So much stufs!
What’s up with the toilet paper and all the G-Fuel? Preparing for a Zombie Apocalypse?
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Mmm… those Sony boots sure do taste good, don’t they?
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- They had a FAQ up and it said “No, you won’t need to link your PSN account to Steam.”
- The “notification” was some tiny text at the bottom of the page, hidden on purpose.
- If it had been like that from start, nobody would be mad.
This is a bait and switch, from a company wanting your data that can’t keep it safe for their life of it.
Nevermind the subtextual communication of “I’m not ready to tell you this upfront, but NOW that I have your sale I demand you change.”
There is so many cans of worms in this issue and you gloss over all of them.
I don’t think you understand how people in countries without PSN feel, who paid a lot of money for the game on launch.
But sure, rag on le entitled gamer. The way it looks to me, Gamers are some of the few customers who actually live by the “Vote with your wallet” American mindset. Nestlé changes their recepture of some chocolate bars so you have more sugar? Don’t see anyone riot.
Gamers however react when they get deceived and THAT’s why they’re noisy.
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To make this perfectly clear:
Pilsteadt, Spitz (after he calmed and apologized) and Twinbeard are suggesting that the game be review-bombed, as it gives AH something to present to SONY during their internal talks.
They are asking that we bomb their game…
This is the weirdest development. Also - the stones on AH…
Well, it has to be done:
I’m doing my part.
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the king of ‘darktide was never a live service game’ can’t see the word ‘currently’ in that same blurb? alright then. in the exact same fashion they never used any words to categorically rule out that you wouldn’t need one. just ‘you don’t need one currently’.
the reason it wasn’t like that from the start, was so you could play the game because after 6 years in development who could have anticipated server traffic. this was the reason it was waived.
its also very, very sad to see that whole refusal to read, anything, even the word ‘currently’ in the very real explaining subtext that was in the middle, with the additional disclaimer you mention.
there is a much bigger argument to be made about the super-legal status bestowed upon corporations with the behest (or lack of pushback from) your government that be. but this? its literally the chickens they told you were coming back coming home. multiple warnings even. yes, it does suck. but the actual response is beyond childlike, as you exemplify. lets crucify people for actually lying. like todd howard.
Games never were free of politics.
Firstly, it is a creative work, and artists love to put their messages in their works.
Secondly, it is a business, and business owners love to get the money, which on its own, could be very easily tied to politics.
I must admit, that it is kinda funny, that Helldivers, very heavy handed anti-capitalist satire, get screwed over by said capitalists.
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Ah yes. The inherent politics of Pac Man and Super Mario.
Let’s not also forget the epic social commentary of Ocarina of Time.
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Yes, that’s right. I argue semantics on that a lot, because I felt the community was unfair on the Live Service thing. Doesn’t mean that other critique of Fatshark is illegitimate, they’ve clearly mismanaged expectations about their games, too.
Unlike Sony here they never reduced the playability or excluded people who already bought their stuff, though. They “only” had technical issues and an unfinished release.
That falls high on the “lack of planning competency” scale, but it’s not that high on the “malice” scale.
Different situation to Sony in my eyes. Bait and Switching someone on purpose and then withholding promised product on the account of TOS changes is a strong malicious action in my book. I hope you can see how I weight these against each other.
I see that Fatshark could improve a lot about their content development pipeline. But I don’t see much Malice from that studio, just the inability to deal with content pumps. With Sony, they’ve been in business a lot longer. They’re a lot more affluent. A lot more reach. They knew what they were doing and I take that more serious.
But when their FAQ says you “will” - future tense - not need to install PSN - That’s a big difference. They outright lied in worst case or less worse case - Sony truly ambushed the Helldivers Team here. But either case, people spent money and now can’t use the product. That’s wildly different.
There is no chickens coming home to roost, as you say. This was planned.
And I’m with you on that. I do not have Fall Out 4 or Starfield or Elder Scrolls online on my Steam Account.
I stopped buying any Bethesda games after Skyrim, because Toddy can go take his 16 detail levels somewhere else. Although I will give him that he is a marketing genius, but he never keeps his promises either.
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Everything has always been political since the moment we, as a species, gained the level of technology to communicate near-instantly over vast territories and had… politics.
It’s retroactive. And times change.
To keep to the theme of this topic, observe the novel Starship Troopers, the politics of its author prior to writing it, and after. Then note how the novel was critiqued by the pundits of its time. Then note the movie adaptation, when it came out, and then every roughly 8 years after. Then note the takes today, and how those relate to Helldivers 1/2.
And that was all intended to be political, from the novel to the games.
Whether all things were always intended to be political… eeeh, I don’t think so. But we’ll make it so anyway, with our wisdom of the 21st century.
I wonder what the politics of Pong, Super Mario, Quake or Duke Nukem were?
As a final note - I remember when The Burning Crusade launched and there was tons of controversy over BElf females, the oversexualization of characters in video games and allowing young humans to identify with that sort of stuff. I now look at Stellar Blade (most recently, for convenience) and note the same takes, but the people who make them have changed. The message has changed. The politics have changed… Not the product, though…
Eh. Just some thoughts, I don’t really care for politics, I’m eastern european. We know better.
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Like I said I can’t see the weaseling the same way. You have to click right through a screen telling you to set up a PSN account or do it later. Their FAQ about the subject says ‘you do not need it currently’ with a big disclaimer at the bottom saying yeah you will. It really shouldn’t have been sold in those regions I agree, but the idea that there will be some successful crusade is laughable. The value of your consumer data is worth a lot more to them than how you personally feel about making accounts. This is why I voted against it in the beginning, I have enough anti cheats and installers already.
In risk of totally derailing this thread, which I desperately do not want, my quick and dirty take is that pretty much any story focused can game at least be interpreted to have political themes.
It’s only a problem if it’s not nuanced.
You can even have your story’s message to be that one philosophy is better than the other. Writers have been doing that for thousands of years. It just needs to be a more thorough exploration of the topic than, “I am the good guy, everyone who disagrees with me is evil and stupid because they disagree with me.”
(This is more the case for games that actually want to focus on such themes. I’m not saying Mario needs to have an in depth analysis of Bowser’s ruling philosophy.)
Also, I am going to assume that when talking about “games being free of politics,” you moreso mean being free of controversy or in general bs? Because in that case I totally agree.
Payday 3, Cities Skylines 2, Escape From Tarkov, Helldivers 2, Dragons Dogma 2, Total War Warhammer 3, and Darktide are all games that I have (or had) at least some interest, that have all been marred by some sort of controversy in the last year. (To Darktide’s credit it has probably had the least, and wouldn’t be worth mentioning if I wasn’t as interested in it as I am.) Hell, there are probably a couple of other game controversies that I am unaware of. I guess I could mention Stellar Blade but I am so completely uninterested in both the game and the arguments around it it didn’t feel worth mentioning for me.
But yes it’s very demoralizing and depressing to just have this constant stream of bs happening in a hobby I care about. And the only thing I can really hope for is that, “the night is darkest before the dawn,” but even than for me that’s said without really believing in it.
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Dear god, after posting my meme on steam yesterday this is popping up in my notifications every 5 minutes because people are commenting on it so much 
That sentence is burned into my mind at this point 
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Vomit inducing sentence.
Darktide cash shop reading this:
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"Hehe. Look familiar? Scenes like these are happening all over the industry right now.
Will. You. Help?
That is…will you make the most meaningless decision of your life.
Prove to your friends you have the strength and courage to punish the developers.
Join. The Review Divers!
Become part of the mob mentality!
See only what you want to see…
And spread mob-managed populism throughout the gaming industry!
Become a keyboard warrior! Become a wojack! Become… a review diver!"
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Arrowhead themselves endorsed the review bombing because it gives them significant leverage against Sony.
I’m already getting kinda sick of people coming into this thread, refusing to read it, and then falsely claiming that we’re bullying Arrowhead. No, we’re standing WITH Arrowhead against Sony by using review bombs LIKE ARROWHEAD TOLD US TO.
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Love it.
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Cool.
T’was a meme.
We’ll see how it pans out though. People already getting refunds. The longer it takes, the more damage gets done.
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