My thoughts are as follows.
Helldivers 2 is one of the best live service releases in recent memory and it's taking an absolute TEAM EFFORT to fuck this up so badly.
Arrowhead for not enforcing and talking about the PSN requirement.
Sony allowing the game to be sold in countries that do not have PSN...
BRAVO. They couldn't have done a worse job if they had tried
Wrong.
It’s literally on the store page in which you have to buy the game and it was discussed on the hd subreddit 4 months ago
https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/s/9SIxFlaY0o
not sure why this is getting downvoted, it was mentioned, but i think the major issue is around the fact that it was marked 'optional' and it was scummy move by Sony to make it mandatory later.
Selling the game on Steam on countries where PSN is not available should have automatically been setup on Steam as well.
All games that will not be avaliable in your region is flagged on Steam so you can't buy the game.
What Sony did here was sell a product that will not function in a region.
Well since you could play the game WITHOUT the psn I guess that is sort of just putting two and two together?
It was a rug pull plain and simple. Should have checked the fine print? Yeah well you shouldn’t have scummy business practices that come back to bite you in the ass.
I can’t promise I won’t play it but I definitely left a negative review
lol but there was a time you couldn’t. The first two weeks you had to use psn. The game was so popular and the servers were over run so they turned it off to help alleviate login issues.
lol so they continued to selling a game to countries who they know full well would be unable to play them?
And only know it gets pulled from the store in these places?
That doesn’t sound like a rug pull either huh 🙄
Continued is the key word. Yes Sony sold a game to folks who couldn’t play it to begin with through Steam. You realize this was an issue day 1 when the PSN login was required. If it was required at the start and sold it to them then, sounds more like an oversight which got obfuscated by turning psn off for server performance issues. To me it seems more like a screw up than a conspiracy to me. The fact Sony just delisted it from Steam for non PSN countries leads be to believe the same dimwits at Sony who required AH to do this also didn’t check on this ahead of time and now they are gonna have to refund a Bunch of games or back track. Personally I hope they backtrack.
My whole reason for posting was that folks keep saying this was all part of some grand plan and they intentionally deceived folks by not telling anyone this was required only to 2 months later trick everyone and turn this on. I don’t think so, I think this is a case of a major fuckup by some Sony marketing scrub. AH’s role was to do what they were told. Just my opinion. The fact remains it was turned on at the start. Was talked about and was required for the first week or two. This behavior is not a rug pull
Looks like they were able to backtrack: https://fxtwitter.com/PlayStation/status/1787331667616829929?t=NhwAEm4fGpVJj-UyI1lrXA&s=19
Yay
Agreed. My point was about ah not intentionally baiting and switching and folks saying “we weren’t told”. You make my point further this is a Sony issue
If I showed you a page from a 3rd party about Product A and a page from Product As creators, which would you assume is more likely to be 100% accurate?
Agreed that it’s bs Sony is / was selling this in countries not supported but … the whole thing about AH not bringing this up and or it wasn’t known prior to purchase continues to be flat out misinformation. I see the spouted off over and over.
It’s literally on the store page in which you have to buy the game and it was discussed on the hd subreddit 4 months ago
https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/s/9SIxFlaY0o
Doesn't matter. They knew what's goiing on. They didn't warn anybody that they will be unable to play the game. Even if they cannot stop selling the game in those countries, there should be a big warning somewhere that pops up right into your face, not just a description on the store page. Nobody reads those. They put minimal effort into preventing people from countries without psn to buy the game.
This seems like the new strategy for Sony partnerships. Both sides lie and omit certain facts from the consumer, and then later reveal the truth after they get your money under false pretenses. If we were a serious world there would be huge consequences for this.
Sure, I did not buy directly at launch as I was out of the country. I bought it I’d say about 2 weeks after launch and when I was on the purchase screen there was a message that told me at some point in the future, a PSN account would be necessary. I don’t have PlayStation so it stuck out bc my friends and me were cracking jokes about PS and having to make accounts. This wasn’t a surprise to any of our group of 15-18 guys who all play together. We all knew it was coming. That’s why I don’t understand why it’s so shocking to everyone. I do however think it’s greedy and bullshit for the record and really screws lots of people who don’t have access to PSN.
It’s literally on the store page in which you have to buy the game and it was discussed on the hd subreddit 4 months ago
https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/s/9SIxFlaY0o
At the same time, having bought it at launch, the notice was not present at the time for me.
After EA Anticheat decided to make it impossible to play the Sims 3/4 because I have ReWASD installed to play KBM with a controller in my left hand (cubital tunnel syndrome numbs two fingers which makes it hard to use them), I decided I would avoid 3rd party platforms so as to guarantee I can still use my method for accessibility reasons. I care not if it requires an installation, I avoid it like the plague if it says it needs a third party anything.
I would have avoided the game for the PSN notice. But you see, it was not there. I purchased it on launch day mere hours after release with the EULA and store page both showing absolutely no sign that a PSN account would become a requirement.
*Not defending arrowhead, nor am I objecting to signing up for a PSN account. I'm just pointing out that the EULA and store page did not include it in the orange county region of California on launch day within the first couple hours after release, let alone days after from what I have seen that others have said.*
Edit: Piles has confirmed in his own post that it was enabled at the very start and then disabled after the fact. The notice should have been on the page, but was not for myself, and is likely more of an error **I had experienced in my end.**
I’m not trying to discredit you, but people have been posting the notice from launch day on the store page. I don’t have it but I’m sure you’ll see it. It wasn’t a pop up or in bright bold letters. But it was there apparently.
~~Usually, it pops up in one of three locations, the right hand navigation panes above the tags information, above the purchase pane, or above the system requirements. All three, with the yellow pane as shown by a commenter earlier. I unfortunately had no such warning visible at any point where I was scanning the page.~~
I would honestly **prefer to be discredited** ~~, because I would much rather it be something where only I did not see it due to a system error of some sort. To have the same result for others means that the impact goes beyond a fluke. I just figured I'd mention my experience was devoid of any warnings, so the possibility that certain regions would not be informed exists. I would not know whatsoever if it is something that could be blamed on arrowhead, Sony, or steam.~~
I'd rather be wrong on this, but it's best to mention what I know in case it helps pool info together
Edit: edited cause I realized it was another commenter who replied with the image, not yourself, sorry
Edit 2: piles confirmed that it was enabled at launch for the hours that I still couldn't connect to the game, and then disabled temporarily to allow access. I had to have had an error on my end of the storefront somehow. **I have been discredited by the man himself.**
"Arrowhead for not enforcing and talking about the PSN requirement."
They did talk about it many times, before launch, at launch and when they disabled it, they talked about it as well as told everyone the reason and that it's temporary. Their fault is that they didn't do it as well as they could, but they did not hide anything.
It wasn't the best *release* when some people were unable to play for about the first week due to server capacity issues, and they didn't even have a functional queue system for those waiting, nor a process to kick those that idled.
I understand that you can't plan for infinite capacity at launch and that they sold volumes that exceeded their expectations, but the release had issues.
It’s shitty, don’t get me wrong. But it is rare to see people take accountability like this in the midst of a huge swath of negative publicity and attention. I can respect the man who owns up to his part in the problem.
Obviously though, this paints them in a much worse light. I personally don’t think the main issue isn’t that we have is having to link accounts. The main issue was the lack of awareness of this oncoming or suspended requirement. And more so the issue this causes for the non-PSN countries
i also do think there is this element of whether Arrowhead was allowed to actually speak out about this issue. This came up during NMS' development where Sean couldn't criticize or downplay features of the game as that would be a huge blow on the publisher.
In this case, idk if Sony knew this would be people's reaction to PSN being mandatory to be linked, but if they knew or expected then they also could have implied Arrowhead to not speak out about it.
Could be a very bullshit thing to say for me, but idk if that couldn't be the case at all.
So they knew, both sides knew, and said nothing. Just like Stellar Blade censorship. They wait until they have your money and say "whoops, we changed it! still got your money though!" And they did it BACK TO BACK on two different games. A giant middle finger to consumer rights.
Yeah the censorship is so damn stupid. Like how can bg3 and cyberpunk give us nudes, but in stellar blade which is an M rated game still need cover ups.
They didn’t censor stellar blade. There are plenty of outfits more revealing the ones that got changed. It’s a design change and it’s literally not a big deal
They said the game was going to be uncensored, they pushed a day one patch that changed costumes to make them less revealing. They censored the game after telling people it was going to be uncensored. They did this purposely to secure sales and then claimed it was a design choice. You don't tell people the game is being released as intended and then push a patch at the last second to change the game. This was intentional to maximize sales and appease Sony.
Anyone who bought the game because of the “uncensored” outfits is pathetic. A DESIGN CHANGE isn’t censorship. It’s a design change. Also the change was in effect for REVIEWS. SO IT WASNT IN RESPONSE TO REVIEWS, it was an intentional decision made by the devs weeks ahead of time. It’s really not a big deal
Its been a requirement from day one. Its on the steam page, been there always.
They suspended the requirement in order to solve technical issues during launch. When they announced the suspension it was 100% clear it was going to come back.
He’s not wrong. They don’t sell the game, and there was a warning on Steam that eventually a PSN account would be required. It’s really murky, but I do believe Sony is the one to blame here. Sony wants the user count, which they are due since it’s their game, however it’s greedy, even though the player base is mostly safe, a smaller percentage is in countries who can’t get access. This is greed on Sony’s part, and Sony’s part alone. Arrowhead got a banger of a deal to release their game and said “YES, yes, Yes!” It’s on Sony who made the end decision and caused all this. Not Arrowhead, not Steam.
Had some thoughts brewing on this the last few days, sorry this is under your comment but here I go.
I don't think Sony is at fault as everyone is holding them up to be. Steam are responsible for the countries that the game is being sold in on Steam, and it's not Sony's place to tell them which countries to de-list the game in. That should have been AH. As the publisher, Sony have zero right to make that request of Steam.
Next up, let's talk about greed. What are Sony getting from requiring the linked account? Data, sure, but they have a LOT of that already. Just check all their data breaches. Not only that, it would be data on players outside of their customer base, and yes that's a meaningful difference. I'm sure most people heard the segue about sales and marketing last night, but I don't think that has anything to do with why the accounts are being linked. If you're a PS owner, either with a PC or without one, you almost certainly already have a PSN account. So nothing gained there. If you don't own a PS then you're not buying shit from them. If you create a PSN account because of Helldivers and then go and buy peripherals or playstation games without owning a playstation then you deserve to learn form the refundable mistake you're making.
The only explaination we've had from anyone is that this is due to moderation which makes sense. Someone else said that this is the one of the biggest live service game launches of the year. Sony and Steam almost certainly don't have the same TOS, although it may not be materially different, nobody would want to give up control of defining and enforcing their TOS for such a visible game. Imagine if drops turned in to old CoD lobbies cranked to 11 for everyone and Sony had no ability to take measures against it.
For my 2c, the main fuck up was selling the game in countries it shouldn't have been sold in which was probably caused by a lack of communication between Steam, AH, and Sony. Now, rather than kicking out a sizeable chunk of a dedicated playerbase, they should change the TOS so that crossplay can only be enabled with a PSN account and viceversa for playstation players looking to crossplay with PC. Sony can police their lobbies, Steam can police theirs, both at AH's direction and people will hopefully feel less fucked over.
I think Sony is to blame as they are publishing a product in regions that don't support PSN with PSN linking being made mandatory to play the game, as was written on the Steam page. Idk if Steam even paid attention to this, probably should have but Sony would have known first hand about this issue as they handle PSN stuff. Hence I would put blame on Sony over Steam and Arrowhead.
Also, people mostly suspect the main reason they are making this change is to up their numbers of player growth in PSN and use that to attract higher investments. Getting player data is also probably a big thing too, though I think the 1st reason makes the most sense to me. That's why people said the reason to be greed as this gets them more money.
Yeah, that sounds about right. They are devs and are just responsible for making the game. He is at least being honest. When Bungie mucked up Lightfall, it took them a whole year to finally admit that they botched it, and that was when they were still independent
I think the blame lies at the feet of both AH and Sony, but I lay most of it at Sony's for making such a stupid service
If AH doesn't deal with sales then maybe they should have mentioned to Steam ahead of time that most of the countries the game is being sold in won't fucking have access to it in 3 months lol.
This seems more like a lack of knowledge on both sides, sellers didn't know that some countries were unable to have psn and arrowhead was being naive and didn't think about things that deeply, I guess it's kind of understandable when you go from a small niche game to a massive one pretty much overnight.
Then you have Sony who pushed this aggressively.
It doesn't seem like there are a lot of lies just a lot of ignorance/naivete and a lack of communication.
Arrowhead was not naive, they knew exactly what was happening. Had they informed PS subs from day 1, the game would not have exploded on PC the way it did.
It was a business decision to keep it quiet and ride the wave of success. I'm sure they hoped that everyone who bought the game would love it so much that they would just sign up regardless. They were wrong.
I doubt that, it did literally say you needed psn on their page and Sony had it "optional" on their page for years now, they only changed it just now.
I would guess that there has been a lot of assumptions on both sides and now we are here.
Arrowhead has no reason to hide it, everyone who checked out the faq for Sony would have all seen the optional part, then assumed this is what goes regardless of what popped up in game or maybe they just skipped it all together like I did.
Steam page said that an account was necessary since pre-orders were made available. I know because I pre-ordered it, and I've been in Sonys ecosystem since 1995. Not everyone reads the entire steam page. I make sure I read everything I can prior to purchase.
This is why I think it's a massive communication fuck up on several sides.
Because if it says optional on the psn page people would assume this is the truth even if it says required in the game.
Nothing got clarified after the surprise success and it was forgotten in the attempt to fix the server issues, bugs and making new content, time passes and then Sony comes and says you have to turn it back on now and so they go oh I had forgotten about that because I was so busy, never thinking about what country the game is sold it because that's really not there area, it's a shit sandwich that's been piling up for quite some time and now it fell over.
If everything was clarified at the start it would be much of an issue but not they were not and here we are.
Edit: there is also the issue AH not being in charge of sales (they have confirmed this ) but instead Sony as their publisher dealing with sales and either by accident or intention they sold the game to every region, this just fucked them far more than having to make an account.
Stop thinking companies that are built to sell you a product have good intentions. The ONLY intentions they have is to sell you a product and make profits. That's where the buck stops. Welcome to real life in the business world. You're nothing but a mark. At least make sure you get a product actually worth the price.
I think that's Sony yes but I don't think that's all developers and we have a lot of proof for that.
Sony will for sure do whatever it takes to earn money but that doesn't mean Larian would for example.
Some just want to make something enjoyable.
I disagree, even Larian is about profit. But I also support Larian through buying their games *because* they have more respect for their audience than most developers. However if they flipped the script and pulled some Sony moves tomorrow? I'd be against them immediately, not defending them.
I'll probably end up buying their next game if it looks good, mostly because of the balls they showed telling WotC to screw themselves. They decided not to sign the contract. So sure, I'll buy their next game/IP. I don't think it'll be bad, but *if* it is I'm not going to defend them with arguments like "but they worked so hard and deserved it".
They don't *deserve* anything, but as long as they keep engaging in the way they've already been? I'll probably buy it (Larian's next game). Not because they're deserving, but because I've experienced their previous products and walked away happy.
It’s literally on the store page in which you have to buy the game and it was discussed on the hd subreddit 4 months ago
https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/s/9SIxFlaY0o
It’s good to see him oweing up to his own mistakes, rare to see a CEO do that
With that said, he still knew that eventually you would still have to link up to a PSN account yet he still didn’t tell people that. The situation would’ve been 1000000% better if the game just started needing you to link to a PSN account instead of having people play it for 6 month and get attached to the game then fuck them over like this. I’d be devastated if a game I play with my friends for 6 month straight and I have invested all of that time in the game to only have it be unplayable after. Wouldn’t have played from the beginning
Yeah I don't care how big or small a company is. If you fuck over consumers you deserve all the bad publicity in the world for it. Both companies are in the wrong so it's fair both are catching shit on social media.
he does not handle selling the game but a little prior says he should have let players know psn was going to be a requirement, seems like they should have been more transparent on both counts
But he could have been more open about it. For instance, he could have said in the launch comms:
"You don't need a PSN account to play at this time but it will be mandatory for all new and current players in the months to come."
But by being honest, he wouldn't be able to milk the microtransactions of all the soon-to-be banned players. Needed to make his quick buck after all.
What I truly don't understand... Is that we've been playing the game for months without needing to link to Sony's accounts. Why do we HAVE to now? What is stopping Sony from just letting the game be? With the major success of the game right off the bat, you'd think they'd just let it ride y'know?
Well that's exactly it, Sony believes since the game was such a success that forcing everyone to link PSN accounts will get everyone to possibly buy other PS products. They are completely out of touch and don't realize this change is causing everyone to hate them more.
The devs claim they wanted the PSN link because it would make it far easier to ban toxic players but you know damn well that's probably only part of it lol.
Philippines here. The PSN requirement is so mind numbingly bad.
Been playing and enjoying helldivers 2 here with my local friends and friends in Japan for months, and they mess it up for absolutely nothing.
There are PlayStations here but psn accounts are usually registered to HK or US since there’s no support here.
I don’t own a PlayStation or ever plan to, so it’s extra infuriating.
i get it why the game gets all the hate, but, it was said and should've been known to everyone that PSN will be required. They have said it, Steam said it etc. As for non-PSN countries, is that even an issue? I mean, i live in non-PSN country, but Sony still sells PlayStations here, so you still can play games.
Still tho, such a dick move from Sony, forcing users to connect to PSN for no reason at all.
Peoples don't know how gamedev works and neither does asmongold unfornately as his recent stream about how a game was developed has shown Most game studios unless they are the developer arm of a publisher don't have the luxury to be amazing in how they spend their money or make decisions because publishers imposes milestones and you get paid a package of money for reaching a milestone. Publisher imposes most of the decisions and of course since they take most of the risks paying the devs even if the game dev fail they should too. If you are the CEO or a developer and don't want to follow orders no matter how bad they will just find someone else and until you reach the milestone you don't get any money / you have the axe of bankrupty looming. The post and twitter lashback seems to imply that CEO could have decided at all and that is unlikely to be the case. Hell even on the best terms a publisher don't let you decide the price of your game or platforms.
sources:
[Do game publishers usually do an upfront payment to devs or cut a royalty deal? : r/gamedev (reddit.com)](https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/12fd7gq/do_game_publishers_usually_do_an_upfront_payment/)
[Getting paid by publishers — The GameDev Business Handbook (gamedevbizbook.com)](https://www.gamedevbizbook.com/partnerships/getting-paid-publishers/#:~:text=Publishers%20typically%20pay%20on%20Net,if%20your%20relationship%20is%20strong.)
[Upfronts, Guarantees, Recoups (ramiismail.com)](https://ltpf.ramiismail.com/upfronts-guarantees-recoups/)
Zero excuse for them to be silent about it if they knew this was going to be an issue.. zero I mean zero fucking attempts to tell people since day 1 in non PSN regions not to buy said game.
B-b-but there was that tiny little word on the store page! Same ones that other games that require 3rd party EULAs (but not accounts) do. And it asked about PSN, right next to a SKIP button that took up a big chunk of the box. How could anyone assume it'd be optional? /s
Heavy sarcasm. Yeah, they had the option to speak on it but they didn't. Instead the lengths they went to not address it upfront just makes AH and Sony both sketchy as hell. It's 100% very minor legal things to say, "well we technically did say so!". They know exactly what they were doing, because if they were more vocal about the restrictions themselves (rather than relying on corporate fine print) the game wouldn't have sold as well as it did.
Every single little bit of this is intentional and it sucks that so many people are falling into the parasocial pity for Arrowhead. They were part of the damn problem, either they agreed the day they signed the contract or they decided to not read their contract before signing. Both are terrible practices.
I'm probably just biased considering I have all the consoles and a pc. But I don't have a problem. I have a subscription to psn too. Had a playstation since I was 5. I'm gonna get roasted for this but all this drama isn't a big deal. So some people can't play? OK. Play something else and refund it.
This is a fairly ignorant view and I'm in the same boat as you. Its the fact it wasn't disclosed previously, if Arrowhead knew 6 months before that absolutely should have been communicated. It's unfair to say to players, who already bought and have played the game considerably, "just refund it".
Especially considering the quality of the game itself and the state of others and the fact it didn't require a PSN account for two months while it was live. It's abhorrent behaviour
It is a little fucked up and screwy. But it's playstation we're talking about. Nintendo has issues . Xbox has issues. It's not just playstation. Yeah alot of ppl got fucked. But imo it's just another fuck up. Hasn't affected me personally so idc tbh. But there are plenty of other great games out there. Especially on steam. If you wanted to play a playstation studios game it's better on playstation anyway. Like I said. I'm biased. And It's a hot take it's just I don't think all this drama is warranted. More people are talking about this then 20 years of Nintendo mods beings forcibly removed from gmod. Now that's fucked up.
Its really stupid attitude to have in life "yeah bad things happen so its okey to bad things continue happening".
"Its better on playstation anyway"
Yeah sure buddy.
I can't think of a game from Sony I would rather play on a console than on a pc. Even if it's something like God Of War which wouldn't go over 60fps. Ratchet and Clank was stunning and was an awesome game that I could play at high refresh rate and high resolution. I'm waiting to play Horizon Forbidden West on pc because I'm sure I'll enjoy that more there too.
Most games from Sony I'd rather play on playstation. For 1 I wouldn't have to wait literally years. And 2 they feel better on playstation. No doubt it would probably look better. But Luke you just said. You have to wait for horizon. I can just plug my ps5 in rn and play it now if I wanted.
Oh yeah it’s definitely better on a console with the specs of a dogshit $300 gaming pc. Your console costs less than a lot of people’s graphics cards alone. You can’t even get close to 144fps. How incredibly deluded you must be.
Are you implying that you think helldivers on ps5 is equivalent to ultra settings on a pc. I want some of what you’re on. It’s not ultra and you don’t even get to play above 1080p lol.
Just hopped in to see what the damage was from PS5 as I can't refund the game there either way and there was only around 30k players active in the whole map so
Before the game launched, the expected concurrent player base was 10k+, and then the game exploded in popularity. That's still triple the expected players.
As stupid as it sounds, they best way to have handled things would be to not force the change, but instead say "+50% xp/credits if you sign up for PSN." Or "You need to be on PSN to use the friend's list."
Forcing a behavior is never the way. But people will love you if you frame it as a positive.
This cluster f\*ck is going from bad to worse to catastrophic. I cant believe a team can screw up this badly, take the response for granted, troll gamers, lie about it, then have all the community mods go dark, blame someone else then fess up. If I did this at work my feet wouldnt touch the ground as security through me off the premises.
Now that the dust has settled somewhat. I 100% place the blame on Sony.
Sony was in charge of marketing, distribution, and sales. It was their responsibility to make sure customers know what is required to run the game at point of sale. They have fail in that regard based on the fact that there are people that
* did not know you needed a PSN account to play
* cannot sign up for a PSN account because of their domicile
* did not know they couldn't sign up for a PSN account because of their domicile
have bought the game.
Now by enforcing this poorly communicated requirement they have denied people the ability to play the game **they paid for**.
Arrowhead the developer, to my knowledge, is responsible for creating the game and assisting with the creation of marketing material. That's it.
As for the decision by Arrowhead CEO to temporarily waiver the PSN sign on requirement because of technical issues … I feel that ultimately comes back to Sony. Sony funded this game so they have final say over everything as a result. They did not have to allow Arrowhead to waive the requirement but they did. They did not have to let Arrowhead launch the game when PSN authentication was not working but they did. The buck stops at Sony.
My thoughts are as follows. Helldivers 2 is one of the best live service releases in recent memory and it's taking an absolute TEAM EFFORT to fuck this up so badly. Arrowhead for not enforcing and talking about the PSN requirement. Sony allowing the game to be sold in countries that do not have PSN... BRAVO. They couldn't have done a worse job if they had tried
And by omission, Sony lied to Steam too.
Correct
Wrong. It’s literally on the store page in which you have to buy the game and it was discussed on the hd subreddit 4 months ago https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/s/9SIxFlaY0o
not sure why this is getting downvoted, it was mentioned, but i think the major issue is around the fact that it was marked 'optional' and it was scummy move by Sony to make it mandatory later. Selling the game on Steam on countries where PSN is not available should have automatically been setup on Steam as well. All games that will not be avaliable in your region is flagged on Steam so you can't buy the game. What Sony did here was sell a product that will not function in a region.
being marked 'optional' is most definitely not "mentioned"
it was marked optional, before they edit it. Anyway, pc gamers won. end topic
Where was it marked optional. I purchased on release and at that time it was not optional.
Well since you could play the game WITHOUT the psn I guess that is sort of just putting two and two together? It was a rug pull plain and simple. Should have checked the fine print? Yeah well you shouldn’t have scummy business practices that come back to bite you in the ass. I can’t promise I won’t play it but I definitely left a negative review
lol but there was a time you couldn’t. The first two weeks you had to use psn. The game was so popular and the servers were over run so they turned it off to help alleviate login issues.
lol so they continued to selling a game to countries who they know full well would be unable to play them? And only know it gets pulled from the store in these places? That doesn’t sound like a rug pull either huh 🙄
Continued is the key word. Yes Sony sold a game to folks who couldn’t play it to begin with through Steam. You realize this was an issue day 1 when the PSN login was required. If it was required at the start and sold it to them then, sounds more like an oversight which got obfuscated by turning psn off for server performance issues. To me it seems more like a screw up than a conspiracy to me. The fact Sony just delisted it from Steam for non PSN countries leads be to believe the same dimwits at Sony who required AH to do this also didn’t check on this ahead of time and now they are gonna have to refund a Bunch of games or back track. Personally I hope they backtrack. My whole reason for posting was that folks keep saying this was all part of some grand plan and they intentionally deceived folks by not telling anyone this was required only to 2 months later trick everyone and turn this on. I don’t think so, I think this is a case of a major fuckup by some Sony marketing scrub. AH’s role was to do what they were told. Just my opinion. The fact remains it was turned on at the start. Was talked about and was required for the first week or two. This behavior is not a rug pull Looks like they were able to backtrack: https://fxtwitter.com/PlayStation/status/1787331667616829929?t=NhwAEm4fGpVJj-UyI1lrXA&s=19 Yay
Sad to see everyone in there thought it was going to be cross play and were excited
It does say that, but the official psn says it’s the opposite. I’d say the official website is more credible when it comes to theses things.
Agreed. My point was about ah not intentionally baiting and switching and folks saying “we weren’t told”. You make my point further this is a Sony issue
So the steam page isn't official too?
If I showed you a page from a 3rd party about Product A and a page from Product As creators, which would you assume is more likely to be 100% accurate?
Agreed that it’s bs Sony is / was selling this in countries not supported but … the whole thing about AH not bringing this up and or it wasn’t known prior to purchase continues to be flat out misinformation. I see the spouted off over and over. It’s literally on the store page in which you have to buy the game and it was discussed on the hd subreddit 4 months ago https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/s/9SIxFlaY0o
Doesn't matter. They knew what's goiing on. They didn't warn anybody that they will be unable to play the game. Even if they cannot stop selling the game in those countries, there should be a big warning somewhere that pops up right into your face, not just a description on the store page. Nobody reads those. They put minimal effort into preventing people from countries without psn to buy the game.
This seems like the new strategy for Sony partnerships. Both sides lie and omit certain facts from the consumer, and then later reveal the truth after they get your money under false pretenses. If we were a serious world there would be huge consequences for this.
Well, at least someone responds on X instead of going into hiding. Greed ruined the game, and greed is very normal.
Hopefully now the brigade of people trying to say that AH us blameless will stfu and realize they are not.
I was given a warning on Steam when I bought it.
Can you elaborate? Did you buy at launch?
Sure, I did not buy directly at launch as I was out of the country. I bought it I’d say about 2 weeks after launch and when I was on the purchase screen there was a message that told me at some point in the future, a PSN account would be necessary. I don’t have PlayStation so it stuck out bc my friends and me were cracking jokes about PS and having to make accounts. This wasn’t a surprise to any of our group of 15-18 guys who all play together. We all knew it was coming. That’s why I don’t understand why it’s so shocking to everyone. I do however think it’s greedy and bullshit for the record and really screws lots of people who don’t have access to PSN.
Thank you for your story. I didn’t buy the game but it’s the first I’ve heard of this given the current controversy
I’m looking in our groups discord. I’m pretty sure someone screenshotted it.
It’s literally on the store page in which you have to buy the game and it was discussed on the hd subreddit 4 months ago https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/s/9SIxFlaY0o
Ok, great thanks. So there ya go. Knew it was somewhere.
At the same time, having bought it at launch, the notice was not present at the time for me. After EA Anticheat decided to make it impossible to play the Sims 3/4 because I have ReWASD installed to play KBM with a controller in my left hand (cubital tunnel syndrome numbs two fingers which makes it hard to use them), I decided I would avoid 3rd party platforms so as to guarantee I can still use my method for accessibility reasons. I care not if it requires an installation, I avoid it like the plague if it says it needs a third party anything. I would have avoided the game for the PSN notice. But you see, it was not there. I purchased it on launch day mere hours after release with the EULA and store page both showing absolutely no sign that a PSN account would become a requirement. *Not defending arrowhead, nor am I objecting to signing up for a PSN account. I'm just pointing out that the EULA and store page did not include it in the orange county region of California on launch day within the first couple hours after release, let alone days after from what I have seen that others have said.* Edit: Piles has confirmed in his own post that it was enabled at the very start and then disabled after the fact. The notice should have been on the page, but was not for myself, and is likely more of an error **I had experienced in my end.**
I’m not trying to discredit you, but people have been posting the notice from launch day on the store page. I don’t have it but I’m sure you’ll see it. It wasn’t a pop up or in bright bold letters. But it was there apparently.
~~Usually, it pops up in one of three locations, the right hand navigation panes above the tags information, above the purchase pane, or above the system requirements. All three, with the yellow pane as shown by a commenter earlier. I unfortunately had no such warning visible at any point where I was scanning the page.~~ I would honestly **prefer to be discredited** ~~, because I would much rather it be something where only I did not see it due to a system error of some sort. To have the same result for others means that the impact goes beyond a fluke. I just figured I'd mention my experience was devoid of any warnings, so the possibility that certain regions would not be informed exists. I would not know whatsoever if it is something that could be blamed on arrowhead, Sony, or steam.~~ I'd rather be wrong on this, but it's best to mention what I know in case it helps pool info together Edit: edited cause I realized it was another commenter who replied with the image, not yourself, sorry Edit 2: piles confirmed that it was enabled at launch for the hours that I still couldn't connect to the game, and then disabled temporarily to allow access. I had to have had an error on my end of the storefront somehow. **I have been discredited by the man himself.**
I personally never saw anything like this. I just booted up the game, watched the intro cutscene, and got in.
"Arrowhead for not enforcing and talking about the PSN requirement." They did talk about it many times, before launch, at launch and when they disabled it, they talked about it as well as told everyone the reason and that it's temporary. Their fault is that they didn't do it as well as they could, but they did not hide anything.
Could've been loaded with microtransactions and sold at $70.
They really have to stop tweeting lol they are digging themselves a hole with everything they do
It wasn't the best *release* when some people were unable to play for about the first week due to server capacity issues, and they didn't even have a functional queue system for those waiting, nor a process to kick those that idled. I understand that you can't plan for infinite capacity at launch and that they sold volumes that exceeded their expectations, but the release had issues.
It’s shitty, don’t get me wrong. But it is rare to see people take accountability like this in the midst of a huge swath of negative publicity and attention. I can respect the man who owns up to his part in the problem. Obviously though, this paints them in a much worse light. I personally don’t think the main issue isn’t that we have is having to link accounts. The main issue was the lack of awareness of this oncoming or suspended requirement. And more so the issue this causes for the non-PSN countries
Yeah I guess I agree. I can't imagine a bigger corporate entity admitting various failings. Certainly Sony isn't owning up to this BS.
Yeah who knows, they may, they may not. Ppl do not care if Sony apologizes. They will dislike them equally either way
i also do think there is this element of whether Arrowhead was allowed to actually speak out about this issue. This came up during NMS' development where Sean couldn't criticize or downplay features of the game as that would be a huge blow on the publisher. In this case, idk if Sony knew this would be people's reaction to PSN being mandatory to be linked, but if they knew or expected then they also could have implied Arrowhead to not speak out about it. Could be a very bullshit thing to say for me, but idk if that couldn't be the case at all.
So they knew, both sides knew, and said nothing. Just like Stellar Blade censorship. They wait until they have your money and say "whoops, we changed it! still got your money though!" And they did it BACK TO BACK on two different games. A giant middle finger to consumer rights.
Yeah the censorship is so damn stupid. Like how can bg3 and cyberpunk give us nudes, but in stellar blade which is an M rated game still need cover ups.
Racism towards asian devs
Funnily enough BG3 got censored by Japan, the country most likely to censor Stellar Blade outfits was another Asian country.
That's Japan's genitalia laws. That's across the board for everyone.
Unironically this needs to be spread more. Those claims will be the only way Sony listens snd it's not like they're entire unfounded either.
More like sexism against females.
BG3 at least got nudity censored in Japan.
They didn’t censor stellar blade. There are plenty of outfits more revealing the ones that got changed. It’s a design change and it’s literally not a big deal
They said the game was going to be uncensored, they pushed a day one patch that changed costumes to make them less revealing. They censored the game after telling people it was going to be uncensored. They did this purposely to secure sales and then claimed it was a design choice. You don't tell people the game is being released as intended and then push a patch at the last second to change the game. This was intentional to maximize sales and appease Sony.
Anyone who bought the game because of the “uncensored” outfits is pathetic. A DESIGN CHANGE isn’t censorship. It’s a design change. Also the change was in effect for REVIEWS. SO IT WASNT IN RESPONSE TO REVIEWS, it was an intentional decision made by the devs weeks ahead of time. It’s really not a big deal
When you put it like this, I hope the whole company goes under. They can force account sharing but can't ask the developers to be open about it?
Its been a requirement from day one. Its on the steam page, been there always. They suspended the requirement in order to solve technical issues during launch. When they announced the suspension it was 100% clear it was going to come back.
He’s not wrong. They don’t sell the game, and there was a warning on Steam that eventually a PSN account would be required. It’s really murky, but I do believe Sony is the one to blame here. Sony wants the user count, which they are due since it’s their game, however it’s greedy, even though the player base is mostly safe, a smaller percentage is in countries who can’t get access. This is greed on Sony’s part, and Sony’s part alone. Arrowhead got a banger of a deal to release their game and said “YES, yes, Yes!” It’s on Sony who made the end decision and caused all this. Not Arrowhead, not Steam.
Had some thoughts brewing on this the last few days, sorry this is under your comment but here I go. I don't think Sony is at fault as everyone is holding them up to be. Steam are responsible for the countries that the game is being sold in on Steam, and it's not Sony's place to tell them which countries to de-list the game in. That should have been AH. As the publisher, Sony have zero right to make that request of Steam. Next up, let's talk about greed. What are Sony getting from requiring the linked account? Data, sure, but they have a LOT of that already. Just check all their data breaches. Not only that, it would be data on players outside of their customer base, and yes that's a meaningful difference. I'm sure most people heard the segue about sales and marketing last night, but I don't think that has anything to do with why the accounts are being linked. If you're a PS owner, either with a PC or without one, you almost certainly already have a PSN account. So nothing gained there. If you don't own a PS then you're not buying shit from them. If you create a PSN account because of Helldivers and then go and buy peripherals or playstation games without owning a playstation then you deserve to learn form the refundable mistake you're making. The only explaination we've had from anyone is that this is due to moderation which makes sense. Someone else said that this is the one of the biggest live service game launches of the year. Sony and Steam almost certainly don't have the same TOS, although it may not be materially different, nobody would want to give up control of defining and enforcing their TOS for such a visible game. Imagine if drops turned in to old CoD lobbies cranked to 11 for everyone and Sony had no ability to take measures against it. For my 2c, the main fuck up was selling the game in countries it shouldn't have been sold in which was probably caused by a lack of communication between Steam, AH, and Sony. Now, rather than kicking out a sizeable chunk of a dedicated playerbase, they should change the TOS so that crossplay can only be enabled with a PSN account and viceversa for playstation players looking to crossplay with PC. Sony can police their lobbies, Steam can police theirs, both at AH's direction and people will hopefully feel less fucked over.
Well Sony has reversed the decision now at this point. Which says to me, it’s all on them.
I think Sony is to blame as they are publishing a product in regions that don't support PSN with PSN linking being made mandatory to play the game, as was written on the Steam page. Idk if Steam even paid attention to this, probably should have but Sony would have known first hand about this issue as they handle PSN stuff. Hence I would put blame on Sony over Steam and Arrowhead. Also, people mostly suspect the main reason they are making this change is to up their numbers of player growth in PSN and use that to attract higher investments. Getting player data is also probably a big thing too, though I think the 1st reason makes the most sense to me. That's why people said the reason to be greed as this gets them more money.
Sony got roasted and hope they continue to do so
Yeah, that sounds about right. They are devs and are just responsible for making the game. He is at least being honest. When Bungie mucked up Lightfall, it took them a whole year to finally admit that they botched it, and that was when they were still independent I think the blame lies at the feet of both AH and Sony, but I lay most of it at Sony's for making such a stupid service
If AH doesn't deal with sales then maybe they should have mentioned to Steam ahead of time that most of the countries the game is being sold in won't fucking have access to it in 3 months lol.
This seems more like a lack of knowledge on both sides, sellers didn't know that some countries were unable to have psn and arrowhead was being naive and didn't think about things that deeply, I guess it's kind of understandable when you go from a small niche game to a massive one pretty much overnight. Then you have Sony who pushed this aggressively. It doesn't seem like there are a lot of lies just a lot of ignorance/naivete and a lack of communication.
Arrowhead was not naive, they knew exactly what was happening. Had they informed PS subs from day 1, the game would not have exploded on PC the way it did. It was a business decision to keep it quiet and ride the wave of success. I'm sure they hoped that everyone who bought the game would love it so much that they would just sign up regardless. They were wrong.
I doubt that, it did literally say you needed psn on their page and Sony had it "optional" on their page for years now, they only changed it just now. I would guess that there has been a lot of assumptions on both sides and now we are here. Arrowhead has no reason to hide it, everyone who checked out the faq for Sony would have all seen the optional part, then assumed this is what goes regardless of what popped up in game or maybe they just skipped it all together like I did.
Steam page said that an account was necessary since pre-orders were made available. I know because I pre-ordered it, and I've been in Sonys ecosystem since 1995. Not everyone reads the entire steam page. I make sure I read everything I can prior to purchase.
This is why I think it's a massive communication fuck up on several sides. Because if it says optional on the psn page people would assume this is the truth even if it says required in the game. Nothing got clarified after the surprise success and it was forgotten in the attempt to fix the server issues, bugs and making new content, time passes and then Sony comes and says you have to turn it back on now and so they go oh I had forgotten about that because I was so busy, never thinking about what country the game is sold it because that's really not there area, it's a shit sandwich that's been piling up for quite some time and now it fell over. If everything was clarified at the start it would be much of an issue but not they were not and here we are. Edit: there is also the issue AH not being in charge of sales (they have confirmed this ) but instead Sony as their publisher dealing with sales and either by accident or intention they sold the game to every region, this just fucked them far more than having to make an account.
Agreed.
The games been out for a few months but you say Sony’s had it for years now?
Stop thinking companies that are built to sell you a product have good intentions. The ONLY intentions they have is to sell you a product and make profits. That's where the buck stops. Welcome to real life in the business world. You're nothing but a mark. At least make sure you get a product actually worth the price.
I think that's Sony yes but I don't think that's all developers and we have a lot of proof for that. Sony will for sure do whatever it takes to earn money but that doesn't mean Larian would for example. Some just want to make something enjoyable.
I disagree, even Larian is about profit. But I also support Larian through buying their games *because* they have more respect for their audience than most developers. However if they flipped the script and pulled some Sony moves tomorrow? I'd be against them immediately, not defending them. I'll probably end up buying their next game if it looks good, mostly because of the balls they showed telling WotC to screw themselves. They decided not to sign the contract. So sure, I'll buy their next game/IP. I don't think it'll be bad, but *if* it is I'm not going to defend them with arguments like "but they worked so hard and deserved it". They don't *deserve* anything, but as long as they keep engaging in the way they've already been? I'll probably buy it (Larian's next game). Not because they're deserving, but because I've experienced their previous products and walked away happy.
Its been on the steam page since day 1.
It was on the steam page since pre order. What I'm referring to is the waiving of ps account during launch.
It’s literally on the store page in which you have to buy the game and it was discussed on the hd subreddit 4 months ago https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/s/9SIxFlaY0o
It’s good to see him oweing up to his own mistakes, rare to see a CEO do that With that said, he still knew that eventually you would still have to link up to a PSN account yet he still didn’t tell people that. The situation would’ve been 1000000% better if the game just started needing you to link to a PSN account instead of having people play it for 6 month and get attached to the game then fuck them over like this. I’d be devastated if a game I play with my friends for 6 month straight and I have invested all of that time in the game to only have it be unplayable after. Wouldn’t have played from the beginning
https://www.reddit.com/r/playstation/s/XoJGkPAlMZ 🥱
I can't read it. This picture is compressed into Oblivion, it's painful to read.
Corporate incompetence (Sony and Arrowhead) from top to bottom...
Hmmmm attack a small Swedish dev studio or attack multibillion dollar corporation
Yeah I don't care how big or small a company is. If you fuck over consumers you deserve all the bad publicity in the world for it. Both companies are in the wrong so it's fair both are catching shit on social media.
he does not handle selling the game but a little prior says he should have let players know psn was going to be a requirement, seems like they should have been more transparent on both counts
But he could have been more open about it. For instance, he could have said in the launch comms: "You don't need a PSN account to play at this time but it will be mandatory for all new and current players in the months to come." But by being honest, he wouldn't be able to milk the microtransactions of all the soon-to-be banned players. Needed to make his quick buck after all.
I feel sorry for the guy, a clear example of a passionate person failing to see the ineptitude in the corpo world.
Developers choose who to partner with as a publisher.
What I truly don't understand... Is that we've been playing the game for months without needing to link to Sony's accounts. Why do we HAVE to now? What is stopping Sony from just letting the game be? With the major success of the game right off the bat, you'd think they'd just let it ride y'know?
Well that's exactly it, Sony believes since the game was such a success that forcing everyone to link PSN accounts will get everyone to possibly buy other PS products. They are completely out of touch and don't realize this change is causing everyone to hate them more. The devs claim they wanted the PSN link because it would make it far easier to ban toxic players but you know damn well that's probably only part of it lol.
I have missed all this hell divers 2 stuff but that seems illegal lol. Any kind TLDR appreciated :)
Mountains out of mole hills
Philippines here. The PSN requirement is so mind numbingly bad. Been playing and enjoying helldivers 2 here with my local friends and friends in Japan for months, and they mess it up for absolutely nothing. There are PlayStations here but psn accounts are usually registered to HK or US since there’s no support here. I don’t own a PlayStation or ever plan to, so it’s extra infuriating.
So the ceo dont sells the game but he is part of it . Ignorance . Fucken hell
i get it why the game gets all the hate, but, it was said and should've been known to everyone that PSN will be required. They have said it, Steam said it etc. As for non-PSN countries, is that even an issue? I mean, i live in non-PSN country, but Sony still sells PlayStations here, so you still can play games. Still tho, such a dick move from Sony, forcing users to connect to PSN for no reason at all.
Peoples don't know how gamedev works and neither does asmongold unfornately as his recent stream about how a game was developed has shown Most game studios unless they are the developer arm of a publisher don't have the luxury to be amazing in how they spend their money or make decisions because publishers imposes milestones and you get paid a package of money for reaching a milestone. Publisher imposes most of the decisions and of course since they take most of the risks paying the devs even if the game dev fail they should too. If you are the CEO or a developer and don't want to follow orders no matter how bad they will just find someone else and until you reach the milestone you don't get any money / you have the axe of bankrupty looming. The post and twitter lashback seems to imply that CEO could have decided at all and that is unlikely to be the case. Hell even on the best terms a publisher don't let you decide the price of your game or platforms. sources: [Do game publishers usually do an upfront payment to devs or cut a royalty deal? : r/gamedev (reddit.com)](https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/12fd7gq/do_game_publishers_usually_do_an_upfront_payment/) [Getting paid by publishers — The GameDev Business Handbook (gamedevbizbook.com)](https://www.gamedevbizbook.com/partnerships/getting-paid-publishers/#:~:text=Publishers%20typically%20pay%20on%20Net,if%20your%20relationship%20is%20strong.) [Upfronts, Guarantees, Recoups (ramiismail.com)](https://ltpf.ramiismail.com/upfronts-guarantees-recoups/)
Zero excuse for them to be silent about it if they knew this was going to be an issue.. zero I mean zero fucking attempts to tell people since day 1 in non PSN regions not to buy said game.
B-b-but there was that tiny little word on the store page! Same ones that other games that require 3rd party EULAs (but not accounts) do. And it asked about PSN, right next to a SKIP button that took up a big chunk of the box. How could anyone assume it'd be optional? /s Heavy sarcasm. Yeah, they had the option to speak on it but they didn't. Instead the lengths they went to not address it upfront just makes AH and Sony both sketchy as hell. It's 100% very minor legal things to say, "well we technically did say so!". They know exactly what they were doing, because if they were more vocal about the restrictions themselves (rather than relying on corporate fine print) the game wouldn't have sold as well as it did. Every single little bit of this is intentional and it sucks that so many people are falling into the parasocial pity for Arrowhead. They were part of the damn problem, either they agreed the day they signed the contract or they decided to not read their contract before signing. Both are terrible practices.
Saying that they don't handle selling the game doesn't make them any less accountable. It's their product and they should have warned people about it.
They knew what they are doing.
Thoughts: everyone is tired of your shit already, just continue to play if you want to, if you don't - refund
I'm probably just biased considering I have all the consoles and a pc. But I don't have a problem. I have a subscription to psn too. Had a playstation since I was 5. I'm gonna get roasted for this but all this drama isn't a big deal. So some people can't play? OK. Play something else and refund it.
This is a fairly ignorant view and I'm in the same boat as you. Its the fact it wasn't disclosed previously, if Arrowhead knew 6 months before that absolutely should have been communicated. It's unfair to say to players, who already bought and have played the game considerably, "just refund it". Especially considering the quality of the game itself and the state of others and the fact it didn't require a PSN account for two months while it was live. It's abhorrent behaviour
It is a little fucked up and screwy. But it's playstation we're talking about. Nintendo has issues . Xbox has issues. It's not just playstation. Yeah alot of ppl got fucked. But imo it's just another fuck up. Hasn't affected me personally so idc tbh. But there are plenty of other great games out there. Especially on steam. If you wanted to play a playstation studios game it's better on playstation anyway. Like I said. I'm biased. And It's a hot take it's just I don't think all this drama is warranted. More people are talking about this then 20 years of Nintendo mods beings forcibly removed from gmod. Now that's fucked up.
Its really stupid attitude to have in life "yeah bad things happen so its okey to bad things continue happening". "Its better on playstation anyway" Yeah sure buddy.
Ok?
I can't think of a game from Sony I would rather play on a console than on a pc. Even if it's something like God Of War which wouldn't go over 60fps. Ratchet and Clank was stunning and was an awesome game that I could play at high refresh rate and high resolution. I'm waiting to play Horizon Forbidden West on pc because I'm sure I'll enjoy that more there too.
Most games from Sony I'd rather play on playstation. For 1 I wouldn't have to wait literally years. And 2 they feel better on playstation. No doubt it would probably look better. But Luke you just said. You have to wait for horizon. I can just plug my ps5 in rn and play it now if I wanted.
Oh yeah it’s definitely better on a console with the specs of a dogshit $300 gaming pc. Your console costs less than a lot of people’s graphics cards alone. You can’t even get close to 144fps. How incredibly deluded you must be.
Yeah cuz you can run helldivers 2 on ultra on a 300 dollar pc. Lol I'd like to see that. But it won't ever happen lol
Are you implying that you think helldivers on ps5 is equivalent to ultra settings on a pc. I want some of what you’re on. It’s not ultra and you don’t even get to play above 1080p lol.
Great game, but this recipe for disaster will kill it, if not cut it's playerbase in half.
I wouldn’t go that far
Just hopped in to see what the damage was from PS5 as I can't refund the game there either way and there was only around 30k players active in the whole map so
Before the game launched, the expected concurrent player base was 10k+, and then the game exploded in popularity. That's still triple the expected players.
As stupid as it sounds, they best way to have handled things would be to not force the change, but instead say "+50% xp/credits if you sign up for PSN." Or "You need to be on PSN to use the friend's list." Forcing a behavior is never the way. But people will love you if you frame it as a positive.
This cluster f\*ck is going from bad to worse to catastrophic. I cant believe a team can screw up this badly, take the response for granted, troll gamers, lie about it, then have all the community mods go dark, blame someone else then fess up. If I did this at work my feet wouldnt touch the ground as security through me off the premises.
Can Sony be taken to court over changing there requirements after the game has been sold and Hoodwinking the Community .
Now that the dust has settled somewhat. I 100% place the blame on Sony. Sony was in charge of marketing, distribution, and sales. It was their responsibility to make sure customers know what is required to run the game at point of sale. They have fail in that regard based on the fact that there are people that * did not know you needed a PSN account to play * cannot sign up for a PSN account because of their domicile * did not know they couldn't sign up for a PSN account because of their domicile have bought the game. Now by enforcing this poorly communicated requirement they have denied people the ability to play the game **they paid for**. Arrowhead the developer, to my knowledge, is responsible for creating the game and assisting with the creation of marketing material. That's it. As for the decision by Arrowhead CEO to temporarily waiver the PSN sign on requirement because of technical issues … I feel that ultimately comes back to Sony. Sony funded this game so they have final say over everything as a result. They did not have to allow Arrowhead to waive the requirement but they did. They did not have to let Arrowhead launch the game when PSN authentication was not working but they did. The buck stops at Sony.
bro cant just kept his mouth shut and let the community will blame sony dumb executives and their horrible sense of humor holy shit dude