Yes, and it was. But for some reason they still want people to make a PSN account to be able to play HD, even if they are PC exclusive.
Additionally there are a good amount of countries where technically you wouldn’t be able to make a PSN account, theoretically making it impossible to play the game.
I switched to PC from PS4 near the end of it’s life cycle. What’s so bad about the 5? Is it still just mandatory PSN subscription to play online or is their worse stuff?
yuck. reminds me of games for windows live, for some reason they think they can make useless accounts mandatory, hope i don’t have to spoil how that ended
Wait, really? Me too! The last game that I purchased for PS4 was Ghost of Tsushima and I fully switched over to PC after I 100%ed that game.
PSN accounts are free to create. PC players don’t have buy any subscription to play HD2 using it. So probably means if someone gets PSN banned they can just create another for free without cost and carry on playing because initially you’re playing via steam. They can’t ban HD2 access on your steam account, but now they can as they indicate about link for ban control.
If you’re a PS5 player you do have to pay for PSN subscription to play online. If you get perma banned then you’re screwed as it means re-buying that one game on a new account and new paid subscription. $$$ incentive to not cheat or be abusive in chat. So example £50 to rebuy game and £50 for annual subscription. You can’t transfer game licence or subscription to new account. They don’t ban you from all games, just the one you screwed up in. Well at least you get warnings first.
I mean it’s bad enough PS5 you pay subscription to play HD2 online. But there is no solo offline mode to overcome not having to pay. But steam is free to play online. Why not let PS5 players do the same? Silly question $$$
idc
Some countries just don’t have PSN. Entire countries worth of people will be cut off unless Sony grants them clemency from this requirement.
I’m talking Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, the Philippines, Russia, every African country with the exception of South Africa and MANY MORE.
It’ll gut the community like a fish in both enthusiasm and size and let’s just say that with the recent expansion… well, Arrowhead is gonna NEED that lost revenue.
Sony couldn’t just keep their finger out of another pie.
They will reverse this decision I bet. They seem to react quite fast to things from community.
Sony had better, for both their AND Arrowhead’s sake. I do not wanna watch another game with potential burn.
Look how fast Arrowhead reacted over few words from dev. Apologies all round and forgiven. Fast reaction.
Anything negative - They on the ball quite fast.
Wow what a deadline though 48hrs notice.
an apology doesn’t cost them anything tho, they might have signed something with sony they cant backout that easily
It’s important to note that this is coming directly from Sony. Arrowhead, as far as I know, doesn’t have a say either way. Sure they might be able to tell Sony, “Hey this announcement really stirred the bee’s nest, maybe backpedal a bit,” but that is all they can do.
I haven’t ever really kept on eye on Sony, their practices, or how they react to the public so I don’t know what they will do. They might take it back. They might also think that they made enough money, and any pr/sales hit is worth getting people on to PSN for the email advertising. Or that the HD 2 community is so big that it’s a perfect test bed for the AI moderation system they are working on.
All we can really do is wait see.
I mean… MOST of Arrowhead doesn’t/didn’t have a say, sure. But C-suite definitely DID while they were negotiating with Sony as a publisher… Clearly they ceded that right to Sony, hence the announcement.
Still: Sony was/is (by proxy through Arrowhead) selling a game to people, some in countries without options to create a PSN account against Sony’s TOS. That right there, the mere fact that they’re selling a title via Steam to regions that don’t have access is some shady practice and definitely bad faith. Steam’s not going to have a problem refunding anybody regardless of time spent (if they but Super Creds, I’m guessing that’ll be another story) for folks in affected regions.
The BETTER play is for Sony to drop this nonsense before they lose a bunch of sales traction. They’ve already burned the goodwill, if they’re too pig-headed they’ll burn the studio for their shortsightedness AND be out money to boot. It’s probably not a TON of folks, but there’s enough that aren’t on that list to make a dent.
I don’t know much about corpo shenanigans. However I am under the impression the the Helldivers IP is completely owned by Sony. Therefore, if Arrowhead wanted to make a HD game, they had to agree to everything Sony said? In addition to all the funding Sony most likely gave them, which would be hard for anyone to turn down.
Additionally I assume they had ideally wanted this system to be in place at launch so this would not be an issue. But obviously if that was the case, they should have sign posted it a bit more.
Does Steam allow region locked selling on their platform? I assume in part they have to because of places like Germany and Australia, but would that be possible for a company not a government to do?
I’m not trying to do this to run interference for Arrowhead or Sony, or the choice to make PSN mandatory.
Don’t worry, Sony will take good care of your data. They NEVER have their databases leaked or anything.
Sony owns the Helldivers IP, yes-- but assuming the agreement between publisher and developer doesn’t leave room for negotiation is a bit naive. Sure, they own it and they’re the ones that will inevitably have the final say in what goes, but that doesn’t mean that Arrowhead (whom Sony does NOT own) doesn’t have some autonomy and the ability to give pushback. I’m guessing they didn’t see it as a problem when they closed, but that’s definitely a mistake on their part.
Think about it: Bungie is now completely owned by Sony, but there is no requirement to have a PSN linked account for D2 (nevermind that it was a multiplatform release prior to ownership changing). Returnal didn’t require a PSN account, it required agreement for third-party EULA, but not a PSN account. Same thing with basically ALL other first-party Sony games that have been ported to Steam.
Yes. Steam allows region-locked selling.
In most situations they (and the consumer) don’t have to worry about it since they’re theoretically always purchasing from the home region.
In theory, all purchases made via Steam are locked to your region and traveling or using a VPN (though against TOS) outside the specific region MAY encounter issues for those countries that ARE region locked.
Kinda like cost variance from region to region…
As to the second question from the quoted, I’m not sure what you’re asking. Local governments determine how a platform operates for that country/region-- and they’re required to adhere to that in order to conduct business, so YES, region-locking is technically the responsibility OF the company. Steam is just the marketplace, they’re hardly liable for anything and I’m betting most of their TOS cover their asses fairly comfortably.
A friend and I have been playing Darktide since the beta and we’ve been playing Helldivers 2 since launch almost every day, clocking in at almost 200 hours. But we came back to Darktide and haven’t touched HD2 in almost 2 weeks. We noticed that we got more agitated while playing HD2. When you things go wrong in DT because of bad players, it’s over in a jiffy. Like ripping off a band aid. In HD2, things drag on and on and on. Then there’s the disconnects (which DT also has, but you can get back in within 30 seconds) and people kicking players the moment you’re extracting.
We like both DT and HD2, and both games have their mistakes. But at the moment we’re just enjoying Darktide more. Also, I really missed the banter (voice acting) between the characters.
PSN is free to create an account. Many PSN games are free to play online multiplayer (PoE, Warframe, Vermintide 1+2) but most are not. If it has PvP its likely to require PS+ (PSN premium acc)
When I bought a PS4 it was because Sony had previously not required a premium, or “gold” account to play, and I got one because all my buddies were on Warframe and that doesnt require a premium acc, then after I got it I found out Sony, in all their wisdom, had actually changed their business mode and followed Micro$oft down the premium account path, which now they have gone even further down with a multi-tiered premium account system, which in fairness, they have only added tiers and the base premium acc is the same as it was when I bought the PS4 years ago. Still I felt a bit cheated. I specifically had moved away from xbox 360 because I was pissed that they required a gold acc for online play.
My friends conveniently left out that the sub service had changed since PS3 
But that was it, I was in, they had me. And now they want you all.
In 69 out of 190 countries, which mine isn’t.
I know and I acknowledge that in a previous post. Im not endorsing it, just stating a fact since some peeps asked on previous posts.