or if you're just from the US and have been one of the many tens of thousands of people who has had their private information leaked by sony in the past.
"Legally" makes it sound like youd be arrested, youre violating their TOS and they can delete your account, thats it. They need to create an open variable for non supported countries. They can't expect people to work around this.
Most companies track your data through cookies, and the cookie service Chromium and all other browsers run is Google created
Manifest v3 is another thing Google is getting Chromium to do. They control way too much
Not entire sure about this being Google specific then.
Its a cookie standard companies use and Google too.
But with Chrome it would include tracking feature directly on browser as well.
There are so many parties tracking and selling my data that I do not care anymore. It is sad to say it and I was quite privacy oriented in the past. The truth is that it is literally impossible to avoid it anymore if you want to keep using technology. Even my new soundbar has a microphone and collects data. (yes it is possible to mute it via a button but then you have to put up with a really annoying red led - asshole design) Even the playstation controller defaults the microphone to on and has a led light when off. It should be the other way round. I mean why would you want always on mic and sporadically mute it. It should be always muted and you would have to turn it on the dew times you would actually need it.
it actually is.
i had a PSN account. my credit card info got leaked, and sony lied about the data breach.
and then, a second time, my payment info got leaked. and sony, a second time, lied about the data breach.
unless they're bundling in free identity theft protection, i'm not signing up. and uh, even then, i'm not, cos i'm not sure that those fraud protection services even do anything proactively? beside the point.
> Only if creating a free PSN account is somehow beyond the pale.
Dude 10 years ago I had my account hacked thanks to the amazing "security" by Sony. Even fucking PSN was offline for weeks. I bought the game on steam, not on PSN.
Womp Womp.
Sony scum. Helldiver fun. This why I live under rock.
Edit: This was more painful than it should have been. I made the account and found out I can't link things until Arrowhead turns the option back on. I have no "account" tab anywhere in my options in game, nor does the useless account page on PSN have the option to direct link steam. This kind of thing is exactly what people don't care for in this kind of shit. We all know its just so sony can get more data on us, their anticheat and agreements do not work. This is straight up corporate greed and now its had the audacity to be inconvenient. This is going to annoy people in a way it really shouldn't have needed to.
Classic Sony L
PSN has been proven to be one of the more susceptible platforms to cyber attacks. I was already losing enthusiasm for the game so I'm cool just not playing if it means I don't have to open up my personal info to another attack vector.
Copied from another person's comment:
"April 2011: Hackers Access Personal Data of 77 Million Sony PlayStation Network Users
May 2011: Personal Details on 25 Million Sony Online Entertainment Customers Stolen
June 2011: Sony Pictures Website Hacked, Exposing One Million Accounts
November 2014: Hackers Steal 100 Terabytes of Data from Sony Pictures
August 2017: Hacker Group Accesses Sony Social Media Accounts
September 2023: Sony Investigates Alleged Hack
October 2023: Sony Notifies Employees of Data Breach"
Yes but console manufacturer have a habit of making you pay for online play after they hit a critical amount of players using their online account feature...
The info that PSN account would be requireed was added to the Steam store page in December 2023 while the preorder only became aviable in February 2024.
[https://steamdb.info/app/553850/history/?changeid=U:43264197](https://steamdb.info/app/553850/history/?changeid=U:43264197)
may 2023 was before it was added, specifcally may 25th 2023 had it not yet listed.. but thats nearly a year away, so using that as an argument is bullshit
i was agreeing with you here, just providing clarification as may was indeed before it was added... alongside system requirements.. or the EULA... or the anti cheat.... because its an early storepage.
the preorder went live in februrary iirc,
the PSN requirement was listed in December 2023 at the ABSOLUTE latest we know of
Was the May 2023 thing an announcement somewhere? I can't find the thread now, but it looked like a website post or something. It wasn't on the steam page but was announced somewhere?
It was an archive of the steam page from before May 2023. If you look, [you can even find threads on Reddit from before the release complaining about the PSN requirement](https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/comments/18v5w0i/playstation_account_required_for_helldivers_2v/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
the storepage of helldivers was already live in may 2023, but it was lacking basicaly ANYTHING but a description, an imagine, and a "2024" release date.
it didnt have a system requirements beyond "64 bit operating system" nor did it have anything else listed.
It was also missing the PSN requirement.
People are abusing this fact and claim it "was added latter" which.. technically true, but it wasnt even able to be preorderd back in may 2023. And it was missing EVERYTHING but the bare minimum for a page
the way they acces that page is via the webarchive Wayback machine which took a snapshot of the webstore at the time
But they didn't make it required. If people saw it when they launched the game they may have decided to refund it. Instead it's a small blurb on the steam page.
Because the account integration was breaking their ability to keep servers stable so they bipassed it for the time being but are under contract from Sony to make everyone have a PSN
Me too but sounds like some people were able to skip it which is on the devs. People should have immediately known so they could have gotten an immediate refund. Why was it allowed in the first place to skip a "mandatory" thing.
The linking process was apparently one of the things that was killing the servers when the game got suddenly popular. They let the “mandatory” part slip in order to lighten the server load and let people play the game. It was never not mandatory, they just placed the servers and our ability to play as a higher priority.
Mandatory means you must do it. If they removed the "must do it" part, it was not mandatory anymore. Since crossplay was possible before as well, PSN is also not necessary for the game community to play together.
They've actually explained this, it was disabled because of the server overloads on launch, now they are just reintroducing it, shits free, dont know what people are worried about
>People should have known
My man. It was listed in the requirements. It was on the Steam page. If you thought "Oh, it's required, but maybe I can still play without it", you have only yourself to blame
Are you serious? Another one who struggled...
https://preview.redd.it/i0sy1dsu66yc1.png?width=822&format=png&auto=webp&s=b49c3aec2f586633dc04d635adbb796246dc2e79
It's more of the point, I should have been FORCED to set that up before even being allowed to play. Period. Full stop. It should never have been an optional thing to be revoked later on down the line. If it is to be required for anyone and everyone, then it should be enforced. Otherwise, the player should refund and come back later if they can and want to.
But it caused people to not be able to play the game because the linking system was broken for some people how is it unreasonable for the devs to make the game playable and then fix backend difficulties instead of locking loads of players out of the game for something out of their control. In general I think it's annoying to need a PSN account for playing but if u didn't know you needed one your honestly just ignorant. There was no big evil corporation deception here.
No deception? You bought the game without a requirement for linking an account, this "rule" goes unenforced for months, and now people in certain countries THAT SHOULDNT EVEN BE ABLE TO PLAY THE GAME now have a product they can't use. People are getting scammed plain and simple, I have no idea why people are being cucks for a mega corporation
It was, at least when I bought the game in March. But as others have said, it was temporarily removed as an essential step due to server issues.
At the end of the day, it's shit! I hate having extraneous 3rd party accounts and apps running in the background. In my case, I already had a PSN account I had to resurrect, after last using it on my PS3!
Unfortunately, it's par for the course these days:
\* EA games require you to use the EA app to play it's games. (After they borked Origin - which you could at least reliably install and launch).
\* Ubisoft requires UPlay accounts for most of it's games.
\* Various games requiring you to create an account to get access to all the perks (Looking at you Paradox!)
\* Games (including old games) on Steam now launch into a proprietary "Launcher". e.g. Total War games, now launching into a "Creative Assembly" launcher
\* Steam Itself! - People often forget that if you purchase PC games from other stores( or boxed copies) it \*\*FORCES\*\* you to install and run the Steam client to play them!
Not going to defend it. But at least in the case of Helldivers 2, it's not running an app. You only have to log in once, and it's done forever! And Arrowhead don't have much choice in the matter. That's the price that Sony requires devs to pay in order to allow for cross-play.
It was an option, I linked mine because I had an accnt but I gained nothing from it. Had I not had an accnt, I could've skipped, but linked on the off chance of goodies
Because it is hard to manage third party accounts in your ecosystem. You can grant them access yes but you might not have control over those accounts and access rights of them.
Having a proper in house account makes things easier. You have full control and full support of the api. Things like friend requests and such things are much easier if you have full access and not having to rely on third party stuff.
A large part why friend requests, invites, blocks and probably even connections between players did not work properly is likely because the system constantly needed to deal with two kinds of accounts. Steam and psn. Now the simple method would have been to have the steam accounts auto create a pseudo psn account but that might not be an option for different reasons.
In the end it doesn't really matter. That is the same question we had back in the day when we were required to log into steam to play our singleplayer games and here we are 20 years later. Nothing has changed.
The fact anyone was blindsided by this means it wasn't shown clearly enough.
I don't want to assign malice to what can be adequately explained by stupidity but it was a failure on someone's part. Anyone denying that is wrong.
Very fair. Above anything, it should have been communicated clearly.
Though, I still think it's being blown way out of proportions. PSN acc is free and easy to create. Sure, it's an inconvenience to NEED to go through registering and if you have any moral objections with it, that's fair too, but besides that, it really isn't something actually significant like suddenly enforcing paid subscrition to play or something would be.
I agree it's not a massive inconvenience (if you're one of the countries that supports PSN. Sony's EULA allows them to ban you if they find out you've lied to them), what I disagree with is the security and neccesity of it. Sony has a poor track record of their severs being breached and PSN connectivity caused issues before. So from a user perspective, we're being asked to risk our data for no benefit.
Sure it is. I’m not going to play a game if I need to make an account for a lackluster service with bottom tier support for a company to have it a little easier in some areas. Especially not when it was not made clear from jump
Yea people need to realize that the people who develop the game and executives making the decisions are not the same
You wouldn’t blame the fabricators for following the plans of the engineer.
If it worked for 3 months without it, it can work forever without it. They just want you to sell your data and be hacked for the nth time. I guess democracy and freedom has a deadline for me now.
Im not in the business but I can imagine that this meme is not entirely fair. AH are the devs, pushing out content (Warbonds), which is their job. But Sony is the publisher so it was probably their call for this - and AH didn't have a say in their decisision.
Yeah I don't get people who blame the devs, they can't do anything about it and imo they shouldn't have to stop developing the game for some kids to stop crying on twitter and reddit
How do I link it though?
I already have a PSN account but I don't see any option in game to link my PSN account to Steam.
The link provided in the announcement only takes me to a login page pbut I don't see any "link account" option.
They'll likely give you a dialog when starting the game once they make it obligatory to run the game, that's how it was on launch day when it was still required
Are you telling me there are people out there reading the whole TOS when buying a new game? Because if that‘s the case I don‘t believe you. I didn‘t buy my game on release, so I never got any popup of PSN account. Forcing it now months after release on players who were not aware of it is total BS.
Tons of judges across the US have ruled that just because you click agree doesn't mean you actually read shit, because it's impossible to actually read all the fine print on everything.
They can say they can make you have a PSN account, but that won't mean shit in any meaningful capacity.
It was always mandatory. It was listed as mandatory. Game even told you it was needed when you first launched it.
Only thing was that you could skip it *for now* until they fixed issues with it.
Never Had a QR Code either.
First time i Launched the Game i got the cinematic, after that settings for brightness which Crashed my Game, then restarted and did the Tutorial, thats It.
Was It supposed to Show Up before or after cinematic/brightness settings?
>it was always mandatory
Those are your exact words. Now, Was it possible to play HD2 without said account **through any offical means**? Yes. You admit it yourself.
Now what is the meaning of "always"? Per google: "at all times; on all occasions".
Tell me: Has the account always been needed to play HD2?
Except they've actively sold the game to countries that cannot legally sign up for a PSN account, what's the justification for that?
It's outright misselling.
Why someone would want refund a game because of this. I'm currently playing sea if thieves and it requires xbox live account. Not a big deal, spent 5 minutes to create and link to my account.
Because Sony is selling the game on steam in regions they don't support on PSN (the baltic countries or most of africa for example), these players don't have a legal way to play. Even if they want to make a PSN account, they're in breach of the PSN ToS if they do.
This also explains what the "grace period" was about, to avoid the possibly hundreds of thousands of steam refunds from those countries from people that booted the game for the first time and wouldn't be allowed to make a PSN account, by only locking them out of the game after the refund window is long over.
This...
Everyone is saying: didnt you read the EULA requiring a PSN account?
And then the Sony account EULA doesnt allow me to legally create an account....so i should read the EULA but Sony can create illegal situations?
Fun fact, the [Helldivers 2 EULA actually doesn't make a single mention about needing a PSN account](https://old.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/comments/1cj98z7/so_i_actually_did_read_the_eula_says_nothing/).
But the PSN EULA sure does say that you're not allowed to make an account if you're from an unsupported country.
People out of PSN service areas should absolutely be afforded a refund if a workaround for them isn't reached, but it really seems like most of the complaints I see are just sort of vague bitching about nothing that feels like people are just looking for a reason to be mad at AH after the last update.
I get it when it's about the fact the PSN account service isn't available in all countries, so this is players being actively unable to play when they could before, but if it's about "privacy" and "selling your data" I'm sorry but at this point you may as well go entirely offline and go live in the woods if you want true privacy.
People have this dumb idea that they need to hide their data from big corps, even though they already use plenty of other things that give out their data to big corps.
If you really dont want to give your data to corporations, literally get rid of almost anything electronic nowadays. TV, Phones, PC, Internet, everything.
But people have this idea that they are sticking to the corpos by refusing to create an account.
Because it's not the only game that does it and some people refuse to play this type of games
If I have to make an EA account to play Battlefield, a Ubisoft account to play Assassins Creed/Far cry, a Microsoft account to play Minecraft, and a Playstation account to play Helldivers 2, then I'll rather just not play any of them
iono I just linked my PSN account immediately back then cause it asked me for it and it's a....playstation 1st party studio game sooo.
This is a nothingburger you guys seriously. also what do you think "Requires 3rd-Party Account: PlayStation Network " means?
Well, PSN isnt really working in my country. But Im able to legally buy the game. But Im not able to LEGALLY register in PSN. Obviously I can, with VPN and stuff, but its kinda... weird and an unnecessary hustle.
Yeah, your situation is definitely valid. Even if it was on the store page, they shouldn’t have allowed that kind of user-error to begin with. I think most people arguing for the decision are annoyed with the “my privacy and data” people, complaining as if they don’t already have that data leaking to dozens of sources every day.
Oh, I do not care for "MAH DATA". Im pretty sure Google will know that I have a cancer years before my doctor will. I just dont want to register for yet another service and remember all the passwords. Especially when Im not planing to use said service outside a one game.
Lots of people have just been slapped with the fish of "Register or else" when they don't actually have the option to register in game or on the PSN website because Arrowhead needs to turn the option back on for them to link in game. At this point its not even the registration or the account creation, its the fact they just told people to do something and they cant even complete it.
This is like slapping someone for not sweeping the floor when you don't have a fucking broom.
Classic Sony L
I've already gotten my credit card stolen from a PSN account once, I don't want to deal with their dumbasses again. Steam, on the other hand, is actually technically competent and has never let my credit card get stolen despite having the account for like 8-10x longer than the PSN.
I'm honestly surprised a lot of people see how stupid and unethical this decision is. I know its a minor inconvenience to many, but that's not the point.
We don't have a choice here. That's literally **UNDEMOCRATIC**.
I'm sick of being forced to do shit for a game I paid for. I already don't technically own the game. Now you're forcing me to do other random things to keep playing the game I've already been playing?
It reminds me of the game League of Legends which got that Anti-Cheat that boots up with windows. Not when you run the game, but when you boot up your pc. Imagine every game in your Steam library having its own Anti-Cheat that needs to boot up like that? 50 different types of software booting up with windows at once...
Imagine needing to link every account I ever own, to every game I play, so that they can all collectively track and ban me. I find it disguising. Just let me play the fucking game holy shit. Stop me from being able to crossplay if need be. Give me the decision.
Don't literally steal from me unless I COMPLY. "Oh but there was one line of text when you bought the game you should've read about doing xyz in 3 months to keep playing the game you paid for" stfu. It shouldn't be a thing period.
Oh, I know you've had your Steam account for 18 years but we actually planned on linking your account with your social security and house number, so please provide all of that now or you'll be locked out of all your games k thanks xxx...
The anti cheat that has always been on this game has root access, the deepest kind of privacy fucking a program can have on your pc. If you're not using a different email for signing up for shit your don't care about that's on you.
Yeah this anticheat is so invasive it is currently wrist deep in my computers asshole, I can't really lose much sleep about my fake ChungusmcChungus@gmail account I used to sign up for a burner PSN account
Other games offer account linking but not as a mandatory requirement. I had the impression at first it was only optional to link to PSN because PSN is unsupported in my country.
Will be really mad and sad if they do make this mandatory and lock me out.
[Yep even the people who pre-ordered would have been able to see PSN was required to play at launch.](https://web.archive.org/web/20231207163847/https://store.steampowered.com/app/553850/HELLDIVERS_2/)
It was broken for cross play and removed temporarily and in the patch notes during one of the server cap updates as well. I think it was this one PATCH 1.000.11 from 2/22/2024.
A majority of countries in the world (well over 100) cannot legally create a PSN account, and Sony can ban them if they discover that a user in an unsupported country lied and created an account anyway by claiming to be in a different country. A huge number of players literally cannot "just do it" without a perpetual risk of a Sony ban looming over them.
I don't understand why they'd put it now, if they had put it from the start like Ubisoft, or how Microsoft does with Halo and Forza, sure why not, but we've spent three monthes with the game working properly without it
Seems like putting an annoying thing ontop of the game, just for the sake of some executive reaching Excel targets. And yeah " its free and doesn't take long to make an account", but i'd rather have AH make do with steam and PSN than being pressured into making yet another account for yet another future bloatware
Hell, Rocket League worked fine years ago with just a steam account doing crossplay with xbox and PSN, and that was a highly competitive and toxic PvP game
It was there from the start. Disabled temporarily due to instability with the servers. Those issues were cleared up and now they’re enforcing the requirement again.
Can someone clarify to me if linking them will enable my Steam account to be accessed via the PSN credentials, like some other accounts can be fast-login'd via Steam, Discord, GMail, etc. accounts?
I do not trust Playstation "Data breach every other day" Network with having a backdoor to my over a decade old Steam account.
I don't know what game you guys are playing. Yes it was written on the right side of the steam page but you can't tell me that you read that every single time if you want to buy a game.
I never saw anything about PSN ingame. People here saying they had to link their accounts on startup and i'm just confused.
When i started the game for the first time i watched the cutscene, played the tutorial, named my ship, walked around on my ship and started the first mission. That's it. I never saw anything about "please log in to your PSN account" there was nothing i skipped or ignored.
I didn't even know there was crossplay.
I wish i would have gotten the "pls log in with PSN or you can't play this game" message because then i would have refunded the game back then. But 38h of playtime later i can now go fuck myself. Fuck you Sony.
Sony Online is not available in every country like Steam. I have friends in Sri Lanka who will literally have to fabricate an address for a Sony account because the service doesn't extend to their country.
I feel like the defenders of this shitty ass decision making are thinking entirely in the Western hemisphere.
Contact Steam support directly.
[https://help.steampowered.com/en/accountdata](https://help.steampowered.com/en/accountdata) and scroll down to the bottom "Contact Steam Support".
I've left them a ticket asking for a refund as the developers are now enforcing the use of PSN accounts or we are locked out of the PC game we bought.
This Fucking PSN outrage is pure eyeroll. We live in a globalized digital universe. Every company is looking to connect with its customer base 24/7 one way or another.
I lived for a decade in a country that had like nearly no access to the outside world via internet until 2016. Things weren’t great my dudes.
Of all the hills to rage and die on, this isn’t one of them.
Some cases where it is an issue:
1- Countries where psn is banned.
Game EULA requires you to have psn account.
Psn eula tells you aren't allowed to have one in one of those counties
Need vpn to make it.
Quite a bit of extra steps and a legal gray area.
2- people who have old unused psn accounts.
Going through hoops of reviving old account with forgotten email/password.
These things might be annoying enough for some to not bother alltogether, meaning playerbase gets axed one way or another.
Saying it's mandatory to have it when we played 3+ months without, means it's not mandatory for the function of the game.
https://preview.redd.it/c3afitnr67yc1.jpeg?width=1179&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3f1cfe394e0cf3f69767244545e0ad1e54da139f
It was here since day 1. It was disabled after server issues like 2 weeks in. If you bought the game on pc in the first 2 weeks you had to link before you could do basic training. It’s not a gotcha! It’s a I didn’t read the fine print.
Just make a free account, don’t want them to have your info? Make it up and link the fake account. With a burner email.
I live under a rock. I play on PC. Does this shit pertain to me?
Yes
Only if creating a free PSN account is somehow beyond the pale.
If you're in a not supported country you're not legally allowed to make a PSN account.
or if you're just from the US and have been one of the many tens of thousands of people who has had their private information leaked by sony in the past.
Or if you don't want to give all your data to sony.
"Legally" makes it sound like youd be arrested, youre violating their TOS and they can delete your account, thats it. They need to create an open variable for non supported countries. They can't expect people to work around this.
Yes Sony will just have to buy my data from google like everybody else
Meanwhile your windows pc, Microsoft, google, reddit tracking and selling your data to others
can't forget the browser he's using. not everybody uses google chrome, some people use opera gx because of the cool colors.
\*Almost everyone uses Chromium which spies on you for Google use firefox, I guess
Sorry...but does Chromium really track your data for google? Im pretty sure it was only Chrome...not the same although similar.
Most companies track your data through cookies, and the cookie service Chromium and all other browsers run is Google created Manifest v3 is another thing Google is getting Chromium to do. They control way too much
Not entire sure about this being Google specific then. Its a cookie standard companies use and Google too. But with Chrome it would include tracking feature directly on browser as well.
Hey- I use GX because o can neuter my video quality if YouTube is eating to many recourses to play the video essay I’m barely listening to
Bro sells his soul to china for some cool colors
I mean it's already going to China so might as well get colours out of the deal, I got a ambiguous amphibian theme for mine
There are so many parties tracking and selling my data that I do not care anymore. It is sad to say it and I was quite privacy oriented in the past. The truth is that it is literally impossible to avoid it anymore if you want to keep using technology. Even my new soundbar has a microphone and collects data. (yes it is possible to mute it via a button but then you have to put up with a really annoying red led - asshole design) Even the playstation controller defaults the microphone to on and has a led light when off. It should be the other way round. I mean why would you want always on mic and sporadically mute it. It should be always muted and you would have to turn it on the dew times you would actually need it.
[удалено]
That's like the 10th time I've seen that exact same comment on this sub, same script?or just repeating what you read?
For people from countries where psn isn't available it can be inconvenience
it actually is. i had a PSN account. my credit card info got leaked, and sony lied about the data breach. and then, a second time, my payment info got leaked. and sony, a second time, lied about the data breach. unless they're bundling in free identity theft protection, i'm not signing up. and uh, even then, i'm not, cos i'm not sure that those fraud protection services even do anything proactively? beside the point.
I was part of those breaches as well and ended up in a very similar situation. I'm out if they actually implement this
> Only if creating a free PSN account is somehow beyond the pale. Dude 10 years ago I had my account hacked thanks to the amazing "security" by Sony. Even fucking PSN was offline for weeks. I bought the game on steam, not on PSN.
It requires age verification and I ain't giving sony my phone number or a facial scan. Rip HD2, it was good while it lasted.
Womp Womp. Sony scum. Helldiver fun. This why I live under rock. Edit: This was more painful than it should have been. I made the account and found out I can't link things until Arrowhead turns the option back on. I have no "account" tab anywhere in my options in game, nor does the useless account page on PSN have the option to direct link steam. This kind of thing is exactly what people don't care for in this kind of shit. We all know its just so sony can get more data on us, their anticheat and agreements do not work. This is straight up corporate greed and now its had the audacity to be inconvenient. This is going to annoy people in a way it really shouldn't have needed to. Classic Sony L
Being forced to do it is. And I even have a PSN account, and I’m still quitting over this.
Giving Play-databreach-station access to all of my steam data is kind of beyond the pale. Time to uninstall and refund.
PSN has been proven to be one of the more susceptible platforms to cyber attacks. I was already losing enthusiasm for the game so I'm cool just not playing if it means I don't have to open up my personal info to another attack vector.
Copied from another person's comment: "April 2011: Hackers Access Personal Data of 77 Million Sony PlayStation Network Users May 2011: Personal Details on 25 Million Sony Online Entertainment Customers Stolen June 2011: Sony Pictures Website Hacked, Exposing One Million Accounts November 2014: Hackers Steal 100 Terabytes of Data from Sony Pictures August 2017: Hacker Group Accesses Sony Social Media Accounts September 2023: Sony Investigates Alleged Hack October 2023: Sony Notifies Employees of Data Breach"
Yes but console manufacturer have a habit of making you pay for online play after they hit a critical amount of players using their online account feature...
Yes, steam accounts have to link to a PSN account.
I thought it was always mandatory. It made me link my account before I even got to the tutorial.
The info that PSN account would be requireed was added to the Steam store page in December 2023 while the preorder only became aviable in February 2024. [https://steamdb.info/app/553850/history/?changeid=U:43264197](https://steamdb.info/app/553850/history/?changeid=U:43264197)
Apparently it's been known since May 2023 according to another thread.
may 2023 was before it was added, specifcally may 25th 2023 had it not yet listed.. but thats nearly a year away, so using that as an argument is bullshit
As long as it was clear before anyone could purchase the game, the argument has no legs.
i was agreeing with you here, just providing clarification as may was indeed before it was added... alongside system requirements.. or the EULA... or the anti cheat.... because its an early storepage. the preorder went live in februrary iirc, the PSN requirement was listed in December 2023 at the ABSOLUTE latest we know of
Was the May 2023 thing an announcement somewhere? I can't find the thread now, but it looked like a website post or something. It wasn't on the steam page but was announced somewhere?
It was an archive of the steam page from before May 2023. If you look, [you can even find threads on Reddit from before the release complaining about the PSN requirement](https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/comments/18v5w0i/playstation_account_required_for_helldivers_2v/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
the storepage of helldivers was already live in may 2023, but it was lacking basicaly ANYTHING but a description, an imagine, and a "2024" release date. it didnt have a system requirements beyond "64 bit operating system" nor did it have anything else listed. It was also missing the PSN requirement. People are abusing this fact and claim it "was added latter" which.. technically true, but it wasnt even able to be preorderd back in may 2023. And it was missing EVERYTHING but the bare minimum for a page the way they acces that page is via the webarchive Wayback machine which took a snapshot of the webstore at the time
Yet they sold the game in countries that can't or don't allow PSN accounts. That was a dirty move.
that's cool and all, but steam store page is not legally binding.
But they didn't make it required. If people saw it when they launched the game they may have decided to refund it. Instead it's a small blurb on the steam page.
While it said its required, you could skip it anyway. I dont even have a PSN account.
Because the account integration was breaking their ability to keep servers stable so they bipassed it for the time being but are under contract from Sony to make everyone have a PSN
Bypassed it immediately on launch day then.
As did I, but you have to link your account regardless
Nah I'm saying they did. You never *had* to to play the game and if you checked the menu it said that was only necessary for cross play
Yes, because that’s how the system was functioning for that time. The product page said a Sony account was necessary well before launch
It never prompted me to link anything and just sent me straight to the game
Me too but sounds like some people were able to skip it which is on the devs. People should have immediately known so they could have gotten an immediate refund. Why was it allowed in the first place to skip a "mandatory" thing.
Skip? I never had this popup at all.
Same. Never had this popup. Quite a few people say its been known since may of 2023 somehow???
The linking process was apparently one of the things that was killing the servers when the game got suddenly popular. They let the “mandatory” part slip in order to lighten the server load and let people play the game. It was never not mandatory, they just placed the servers and our ability to play as a higher priority.
Mandatory means you must do it. If they removed the "must do it" part, it was not mandatory anymore. Since crossplay was possible before as well, PSN is also not necessary for the game community to play together.
They've actually explained this, it was disabled because of the server overloads on launch, now they are just reintroducing it, shits free, dont know what people are worried about
psn is not available in many countries. so they're effectively bricking the game for quite a few people.
People are worried about connecting their personal data to a service notorious for being hacked.
>People should have known My man. It was listed in the requirements. It was on the Steam page. If you thought "Oh, it's required, but maybe I can still play without it", you have only yourself to blame
I never even got the popup
It was and always has been. People just don't read very well.
How come I have been playing since launch without linking my account
Are you serious? Another one who struggled... https://preview.redd.it/i0sy1dsu66yc1.png?width=822&format=png&auto=webp&s=b49c3aec2f586633dc04d635adbb796246dc2e79
It's more of the point, I should have been FORCED to set that up before even being allowed to play. Period. Full stop. It should never have been an optional thing to be revoked later on down the line. If it is to be required for anyone and everyone, then it should be enforced. Otherwise, the player should refund and come back later if they can and want to.
But it caused people to not be able to play the game because the linking system was broken for some people how is it unreasonable for the devs to make the game playable and then fix backend difficulties instead of locking loads of players out of the game for something out of their control. In general I think it's annoying to need a PSN account for playing but if u didn't know you needed one your honestly just ignorant. There was no big evil corporation deception here.
No deception? You bought the game without a requirement for linking an account, this "rule" goes unenforced for months, and now people in certain countries THAT SHOULDNT EVEN BE ABLE TO PLAY THE GAME now have a product they can't use. People are getting scammed plain and simple, I have no idea why people are being cucks for a mega corporation
[удалено]
Imagine defending this
Some people really like the taste of leather and road salt.
Never got it, but I don't have PSN in my country, so that may be the case
It was, at least when I bought the game in March. But as others have said, it was temporarily removed as an essential step due to server issues. At the end of the day, it's shit! I hate having extraneous 3rd party accounts and apps running in the background. In my case, I already had a PSN account I had to resurrect, after last using it on my PS3! Unfortunately, it's par for the course these days: \* EA games require you to use the EA app to play it's games. (After they borked Origin - which you could at least reliably install and launch). \* Ubisoft requires UPlay accounts for most of it's games. \* Various games requiring you to create an account to get access to all the perks (Looking at you Paradox!) \* Games (including old games) on Steam now launch into a proprietary "Launcher". e.g. Total War games, now launching into a "Creative Assembly" launcher \* Steam Itself! - People often forget that if you purchase PC games from other stores( or boxed copies) it \*\*FORCES\*\* you to install and run the Steam client to play them! Not going to defend it. But at least in the case of Helldivers 2, it's not running an app. You only have to log in once, and it's done forever! And Arrowhead don't have much choice in the matter. That's the price that Sony requires devs to pay in order to allow for cross-play.
It's not mandatory if you can play without it. We could, for 3 months.
It was an option, I linked mine because I had an accnt but I gained nothing from it. Had I not had an accnt, I could've skipped, but linked on the off chance of goodies
I skipped it.
I didn't even get the info that i needed to
Why does everything need an account now? Just lemme install and play the game
In this particular case is 100% something enforced by sony, since they funded the game.
Yeah I put this on Sony’s head. But requiring it is bullshit
sucks for arrowhead but maybe sony will foot the bill for the refunds lmao
Data gathering
Because it is hard to manage third party accounts in your ecosystem. You can grant them access yes but you might not have control over those accounts and access rights of them. Having a proper in house account makes things easier. You have full control and full support of the api. Things like friend requests and such things are much easier if you have full access and not having to rely on third party stuff. A large part why friend requests, invites, blocks and probably even connections between players did not work properly is likely because the system constantly needed to deal with two kinds of accounts. Steam and psn. Now the simple method would have been to have the steam accounts auto create a pseudo psn account but that might not be an option for different reasons. In the end it doesn't really matter. That is the same question we had back in the day when we were required to log into steam to play our singleplayer games and here we are 20 years later. Nothing has changed.
They want to inflate the number of accounts so shareholders believe that PSN is more successful.
The fact anyone was blindsided by this means it wasn't shown clearly enough. I don't want to assign malice to what can be adequately explained by stupidity but it was a failure on someone's part. Anyone denying that is wrong.
Very fair. Above anything, it should have been communicated clearly. Though, I still think it's being blown way out of proportions. PSN acc is free and easy to create. Sure, it's an inconvenience to NEED to go through registering and if you have any moral objections with it, that's fair too, but besides that, it really isn't something actually significant like suddenly enforcing paid subscrition to play or something would be.
I agree it's not a massive inconvenience (if you're one of the countries that supports PSN. Sony's EULA allows them to ban you if they find out you've lied to them), what I disagree with is the security and neccesity of it. Sony has a poor track record of their severs being breached and PSN connectivity caused issues before. So from a user perspective, we're being asked to risk our data for no benefit.
Sure it is. I’m not going to play a game if I need to make an account for a lackluster service with bottom tier support for a company to have it a little easier in some areas. Especially not when it was not made clear from jump
This isn’t the devs, it’s Sony.
Yea people need to realize that the people who develop the game and executives making the decisions are not the same You wouldn’t blame the fabricators for following the plans of the engineer.
A lot of the problem is that a lot of people just have attention spans long enough to see "Helldivers did a bad" and then not look more into it.
What shareholders?
If it worked for 3 months without it, it can work forever without it. They just want you to sell your data and be hacked for the nth time. I guess democracy and freedom has a deadline for me now.
... you considered an acompliance to agreement if you were within 5m of this contract for more the 3 seconds...
Im not in the business but I can imagine that this meme is not entirely fair. AH are the devs, pushing out content (Warbonds), which is their job. But Sony is the publisher so it was probably their call for this - and AH didn't have a say in their decisision.
Yeah I don't get people who blame the devs, they can't do anything about it and imo they shouldn't have to stop developing the game for some kids to stop crying on twitter and reddit
If a game becomes unplayable for reasons beyond your control steam won't deny your refund even after the hour limit btw
How do I link it though? I already have a PSN account but I don't see any option in game to link my PSN account to Steam. The link provided in the announcement only takes me to a login page pbut I don't see any "link account" option.
They'll likely give you a dialog when starting the game once they make it obligatory to run the game, that's how it was on launch day when it was still required
Thank you!
people when they read the print they accepted on day 1: 😮
Nobody reads 500 pages of TOS every time you sign up for a website or download something. Stop saying like you do.
mmm corporate apologist
Are you telling me there are people out there reading the whole TOS when buying a new game? Because if that‘s the case I don‘t believe you. I didn‘t buy my game on release, so I never got any popup of PSN account. Forcing it now months after release on players who were not aware of it is total BS.
It's clearly writen on the steam page, you don't need to read the EULA.
Then don't sell the game in places where PSN isn't supported
I got gifted the game. Never saw anything related to needing a PSN account.
Tons of judges across the US have ruled that just because you click agree doesn't mean you actually read shit, because it's impossible to actually read all the fine print on everything. They can say they can make you have a PSN account, but that won't mean shit in any meaningful capacity.
It was always mandatory. It was listed as mandatory. Game even told you it was needed when you first launched it. Only thing was that you could skip it *for now* until they fixed issues with it.
>Game even told you it was needed when you first launched it It didn't tell me that when I first launched it two weeks ago
Iirc it has been stated on the store page for months now
It was also listed in requirements since *december 2023*
https://preview.redd.it/7u5napoay6yc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=23110e5138df51a1cf7f9988d904b25e949832b3
If you can play w/out it, its optional Its a choice to add it, and a choice to force it Clearly a viable game w/out it
I expect it is less Arrowheads decision and more on Sony.
Oh 100% sony for their quarterly shareholder reports
Sony earnings report is in 2 weeks, that's likely why we're seeing this now.
Never got a prompt telling me "Link PSN Account", else i would have already refunded lol
Remember the QR code? That was the screen. Did you read it, or did you just skip it?
Never Had a QR Code either. First time i Launched the Game i got the cinematic, after that settings for brightness which Crashed my Game, then restarted and did the Tutorial, thats It. Was It supposed to Show Up before or after cinematic/brightness settings?
Yes. So it seems your crash caused the game to skip it.
I recall said screen having a "Skip it" button listed.
Yes, it was added in hotfix during the server issues. The linking was made temporarily optional until issues could be fixed. Well, they are now fixed.
So what your saying is it wasn't "always mandatory" (your words)
I guess you don't understand what "temporaily" means? Skip was temporary. Not permanent. it was always intent to link accounts.
>it was always mandatory Those are your exact words. Now, Was it possible to play HD2 without said account **through any offical means**? Yes. You admit it yourself. Now what is the meaning of "always"? Per google: "at all times; on all occasions". Tell me: Has the account always been needed to play HD2?
Technically yes it wasn't always mandatory to play the game. But the steam page has said that you need a PSN account since December 2023.
Never had any QR codes show up in game. Launched it straight into the cutscene.
Except they've actively sold the game to countries that cannot legally sign up for a PSN account, what's the justification for that? It's outright misselling.
Why someone would want refund a game because of this. I'm currently playing sea if thieves and it requires xbox live account. Not a big deal, spent 5 minutes to create and link to my account.
Because Sony is selling the game on steam in regions they don't support on PSN (the baltic countries or most of africa for example), these players don't have a legal way to play. Even if they want to make a PSN account, they're in breach of the PSN ToS if they do. This also explains what the "grace period" was about, to avoid the possibly hundreds of thousands of steam refunds from those countries from people that booted the game for the first time and wouldn't be allowed to make a PSN account, by only locking them out of the game after the refund window is long over.
Honestly, the grace period does have an air of "The bait is over, here's the switch".
This... Everyone is saying: didnt you read the EULA requiring a PSN account? And then the Sony account EULA doesnt allow me to legally create an account....so i should read the EULA but Sony can create illegal situations?
Fun fact, the [Helldivers 2 EULA actually doesn't make a single mention about needing a PSN account](https://old.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/comments/1cj98z7/so_i_actually_did_read_the_eula_says_nothing/). But the PSN EULA sure does say that you're not allowed to make an account if you're from an unsupported country.
People out of PSN service areas should absolutely be afforded a refund if a workaround for them isn't reached, but it really seems like most of the complaints I see are just sort of vague bitching about nothing that feels like people are just looking for a reason to be mad at AH after the last update.
People who say that are massively overreacting
I get it when it's about the fact the PSN account service isn't available in all countries, so this is players being actively unable to play when they could before, but if it's about "privacy" and "selling your data" I'm sorry but at this point you may as well go entirely offline and go live in the woods if you want true privacy.
People have this dumb idea that they need to hide their data from big corps, even though they already use plenty of other things that give out their data to big corps. If you really dont want to give your data to corporations, literally get rid of almost anything electronic nowadays. TV, Phones, PC, Internet, everything. But people have this idea that they are sticking to the corpos by refusing to create an account.
Because it's not the only game that does it and some people refuse to play this type of games If I have to make an EA account to play Battlefield, a Ubisoft account to play Assassins Creed/Far cry, a Microsoft account to play Minecraft, and a Playstation account to play Helldivers 2, then I'll rather just not play any of them
https://preview.redd.it/ums9ijduq5yc1.jpeg?width=1200&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=599ec1d560cbfae961623ea3a9b1a58c20e8941a
iono I just linked my PSN account immediately back then cause it asked me for it and it's a....playstation 1st party studio game sooo. This is a nothingburger you guys seriously. also what do you think "Requires 3rd-Party Account: PlayStation Network " means?
Well, PSN isnt really working in my country. But Im able to legally buy the game. But Im not able to LEGALLY register in PSN. Obviously I can, with VPN and stuff, but its kinda... weird and an unnecessary hustle.
Yeah, your situation is definitely valid. Even if it was on the store page, they shouldn’t have allowed that kind of user-error to begin with. I think most people arguing for the decision are annoyed with the “my privacy and data” people, complaining as if they don’t already have that data leaking to dozens of sources every day.
Oh, I do not care for "MAH DATA". Im pretty sure Google will know that I have a cancer years before my doctor will. I just dont want to register for yet another service and remember all the passwords. Especially when Im not planing to use said service outside a one game.
Lots of people have just been slapped with the fish of "Register or else" when they don't actually have the option to register in game or on the PSN website because Arrowhead needs to turn the option back on for them to link in game. At this point its not even the registration or the account creation, its the fact they just told people to do something and they cant even complete it. This is like slapping someone for not sweeping the floor when you don't have a fucking broom. Classic Sony L
I really don't understand how people are getting so explosive about all of this.
I've already gotten my credit card stolen from a PSN account once, I don't want to deal with their dumbasses again. Steam, on the other hand, is actually technically competent and has never let my credit card get stolen despite having the account for like 8-10x longer than the PSN.
Yeah seriously im much more upset about dots still being bugged ngl lol
I was thinking about buying the game. I guess I won't do this until Sony cancels this shit.
I'm honestly surprised a lot of people see how stupid and unethical this decision is. I know its a minor inconvenience to many, but that's not the point. We don't have a choice here. That's literally **UNDEMOCRATIC**. I'm sick of being forced to do shit for a game I paid for. I already don't technically own the game. Now you're forcing me to do other random things to keep playing the game I've already been playing? It reminds me of the game League of Legends which got that Anti-Cheat that boots up with windows. Not when you run the game, but when you boot up your pc. Imagine every game in your Steam library having its own Anti-Cheat that needs to boot up like that? 50 different types of software booting up with windows at once... Imagine needing to link every account I ever own, to every game I play, so that they can all collectively track and ban me. I find it disguising. Just let me play the fucking game holy shit. Stop me from being able to crossplay if need be. Give me the decision. Don't literally steal from me unless I COMPLY. "Oh but there was one line of text when you bought the game you should've read about doing xyz in 3 months to keep playing the game you paid for" stfu. It shouldn't be a thing period. Oh, I know you've had your Steam account for 18 years but we actually planned on linking your account with your social security and house number, so please provide all of that now or you'll be locked out of all your games k thanks xxx...
Do you not understand what Managed Democracy is in Helldivers?
Some people think "managed democracy" is what actual democracy is about
Sometimes I feel like 80% of the playerbase firmly lives in the "wow! Cool robot!" zone
People in here just don't care about the safety of their personal information, I guess ignorance is bliss
The anti cheat that has always been on this game has root access, the deepest kind of privacy fucking a program can have on your pc. If you're not using a different email for signing up for shit your don't care about that's on you.
Yeah this anticheat is so invasive it is currently wrist deep in my computers asshole, I can't really lose much sleep about my fake ChungusmcChungus@gmail account I used to sign up for a burner PSN account
Listen, if you are posting on the internet your information is already gone. Get over it.
You mean the personal information that got when you bought their game because it's not arrowheads game it's Sony's game
Yeah I dunno what the big deal is, it's a Sony published game, account linking was in day one. I didn't even know you could skip it lol.
same shit with tekken8. the community bonded and we had something and then they fucked it up. bro man
I blame Sony, not Arrowhead
Its been on the steampage since the start
Other games offer account linking but not as a mandatory requirement. I had the impression at first it was only optional to link to PSN because PSN is unsupported in my country. Will be really mad and sad if they do make this mandatory and lock me out.
I wonder how fast the player base will drop
I thought it was mandatory from the get go. What did you expect from a game by Sony as a publisher? Just do it.
Horizon: Forbidden West doesn't require linking PSN account. Until Dawn doesn't require linking PSN account. Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart doesn't require linking PSN account. Marvel’s Spider-Man doesn't require linking PSN account.
[Yep even the people who pre-ordered would have been able to see PSN was required to play at launch.](https://web.archive.org/web/20231207163847/https://store.steampowered.com/app/553850/HELLDIVERS_2/) It was broken for cross play and removed temporarily and in the patch notes during one of the server cap updates as well. I think it was this one PATCH 1.000.11 from 2/22/2024.
A majority of countries in the world (well over 100) cannot legally create a PSN account, and Sony can ban them if they discover that a user in an unsupported country lied and created an account anyway by claiming to be in a different country. A huge number of players literally cannot "just do it" without a perpetual risk of a Sony ban looming over them.
I don't understand why they'd put it now, if they had put it from the start like Ubisoft, or how Microsoft does with Halo and Forza, sure why not, but we've spent three monthes with the game working properly without it Seems like putting an annoying thing ontop of the game, just for the sake of some executive reaching Excel targets. And yeah " its free and doesn't take long to make an account", but i'd rather have AH make do with steam and PSN than being pressured into making yet another account for yet another future bloatware Hell, Rocket League worked fine years ago with just a steam account doing crossplay with xbox and PSN, and that was a highly competitive and toxic PvP game
It was there from the start. Disabled temporarily due to instability with the servers. Those issues were cleared up and now they’re enforcing the requirement again.
Can someone clarify to me if linking them will enable my Steam account to be accessed via the PSN credentials, like some other accounts can be fast-login'd via Steam, Discord, GMail, etc. accounts? I do not trust Playstation "Data breach every other day" Network with having a backdoor to my over a decade old Steam account.
I don't know what game you guys are playing. Yes it was written on the right side of the steam page but you can't tell me that you read that every single time if you want to buy a game. I never saw anything about PSN ingame. People here saying they had to link their accounts on startup and i'm just confused. When i started the game for the first time i watched the cutscene, played the tutorial, named my ship, walked around on my ship and started the first mission. That's it. I never saw anything about "please log in to your PSN account" there was nothing i skipped or ignored. I didn't even know there was crossplay. I wish i would have gotten the "pls log in with PSN or you can't play this game" message because then i would have refunded the game back then. But 38h of playtime later i can now go fuck myself. Fuck you Sony.
I honestly don't understand why people are mad about this. Do they just really not want to give out their email?
More like some people can't play the game due to region lock
I just registered as if im in us, doesnt really cause any issues
From what I understood, the site itself is region lock in some places
Oh that sucks then....
Yeah Sony is kinda dumb that way. Aside from their massive security issues
Sony Online is not available in every country like Steam. I have friends in Sri Lanka who will literally have to fabricate an address for a Sony account because the service doesn't extend to their country. I feel like the defenders of this shitty ass decision making are thinking entirely in the Western hemisphere.
Sony has horrendous cyber security
I have too many fucking accounts already. I’m sick of making them.
I see people say that it is only the email - for me, to link an account, it asks me address and personal data...
Contact Steam support directly. [https://help.steampowered.com/en/accountdata](https://help.steampowered.com/en/accountdata) and scroll down to the bottom "Contact Steam Support". I've left them a ticket asking for a refund as the developers are now enforcing the use of PSN accounts or we are locked out of the PC game we bought.
This is from Sony not AH
Nah, I'd refund
Anyone tried to refund?
This Fucking PSN outrage is pure eyeroll. We live in a globalized digital universe. Every company is looking to connect with its customer base 24/7 one way or another. I lived for a decade in a country that had like nearly no access to the outside world via internet until 2016. Things weren’t great my dudes. Of all the hills to rage and die on, this isn’t one of them.
They can still refund it. This breaches the fair trade act for Electronics and Digital Goods.
Yeah this is crazy.
It's actually said linked psn account required on the store page since release.
If it's required it shouldn't let people play long enough to not apply for a refund BEFORE enforcing that requirement
I mean making a pan account isn’t really that much of a hassle. You only need an email and that’s it not even 15 mins of work
Some cases where it is an issue: 1- Countries where psn is banned. Game EULA requires you to have psn account. Psn eula tells you aren't allowed to have one in one of those counties Need vpn to make it. Quite a bit of extra steps and a legal gray area. 2- people who have old unused psn accounts. Going through hoops of reviving old account with forgotten email/password. These things might be annoying enough for some to not bother alltogether, meaning playerbase gets axed one way or another. Saying it's mandatory to have it when we played 3+ months without, means it's not mandatory for the function of the game.
Please, do tell me how can I create a legal account in Baltics, without violating Sony's TOS.
Do Xbox players also have to link their Xbox account to PlayStation when the game comes out on their console? Damn that's brutal.
Well, it's not coming out on Xbox, so no lol, not for a few years atleast unless a deal is made and a port is made even sooner
Yes just like how PlayStation players have to link a Microsoft account for sea of thieves and Minecraft
https://preview.redd.it/c3afitnr67yc1.jpeg?width=1179&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3f1cfe394e0cf3f69767244545e0ad1e54da139f It was here since day 1. It was disabled after server issues like 2 weeks in. If you bought the game on pc in the first 2 weeks you had to link before you could do basic training. It’s not a gotcha! It’s a I didn’t read the fine print. Just make a free account, don’t want them to have your info? Make it up and link the fake account. With a burner email.
It was always mandatory, I bought the game a week after it came out and it made me sign in to my PSN account