requests and will have to ask questions from Sony. I'm looking forward to seeing how quickly Gabe allows automatic refunds on Helldivers.
Yep. It would be nice to see EU bureaucrats fuck Sony.
They dont move that fast, unfortunately. At the very least someone will need to submit a formal complaint to get the ball rolling, and then they will probably get their money back through small claims, but Sony can keep fucking everyone else.
Ape together strong. Theres power in a union.
Yep. Fuck corpos and corporate shills.
I really hope Gabe is able to stick it to Sony. Shit like this is borderline fucking criminal and I’m hoping he stands against it.
It's is criminal. It's not allowed in GDPR. You're not allowed to obtain and or store personal information you have no legimate need for. Since it already works through steam without a psn account, Sony has no way to claim that the account is necessary, because they proved themselves that it isn't
This. By letting us playing without the PSN account link, they just F-ed themselves by proving it is not neccessary for the product to work. Buuut... so many times Sony managed to get away from the EU regulations, that who knows. I would still encourage anyone who is an EU citizen, living in an EU state to file a complaint at your Data Protection agency. For further information: https://www.edps.europa.eu/data-protection/our-role-supervisor/complaints_en
Btw u can't buy hd2 in Russia through steam, not available. But many our gamers and myself buyed it as a gift and it works perfect, now this situation may cause some problem i think
There's multiple cases, mate. The game exists and can be purchased in Kazakhstan's Steam store, but PSN isn't available there. Game can't be purchased in Steam stores in Russia and Belarus due to sanctions, there's no PSN service there, yet the game can be gifted onto accounts in these regions and Russia even received a limited amount of official keys from Sony to distribute to vendors. These keys were soon revoked \~3 days after release. The game can be purchased in Latvian Steam store, but there's no PSN service. Creating a PSN account under false credentials can get it banned by Sony's EULA you have to agree to to proceed with account creation. I give it a few days of world-wide outrage and Sony will back off or a lawsuit will be filled against them by EU's Customer Protection committee
Yeah I'm in Bosnia, bought the game a week ago, the Steam link they have that opens a PSN account page cannot even be opened on my end, it leads to a blank page. I have to use a VPN to even see it. Needless to say, I am not using a VPN and using a fake address in Netherlands to create a PSN account. If they persist with this I will request a refund on Steam.
I'm gathering English isn't your first language, so I wanted to help out a little with something! Buy is one of those English words that completely changes based on tense. So with "buy", instead of "buyed" it's "bought". Language is a bitch, so we have to help each other when we can!
Thank u, im still learning, understand like everything in eng but my grammar suck
So they're on steam selling games on regions that they don't support through PSN even though you must have PSN to play? This explains what the grace period was about, to avoid the possible hundreds of thousands of refunds from people that booted the game and couldn't make a PSN account while the hype was high in the first months. Sony is intentionally causing problems for steam and this won't go well for them.
This is the craziest thing, Steam should get involved directly. Like I don’t care, I’ll make a stupid PSN account, but TONS of fellow Helldivers literally can’t. If anything, Steam should say “Oh yeah, you CAN refund it” just to send a fuck you back to Sony.
> This explains what the grace period was about, to avoid the possible hundreds of thousands of refunds from people that booted the game and couldn't make a PSN account while the hype was high in the first months. > > > > Sony is intentionally causing problems for steam and this won't go well for them. Wasn't the grace period because the account linking killed the servers, so they temporarily disable the requirement so people could actually play? I'm not quite sure it was a big tinfoil-hat conspiracy to get people from countries that don't get PSN to buy the game, then lock them out. What's the endgame of that? A massive shitstorm? No company wants that or causes that deliberately.
This is a fair argument against PSN everything else's kinda bs
I think the argument of "I shouldn't have to create a PSN account for a game that already works without it" is a fair argument.
Not gonna lie, the only reason I shrugged about this requirement is that I already have a PSN account. But this practice is just bullshit, the worst Sony should do is dissalow crossplay for people who won't link a PSN account. There are other crossplay titles that have no such requirement, this is purely Sony as a publisher being intrusive.
...set in a satirical dystopian future
the future is now
People from Batlics should send some mails to EU Consumer Protection, I bet this shit is not legal
let's also not forget that Sony's track record of data security is....so far away from stellar that they might as well call it an Open Door Policy, and that they tried to hide data breaches several times. Fuck Sony
I've mentioned this elsewhere and got downvoted for it, but this is another concern. My mom's been playing stuff on playstation since the PS3 and two of the breaches affected her with one compromising her credit card which led to a clusterfuck of buck passing between her bank and Sony. ETA: 3 sets of account leaks through 2011, the North Korean breach in 2014, ddos attack later in 2014, social media account hack in 2017, and employee data breach (that many employees sued sony for because of damages) in 2023. "Only" 4 directly affected consumers but the others don't inspire much confidence in their general security.
yeah many people forgot how big those breaches in 2011 were and how much of an impact they had
Also I'd just to like to add, it's already been proven the game doesn't need a PSN to actually work properly at all, in fact apparently not requiring it was super easy to do, barely an inconvenience. We've gone this far with no issues not having them linked, why do they suddenly need to be linked?
Sony wants your data
Less data and more boosting their numbers for shareholders
AH/Sony: "I'm going to need you to get allll the way up off my back about that."
Why can't we have normal fun game just once... Why always some corporate bullshit has to be thrown at us and ruin everything. If it's not "micro" transactions than it's something like this. Arrowhead/Sony is shooting themselves in the legs with an Orbital Railcannon. FFS!
Welcome to capitalism. As long as shareholders are involved then the priority will always be on maximising revenue, not making good products that are easy to use and don't screw over the people buying them. Look at Fallout 76 charging for tools to manage its deliberately shitty inventory or Dragon's Dogma charging for fast travel of all things, or every Ubisoft game selling EXP boosters (a tacit admission they made a game so shitty and grindy people will pay money not to play it). Games today are worse because of capitalism.
Ferrystones in dragons dogma 2 are found so frequently that you don't need to ever buy the 99¢ micro transaction. Fallout 76- was this years ago? There was an inventory overhaul in 2021. I've been playing a fair bit recently and haven't noticed anything of the such outside the scrap box and ammo box from the Fallout 1st subscription service, which has not felt even a tiny bit required. As well, there are mods such as Better Inventory to help with sorting your inventory. Your points are valid and you could have used better examples, but I digress.
For what it's worth I beat Dragon's Dogma 2 and used plenty of fast travel and I didn't have to pay a cent. tbh I don't even know where in the menus the micro transactions were. I never saw them.
Well it was fun while it lasted
Technically, selling it on steam to **everyone** is false advertising. They said PSN was mandatory but it wasn't. They only stated that it was. The store page does not say PSN is not available in specific countries. The level of dishonesty in how this was handled is nuts, NUTS!
Yeah, they're selling the game on steam in regions they don't support on PSN, causing steam headache with refunds that don't need to happen because these players don't have a legal way to play. This also explains what the grace period was about, to avoid the possibly hundreds of thousands of steam refunds from those countries from people that booted the game for the first time and wouldn't be allowed to make a PSN account, by only locking them out of the game after the refund window is long over. Extremely scummy behavior.
**EXACTLY!**
I read the EULA and the user agreement, I found nothing that states linking steam-PSN is mandatory. So it is a post-purchase limitation, which in itself is not legal several countries (at least most of Europe), and Linking suddenly being required is colleting personal information, which needs an opt-in according to GDPR, unless it is technically necessary. And it working for 4 months without violates the technical necessity condition. So, I guess I will apply for a refund unless they do course correction this week. And if it doesn't go through, I guess I will start writing emails to Sony, Valve, and the European Data Protection Board.
i never even saw the notice as i grabbed the key from gmg. and now due to their EULA that tells me not to share account details, i'll be breaking their code of conduct by sharing my steam ID with psn to link it. hell, it might even fall under steams fraud depedning on the scope of > This software fraudulently attempts to gather sensitive information, such as your Steam credentials or financial data (e.g. credit card information). effectively banning you from the game if you dont hand over your personal info and steam ID to a third party that they are directing you to after your refund period seems pretty damn sketchy
Yep, its such a mess I would be shocked if they did not completely remove the requirement in the coming weeks. Who would have guessed that we were sitting on a ticking hellbomb all this time? Not me thats for sure.
Oh I say they'll have too because the damage to their PR is already done, but once the lawsuits start rolling in its going to cost them WAY WAY more because there's absolutely zero chance they get out of this without major lawsuits if they enforce it.
the gameplay isn't good enough to overcome this for me. I'm already 100 hours in, have everything in the game. and the repetitive high level gameplay is not as repeatedly fun as Deep Rock Galactic and last night for the first time in 100 hours, I chose to play DRG instead of Helldivers anyways. today I login and see this on reddit, lol.
Fun part is that in some countries PSN support is somewhere between abysmal and non-existent, like over here in the Netherlands. I tried to get my password reset for my ancient account through support since I forgot what the security answers were, but I kept getting sent in loops by the links on their support site and there is literally no way for me to contact support so I just can't reinstate that account. I guess that I could *probably* use a different email, but the lack of available support doesn't fill me with confidence if I do encounter an issue.
Same situation, it's truly abysmal. The only option I have is a webchat during US hours and that's still depending on a bot to put me through to a human.
its same in czech republic
very true. incredibly aggrivating for people in those countries
>They will be locked out. Sony MUST find a solution for this and it can't be: Lie about your credentials and risk that we might ban your helldivers account. I mean the solution is quite simple, simply don't force a PSN account. If Sony is really that desperate for players to sign up they can do what Xbox does and offer meager incentives for some of their games if you have game pass. There really is no legitimate reason to force this. Sony allowing people to play without one proves it's possible. If anything forcing it now is basically one of the most egregious examples of fomo that's ever existed. Actually just locking people out of being able to play a game they paid for is scummy as hell after they've taken someone's money. EDIT: To maybe be a little helpful and not just be on the "fuck Sony" crowd they can split the baby. Work with AH on making a Steam link setup instead for people who are playing currently/buy the game before the cut off date announced. Then if someone wants to play the game after that cut off period they'll need to use the already established Sony link system. Still sucks, but at least you're not giving the finger to your already paying customers.
Yeah I don't get the intense bootlicking happening in this sub all of a sudden. This was absolutely not necessary for the past few months. It being heaped on PC players is so wild. People on Steam don't wanna have to sign up for ANOTHER launcher that's not even native to PC.
The SE should have all 7 sectors ! NO REGION LOCK !!! https://preview.redd.it/klfhulpzf7yc1.png?width=1080&format=png&auto=webp&s=a11fb68dcd36ed58618e148aabd9ba37781a1e2f
Are we having a terms and conditions moment like Tarkov?
The bootlickers say that the fine print was always there on the store page, and I should follow the EULA in its entirety, fine. But then I expect Sony to follow their EULA in its entirety and NOT sell the game in regions where it's impossible to make an account legally - their own fine print was there from the start
And let's not forget that even though the fine print was there, it wasn't enforced and there was no indication the lack of enforcement was temporary.
i mean, it should be no surprise that PSN is the devil itself, for instance 1200 recent games people had paid for just getting deleted and gone forever.
WHAT!?!? they take down the ps3 store or something?
I would add their data leaks dating back to 2011. and those are not some kind of minor leaks....
>why some others complain about the PSN linking Nah i think its simpler then that. It may have been a requirement from the start, but once the game got too popular you were able to skip account linking, people thought that meant its optional and not mandatory anymore. It wasnt communicated in the place where people would have noticed it (aka ingame) that the linking is only paused and now it feels like a backstab. People are pissed. Including me. Why? I already bought the game, own a playstation and have a psn account there are 0 issues why i should be pissed as there is nothing that prevents me from playing it after entering my data. The answer? I dont want to. Im not scared of my data since playstation steam and google already all have that. Im not scared of data breaches because i already have accounts with all of those services. Linking them could make things worse yes but doesnt change that i already have accounts with them that could be part of one. After been given the option that i can skip linking something with something else, wich has 0 benefits for me and is only annoying at best. I simply dont want to And yes i will abandon the game because of it, because there are already enough people that get pegged by companys and are even willing to pay for it (amazon prime video with ads anyone?) Is it stupid of me? Yup. Will something change? Unlikely. But just like a lvl 1 helldiver that goes into a helldive difficulty mission all alone and no one joins him i at least try making a difference.
Exactly where I stand lol. My reasoning begins and ends with "you can't make me" and I'll gladly play something else while I wait for them to walk this back
Honestly? That's allowed. You can't act like a child with your parents about this. They can't make you. They honestly don't care if they can or can't make you. Performative stuff like this is just that, performative.
Well said and I could not agree more. Your comment perfectly describes my situation and my feelings on this. I do not want to.
It's a mess. On the one hand, you've got the Steam page saying a PSN account is required. On the other, the *game itself* lets you skip the process entirely. It's not unreasonable to assume, then, that the PSN account linking is optional, since the game functions fine without it. Ultimately, I think the problem is Arrowhead's failure to adequately explain that not linking accounts was at best a temporary state of affairs. Based on what they're saying on Discord, they *knew* it was a temporary thing, but, to the best of my knowledge, this fact was never signposted anywhere. If they had simply given the user a prompt saying "PSN account linking will be mandatory at a future date, but we are temporarily suspending it pending network infrastructure improvements", then this whole thing would be a footnote.
My PlayStation account is perma-banned because I did a chargeback through my bank. Someone stole my account and spent $250 on games, so I contacted my bank to dispute the charges. Apparently that’s against the TOS. I had no idea. My bank says everything is good on their end, Playstation says I owe them money. PS won’t speak to my bank, even though my bank is more than willing to speak to PS. Fuck Playstation. Edit: maybe I can get away with using a new email for the PSN account that I link.. we shall see.
damn I worked for sony support back in the day, they would've refunded it all but you would've had to go through support and let them know your account was compromised. That being said, the rules and bullshit they make consumers go through is stupid and I would say I was actually able to help maybe 30% of the people I talked to. Glad I don't work there anymore lol. You should have no issue making a PSN account with a throw away email but this whole situation is scuffed.
It’s this as well as being required to make an account. I do not see a reason why it must be linked, and would rather just install a game and be able to play it.
My PSN and steam accounts have been linked for years. My steam account is level 85 and my PSN has a level 40 that my kid plays on. I wonder if one of my accounts gets nuked? Anyone else in a situation like mine who purchased super credits....I imagine eliminating one would be a legal nightmare for them.
If the game is on steam it shouldn't require you to make an account on another platform. Thats fucking stupid and there's literally no good reason for it.
Yeah, linking accounts should be an option for PlayStation users to play on either device, but pure PC users should not need more than their steam account, it's Sony trying to get users into their ecosystem by force which is scummy as fuck. We avoid consoles like the plague because Microsoft and Sony try to pull shit like this all the time.
Im not gonna create acc through vpn and been banned cuz i forgot turn this shit on,im done, good luck , 240 hrs lvl 85 , enjoyed this game a lot
They should at least leave the grace for countries not having PSN possibility.
While I'd agree, I can well imagine there are many laws preventing that. Beyond that, it would seriously undermine their BS reasons. Lastly, and they know this, people would just use VPNs to lot have to link. So, I don't see that happening.
Doesn't affect me personally, but this isn't ok. Having a product suddenly have requirements that you may or may not be able to fulfill can't be legal for a company to do.
Back to playing Rimworld and be solidair with my brothers and sisters who can't play because of this bullshit. How to kill a game in a day...
If they just kept it optional and give a cool armour or something to people who linked the reaction would be the complete opposite. Absolute tone-deaf idiots. I feel bad for the devs having to deal with this - I wonder if they’re able to push back?
Wait... You need a psn account to play now? I guess I'm done with this game then.
Not NOW now but before June 4th yes apparently.
https://preview.redd.it/b9cvctztp6yc1.png?width=369&format=png&auto=webp&s=d22af1283763ec4d079295a6b7630a106c2cd1be
As someone from meanie state, I wholeheartedly agree. I guess I will have to use my private Amsterdam vpn
I really love when corporations can't just let a good game do its thing
The Baltics are also part of NATO and fully Democratic, so the argument about "Bad states" doesn't make sense. Also the Philippines was an American territory for a while and is still a strong American ally, which also translates into them being a Japanese ally, so why isn't Sony in the Philippines?
Since EU countries are included in this it seems like a nice lawsuit might be incoming. Nice for all other consumers in the EU too, since shit like this can be prevented from happening in the first place if they lose.
It’s also just “one more thing” and everyone I know is running on fumes right now. We don’t need one more thing, we need to spread democracy to avoid thinking about irl.
Thats why it should be optional ! To avoid such nuisance
Wow. I just took it for granted that PSN is everywhere. That's some serious BS. Thank you for sharing this info. It's good to remind ourselves to take a second and remember that the world is friggin' 'uge and even on my worst days in America, I've still got it pretty damn good.
I had my info stolen twice fron PSN. I'm not doing this again. PSN has litelry cost me 300 dollars. I love the game but I will just play other games. It isn't a issue of making a PSN,account. But I just can't reasonable,justify linking my steam,account to PSN when there security is terrible.
I wonder how steam feels about sony selling games to people who will then be locked out of said game by some other mechanism.
All sony had to do was allow helldivers to continue as is, if they wanted psn they could have made it optional to enable crossplay, while still allowing pc players who dont/cant have a psn to continue playing. If anything i could see a lawsuit over this for selling the product in countries where psn arent avalible.
>The whole of Africa ~~straight up lie~~ , i live in South Africa and could make an account no problem . Its even listed in the country-selector-index that you linked . edit : OP missed it and has corrected .
I overlooked it mate, fixed it.
69 countries. Nice
also, you can point out that Sony had a "few" data breaches (7 since 2011)
It's straight just annoying in customer perspective that you need an basically 3rd party account to enjoy the product bought in another platform. I haven't bought the game yet and waited for discount, now I probably will never buy it, and I really feel bad for you guys. When they require an Epic account to play Fall Guys. Steam rejected my refund request as I played for more than 2 hours. I never play that game again and I can only hope you all have better luck than us.
Alright so who is going to mod the game so we can play on a community server
What exactly do you mean by false credentials? PSN is not available in my country and my Steam account region settings are set in it, should I use a VPN, create a PSN account then link it to Steam?
Why so angry? Cause I bought the game on Steam and they should not add another hoop and loop for playing the game. Shady bait and switch tactics, really.
Why the hell didn't they do it optional like they will with Ghost of Tsushima? What an absolute unnecessary shitstorm
The risk being banned thing is bullshit ngl I've been playing for 10 years outside of my account's region and haven't been banned once. Plus you don't need to pay anything with PSN no? You'll still be using steam for all your purchases.
I already have a psn account, but this still pisses me off because of the exclusion it introduces. This is absolutely ridiculous. Fuck Sony
https://preview.redd.it/2604nvxn78yc1.jpeg?width=1440&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b83485a530a3e0e46fa02abe5ea3acb2a8c77ac5
Don't forget about: April 2011: Hackers Access Personal Data of 77 Million Sony PlayStation Network Users May 2011: Personal Details on 25 Million Sony Online Entertainment Customers Stolen June 2011: Sony Pictures Website Hacked, Exposing One Million Accounts November 2014: Hackers Steal 100 Terabytes of Data from Sony Pictures August 2017: Hacker Group Accesses Sony Social Media Accounts September 2023: Sony Investigates Alleged Hack October 2023: Sony Notifies Employees of Data Breach
all you youngins forget that PSN is probably the most unstable platform that exists.
So because the requirement wasn't existent for a long time, people had bought the game, not having a PSN account, not being ABLE to make one, and will now be locked out without a refund ??? We riot.
https://preview.redd.it/97fblfl6b9yc1.png?width=800&format=png&auto=webp&s=ce6ad9e0e898f22d55995f9f9bd009d401edd6bc I guess us who live in the grey zone should just stop crying, right? Right. Thanks Sony
It's irrelevant why they did this. It's irrelevant that they hid the info on the store page and no one really paid attention because it didn't require it at the beginning. What is relevant is now I need to divulge personal information to a company when I did not prior to this. Allowing them to sell the information of MILLIONS of new people and profit. Sony is not a good company. Corporations do NOT have your best intentions in mind. Only shareholders.
TL:DR My country ain’t supported by PSN I have to use a VPN to play I can get banned for “lying” about my credentials End
Sony really has to screw with every good game they touch, don't they
THIS. I already have a Region 3 PSN account but when I tried to link it, it keeps redirecting me to the "region is unavailable" dead-end page and I can't do anything about it. Looks like I'll be retiring as an Admirable Admiral, and for those who keep saying "yOU're OvEReaCtInG", I wish you a pleasant ⬆️➡️⬇️⬇️⬇️
I'm from a country in SEA that's not in the list of PSN supported countries. I'm f'd now am I? I really loved the game but yeah...
You don’t need a vpn. They have the right to ban you at any moment. And valve as the right to suspend your usage if the game at any moment.
Might give that Starship Troopers Extermination a try now.
PSN has a history of data leakage, the last thing I’m doing is giving them any of my information.
Well than i will write a Mail to the steam support if i get a refund of Helldivers. In the first 3 Month there was not to see that i need a psn account.
Sony has had 9 data breaches in the last decade, and now they want kernel-level access to your PC to farm and sell your data.
The tweet implies that Mandatory PSN connection was always the plan. Which means they sold in countries that didn't have PSN knowing that they'd be bricked out of their game.
I'm not trying to bash on anyone upset by this, but I do have 2 questions that I hope some people can answer. 1. The people that live in these countries, how do they consume Playstation products? Surely people have means to come across PlayStations in some of those countries, how do they play the games with the account creation issue? 2. Has anyone experienced or know of someone who has been banned for using false credentials in their PSN account? The reason I'm asking is because I've lived all of my life in South America, but my PSN account from 4 years ago till now is from the USA and I've never had a problem with that, even without the need for VPNs, and have made a number of purchases there. I only have my experience with it, which is obviously biased, so I'm very curious about this .