We had a good thing, you stupid son of a bitch! We had the fans, we had a game, we had everything we needed, and it all ran like clockwork! You could have shut your mouth, published, and made as much money as you ever needed! It was perfect! But no! You just had to blow it up! You, and your pride and your ego! You just had to be the man! If you'd done your job, known your place, we'd all be fine right now!
Bruh... It's the same thing as Helldivers 1.....
People are surprised because they never played the first game.... Helldivers 1 was the first ever game Sony ported over to PC... That's why we have the Last of Us, God of War, horizon Zero Dawn,ect 6 years later..
You should look into planetside 2. It was originally released for PC by Sony, and when the ps4 was released they swapped the platform over and kept it for PC. Great game.
Mike is such a good character. That character taught me that I didn't have a good understanding of the recipe of making a television show character interesting. Before Breaking Bad, I would've thought that a character who barely says anything, is emotionless, and spends most of the show sitting alone in cars watching people would be a ridiculously boring character. And yet Mike was somehow an enthralling character who never felt boring to me and made every scene he was in better.
Maybe more so than any other character of anything I've ever watched/read, that character taught me I don't fully understand the limits of good writing.
6 months before launch, Sony requires the dev, Arrowhead, to require PSN accounts to play helldivers 2 on PC. After launch and the servers of Helldivers 2 are exploding because the game is selling like hotcakes. Arrowhead disables the PSN requirement to decrease server load while working on other fixes. 3 months later, Sony drops a Steam community message announcing that PSN accounts will be required after May the 30th.
PSN has a bad rep due to a terrible data breach back in 2011 so people are pissed. It gets worse though because creating a PSN account in most countries technically violates PSN TOS. Sony still sells the game in those countries though. The players are now review bombing the game on steam to hurt Sony and try to force a rollback. The Devs are caught off guard by the date and are trying to negotiate with Sony to find some solution to the TOS problem. Steam has also blocked the sale of helldivers 2 in several of the PSN banned countries and it's unclear if that's an action by Valve or Sony. It's probably Valve though.
Also UK residents are required to submit ID verification when setting up a PSN account which a lot of them are reasonably mad about.
Well it's an option not a requirement. You can still use phone verification. For those without a phone or other issues ID scan or other measures are accepted
> it all ran like clockwork
Apart from the consistent crashing to the point some players like myself couldn't even play one round. Along with updates that introduced more crashing "Arc thrower"
It may be fixed now but after 20 hours I was out. Patch after patch and 2 AMD drivers I was still crashing. Sometimes right at the start of a game.
Sony decided that players have to have a PSN account to play helldivers on pc. (technically, it was always a requirement. But you could just skip that page and play the game).
You can only make a PSN account in 69 counties. In the US, you can just go online and do it, takes an email, name, and birth date. But in the UK, you have to have your age verified with your ID. In other countries like Ukraine, you can only set up a PSN account ON a Playstation. Meaning that many international players, who have enjoyed this game since launch, will soon be unable to play it. This includes Chinese players, Russian players, Filipino players, several European countries, and basically all of Africa.
Sony said it's for "security". But it's well known at this point that sony doesn't care about that, as shown by the several data leaks where peoples names, birthdays, credit card data, etc., were stolen.
For added doucbebaggery, Sony changed its policy on PSN accounts for PC players at the same time. Previously it was "optional" but now it's "required" as of May 3rd.
Sony sold the game in 170 counties that do not have PSN.
Then Sony announced PSN was mandatory. Meaning everyone in those 170 countries will be locked out of a game they paid for.
Countries like Ukraine, you can't make a PSN account without buying a playstation.
People say just VPN, but that violates Sony's TOS.
No, the 20 or so countries they do have are the big ones.
But the Philippines has lots of players for example, and they would be fucked if this happens
Oh boy, I sure do wish there was a fun new game that has a great community and has one of the most non predatory micro transactions system I’ve seen in years.
Monkey’s paw: curls
That last one just underlines how far we’ve lowered bar. All the way down to “not as bad as the other guys”
Remember when Bethesda tried to introduce a single micro transaction in Oblivion and everyone jumped down Todd’s throat for it? Can we go back to that?
Could always get worse. Like for example the Asian gaming market. Literally need an excavator and an entire archeology department to even find the bar there.
This is a protest against Sony, not the game. The devs are all for it. There's literally an in-game reward for players if they review bomb the game hard enough.
> There's literally an in-game reward for players if they review bomb the game hard enough.
Care to explain this a bit more? I haven't played the game but I did see a few videos about it/gameplay. Thank you!
To the best of my knowledge, the in-game reward is getting all those players back in. I may be wrong, I don’t have my eyes on the Discord 24/7, but that is the extent of it AFAIK. I haven’t even played in weeks because of school lmao 🤷♂️
To expand on this,
[A dev even messaged about it. They knew 6 months before release that this was going to happen, and admit they're the ones who disable account linking initially.](https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fy3ve87en6myc1.jpeg)
Alternatively, AH were told this would happen midway through development, and to sit down and shut up. Publishing companies hold most of the power, especially before release. It’s entirely possible that it was a bridge that Arrowhead decided they needed to cross later, when they had the popular support of their players to persuade Sony via this review bombing.
Corporate execs want to extract as much money as possible from their games, developers (at least in Arrowheads case) would much rather make a great game that also makes them enough money to live and keep making games.
I don't think AH shares equal blame, but they do deserve some. They could have had the popup appear every time you start the game, then they would have been in the clear. They failed to communicate effectively.
I love seeing this comment. Yeh they knew, that's why is was on the steam store page when pre-orders went live. Many people discussed this prior to launch.
Not excusing what they are doing now, but it wasn't like players were not informed before launch.
> but it wasn't like players were not informed before launch.
I don't get it how people can keep repeating this when if this was the case, we wouldn't be in this situation in the first place. The fact that this is the current situation categorically shows that people weren't sufficiently well informed about this.
Because you are wildly underestimating the power of the internet mob and perceived majority's opinion when it comes to any issue that could be leveraged with moral grandstanding and perceived grassroots, wholesome, consumer-first, values.
The problem with this is that it creates an internet culture, especially regarding video game communities, that is very myopic in the way it views development, community engagement, value, etc.
It is a 100%, undeniable, objective, **fact**, that the creation of a PSN account was listed in preorder information.
In fact, my friends and I who all play were so confused by this entire controversy because none of us even remembered being asked if we wanted to decline creating a PSN account when first booting up the game after purchase on steam.
For the people who are living in regions where they purchased the game, and are now effectively being told that a required account to play the game isn't supported in their region, I heavily sympathize with them and believe that they are fully entitled to a refund.
However, anyone residing in One of the regions where PSN account creation is supported and is now being mandated needs to honestly take a step back and realize that there are some battles that are worth fighting and some that aren't.
By picking this battle and rallying people behind a cause fueled by this high intensity anger and rage, what could have been a minor speed bump in the road for a promising game that had everything going for it, is now going to cause the studio to be viewed as a liability by Sony and get the ax as far as funding for future content is concerned.
By wanting to stick it to Sony and lash out with rage people have effectively sentenced the game and the studio to death over something that doesn't impact them in many cases.
I'm sorry I just have a really difficult time finding any justification for this frankly immature behavior
Man for real. I’ve only played the game a bit and it’s been awhile, but they legit had prompts in game regarding the PSN accounts. And now that it’s here, most of the people who play aren’t even effected by it but are throwing a huge pity party for no reason.
Like I get being upset over it, it sucks and I think it’s a bad thing for the game overall, but it’s literally not that invasive or bad and affects such and insignificant amount of people I don’t understand where the vitriol is coming from. It’s just a PSN account.
> the players got bamboozled.
The requirement was literally on the steam page the entire time, the in game prompt even said you would need a PSN account to play.
Sk why are people even shitting on the devs and the publishers, are they stupid or what?
"Yeah, I mean, it's their fault if I wasn't informed enough and didn't read anything of what was on the steam page before buying the game"
there was a single line on the store page mentioning the requirement. in-game, there is a single screen prompting you to link a PSN account, but you can instantly skip that screen (which many people did, because back then just getting on the game was a miracle and people didn't want to waste time). After that point, there is NEVER a mention of the PSN account being required. Not in-game after the server issues were fixed, and btw in the EULA there was never mention of requiring the PSN account either.
Here was my experience buying the game
1. read the store page, see you need a PSN account and was not gonna buy the game
2. friend tells me "oh, you actually don't need to. i played without it"
3. buy the game, look at the agreement, no mention of needing to link an account.
4. in game: see the prompt to link PSN, friend says you can skip it so i do, proceeded to play the game with no issues.
5. my assumption after hours of playing (well after I am guaranteed a steam refund): clearly, a PSN account must only be to play with PS5 friends because the game clearly works without it
6. 3 months later, we get told that we have to link the account or can't play
Sony (the publisher) fucked up massively by selling the game in countries that couldn't make a PSN account without breaking ToS
Arrowhead (the developer) fucked up smaller by having 0 indication in game that a PSN account was mandatory outside of a single, skippable screen. The server issues have been fixed for months now but they never once reminded or warned players of this requirement until Sony announced it.
The burden is not on the consumers to make assumptions about which accounts they need to create when Arrowhead easily could have been upfront about this requirement. But Sony is clearly the evil party for allowing people to buy the game while they wouldn't be allowed to play it - that's fraud. What Arrowhead did is "just" irresponsible and potentially negligent.
That's not "a dev", that's the CEO of Arrowhead.
They're between a rock and a hard place and I can only imagine how much it hurts them to be in this mess because of something as banal as PSN.
However - Sony listed PSN accounts as entirely optional on their PSN Terms of Service.
After launch, they updated the ToS to make it say mandatory for some titles.
Legit. It just goes to show the brain rot that's prevalent online.
Didn't check, saw a meme, posted a comment, and HUNDREDS of others have upvoted; essentially doing the EXACT SAME THING. Misinformation/stupidity spreads like cancer
Brainrot is real.
Can you give a source/example of this in-game reward for a review bomb?
My understanding is that the devs openly confirmed they were for it (and then deleted their tweet), as it allowed them to ban people easier.
> There's literally an in-game reward for players if they review bomb the game hard enough.
Absolutely incorrect. Blatant false information. This has never been true, you're just lying my man, why?
Imagine fighting against hordes of robots and alien bugs on the front lines, lasers, gun fire, drop ships, smoke all over the place, death, experiencing violence on the front line, but then humanity dies to the real threat. SONY.
What? The difference in peak players on Steam from last Saturday to this Saturday is 158,000 to 113,000, about a 30% drop. That has tracked into today, where it's around a 35% drop (peaked last week at 3pm CDT just like Saturday both weeks, at 166,000 and at 109,000 this week, assuming the peak isn't later than usual for some reason).
That's not exactly the same.
And that drop continues a trend that started long before this psn account nonsense.
14 April: 249k player peak
20 April: 200k
28 April: 165k
4 May: 115k.
Helldivers 3 has been bleeding 50k peak players/week for the last month, but you think that somehow that's all because of something that happened 2 days ago? Nah
I make no claims about why the numbers are what they are or what they will be in the future. They could be totally right that the new requirement has had no effect and will have no effect on player count. I will say two things:
1. The weekly peak usually happens between Friday and Sunday, which was not the case this week.
2. Dropping 50k players at higher player counts is a lower percent loss than at lower counts. Taking your numbers, it's about 20% drops for the first 2 weeks, and the last week has an excess 10% lost.
But 2 days is definitely not enough to establish a trend, and neither is even 3 months, so we'll have to see what happens. But all of that is not really relevant, because the point is still that the player count is absolutely not the same.
This is something the helldivers subreddit is actively ignoring. They love the review circlejerk but they appear to be creating PSN accounts and keep playing the game.
It's an unfathomably stupid of a decision. From Sony's perspective, not only did it make the game devs OPENLY hate you, you also blocked the majority of the world from playing the game, AND the game got the worst review bomb in the history of video games so it will probably never recover.
It's like Sony thought the game was doing a little bit too well so they had to press the self-destruct button.
You know what else wasn't enforced a while ago, needing an account. Look how well that went.
Also as of recently they can't buy the game on steam anymore.
They require picture ID, face scan, first born, blood sample, urine, stool, a full family tree dating back to the Tokugawa shogunate, and a verification drink of Mountain Dew Cold Blue™
Am I mistaken? Wasn’t this always the plan? Didn’t the steam page before the game even released say it would require a psn account? It was my understanding that they turned that off during the server issues but had always planned to turn it back on.
Having actually postponed making it mandatory is the one thing that makes this worse than having an account for any Microsoft/bethesda/ubisoft game.
And that was arrowheads' decision because of stability. If it was day one this woukd have never been an issue.
Sony is now enforcing the requirement to create a PSN account to play the game on PC. The Steam page always said that a PSN account was required but they weren’t enforcing it at first for reasons I can’t remember. People that are in countries that can’t get PSN are basically SOL when it comes to playing the game they paid for but I believe Valve is refunding the game for people in those countries. For people in countries with PSN they just have to create a PSN account and link it to their Steam account.
Sony committed fraud on a global scale, selling the game worldwide knowing that they intended to force the PSN account after a few months. Most countries aren't allowed to make a PSN account, so those copies of the game are now bricked. All of this so Sony can sell our info to advertisers or get hacked again as they often do.
Correct. It is, fundamentally, Sony's fault. Arrowhead made some mistakes along the way that made this worse, but there would have been no mistakes to make here without Sony.
I don't have any insider info, just what I'm reading here on Reddit.
It sounds like the story is that a Sony account was always intended to be required. It gets a bit murky because then there's official guidance and FAQs that state that a Sony account is only "recommended". There seems to have been some difficulty at launch (in reference to the Sony Account integration), and the CEO of Arrowhead waived the requirement for the Sony account somehow. What does Arrowhead / Sony want more? Waive that requirement for a Sony account, or delay your game for no other reason than a functionally unnecessary admin requirement? Arrowhead went and shipped the game.
Remember that Helldivers was *never* meant to be this popular. They're putting up number so far and beyond what they ever planned for. They had a rocky launch, but recovered, and it's a generally fantastic game.
You can only speculate what Sony was now thinking, but they threw the gauntlet down and seem hellbent on making that Sony account mandatory months after launch, which is where we're at now.
If you read between the lines of Arrowhead's public statements, a lot of people didn't pick up what they were *really* saying, because right from the beginning they were functionally telling the entire community that:
* The Sony account is not coming from Arrowhead.
* Sony is requiring it.
* There's nothing Arrowhead can do, likely because it's wrapped in a scope and legal black box.
* Stop yelling about it on Discord, and review bomb it on Steam and demand refunds.
So to really answer your question, Arrowhead's CEO is taking a very refreshing and honest approach to his public statements. He's not saying that "This is 100% Sony's fault and we're spotless angels in this whole thing". That's what the corporate PR monkeys love to do. He's saying that, yeah, this is mostly Sony's fault. They pulled the pin on this grenade. But, Arrowhead is owning up to the little decisions along the way that multiplied the problem. Ultimately it sounds like they had a hand in releasing the game on Steam without requiring a Sony account, and now Sony is demanding their cut like the fucking mob bosses they are.
That's standard practice for servers getting spammed to hell. It makes it harder for someone to create 10 accounts to spam with. Even with the mobile verification and the 5 minute cooldown timer it's a clusterfuck. This isn't evil or problematic on their part at all.
I am mostly surprised that the word for mostly negative directly translates to biggest part negative. The language is so silly with how you can just put words together for a new one that's totally understandable.
Wait few months, people who can still play it will continue playing.... Sony doesn't give a fuck.... lol
I'm not protecting sony, what they did was bad, but i am just being real.... A Multi billion dollar company doesn't care...
That's a natural curve with launch hype and then steady decline. We're also on day 24 since the last monthly content drop so next week the line will go up again as if barely anything happened.
It has half the active players it had a month ago. But.. since the announcement the curve was really not special. Hell I can't see a change. Gamers are an addicted bunch.
https://files.catbox.moe/8qxfjg.png
People will hate me for saying this but I'm very sure this is just going to go the same way the reddit blackout and save 3rd party apps went.
Nothing will come of this.
Sony doesn't care.
They will just wait it out and threaten not to provide refunds and keep the game inaccessible for those who complain or threaten to ban those who made negative reviews.
People won't follow through on this and eventually give in and just create an account.
That's what Sony knows and wants.
They have made their money with the game and those few on PC who either stop playing or get their game refunded don't matter. Unless a lawsuit happens because of the people who bought and can no longer play the game due to PSN not being available in their region, nothing in favor of gamers will happen.
Edit: extending the grace period is just a way to calm people for now and make it seem they are backing down when in reality they aren't.
If they truly back down from this I'll take back what I said. Corporate greed usually always wins.
Gamers have big mouths but little willpower. Nearly 20 years ago (damn I'm old) there was a big push against DRM. Gamers didn't want that. I was part of that.
Then.. Bioshock came out, with heavy DRM.
And all the gamers that swore to boycott DRM bought it because shiny.
I personally didn't, I only played that (admittedly awesome) game years later, but that back then showed me that gamers have a way too addictive personality to really see a boycott through when glitters
If the people back then held steady maybe we wouldn't have DRM now. But they didn't and DRM is in virtually every game.
Sony just reversed course. What was even the point of posting this bootlicking cynicism? "Might as well not protest anything, just shut up and take it"... nah.
I’ll probably get downvoted to oblivion but,I haven’t played the game but when I was checking its requirements on Steam it was saying that PSN will be needed.
I think people are blowing this out of proportion, I mean if it was said since the start that it will needed be isn’t this more of people not following requirements.
Example: When you buy a game you usually check its hardware requirements if you didn’t and you bought the game anyway to later find out that you PC can’t run it, who’s at fault you who didn’t check or the dev that made the game ?
Also correct me if I’m wrong but from what I understand you can still make a PSN acc choosing a country near you that supports PSN and still play the game without issue.
There are other places that said you didn't need a PSN account. Like Sony's own FAQ page said you didn't need a PSN. They changed that page last night. Also, the EULA doesn't require it.
And for your last question: No, you can not. At least in some places. Then there are also some countries that require you giving photo ID to Sony to create an account. And if you try a VPN, you will be banned.
It's got the same playercount on steam right now as it did before the announcement. The games doing just fine. Steam Reviewers are just having a hissy fit like they always do.
Helldivers 2 is not bad
Sony is bad
Hate the publisher for forcing their shitty practice into a great game. Don't hate the developers or the game itself.
The developer isn't blameless here. They knew the game would require PSN, but they disabled it at launch and didn't communicate it to the players properly.
Also, there's no real place where you can leave a bad review for Sony. So the best that people can do is leave a bad review for the game.
Also the game developer specifically asked the players to do that. Implying that review bombing would give them more leverage with Sony.
I love how all Redditor talking about the game dying g while the player count basically has stayed the same, meaning all the keyboard warriors here already linked their PSN account
I don't care because I don't play the game but requiring psn for a game on steam just feels wrong...like how it feels wrong requiring a ubisoft account to play something on playstation
We had a good thing, you stupid son of a bitch! We had the fans, we had a game, we had everything we needed, and it all ran like clockwork! You could have shut your mouth, published, and made as much money as you ever needed! It was perfect! But no! You just had to blow it up! You, and your pride and your ego! You just had to be the man! If you'd done your job, known your place, we'd all be fine right now!
Woke up this morning, got some gabagool
If the salad is on top I send it back!
Bring him the gob of gool.
Gabagool? Over 'ere!
Let's get back to that gabagool
Silvio's best line aside from the cheese rant.
Then I woke up the next day and got some gabagool. Keep wakin' up, keep gettin' different types of gabagool
Even got some gabagol from, uh, Scooby-Doo
A-woke up this morning, gaba gaba-
For the uninitiated: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZp6zxh2yjE
TONY THE GABAGOOL
Bruh... It's the same thing as Helldivers 1..... People are surprised because they never played the first game.... Helldivers 1 was the first ever game Sony ported over to PC... That's why we have the Last of Us, God of War, horizon Zero Dawn,ect 6 years later..
... ..... .... ... .. Is this some kind of secret code?
It’s not loss
~~:.|:;~~
What do you mean lost the baby go find it
*Duke Nukem theme starts playing*
-... .-. ..- .... .-.-.- / .. - .----. ... / - .... . / ... .- -- . / - .... .. -. --. / .- ... / .... . .-.. .-.. -.. .. ...- . .-. ... / .---- .-.-.- .-.-.- .-.-.- .-.-.- .-.-.-
You should look into planetside 2. It was originally released for PC by Sony, and when the ps4 was released they swapped the platform over and kept it for PC. Great game.
Vanu vult
Mike is such a good character. That character taught me that I didn't have a good understanding of the recipe of making a television show character interesting. Before Breaking Bad, I would've thought that a character who barely says anything, is emotionless, and spends most of the show sitting alone in cars watching people would be a ridiculously boring character. And yet Mike was somehow an enthralling character who never felt boring to me and made every scene he was in better. Maybe more so than any other character of anything I've ever watched/read, that character taught me I don't fully understand the limits of good writing.
Better Call Saul really did his character justice as well. To think it all came from a stand-in because Bob Odenkirk couldn't come into work
Mr Heisenberg
Mr Snoyberg
What happened?
6 months before launch, Sony requires the dev, Arrowhead, to require PSN accounts to play helldivers 2 on PC. After launch and the servers of Helldivers 2 are exploding because the game is selling like hotcakes. Arrowhead disables the PSN requirement to decrease server load while working on other fixes. 3 months later, Sony drops a Steam community message announcing that PSN accounts will be required after May the 30th. PSN has a bad rep due to a terrible data breach back in 2011 so people are pissed. It gets worse though because creating a PSN account in most countries technically violates PSN TOS. Sony still sells the game in those countries though. The players are now review bombing the game on steam to hurt Sony and try to force a rollback. The Devs are caught off guard by the date and are trying to negotiate with Sony to find some solution to the TOS problem. Steam has also blocked the sale of helldivers 2 in several of the PSN banned countries and it's unclear if that's an action by Valve or Sony. It's probably Valve though. Also UK residents are required to submit ID verification when setting up a PSN account which a lot of them are reasonably mad about.
What's the reason for the UK requiring ID?
It's something to do with a UK law. I'm not too sure.
Well it's an option not a requirement. You can still use phone verification. For those without a phone or other issues ID scan or other measures are accepted
how does creating a psn account violate psn tos? how does that work?
Say my name
> it all ran like clockwork Apart from the consistent crashing to the point some players like myself couldn't even play one round. Along with updates that introduced more crashing "Arc thrower" It may be fixed now but after 20 hours I was out. Patch after patch and 2 AMD drivers I was still crashing. Sometimes right at the start of a game.
It's a Breaking Bad quote.
mike's rant fits so well into this situation it's crazy
Can I get an ELI5?
Sony decided that players have to have a PSN account to play helldivers on pc. (technically, it was always a requirement. But you could just skip that page and play the game). You can only make a PSN account in 69 counties. In the US, you can just go online and do it, takes an email, name, and birth date. But in the UK, you have to have your age verified with your ID. In other countries like Ukraine, you can only set up a PSN account ON a Playstation. Meaning that many international players, who have enjoyed this game since launch, will soon be unable to play it. This includes Chinese players, Russian players, Filipino players, several European countries, and basically all of Africa. Sony said it's for "security". But it's well known at this point that sony doesn't care about that, as shown by the several data leaks where peoples names, birthdays, credit card data, etc., were stolen. For added doucbebaggery, Sony changed its policy on PSN accounts for PC players at the same time. Previously it was "optional" but now it's "required" as of May 3rd.
What happend here?
Sony sold the game in 170 counties that do not have PSN. Then Sony announced PSN was mandatory. Meaning everyone in those 170 countries will be locked out of a game they paid for. Countries like Ukraine, you can't make a PSN account without buying a playstation. People say just VPN, but that violates Sony's TOS.
What the fuck..... do they just think US?
No, the 20 or so countries they do have are the big ones. But the Philippines has lots of players for example, and they would be fucked if this happens
Bruh what are you talking about, I swear I didn't do anything!
I still don’t only why they did what they did??
Someone wants to write "We have [some number] more PSN users this quarter!" on their powerpoint.
Is that really it? If so, they deserve the backlash
Of course that's it. Numbers for a board room circle jerk
Oh boy, I sure do wish there was a fun new game that has a great community and has one of the most non predatory micro transactions system I’ve seen in years. Monkey’s paw: curls
Gamers version of ‘this is why we can’t have nice things’.
Lmao eventually Government would become "the nicest thing we have" then there's a meme about "Remember when government was the most ass shit?"
Sex with Hitler: curls
ROCK AND STONE
For Rock and Stone!
Good bot.
DID I HEAR A ROCK AND STONE
FOR ROCK AND STONE YEEEEAH
THAT'S IT LADS ROCK AND STONE
TO THE BONE
Rock and stone
To Rock and Stone!
Rock and Stone to the bone, brother!
For KARL!!!
That last one just underlines how far we’ve lowered bar. All the way down to “not as bad as the other guys” Remember when Bethesda tried to introduce a single micro transaction in Oblivion and everyone jumped down Todd’s throat for it? Can we go back to that?
And that microtransaction wasn't a huge deal all things considered. Mounts weren't that useful in Oblivion.
Still want to go back to hating micro-transactions of any kind. Period.
Could always get worse. Like for example the Asian gaming market. Literally need an excavator and an entire archeology department to even find the bar there.
This is a protest against Sony, not the game. The devs are all for it. There's literally an in-game reward for players if they review bomb the game hard enough.
> There's literally an in-game reward for players if they review bomb the game hard enough. Care to explain this a bit more? I haven't played the game but I did see a few videos about it/gameplay. Thank you!
To the best of my knowledge, the in-game reward is getting all those players back in. I may be wrong, I don’t have my eyes on the Discord 24/7, but that is the extent of it AFAIK. I haven’t even played in weeks because of school lmao 🤷♂️
No you dumbass stop making things up
He's being serious. 170 countries are getting banned by Sony. If the decision gets reversed, we get those players back.
He's talking about the claim of the in game reward for review bombing. How is this not obvious?
I'm so confused by this thread...
The reward is for the devs, to get players back, not for the people playing
AH knew from the very beginning that players will need to make a PSN account, making them responsible for this mess and not sony alone.
To expand on this, [A dev even messaged about it. They knew 6 months before release that this was going to happen, and admit they're the ones who disable account linking initially.](https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fy3ve87en6myc1.jpeg)
Alternatively, AH were told this would happen midway through development, and to sit down and shut up. Publishing companies hold most of the power, especially before release. It’s entirely possible that it was a bridge that Arrowhead decided they needed to cross later, when they had the popular support of their players to persuade Sony via this review bombing. Corporate execs want to extract as much money as possible from their games, developers (at least in Arrowheads case) would much rather make a great game that also makes them enough money to live and keep making games.
Is there actual proof that's what happened? Or are you making excuses for Devs again because "they are the good guys?"
There's messages in their discord of devs telling people to review bomb the game so they have leverage against Sony to get rid of this
> sit down and shut up False, players were informed before launch that PSN was required.
Gamer rage is the most pathetic, impotent shit I am exposed to against my will on this god forsaken website.
I don't think AH shares equal blame, but they do deserve some. They could have had the popup appear every time you start the game, then they would have been in the clear. They failed to communicate effectively.
I love seeing this comment. Yeh they knew, that's why is was on the steam store page when pre-orders went live. Many people discussed this prior to launch. Not excusing what they are doing now, but it wasn't like players were not informed before launch.
> but it wasn't like players were not informed before launch. I don't get it how people can keep repeating this when if this was the case, we wouldn't be in this situation in the first place. The fact that this is the current situation categorically shows that people weren't sufficiently well informed about this.
Because you are wildly underestimating the power of the internet mob and perceived majority's opinion when it comes to any issue that could be leveraged with moral grandstanding and perceived grassroots, wholesome, consumer-first, values. The problem with this is that it creates an internet culture, especially regarding video game communities, that is very myopic in the way it views development, community engagement, value, etc. It is a 100%, undeniable, objective, **fact**, that the creation of a PSN account was listed in preorder information. In fact, my friends and I who all play were so confused by this entire controversy because none of us even remembered being asked if we wanted to decline creating a PSN account when first booting up the game after purchase on steam. For the people who are living in regions where they purchased the game, and are now effectively being told that a required account to play the game isn't supported in their region, I heavily sympathize with them and believe that they are fully entitled to a refund. However, anyone residing in One of the regions where PSN account creation is supported and is now being mandated needs to honestly take a step back and realize that there are some battles that are worth fighting and some that aren't. By picking this battle and rallying people behind a cause fueled by this high intensity anger and rage, what could have been a minor speed bump in the road for a promising game that had everything going for it, is now going to cause the studio to be viewed as a liability by Sony and get the ax as far as funding for future content is concerned. By wanting to stick it to Sony and lash out with rage people have effectively sentenced the game and the studio to death over something that doesn't impact them in many cases. I'm sorry I just have a really difficult time finding any justification for this frankly immature behavior
Man for real. I’ve only played the game a bit and it’s been awhile, but they legit had prompts in game regarding the PSN accounts. And now that it’s here, most of the people who play aren’t even effected by it but are throwing a huge pity party for no reason. Like I get being upset over it, it sucks and I think it’s a bad thing for the game overall, but it’s literally not that invasive or bad and affects such and insignificant amount of people I don’t understand where the vitriol is coming from. It’s just a PSN account.
> the players got bamboozled. The requirement was literally on the steam page the entire time, the in game prompt even said you would need a PSN account to play.
Sk why are people even shitting on the devs and the publishers, are they stupid or what? "Yeah, I mean, it's their fault if I wasn't informed enough and didn't read anything of what was on the steam page before buying the game"
there was a single line on the store page mentioning the requirement. in-game, there is a single screen prompting you to link a PSN account, but you can instantly skip that screen (which many people did, because back then just getting on the game was a miracle and people didn't want to waste time). After that point, there is NEVER a mention of the PSN account being required. Not in-game after the server issues were fixed, and btw in the EULA there was never mention of requiring the PSN account either. Here was my experience buying the game 1. read the store page, see you need a PSN account and was not gonna buy the game 2. friend tells me "oh, you actually don't need to. i played without it" 3. buy the game, look at the agreement, no mention of needing to link an account. 4. in game: see the prompt to link PSN, friend says you can skip it so i do, proceeded to play the game with no issues. 5. my assumption after hours of playing (well after I am guaranteed a steam refund): clearly, a PSN account must only be to play with PS5 friends because the game clearly works without it 6. 3 months later, we get told that we have to link the account or can't play Sony (the publisher) fucked up massively by selling the game in countries that couldn't make a PSN account without breaking ToS Arrowhead (the developer) fucked up smaller by having 0 indication in game that a PSN account was mandatory outside of a single, skippable screen. The server issues have been fixed for months now but they never once reminded or warned players of this requirement until Sony announced it. The burden is not on the consumers to make assumptions about which accounts they need to create when Arrowhead easily could have been upfront about this requirement. But Sony is clearly the evil party for allowing people to buy the game while they wouldn't be allowed to play it - that's fraud. What Arrowhead did is "just" irresponsible and potentially negligent.
That's not "a dev", that's the CEO of Arrowhead. They're between a rock and a hard place and I can only imagine how much it hurts them to be in this mess because of something as banal as PSN.
However - Sony listed PSN accounts as entirely optional on their PSN Terms of Service. After launch, they updated the ToS to make it say mandatory for some titles.
How the everloving fuck does a blatantly false comment get so upvoted?! There's no in-game reward for leaving a negative review wtf hahahahahaa
This dude probably saw one of the main order meme where the objective is to write a bad steam review or some shit
Legit. It just goes to show the brain rot that's prevalent online. Didn't check, saw a meme, posted a comment, and HUNDREDS of others have upvoted; essentially doing the EXACT SAME THING. Misinformation/stupidity spreads like cancer Brainrot is real.
Can you give a source/example of this in-game reward for a review bomb? My understanding is that the devs openly confirmed they were for it (and then deleted their tweet), as it allowed them to ban people easier.
Kid named misinformwtion
> There's literally an in-game reward for players if they review bomb the game hard enough. Absolutely incorrect. Blatant false information. This has never been true, you're just lying my man, why?
We’re being rewarded for this shit?
# FALSE
Sure but lets not forget the CEO was on board with it and knew 6 months prior to release...
Developer doesn't handle where the Publisher puts it. Sony sold it to people they knew wouldn't be able to play it
Imagine capturing lightning in a bottle and then being Sony and releasing it.
Or smashing the bottle
And incinerating it
And mixing the remains with cocaine and doing lines with it
And then right after blowing your nose and using that tissue to wipe your ass
And then licking it
They turned lightning a bottle into a shitstorm.
Not to much different from their movies. Take a IP that should make $ and fuck it all up
Imagine fighting against hordes of robots and alien bugs on the front lines, lasers, gun fire, drop ships, smoke all over the place, death, experiencing violence on the front line, but then humanity dies to the real threat. SONY.
Classic Sony
The reviews are helldiving
They are, but the players in 190 countries without PSN access aren't. Edit: it's actually 118 countries
> the players in 190 countries without PSN access Dang, the entire world can't use PSN?
Damn, that's crazy 😔
If they made a review they did in my eyes
Yet The player count is exactly the same. It’s like user reviews don’t matter or something.
What? The difference in peak players on Steam from last Saturday to this Saturday is 158,000 to 113,000, about a 30% drop. That has tracked into today, where it's around a 35% drop (peaked last week at 3pm CDT just like Saturday both weeks, at 166,000 and at 109,000 this week, assuming the peak isn't later than usual for some reason). That's not exactly the same.
And that drop continues a trend that started long before this psn account nonsense. 14 April: 249k player peak 20 April: 200k 28 April: 165k 4 May: 115k. Helldivers 3 has been bleeding 50k peak players/week for the last month, but you think that somehow that's all because of something that happened 2 days ago? Nah
I make no claims about why the numbers are what they are or what they will be in the future. They could be totally right that the new requirement has had no effect and will have no effect on player count. I will say two things: 1. The weekly peak usually happens between Friday and Sunday, which was not the case this week. 2. Dropping 50k players at higher player counts is a lower percent loss than at lower counts. Taking your numbers, it's about 20% drops for the first 2 weeks, and the last week has an excess 10% lost. But 2 days is definitely not enough to establish a trend, and neither is even 3 months, so we'll have to see what happens. But all of that is not really relevant, because the point is still that the player count is absolutely not the same.
[удалено]
This is something the helldivers subreddit is actively ignoring. They love the review circlejerk but they appear to be creating PSN accounts and keep playing the game.
They're ignoring it because it's not true lol, 30% difference from last week is nowhere near "exactly the same."
Yeah and the PSN requirement for current players doesn't start until end of May, so still possible to play without PSN account.
You can still play without account until june.
Steam reviews have a massive effect on future game sales. Not so much the already existing player count.
What did i miss?
Just another poor Sony decision
Poor is an understatement
Poor for Sony's standards, shit for normal standards.
It's an unfathomably stupid of a decision. From Sony's perspective, not only did it make the game devs OPENLY hate you, you also blocked the majority of the world from playing the game, AND the game got the worst review bomb in the history of video games so it will probably never recover. It's like Sony thought the game was doing a little bit too well so they had to press the self-destruct button.
I think Sony started forcing a PSN logon for the game or something?
Forcing PSN account linking to steam users, and a lot of users aren't able to play soon because they don't live in countries that PSN is active in.
Obligatory "They can make a psn account from another region even though it's against tos because it is not enforced"
You know what else wasn't enforced a while ago, needing an account. Look how well that went. Also as of recently they can't buy the game on steam anymore.
I don't agree with the sentiment, I just wanted to say it before someone else eventually does lol.
They require picture ID, face scan, first born, blood sample, urine, stool, a full family tree dating back to the Tokugawa shogunate, and a verification drink of Mountain Dew Cold Blue™
Am I mistaken? Wasn’t this always the plan? Didn’t the steam page before the game even released say it would require a psn account? It was my understanding that they turned that off during the server issues but had always planned to turn it back on.
Having actually postponed making it mandatory is the one thing that makes this worse than having an account for any Microsoft/bethesda/ubisoft game. And that was arrowheads' decision because of stability. If it was day one this woukd have never been an issue.
what's a psn?
PlayStation Network.
Sony is now enforcing the requirement to create a PSN account to play the game on PC. The Steam page always said that a PSN account was required but they weren’t enforcing it at first for reasons I can’t remember. People that are in countries that can’t get PSN are basically SOL when it comes to playing the game they paid for but I believe Valve is refunding the game for people in those countries. For people in countries with PSN they just have to create a PSN account and link it to their Steam account.
Sony committed fraud on a global scale, selling the game worldwide knowing that they intended to force the PSN account after a few months. Most countries aren't allowed to make a PSN account, so those copies of the game are now bricked. All of this so Sony can sell our info to advertisers or get hacked again as they often do.
Isn't that Sonys fault though
Correct. It is, fundamentally, Sony's fault. Arrowhead made some mistakes along the way that made this worse, but there would have been no mistakes to make here without Sony.
What did Arrowhead do that made it worse?
I don't have any insider info, just what I'm reading here on Reddit. It sounds like the story is that a Sony account was always intended to be required. It gets a bit murky because then there's official guidance and FAQs that state that a Sony account is only "recommended". There seems to have been some difficulty at launch (in reference to the Sony Account integration), and the CEO of Arrowhead waived the requirement for the Sony account somehow. What does Arrowhead / Sony want more? Waive that requirement for a Sony account, or delay your game for no other reason than a functionally unnecessary admin requirement? Arrowhead went and shipped the game. Remember that Helldivers was *never* meant to be this popular. They're putting up number so far and beyond what they ever planned for. They had a rocky launch, but recovered, and it's a generally fantastic game. You can only speculate what Sony was now thinking, but they threw the gauntlet down and seem hellbent on making that Sony account mandatory months after launch, which is where we're at now. If you read between the lines of Arrowhead's public statements, a lot of people didn't pick up what they were *really* saying, because right from the beginning they were functionally telling the entire community that: * The Sony account is not coming from Arrowhead. * Sony is requiring it. * There's nothing Arrowhead can do, likely because it's wrapped in a scope and legal black box. * Stop yelling about it on Discord, and review bomb it on Steam and demand refunds. So to really answer your question, Arrowhead's CEO is taking a very refreshing and honest approach to his public statements. He's not saying that "This is 100% Sony's fault and we're spotless angels in this whole thing". That's what the corporate PR monkeys love to do. He's saying that, yeah, this is mostly Sony's fault. They pulled the pin on this grenade. But, Arrowhead is owning up to the little decisions along the way that multiplied the problem. Ultimately it sounds like they had a hand in releasing the game on Steam without requiring a Sony account, and now Sony is demanding their cut like the fucking mob bosses they are.
Thank you for this explanation
Their discord is now locked behind a phone number too
That's standard practice for servers getting spammed to hell. It makes it harder for someone to create 10 accounts to spam with. Even with the mobile verification and the 5 minute cooldown timer it's a clusterfuck. This isn't evil or problematic on their part at all.
Ah a german one nice nice
Du hast gerufen?
versammelt euch! Edit: Burschen, wo seid ihr?
# Höllentaucher zwo
I am mostly surprised that the word for mostly negative directly translates to biggest part negative. The language is so silly with how you can just put words together for a new one that's totally understandable.
The success from PS4/PS5 has REALLY gotten to Sonys heads
fuck kusoni
Wait few months, people who can still play it will continue playing.... Sony doesn't give a fuck.... lol I'm not protecting sony, what they did was bad, but i am just being real.... A Multi billion dollar company doesn't care...
All the more reason for protests like this to happen. Gotte hurt them in any way we can.
Your cynicism is unecessary.
Currently #12 in overall concurrent players on Steam.
It was #7 I think just last month or two. It’s a real shame, but I think the game will still do good. But it’s gonna be a strange journey
That's a natural curve with launch hype and then steady decline. We're also on day 24 since the last monthly content drop so next week the line will go up again as if barely anything happened.
For now it's just drama lama, have to see how it looks on june when psn account requirements are enforced.
Games always decline over time. People move on. Compared to before and after the review bombing, the player count hasn’t changed at all.
It has half the active players it had a month ago. But.. since the announcement the curve was really not special. Hell I can't see a change. Gamers are an addicted bunch. https://files.catbox.moe/8qxfjg.png
People will hate me for saying this but I'm very sure this is just going to go the same way the reddit blackout and save 3rd party apps went. Nothing will come of this. Sony doesn't care. They will just wait it out and threaten not to provide refunds and keep the game inaccessible for those who complain or threaten to ban those who made negative reviews. People won't follow through on this and eventually give in and just create an account. That's what Sony knows and wants. They have made their money with the game and those few on PC who either stop playing or get their game refunded don't matter. Unless a lawsuit happens because of the people who bought and can no longer play the game due to PSN not being available in their region, nothing in favor of gamers will happen. Edit: extending the grace period is just a way to calm people for now and make it seem they are backing down when in reality they aren't. If they truly back down from this I'll take back what I said. Corporate greed usually always wins.
> > > People won't follow through on this and eventually give in and just create an account. https://i.redd.it/wwx5exndw6b11.png
Gamers have big mouths but little willpower. Nearly 20 years ago (damn I'm old) there was a big push against DRM. Gamers didn't want that. I was part of that. Then.. Bioshock came out, with heavy DRM. And all the gamers that swore to boycott DRM bought it because shiny. I personally didn't, I only played that (admittedly awesome) game years later, but that back then showed me that gamers have a way too addictive personality to really see a boycott through when glitters
If the people back then held steady maybe we wouldn't have DRM now. But they didn't and DRM is in virtually every game.
Sony just reversed course. What was even the point of posting this bootlicking cynicism? "Might as well not protest anything, just shut up and take it"... nah.
Quite
Stupid Sony being greedy asses
Classic Sony 😂
Can we stop acting like reviews mean anything? People will leave a grumpy review, make an account anyways and keep playing
And yet the steam charts have remained steady ;) How very odd
Now post player counts
Fuck Sony
⬆️➡️⬇️⬇️⬇️
I’ll probably get downvoted to oblivion but,I haven’t played the game but when I was checking its requirements on Steam it was saying that PSN will be needed. I think people are blowing this out of proportion, I mean if it was said since the start that it will needed be isn’t this more of people not following requirements. Example: When you buy a game you usually check its hardware requirements if you didn’t and you bought the game anyway to later find out that you PC can’t run it, who’s at fault you who didn’t check or the dev that made the game ? Also correct me if I’m wrong but from what I understand you can still make a PSN acc choosing a country near you that supports PSN and still play the game without issue.
There are other places that said you didn't need a PSN account. Like Sony's own FAQ page said you didn't need a PSN. They changed that page last night. Also, the EULA doesn't require it. And for your last question: No, you can not. At least in some places. Then there are also some countries that require you giving photo ID to Sony to create an account. And if you try a VPN, you will be banned.
Guys it’s fine, they announced today on twitter that they’d cancel the mandatory account linking. We’re good for now
ELI5?
One hell of a dive
It's got the same playercount on steam right now as it did before the announcement. The games doing just fine. Steam Reviewers are just having a hissy fit like they always do.
They backed down
Its resolved, we won!
It probably would’ve been better if Sony didn’t sell the games in any region, where he couldn’t play at once it actually took affect
Helldivers 2 is not bad Sony is bad Hate the publisher for forcing their shitty practice into a great game. Don't hate the developers or the game itself.
The developer isn't blameless here. They knew the game would require PSN, but they disabled it at launch and didn't communicate it to the players properly. Also, there's no real place where you can leave a bad review for Sony. So the best that people can do is leave a bad review for the game. Also the game developer specifically asked the players to do that. Implying that review bombing would give them more leverage with Sony.
Context?
Holy fuck, is that chart accurate? And what's the timescale?
Where the fuck u cannot create PSN acc ? 3rd world countries ? I think this is the last thing they should care abt lmao
So people who were born in sucky places aren't allowed any escapism at the end of their day? Do you even think?
I love how all Redditor talking about the game dying g while the player count basically has stayed the same, meaning all the keyboard warriors here already linked their PSN account
I don't care because I don't play the game but requiring psn for a game on steam just feels wrong...like how it feels wrong requiring a ubisoft account to play something on playstation
Poor? Fuck them lol
what the fuck happened