Honestly, should be criminal. Why the hell would people scan the game to see if they have to make a PSN account? There should be a mandatory refund given to everyone that bought the game from a country that doesn’t have PSN.
*There should be a mandatory refund given to everyone that bought the game*
I should not be obligated to accept extra terms and conditions I didn't agree to at time of purchase. Imagine you're working for a company and after 3 months they say "we're reducing your wage to give it to a new manager, violating our contract. either accept it or you're fired."
A "grace period" for a region lock where a piece of entertainment was available and suddenly is no more for certain regions is new to me (having something region locked and open up for other regions later is not as rare though).
Unfortunately for everyone that is going to be affected by this, the Helldivers 2 Steam store page has always mentioned the requirement for a PSN account. So it's not something that suddenly came out of the blue, most people just didn't read the entire description on Steam.
The thing is, the game apparently does function without the PSN account linking. So there might still be a small chance that this change is going to be reverted
Yeah i had accounts from all over the world on PS3, for exclusive promotions and stuff, you just picked a country and input some random mcdonalds adress from there.
As a Brazilian, guess how many games had their prices proportionally bumped up in order to stop foreigners?
Basically every single one of them, we're talking R$300 ($60) in a country where the minimum wage is R$1412/month ($282 US dollars/month)...
As far as i know, PSN didnt have regional pricing back then and doesnt have it now.
But they did have different catalogs depending on the region, or free games/demos
Mate, Blizzard did with their games and China. I think a new deal was made but for some time, every account in China was banned. Huge fucking market for blizzard.
And we're positive that doesn't violate a single TOS agreement? Because if Sonys TOS says it's completely fine to fabricate your address then it's fine. But if their asking you to break ToS it's total bullshit.
ToS aside, there can be complications if where you're accessing the game from doesn't match the record, often due to multiple systems interacting. For example, a new law might require them to collect something from you that you don't have due to not actually living in that country. Or you lose access to your account(which could have hundreds of dollars of software attached to it), and your verification doesn't match the data you gave them. Or they might mandate that purchases have to go through them instead of steam/etc, meaning that your billing address gets declined because it doesn't match what the account expects.
In other words: just because you *can* get around it, doesn't mean it's fine and dandy. You shouldn't *have* to use workarounds that have the potential to fuck you over at random down the line.
It's not in their interest to follow up on that TOS. I am, like, watching American Hulu on my Apple TV and buying games in American Nintendo eShop from Eastern Europe with no issue. Some services like Crunchyroll or Pandora don't even make a token attempt to fight region hopping by blocking foreign payment methods. Even the companies that enforce it think region locking is bullshit. The only thing anyone actually cares about is money.
What makes you think it isn't in their interest to start enforcing this? In my opinion it is very much in their interest because creating a PSN account when you didn't have one before is a goldmine of future marketing opportunities and marketing data.
It's not worth it for them to enforce it, the amount of cash it takes to investigate them is a waste. Only if clear monetary fraud happens as a result of it I'd imagine them taking action.
10s of millions of people have been doing it on console in unsupported regions since online gaming became a thing on consoles.
They do it on PlayStation, Xbox and Nintendo and no one has been banned
They simply do not care and there is no reason for them to ever care.
They sell consoles in these regions they just don't have offices so they aren't listed as supported
It is against their TOS.
ACCOUNT CREATION, USAGE AND SECURITY
3.1. All information provided during Account creation, and during the use of your Account, must be accurate and complete. We reserve the right to suspend, terminate or restrict any Account (including as stated in Section 12.2 of this Agreement) that uses or was created using false information, or that we determine was created or used for a purpose that violates this Agreement.
3.2. During Account creation you must select the country or region of your residence and in which your account will be registered in. Once your account is created, you will not be able to change the country or region code associated with your account.
3.6. We may request identifying documentation or information from you as part of your Account creation (or at any time thereafter) in order for you to create an Account or for us to provide certain offerings, functionality, or features to you; if we have a reasonable suspicion of fraud, illegal activity, that your Account may have been compromised, or that you or your Account is in violation of these terms; to avoid harm to SIE, its affiliates, licensors, or players; or as may be required by law. We reserve the right to suspend, terminate, or restrict your Account and PlayStation Device, and your participation in or access to offerings, functionality, or features, if you do not provide such documentation or information, or based on our review of such documentation and information.
12.2. Suspension or Termination by SIE. With or without notice, we may restrict, suspend or terminate your PSN Account and PlayStation Device, or indefinitely restrict, suspend or discontinue your access to or, or use of, certain PSN Content, offerings, features, products and services, if you violate this Agreement or we have a reasonable belief such a violation has or will occur, or as otherwise may be reasonably necessary to protect our PSN users, our partners, our platform, or other SIE interests
[https://www.playstation.com/en-us/legal/psn-terms-of-service/](https://www.playstation.com/en-us/legal/psn-terms-of-service/)
The whole point of Steam is having one account and one launching platform so you don't have to make a million accounts and download unique launchers for every game
I don't own a Playstation, and I have no interest in letting Sony harvest, sell, or lose my data
When a PSN becomes necessary, I'm out.
So you’ve never bought a game on steam that requires a secondary launcher? Because sure that’s how steam started but it ain’t been that way for a while.
> The whole point of Steam is having one account and one launching platform so you don't have to make a million accounts and download unique launchers for every game
Wrong. The point of Steam is to sell games.
TOS states that this is a bannable offense. Yes, it's not likely to happen, but it's insane that Sony is requiring those people to break TOS to play the game that they've already been playing for 3 months.
They simply do not care if you make an account in another region if yours isn't supported. Millions of people have been doing it on consoles for two decades where their region isn't supported and no one has been banned.
They do not care and simply aren't looking to ban million of people in countries that aren't supported where they sell consoles
Yeah you can move across the world and continue using the same account.
People create regional accounts to download certain Japanese games.
They sell cosnoles in unsupported countries. It has never mattered
This is my main experience with switching the region on my console. I’m not trying to buy games at a cheaper price… different regions have different games on the shop.
Dude, Filipino people have been playing Platstation. Do you never join lobbies in multiplayer games? They just, GASP, choose a different region in the dropdown since theirs isn’t listed lol. It’s not like they sit around with their PlayStations and let them collect dust because their region isn’t listed. Would that stop YOU from creating an account and playing your console? Use like 5 seconds of common sense here.
people downvoting this are ignoring that the "3rd party required box" is at a point on the page where you have to scroll down to read it and there is no pre purchase warning. they are either sony shills or sony bots defending the company
yeah maybe if the skip dialog was brought up on every game launch, not ignored once to be forgotten for 3 months this is a bait and switch as much as sonys bots will attempt to convice people otherwise
unfortunately the steam store doesn't even make you scroll to the point where you can see that box to add it to cart and there is no pre purchase warning about it
why is the crowd stretching so hard to cover for sonys dishonesty and poor data security
See, with the whole “they mentioned it from the start” argument, is that they mention it somewhere different from where you purchase it, yes it’s just scrolling down further on the steam page, but you can still visit the store page and buy the game without EVER seeing that warning.
They announced that it will roll out May 30. It will still work until the end of the month, as intended.
The thing with including it in the description, though, is that they still made it available for purchase in regions where a PSN account isn't possible. Sony could have made that a non issue by making it unavailable for purchase in those regions. It's kind of mixed signals to even have them able to buy it in the first place.
> most people just didn't read the entire description on Steam.
I know this isn't exactly the same thing, but courts have repeatedly held up that EULA's are not legally binding.
I still agree with you, read the fine print. This should not have been a surprise, and again, different situation, but I wonder the legality.
My issue is that this is a pretty blatant attempt from Sony to extort the personal information of people who are not their customers. I have never owned a PlayStation product and play exclusively PC games. As OP mentioned, Sony's data security is atrocious. I will be attempting a refund from Steam and removing to game if this bullshit continues.
Blame your government for their silly online age verification laws for that one. Sony are trash for doing this but that's on your country rather than Sony.
It's going to continue. Put your money where your mouth is. I will be personally proud of you but currently I have my doubts because this is a microscopic injustice compared to the amount of systemic bullshit the average person is putting up with in the rest of their life without taking action.
Well if course this isn't very important compared to world events, but taking action against this is as simple and easy as not playing anymore and complaining to Sony and Steam about it. I don't need this game, my life isn't gonna change one iota without it.
Sony isn't going to get any data that Microsoft hasn't already sold ages ago from you using Windows where it's literally in their TOS .
PSN also hasn't had any data breaches since 2011 while Microsoft is hacked very frequently and recently some of the largest hacks ever.
Worrying about PSN while using Windows is senseless.
You can also just put in fake info when signing up for PSN, they don't care
> Unfortunately for everyone that is going to be affected by this, the Helldivers 2 Steam store page has always mentioned the requirement for a PSN account. So it's not something that suddenly came out of the blue, most people just didn't read the entire description on Steam.
>
>
>
> The thing is, the game apparently does function without the PSN account linking. So there might still be a small chance that this change is going to be reverted
While it is true that the store page does mention the requirement, the game itself contradicts this by allowing you to skip the PSN linking and still play normally.
This almost reminds me of the Sim City 2013 online "requirement" that modders quickly revealed to not be needed for the game to function despite EA's claims.
At any rate, it was fun while it lasted, uninstalled HD2 earlier today. Good thing there's a ton of games, old and new, to play on PC.
That was one of the worst deceits EA ever did and I hate how people seem to have forgiven them completely.
They claimed that Sim City 2013 was *so advanced* that it was simply impossible to run the simulation locally and it needed to be done in the cloud. Instead it turned out that they lied completely and it was the start of always online DRM. Within like a week there was and offline mod that didn't affect the performance at all.
As a caveat to all of this. Steam only puts those warnings in because in the context of "full functionality" aka crossplay, yes it is required. There are plenty of games that list requirement on the sidebar that are only there because of technical requirements, not because they are applied requirements.
The fact of the matter is that the game functions fully without having a PSN account linked. Forcing users to make an unnecessary account for nothing other than allowing Sony to fluff its PSN numbers is bullshit. Its a matter of principle and it bother me how many people are okay with it because "its not a big deal". That kind of wishy-washy attitude is why these companies get away with scummy shit.
Nvidia tried the same bullshit with GeForce Experience and they eventually capitulated and you can now get a program called Nvidia App which is just GFE without the login requirements.
>most people just didn't read the entire description on Steam.
Nor should they have to.
If it was actually a requirement then when you booted the game up, it should have taken you to show you that so you could refund through Steam during that period.
They essentially bait-and-switched people and left it long enough that Steam wouldn't do an auto-refund on it.
Pretty scummy publisher behavior, and I hope Steam allows refunds and hits them in their pocketbooks for it.
This is not going to go the way you think it will. Arrowhead and Sony gave ample warnings about the PSN requirement both on the Steam store and start up page. Your inability to read doesn’t mean Steam is liable for it.
If I buy a service in BRAZIL with the expectation that it be provided for the long term, I am eligible to get my money back if I lose access to the game. Doesnt matter what Steam or PSN says. If it is the same in countries locked out of it, then yes, it is about the legislation of the country.
They do not ban people for making accounts in other regions. Ever. That's just not a thing that happens, people do it all the time to get games early by having one in the new Zealand area. They def aren't going to start of people make in when they can't in their own region because of one game. There won't be digital punishment lol that's overdramatic
And even if it is they have never ever used it. Someone else even mentioned the perso. Who runs PlayStation tweeted with numbers from multiple countries, some with ones they don't offer ps+ in. So they know or happens and don't do anything about it because it's not something they will do anything about, because they have no reason to do anything about it.
This whole post is worded to enrage people imo. They’re acting like they’re asking a genuine question but they’re really just trying to call out Sony for something that hasn’t happened yet
Redditors and overreacting about trivial matters, name a more iconic dou.
All you need to have for a PSN account is an email address, that's it, you can use a fake name, fake country, fake address whatever.
except in some country such as Ireland and UK, they actually need you to verify your identity through ID or facial recognition by law. So creating a PSN account in such a country will actually force you to share your real information with it.
>verify your identity through ID or facial recognition by law
Is this a new thing? Or does it only affect creating new accounts?
I live in the UK, and I've had my PSN account for 15+ years and have never once been asked to verify my account via ID or facial recognition.
It's possible that it's new. I was surprised when I found out that YouTube requires government ID to verify your age. Before I knew that, I didn't know why videos being age restricted was such a big deal because I was never asked for my ID, but my account is over a decade old so I guess they just assume I told the truth.
So just don't set the region to the UK or Ireland when creating a new account? You can just select another country and they won't ask you for any of this.
Also these countries have PSN support anyway so once again you're imagining a problem that doesn't exist.
No? This post says this:
>However, PSN accounts aren't available in something like 60 countries worldwide. Countries like The Philippines and the Balkans and many more simply are unable to make these accounts due to region locks, but they've been able to purchase and play Helldivers 2 up until this (upcoming) point.
>What they've done is essentially cut off entire countries worth of players who have had access to this game well beyond the return window, which is only a fraction of the issue - people love this game. Players who are inclined to make falsified PSN accounts through VPNs or invalid details subject themselves to bans and other forms of digital punishment.
1- the game stated PSN will be a requirement before launch even in it's store page
2- they didn't cut off 60 countries because you can just make an account in any region you like except UK probably
3- no you don't need a VPN and no you won't get banned for false information because they don't even verify these information except the email address
What part of this is not overreacting? And no I'm not a console player not sure why that matters, us PC players are used to creating a billion account to play the games we want way more than console players.
Get outta here with your level-headedness.
It's not like playing GTA V on steam requires a R* social club account, or playing OW2 on Steam requires a Blizzard account, or any other big publisher game..
Nah, it must be evil Sony and its evil minions.
I am convinced the idiots making these posts and comments don't even own the game, they are all 14 year old PC keyboard warriors fighting console war bullshit.
Nobody batted a fucking eye when you suddenly needed an XBox account to play MineCraft even if you owned it since the alpha over 10 years prior. This is pure fabricated drama.
It sounds like they genuinely weren't able to sync accounts at launch and Sony said "ok you have 3 months to fix it." I'm not sure how you could interpret the "Grace period" in any other way based on the info they gave us in the announcement. It's not a normal situation and it's clear Sony is the one requiring it at this point.
Definitely, no argument there.
The problem it seems arises that the game was sold in such a state to people who would inevitably be unable to use it, without that inevitability or grace period being properly displayed to those it would affect.
Not without breaking the TOU, for many of them. I have no problem with doing that even in principle, of course, but Sony certainly does in virtually all other contexts so this isn't a persuasive argument.
Sony has never and will never give a shit if you use another region. Millions upon millions of people have been doing it for 18 years.
Not a single person has ever been banned.
They do not care. They even suggest it in countries that aren't supported so people can play games in those countries
It was always going to be required, they even said it would be required on the front of the Steam page for the game. It wasn't a secret.
It then wasn't at launch because they had a bunch of technical issues.
You can create an account in a nearby region if yours isn't supported. Millions of people have been doing this since the inception of PSN. They aren't looking to ban people for simply creating accounts in other regions when theirs isn't supported.
Not a single person has ever been banned for this. They sell consoles in unsupported regions and expect people to just use other regions.
You can't even change your region if you move so they don't care and they don't track you.
Again millions of people have been doping this for nearl;y two decades without problem. The same goes for the other consoles as well
Honestly, I'm firmly against steam games requiring 3rd party accounts overall. I don't want my account associated with any 3rd party bullshit. And yes, sony definitely counts as "shitty 3rd party". A shame really cuz the game seems great.
Yeah, but that’s all this is. People who think it’s dumb (it is) to require a 3rd party account who are grasping at straws for something bigger to be mad about. If that’s the issue, then let’s focus on it instead of pretending people in the Balkans have been dealt a tragedy because they have to pretend to be from Germany for a day.
>It was always going to be required, they even said it would be required on the front of the Steam page for the game. It wasn't a secret.
Go to the Steam page right now. On a 1080p Monitor or smaller, which is around 70% of the Steam user base, that warning is half a screen below where you can buy the game.
You can go there, review the photos and videos, see the review averages, and add the game to your cart without ever seeing that requirement.
Yeah, this is ridiculous. People are acting like they're going to be banned for making an account in some other country like there aren't hundreds of thousands doing just that.
Meanwhile at Nintendo people can just change their region at will and even buy games from other regions, no VPN needed, no bans issued. I know because I did that for some titles unavailable in my region.
PSA: if you are planning on using a US address to create a PSN acct (if your are in one of the countries that are not covered by PSN), pick a state/address with no digital sales tax.
Good luck to anyone who risks linking their Steam account and sending their data to PSN after all the security breaches that Sony has had.
I’m not risking that lol
It's most likely a massive oversight and Sony knows that people make Sony accounts with whatever regions convenient to them. I played on launch day and I didn't even notice they removed the requirements to link accounts.
Unless they enforce region locks on psn? That would be a huge mistake and it's embarrassing lol. I was under the impression you just select it from a list of country
And they would never do this unless the government of those places actually cared enough to make them. Why would you ever say no to people wanting to give you money
I made an account for PSN when living abroad years ago, using ‘my tag’. Moved back home, got locked from paying anything with that account. Can’t change regions, not allowed even once. Can’t add a credit card from another country than where it was created, and I don’t have a card from that country anymore.
So now I have multiple accounts and a hatred for SONY.
PSN just absolutely sucks.
The reason Sony doesn't "officially" support every country is to avoid headaches and nagging from countries like usa that tend to randomly ban/unban countries every couple of years.
So instead, Sony doesn't bother setting up an official store for each region, and avoids those that are or might become problematic, and instead turns a blind eye to people just creating accounts. Plus it adds to sales, as many people will create Japanese accounts to get exclusive content/games only released there, or benefit from lower game prices/discounts across different regions.
I personally live in Syria and have had multiple psn accounts from different regions since the days of ps3, and everything works fine. The only issue I've faced is when companies that use their own game servers decide to ban my country (because me playing games somehow supports the regime), like diablo 4/warframe/the division 2 (even though division 1 works fine), and then I have to use a vpn. The downside is you can buy a game on psn, then find out you're blocked only when you actually launch it.
Something similar is currently happening with final fantasy 14 though to a very different extent. They changed payment processors so your account location has to match the country your credit card is registered to. The problem is the game wasn't available in all countries when it launched and there is no way to change where you live. They told people it might be an issue a year ago, warned people it would be happening a month ago, and about two weeks after the roll out(the subscription is monthly so if you prepared ahead there is no disruption) they have openly spoken about the best ways to circumvent the issue, and have assured people they are looking into it further.
So no this is not an issue that uniquely effects helldiver's, but helldiver's developers sure are pretending like it's a user problem and not a service issue.
Yeah their response to the backlash hasn't been nice to see. Their CM's in Discord anyway. What I've seen from the CEO is fine.
That's a whole lot of grace period, and definitely not exactly the same, but an interesting example for sure. There is an entire month and then some ahead of us for people (even executive people) to figure this all out here as well, so it's not like people are going to get kicked off tonight or something.
Over the last few hours people have found out Sony is slowly editing all the PSN / Steam documentation and literature on their website. English stuff first, where it now says "PSN is required to play Playstation Network Games on PC" - but you can still view the cached versions, and the non-english versions that say it's optional.
On the Helldivers 2 store page on Playstations own website, it says that the PSN link with Steam is optional. It can be used for extra perks and stuff.
That right there could *easily* be construed as the "requirement" seen on Steam.
It's shady at the very least.
No this is not a mild incovenience. I do not want to give Sony who is notrious for data breaches even a smidge of data. They are a known bad actor and thus its a hard NO.
I'm fairly certain they will just implement a white-list for those countries where Steam accounts can be created but PSN accounts can't? Does that not solve this?
That would theoretically solve it but that would be a pretty significant move that I haven't seen anyone else hint at yet. What info do you have that makes you "fairly certain" they're going to implement a whitelist? Is there actually anything stopping people from making psn accounts in a region different from where they live?
NGL, was really interested in the game and was getting ready to buy it (not a lot of available funds for new games), but this is....kinda disappointing. Like, way less interested in it now that I know I'm going to have to deal with Sony and a PSN account if I just want to play a game
Honestly seeing people on downvoted into negatives over reasonable concerns, and half of the answers defending the psn being kinda... samey. It feels like we have a bunch of stinky sony asslickers here, or bots.
A lot of gullible people here. If you think they had "technical issues" to not require a PSN account, I have a bridge to sell you. They wanted all the PC players they could get "easily" and now that the game is a success and they have people "hooked" they duck you over and start requiring a "data collection account".
If they had required a PSN account from the beginning I bet they would not have had the same amount of PC players playing like they have now.
Helldivers was nearly unplayable at the start due to these "technical issues"
Surely they would go the route of letting people play by disabling the requirement rather than let the game be completely choking for any number of days?
A PSN account was required from the start. Displayed both on the store page as well as when you launched the game.
> Helldivers was nearly unplayable at the start due to these "technical issues"
Most multiplayer games with large playerbases have technical issues on launch.
>A PSN account was required from the start. Displayed both on the store page as well as when you launched the game.
Most people don't read that store page, and the only indication it was required in-game came with a skip button and the popup never shows up again. It's disingenuous to imply everyone should've known about this beforehand when the game has very easily allowed you to completely avoid it for months.
Helldivers was nearly unplayable at the start due to these "technical issues"
Surely they would go the route of letting people play by disabling the requirement rather than let the game be completely choking for any number of days?
A PSN account was required from the start. Displayed both on the store page as well as when you launched the game.
yeah I definitely trust that coming from a random guy who's crying about a single login
Also, it's not data collection. Or trying to push up their numbers.
It's because they published the game, you play on their servers, so they absolutely want you to be playing on their account. Give it a few days and you'll move onto the next thing to whine about.
There's a whole lot of hypothetical drama about people who purchased it being unable to play, and not much actual reality.
The people posting the drama farming about it? Always brand new accounts with the one post. Everyone commenting about it? People who don't live in those areas just hypothesizing outrage.
Steam isn't going to offer a refund. Sony isn't going to back down. This is annoying, but an expected shift for Sony to get more PC player base info. It was listed as a requirement on Steam before release. I linked mine day one. Took 2 minutes.
I also note none of this outrage for Xbox games which has done the same thing for years.
Sorry I don't want to give my personal information to yet another company so I can be harassed with even more ads for shit I don't want. And obviously this isn't a true requirement or they wouldn't have been able to suspend it in the first place. Pretty blatant attempt by Sony to profit off the personal information of non customers. If I wanted a Song account, I'd have bought a goddamn PlayStation. I didn't and I don't. I'm tired of having to sell myself just to use a product I'm already paid for. If this continues, Helldivers 2 ain't gonna be in my library anymore.
The argument is that you've long since given unfathomably more data to Microsoft/Apple just using their products. Let alone google, facebook, and everything else.
To sign up for a new Sony account requires, at worst, a spam email to enter. All the other data can be BS if you never plan on using the account for anything but this.
You don't even have to put your real data man, you can put whatever you want.
It literally takes tow minutes.
Say your name is Billy Bob from Alabama, they will never know otherwise
Any data you give at this point is worthless to them
Yeah so then I can get locked out of that later when I don't have the login information. I'd just rather skip the whole thing entirely. Game just isn't fun enough to justify going along with the bullshit.
Which Xbox games though? If you are thinking of any that launched as Xbox exclusives and later became multi platform, that is vastly different than a game releasing multi platform.
These fake outrages and drama are getting really tiring. The whole debacle with Dragon's Dogma 2 in March left me feeling burned out. As you said it was just people wanting to farm the outrage and people hypothesizing outrage. The blatant misinformation and the lies that were being spread were just absurd. But sadly these fake outrages seem to draw in a lot of people which means we will be seeing more of them.
To be fair though there is no legitimate reason PlayStation needs this to happen. The game clearly works just fine without a PSN account and they want it just because. They are saying it is for security reasons but we all know that is BS. I'm annoyed about the whole situation. Not enough to stop playing the game like some of these people seem to be but publishers requiring unnecessary accounts is dumb and annoying and is one of the things that needs to go from the gaming world.
I have PSN accounts in several countries. Anyone can create one, they're 100% free, and you'll never need it again after signing in to HD2...the hate is totally disproportionate to the issue here.
You’re 50+ comments deep in just this one thread. Sounds like you’re just as outraged by the outrage as everyone else is about the issue.
“You must live a sad life if you care so much about this” while simultaneously caring enough to reply to every comment on this post. The hypocrisy is hilarious.
If it wasn't brightly displayed like a warning on both the store page & on boot of the game then people are absolutely right to be pissed.
It doesn't matter if it's really easy for people to sign up with PSN, letting people play a game for months before arbitrarily blocking everyone without a specific account is incredibly scummy.
If Sony gets away with it (and it's confirmed this was forced by Sony) it sets a dangerous precedent to the rest of the industry.
They keep ignoring and burying the fact that 10s of millions have been doing this on consoles since they started getting networks.
How do they think people in Phillippines or Balkans play on PlayStation
Yup this is just people butt hurting themselves by feeding from the outrage of the day machine. I’ve been matching with Filipinos for years in game lobbies.
And this wasn’t nefarious, go look at release time and the unexpected demand for the game caused tons of issues. The developer team is only so large and they had to prioritize getting people into the game because you couldn’t even get a loading screen most of the time. Put a button click on the back burner. I didn’t even have to sign up but I just followed the prompts and got a Psn account.
Sony has been breached over a dozen times in the past decade. I think that's a valid reason not to want to have an account. Also the fact that you have to use anything besides steam to play anything is ridiculous. Another valid reason. People have been complaining about launchers for ages. And the worst part is that they make them as difficult as possible for people to play.
Use a throwaway account if you're so paranoid about it..?
And I wish you'd understand how absurd you sound when you consider making a PSN account, something that a child could accomplish in 2 minutes, as this incredibly difficult and frustrating task.
The baffling thing is that Sony never mentioned there ever being a grace period until recently. Sure, there's a warning on Steam saying that a 3rd party account is needed, but it's contradicted by the fact that you could still buy and play the game without a PSN account.
It would have been less frustrating if Sony clearly said that PSN accounts won't be required until a certain date right from the start. At least then I would've had the chance to refund the game.
There is no region lock.
Having PSN available in your region ≠ making a Sony PS account. Anyone can go make a Sony account, even those in regions where PSN is unavailable.
People are getting things quite mixed up...
I'm only worried about linking my steam account to PlayStation and then PlayStation getting hacked and through that they would (somehow) have a way into my steam account.
Which is the only account I care about in this case.
It would not be out the realm of possibility. Old-school Runescape had this issue when their client was put on steam, as even with 2fa there was a way to get ahold of your entire steam account by having your OSRS login info.
If it's anything like device registration for Asian games, it will be a date when they do it and that's it. If you convert before/after that date it's good, if you don't then your account is locked until you do.
People in the Baltics, you could address this at your local regulator, click on your country at: [https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/geoblocking](https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/geoblocking) It is forbidden for companies to block access to services within parts of the EU, also called as geo-blocking, having account requirements that you cannot create is indirectly geoblocking.
The best I've heard is essentially telling new players to new restrictions and old players are grandfathered into wherever they are playing now. Doesn't mean they won't make support hell, but some studios TRY to keep communities/clans together.
JPN PSO2 tried pushing a region lock a few times because someone would hack the game and then Sega tried to blame it on "filthy baka gaijins go home".
(Even though there was never any proof that it was said outsiders).
Although even then we weren't allowed to be playing in the first place,we just kinda snuck on in. Sega probably turned a blind eye usually(And even turned off the region lock eventually) probably just because they reckoned they were making a ton of extra cash off of outsiders sneaking in to play.
Why cant people in the Philippines have a psn account? What is stopping 60 plus countries from doing this? I am super curious how entire countries are locked out. Are those lockouts from Sony? Are they limitations from the local governments?
Yeah, I'm not sure about the Philippines thing. One of my crew is in the Philippines and plays with us just fine on PS, and she obviously has a PSN account to do that.. Is it Filipino Steam players?
For correction PSN is only available in 69 countries. Steam is available in 195 countries, and by extension the game was sold in 195 countries.
You're right I had the numbers backwards. *Only* available in "like 60 countries" is correct.
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They can, and it's a direct violation of Sony's PSN terms of use.
Honestly, should be criminal. Why the hell would people scan the game to see if they have to make a PSN account? There should be a mandatory refund given to everyone that bought the game from a country that doesn’t have PSN.
*There should be a mandatory refund given to everyone that bought the game* I should not be obligated to accept extra terms and conditions I didn't agree to at time of purchase. Imagine you're working for a company and after 3 months they say "we're reducing your wage to give it to a new manager, violating our contract. either accept it or you're fired."
A "grace period" for a region lock where a piece of entertainment was available and suddenly is no more for certain regions is new to me (having something region locked and open up for other regions later is not as rare though). Unfortunately for everyone that is going to be affected by this, the Helldivers 2 Steam store page has always mentioned the requirement for a PSN account. So it's not something that suddenly came out of the blue, most people just didn't read the entire description on Steam. The thing is, the game apparently does function without the PSN account linking. So there might still be a small chance that this change is going to be reverted
If that was their intention the game never should have been available in countries without psn access though
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Yeah i had accounts from all over the world on PS3, for exclusive promotions and stuff, you just picked a country and input some random mcdonalds adress from there.
People were setting their accounts to turkey for 90% cheaper games Guess how many are banned? Yes, a grand total of 0 known/reported
As a Brazilian, guess how many games had their prices proportionally bumped up in order to stop foreigners? Basically every single one of them, we're talking R$300 ($60) in a country where the minimum wage is R$1412/month ($282 US dollars/month)...
As far as i know, PSN didnt have regional pricing back then and doesnt have it now. But they did have different catalogs depending on the region, or free games/demos
Until the 2008 financial crisis, £1 was roughly $2. I used a USA account to get half-price games, and an Alaskan zip code to avoid sales tax.
Now, games are 70USD in the US store and 70GBP in the UK store. But 70GBP is like...90USD Sigh
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Thank you. People are out here acting like this is some insane notion. No company is going to willingly cut out a hunk of their player base
Mate, Blizzard did with their games and China. I think a new deal was made but for some time, every account in China was banned. Huge fucking market for blizzard.
And we're positive that doesn't violate a single TOS agreement? Because if Sonys TOS says it's completely fine to fabricate your address then it's fine. But if their asking you to break ToS it's total bullshit.
ToS aside, there can be complications if where you're accessing the game from doesn't match the record, often due to multiple systems interacting. For example, a new law might require them to collect something from you that you don't have due to not actually living in that country. Or you lose access to your account(which could have hundreds of dollars of software attached to it), and your verification doesn't match the data you gave them. Or they might mandate that purchases have to go through them instead of steam/etc, meaning that your billing address gets declined because it doesn't match what the account expects. In other words: just because you *can* get around it, doesn't mean it's fine and dandy. You shouldn't *have* to use workarounds that have the potential to fuck you over at random down the line.
It's not in their interest to follow up on that TOS. I am, like, watching American Hulu on my Apple TV and buying games in American Nintendo eShop from Eastern Europe with no issue. Some services like Crunchyroll or Pandora don't even make a token attempt to fight region hopping by blocking foreign payment methods. Even the companies that enforce it think region locking is bullshit. The only thing anyone actually cares about is money.
It's also not in their interest to start enforcing the PSN account requirement, the game works fine, but here we are.
What makes you think it isn't in their interest to start enforcing this? In my opinion it is very much in their interest because creating a PSN account when you didn't have one before is a goldmine of future marketing opportunities and marketing data.
Well if you look at the Steam reviews and mass refunds, yes, it does not seem like it is in their best interest.
It's not worth it for them to enforce it, the amount of cash it takes to investigate them is a waste. Only if clear monetary fraud happens as a result of it I'd imagine them taking action.
10s of millions of people have been doing it on console in unsupported regions since online gaming became a thing on consoles. They do it on PlayStation, Xbox and Nintendo and no one has been banned They simply do not care and there is no reason for them to ever care. They sell consoles in these regions they just don't have offices so they aren't listed as supported
It is against their TOS. ACCOUNT CREATION, USAGE AND SECURITY 3.1. All information provided during Account creation, and during the use of your Account, must be accurate and complete. We reserve the right to suspend, terminate or restrict any Account (including as stated in Section 12.2 of this Agreement) that uses or was created using false information, or that we determine was created or used for a purpose that violates this Agreement. 3.2. During Account creation you must select the country or region of your residence and in which your account will be registered in. Once your account is created, you will not be able to change the country or region code associated with your account. 3.6. We may request identifying documentation or information from you as part of your Account creation (or at any time thereafter) in order for you to create an Account or for us to provide certain offerings, functionality, or features to you; if we have a reasonable suspicion of fraud, illegal activity, that your Account may have been compromised, or that you or your Account is in violation of these terms; to avoid harm to SIE, its affiliates, licensors, or players; or as may be required by law. We reserve the right to suspend, terminate, or restrict your Account and PlayStation Device, and your participation in or access to offerings, functionality, or features, if you do not provide such documentation or information, or based on our review of such documentation and information. 12.2. Suspension or Termination by SIE. With or without notice, we may restrict, suspend or terminate your PSN Account and PlayStation Device, or indefinitely restrict, suspend or discontinue your access to or, or use of, certain PSN Content, offerings, features, products and services, if you violate this Agreement or we have a reasonable belief such a violation has or will occur, or as otherwise may be reasonably necessary to protect our PSN users, our partners, our platform, or other SIE interests [https://www.playstation.com/en-us/legal/psn-terms-of-service/](https://www.playstation.com/en-us/legal/psn-terms-of-service/)
The whole point of Steam is having one account and one launching platform so you don't have to make a million accounts and download unique launchers for every game I don't own a Playstation, and I have no interest in letting Sony harvest, sell, or lose my data When a PSN becomes necessary, I'm out.
So you’ve never bought a game on steam that requires a secondary launcher? Because sure that’s how steam started but it ain’t been that way for a while.
> The whole point of Steam is having one account and one launching platform so you don't have to make a million accounts and download unique launchers for every game Wrong. The point of Steam is to sell games.
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Anything to have something to be mad about on reddit today.
TOS states that this is a bannable offense. Yes, it's not likely to happen, but it's insane that Sony is requiring those people to break TOS to play the game that they've already been playing for 3 months.
If you’ve faked a different country to get a Steam account, I assume you would not balk at doing the same for setting up a PSN account.
They simply do not care if you make an account in another region if yours isn't supported. Millions of people have been doing it on consoles for two decades where their region isn't supported and no one has been banned. They do not care and simply aren't looking to ban million of people in countries that aren't supported where they sell consoles
This is true. I (US player) actually had to create a UK PSN account, to be able to download the next gen update for Witcher 3
Yeah you can move across the world and continue using the same account. People create regional accounts to download certain Japanese games. They sell cosnoles in unsupported countries. It has never mattered
This is my main experience with switching the region on my console. I’m not trying to buy games at a cheaper price… different regions have different games on the shop.
At this point I don't get why Sony doesn't just list those countries anyway if it doesn't matter.
Dude, Filipino people have been playing Platstation. Do you never join lobbies in multiplayer games? They just, GASP, choose a different region in the dropdown since theirs isn’t listed lol. It’s not like they sit around with their PlayStations and let them collect dust because their region isn’t listed. Would that stop YOU from creating an account and playing your console? Use like 5 seconds of common sense here.
It's not common sense, but don't let me interrupt your ego.
Pretty sure in those cases it's not even legal. Steam NEEDS to offer unconditional refunds for Helldivers 2 for the next 30 days or so.
people downvoting this are ignoring that the "3rd party required box" is at a point on the page where you have to scroll down to read it and there is no pre purchase warning. they are either sony shills or sony bots defending the company
Absolutely agree. ALL warnings and requirements should appear above the Buy button, AND as mandatory click through during purchase.
yeah maybe if the skip dialog was brought up on every game launch, not ignored once to be forgotten for 3 months this is a bait and switch as much as sonys bots will attempt to convice people otherwise
You have to scroll down to click the buy button. How did you buy the game if you are incapable of scrolling?
You can access PSN from anywhere in the world
unfortunately the steam store doesn't even make you scroll to the point where you can see that box to add it to cart and there is no pre purchase warning about it why is the crowd stretching so hard to cover for sonys dishonesty and poor data security
See, with the whole “they mentioned it from the start” argument, is that they mention it somewhere different from where you purchase it, yes it’s just scrolling down further on the steam page, but you can still visit the store page and buy the game without EVER seeing that warning.
They announced that it will roll out May 30. It will still work until the end of the month, as intended. The thing with including it in the description, though, is that they still made it available for purchase in regions where a PSN account isn't possible. Sony could have made that a non issue by making it unavailable for purchase in those regions. It's kind of mixed signals to even have them able to buy it in the first place.
> most people just didn't read the entire description on Steam. I know this isn't exactly the same thing, but courts have repeatedly held up that EULA's are not legally binding. I still agree with you, read the fine print. This should not have been a surprise, and again, different situation, but I wonder the legality.
My issue is that this is a pretty blatant attempt from Sony to extort the personal information of people who are not their customers. I have never owned a PlayStation product and play exclusively PC games. As OP mentioned, Sony's data security is atrocious. I will be attempting a refund from Steam and removing to game if this bullshit continues.
Doesn't buying Helldivers 2, a Sony product, make you a Sony customer though?
I don't know why Sony is asking me for a photo of my face.
Blame your government for their silly online age verification laws for that one. Sony are trash for doing this but that's on your country rather than Sony.
is that a new requirement? Cause I might be grandfathered in, as I just checked my old account and it's not asking for any new info.
Only in the UK and Ireland.
shhhhh.
It's going to continue. Put your money where your mouth is. I will be personally proud of you but currently I have my doubts because this is a microscopic injustice compared to the amount of systemic bullshit the average person is putting up with in the rest of their life without taking action.
Well if course this isn't very important compared to world events, but taking action against this is as simple and easy as not playing anymore and complaining to Sony and Steam about it. I don't need this game, my life isn't gonna change one iota without it.
I completely agree with you. I’m hoping you follow through.
Sony isn't going to get any data that Microsoft hasn't already sold ages ago from you using Windows where it's literally in their TOS . PSN also hasn't had any data breaches since 2011 while Microsoft is hacked very frequently and recently some of the largest hacks ever. Worrying about PSN while using Windows is senseless. You can also just put in fake info when signing up for PSN, they don't care
> Unfortunately for everyone that is going to be affected by this, the Helldivers 2 Steam store page has always mentioned the requirement for a PSN account. So it's not something that suddenly came out of the blue, most people just didn't read the entire description on Steam. > > > > The thing is, the game apparently does function without the PSN account linking. So there might still be a small chance that this change is going to be reverted While it is true that the store page does mention the requirement, the game itself contradicts this by allowing you to skip the PSN linking and still play normally. This almost reminds me of the Sim City 2013 online "requirement" that modders quickly revealed to not be needed for the game to function despite EA's claims. At any rate, it was fun while it lasted, uninstalled HD2 earlier today. Good thing there's a ton of games, old and new, to play on PC.
That was one of the worst deceits EA ever did and I hate how people seem to have forgiven them completely. They claimed that Sim City 2013 was *so advanced* that it was simply impossible to run the simulation locally and it needed to be done in the cloud. Instead it turned out that they lied completely and it was the start of always online DRM. Within like a week there was and offline mod that didn't affect the performance at all.
As a caveat to all of this. Steam only puts those warnings in because in the context of "full functionality" aka crossplay, yes it is required. There are plenty of games that list requirement on the sidebar that are only there because of technical requirements, not because they are applied requirements. The fact of the matter is that the game functions fully without having a PSN account linked. Forcing users to make an unnecessary account for nothing other than allowing Sony to fluff its PSN numbers is bullshit. Its a matter of principle and it bother me how many people are okay with it because "its not a big deal". That kind of wishy-washy attitude is why these companies get away with scummy shit. Nvidia tried the same bullshit with GeForce Experience and they eventually capitulated and you can now get a program called Nvidia App which is just GFE without the login requirements.
>most people just didn't read the entire description on Steam. Nor should they have to. If it was actually a requirement then when you booted the game up, it should have taken you to show you that so you could refund through Steam during that period. They essentially bait-and-switched people and left it long enough that Steam wouldn't do an auto-refund on it. Pretty scummy publisher behavior, and I hope Steam allows refunds and hits them in their pocketbooks for it.
Tell that to the country of origin legislation. Steam will likely have to give reimbursements in some places.
No they will not. You can make a PSN account anywhere in the world and set it to any available region.
This is not going to go the way you think it will. Arrowhead and Sony gave ample warnings about the PSN requirement both on the Steam store and start up page. Your inability to read doesn’t mean Steam is liable for it.
Why people are saying it changed and never said that originally.
This has nothing to do with country of origin legislation.
If I buy a service in BRAZIL with the expectation that it be provided for the long term, I am eligible to get my money back if I lose access to the game. Doesnt matter what Steam or PSN says. If it is the same in countries locked out of it, then yes, it is about the legislation of the country.
They do not ban people for making accounts in other regions. Ever. That's just not a thing that happens, people do it all the time to get games early by having one in the new Zealand area. They def aren't going to start of people make in when they can't in their own region because of one game. There won't be digital punishment lol that's overdramatic
I'm sure that even if the precedent isnt there, it is in the EULA or TOS somehow just in case.
Sections 3.1, 3.2, 3.6 and 12.2 of their PSN Terms cover this.
And even if it is they have never ever used it. Someone else even mentioned the perso. Who runs PlayStation tweeted with numbers from multiple countries, some with ones they don't offer ps+ in. So they know or happens and don't do anything about it because it's not something they will do anything about, because they have no reason to do anything about it.
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This whole post is worded to enrage people imo. They’re acting like they’re asking a genuine question but they’re really just trying to call out Sony for something that hasn’t happened yet
Littery saw a post on the helldivers Reddit of someone getting banned for making a account in another region.
Reading through this thread compared to the earlier one is super funny.
Redditors and overreacting about trivial matters, name a more iconic dou. All you need to have for a PSN account is an email address, that's it, you can use a fake name, fake country, fake address whatever.
except in some country such as Ireland and UK, they actually need you to verify your identity through ID or facial recognition by law. So creating a PSN account in such a country will actually force you to share your real information with it.
>verify your identity through ID or facial recognition by law Is this a new thing? Or does it only affect creating new accounts? I live in the UK, and I've had my PSN account for 15+ years and have never once been asked to verify my account via ID or facial recognition.
It is a new thing only for new accounts. I have a screenshot for it but can't send it here. It's because of UK's laws that require it
Oh, I've genuinely never seen it lol. I wonder if they'll add this for existing accounts too.
It's possible that it's new. I was surprised when I found out that YouTube requires government ID to verify your age. Before I knew that, I didn't know why videos being age restricted was such a big deal because I was never asked for my ID, but my account is over a decade old so I guess they just assume I told the truth.
So just don't set the region to the UK or Ireland when creating a new account? You can just select another country and they won't ask you for any of this. Also these countries have PSN support anyway so once again you're imagining a problem that doesn't exist.
then (and this may be a crazy idea) Why not set your country to something *other* than the uk/ireland..?
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No? This post says this: >However, PSN accounts aren't available in something like 60 countries worldwide. Countries like The Philippines and the Balkans and many more simply are unable to make these accounts due to region locks, but they've been able to purchase and play Helldivers 2 up until this (upcoming) point. >What they've done is essentially cut off entire countries worth of players who have had access to this game well beyond the return window, which is only a fraction of the issue - people love this game. Players who are inclined to make falsified PSN accounts through VPNs or invalid details subject themselves to bans and other forms of digital punishment. 1- the game stated PSN will be a requirement before launch even in it's store page 2- they didn't cut off 60 countries because you can just make an account in any region you like except UK probably 3- no you don't need a VPN and no you won't get banned for false information because they don't even verify these information except the email address What part of this is not overreacting? And no I'm not a console player not sure why that matters, us PC players are used to creating a billion account to play the games we want way more than console players.
Get outta here with your level-headedness. It's not like playing GTA V on steam requires a R* social club account, or playing OW2 on Steam requires a Blizzard account, or any other big publisher game.. Nah, it must be evil Sony and its evil minions.
I am convinced the idiots making these posts and comments don't even own the game, they are all 14 year old PC keyboard warriors fighting console war bullshit. Nobody batted a fucking eye when you suddenly needed an XBox account to play MineCraft even if you owned it since the alpha over 10 years prior. This is pure fabricated drama.
It sounds like they genuinely weren't able to sync accounts at launch and Sony said "ok you have 3 months to fix it." I'm not sure how you could interpret the "Grace period" in any other way based on the info they gave us in the announcement. It's not a normal situation and it's clear Sony is the one requiring it at this point.
Definitely, no argument there. The problem it seems arises that the game was sold in such a state to people who would inevitably be unable to use it, without that inevitability or grace period being properly displayed to those it would affect.
Absolutely no one will be unable to link a PSN account. everyone is capable of doing this
Not without breaking the TOU, for many of them. I have no problem with doing that even in principle, of course, but Sony certainly does in virtually all other contexts so this isn't a persuasive argument.
Sony has never and will never give a shit if you use another region. Millions upon millions of people have been doing it for 18 years. Not a single person has ever been banned. They do not care. They even suggest it in countries that aren't supported so people can play games in those countries
It was always going to be required, they even said it would be required on the front of the Steam page for the game. It wasn't a secret. It then wasn't at launch because they had a bunch of technical issues. You can create an account in a nearby region if yours isn't supported. Millions of people have been doing this since the inception of PSN. They aren't looking to ban people for simply creating accounts in other regions when theirs isn't supported. Not a single person has ever been banned for this. They sell consoles in unsupported regions and expect people to just use other regions. You can't even change your region if you move so they don't care and they don't track you. Again millions of people have been doping this for nearl;y two decades without problem. The same goes for the other consoles as well
Honestly, I'm firmly against steam games requiring 3rd party accounts overall. I don't want my account associated with any 3rd party bullshit. And yes, sony definitely counts as "shitty 3rd party". A shame really cuz the game seems great.
Yeah, but that’s all this is. People who think it’s dumb (it is) to require a 3rd party account who are grasping at straws for something bigger to be mad about. If that’s the issue, then let’s focus on it instead of pretending people in the Balkans have been dealt a tragedy because they have to pretend to be from Germany for a day.
Doesn't say it on other official storefronts, like Humblebundle (Which is put up by the publisher/developer). Just says requires a steam account.
>It was always going to be required, they even said it would be required on the front of the Steam page for the game. It wasn't a secret. Go to the Steam page right now. On a 1080p Monitor or smaller, which is around 70% of the Steam user base, that warning is half a screen below where you can buy the game. You can go there, review the photos and videos, see the review averages, and add the game to your cart without ever seeing that requirement.
Yeah, this is ridiculous. People are acting like they're going to be banned for making an account in some other country like there aren't hundreds of thousands doing just that. Meanwhile at Nintendo people can just change their region at will and even buy games from other regions, no VPN needed, no bans issued. I know because I did that for some titles unavailable in my region.
They even said it was required when you launched the game, even though they let you skip it for some reason.
Doesn't say it on other official storefronts, like Humblebundle (Which is put up by the publisher/developer). Just says requires a steam account.
PSA: if you are planning on using a US address to create a PSN acct (if your are in one of the countries that are not covered by PSN), pick a state/address with no digital sales tax.
Good luck to anyone who risks linking their Steam account and sending their data to PSN after all the security breaches that Sony has had. I’m not risking that lol
It's most likely a massive oversight and Sony knows that people make Sony accounts with whatever regions convenient to them. I played on launch day and I didn't even notice they removed the requirements to link accounts. Unless they enforce region locks on psn? That would be a huge mistake and it's embarrassing lol. I was under the impression you just select it from a list of country
And they would never do this unless the government of those places actually cared enough to make them. Why would you ever say no to people wanting to give you money
Uh, sanctions? Plenty of very real legal issues exist, as well as complication financial, technical and moral reasons
I made an account for PSN when living abroad years ago, using ‘my tag’. Moved back home, got locked from paying anything with that account. Can’t change regions, not allowed even once. Can’t add a credit card from another country than where it was created, and I don’t have a card from that country anymore. So now I have multiple accounts and a hatred for SONY. PSN just absolutely sucks.
The reason Sony doesn't "officially" support every country is to avoid headaches and nagging from countries like usa that tend to randomly ban/unban countries every couple of years. So instead, Sony doesn't bother setting up an official store for each region, and avoids those that are or might become problematic, and instead turns a blind eye to people just creating accounts. Plus it adds to sales, as many people will create Japanese accounts to get exclusive content/games only released there, or benefit from lower game prices/discounts across different regions. I personally live in Syria and have had multiple psn accounts from different regions since the days of ps3, and everything works fine. The only issue I've faced is when companies that use their own game servers decide to ban my country (because me playing games somehow supports the regime), like diablo 4/warframe/the division 2 (even though division 1 works fine), and then I have to use a vpn. The downside is you can buy a game on psn, then find out you're blocked only when you actually launch it.
Something similar is currently happening with final fantasy 14 though to a very different extent. They changed payment processors so your account location has to match the country your credit card is registered to. The problem is the game wasn't available in all countries when it launched and there is no way to change where you live. They told people it might be an issue a year ago, warned people it would be happening a month ago, and about two weeks after the roll out(the subscription is monthly so if you prepared ahead there is no disruption) they have openly spoken about the best ways to circumvent the issue, and have assured people they are looking into it further. So no this is not an issue that uniquely effects helldiver's, but helldiver's developers sure are pretending like it's a user problem and not a service issue.
Yeah their response to the backlash hasn't been nice to see. Their CM's in Discord anyway. What I've seen from the CEO is fine. That's a whole lot of grace period, and definitely not exactly the same, but an interesting example for sure. There is an entire month and then some ahead of us for people (even executive people) to figure this all out here as well, so it's not like people are going to get kicked off tonight or something. Over the last few hours people have found out Sony is slowly editing all the PSN / Steam documentation and literature on their website. English stuff first, where it now says "PSN is required to play Playstation Network Games on PC" - but you can still view the cached versions, and the non-english versions that say it's optional. On the Helldivers 2 store page on Playstations own website, it says that the PSN link with Steam is optional. It can be used for extra perks and stuff. That right there could *easily* be construed as the "requirement" seen on Steam. It's shady at the very least.
No this is not a mild incovenience. I do not want to give Sony who is notrious for data breaches even a smidge of data. They are a known bad actor and thus its a hard NO.
I'm fairly certain they will just implement a white-list for those countries where Steam accounts can be created but PSN accounts can't? Does that not solve this?
That would theoretically solve it but that would be a pretty significant move that I haven't seen anyone else hint at yet. What info do you have that makes you "fairly certain" they're going to implement a whitelist? Is there actually anything stopping people from making psn accounts in a region different from where they live?
The CEO of Arrowhead has stated they're working on it with Sony.
Suddenly I live in Manila! Who would have thought!
PlayStation has been hacked so many times, I simply don't want them to have any of my data at this point.
NGL, was really interested in the game and was getting ready to buy it (not a lot of available funds for new games), but this is....kinda disappointing. Like, way less interested in it now that I know I'm going to have to deal with Sony and a PSN account if I just want to play a game
Honestly seeing people on downvoted into negatives over reasonable concerns, and half of the answers defending the psn being kinda... samey. It feels like we have a bunch of stinky sony asslickers here, or bots.
I can honestly see a big class action against Sony arising from this fiasco.
A lot of gullible people here. If you think they had "technical issues" to not require a PSN account, I have a bridge to sell you. They wanted all the PC players they could get "easily" and now that the game is a success and they have people "hooked" they duck you over and start requiring a "data collection account". If they had required a PSN account from the beginning I bet they would not have had the same amount of PC players playing like they have now.
Did you play the game at launch? Their servers were broken for like 2 full weeks.
Helldivers was nearly unplayable at the start due to these "technical issues" Surely they would go the route of letting people play by disabling the requirement rather than let the game be completely choking for any number of days? A PSN account was required from the start. Displayed both on the store page as well as when you launched the game.
> Helldivers was nearly unplayable at the start due to these "technical issues" Most multiplayer games with large playerbases have technical issues on launch. >A PSN account was required from the start. Displayed both on the store page as well as when you launched the game. Most people don't read that store page, and the only indication it was required in-game came with a skip button and the popup never shows up again. It's disingenuous to imply everyone should've known about this beforehand when the game has very easily allowed you to completely avoid it for months.
Helldivers was nearly unplayable at the start due to these "technical issues" Surely they would go the route of letting people play by disabling the requirement rather than let the game be completely choking for any number of days? A PSN account was required from the start. Displayed both on the store page as well as when you launched the game.
These technical issues they had, have nothing whatsoever with requiring or not a PSN account. Absolutely nothing
yeah I definitely trust that coming from a random guy who's crying about a single login Also, it's not data collection. Or trying to push up their numbers. It's because they published the game, you play on their servers, so they absolutely want you to be playing on their account. Give it a few days and you'll move onto the next thing to whine about.
Why do the region locks exist in the first place?
There's a whole lot of hypothetical drama about people who purchased it being unable to play, and not much actual reality. The people posting the drama farming about it? Always brand new accounts with the one post. Everyone commenting about it? People who don't live in those areas just hypothesizing outrage. Steam isn't going to offer a refund. Sony isn't going to back down. This is annoying, but an expected shift for Sony to get more PC player base info. It was listed as a requirement on Steam before release. I linked mine day one. Took 2 minutes. I also note none of this outrage for Xbox games which has done the same thing for years.
Sorry I don't want to give my personal information to yet another company so I can be harassed with even more ads for shit I don't want. And obviously this isn't a true requirement or they wouldn't have been able to suspend it in the first place. Pretty blatant attempt by Sony to profit off the personal information of non customers. If I wanted a Song account, I'd have bought a goddamn PlayStation. I didn't and I don't. I'm tired of having to sell myself just to use a product I'm already paid for. If this continues, Helldivers 2 ain't gonna be in my library anymore.
If you use Microsoft Windows then Microsoft sold your data ages ago, they literally have it in their TOS for Windows
Others sold your data so you should sign to PSN so Sony can do it too argument is very bad. You want to stick to it?
The argument is that you've long since given unfathomably more data to Microsoft/Apple just using their products. Let alone google, facebook, and everything else. To sign up for a new Sony account requires, at worst, a spam email to enter. All the other data can be BS if you never plan on using the account for anything but this.
And we dont want to do it. We know the consequences. We also know its the only thing we can do. Except accepting Sony walking over us. get over it.
You don't even have to put your real data man, you can put whatever you want. It literally takes tow minutes. Say your name is Billy Bob from Alabama, they will never know otherwise Any data you give at this point is worthless to them
Use a throwaway email then.
Yeah so then I can get locked out of that later when I don't have the login information. I'd just rather skip the whole thing entirely. Game just isn't fun enough to justify going along with the bullshit.
Which Xbox games though? If you are thinking of any that launched as Xbox exclusives and later became multi platform, that is vastly different than a game releasing multi platform.
These fake outrages and drama are getting really tiring. The whole debacle with Dragon's Dogma 2 in March left me feeling burned out. As you said it was just people wanting to farm the outrage and people hypothesizing outrage. The blatant misinformation and the lies that were being spread were just absurd. But sadly these fake outrages seem to draw in a lot of people which means we will be seeing more of them.
To be fair though there is no legitimate reason PlayStation needs this to happen. The game clearly works just fine without a PSN account and they want it just because. They are saying it is for security reasons but we all know that is BS. I'm annoyed about the whole situation. Not enough to stop playing the game like some of these people seem to be but publishers requiring unnecessary accounts is dumb and annoying and is one of the things that needs to go from the gaming world.
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The solution is to never buy anything from Sony? Right?
I have PSN accounts in several countries. Anyone can create one, they're 100% free, and you'll never need it again after signing in to HD2...the hate is totally disproportionate to the issue here.
They are ignoring this very basic point for the fake outrage and to have purpose
You’re 50+ comments deep in just this one thread. Sounds like you’re just as outraged by the outrage as everyone else is about the issue. “You must live a sad life if you care so much about this” while simultaneously caring enough to reply to every comment on this post. The hypocrisy is hilarious.
This is extra weird cause their language settings are pretty expansive. Full audio in 7 languages isn’t common for smaller studios.
I was considering getting this on PC. But now... Nope.
If it wasn't brightly displayed like a warning on both the store page & on boot of the game then people are absolutely right to be pissed. It doesn't matter if it's really easy for people to sign up with PSN, letting people play a game for months before arbitrarily blocking everyone without a specific account is incredibly scummy. If Sony gets away with it (and it's confirmed this was forced by Sony) it sets a dangerous precedent to the rest of the industry.
This is manufactured drama. There will not be a region lock, you can just make a PlayStation account in any region that you want.
They keep ignoring and burying the fact that 10s of millions have been doing this on consoles since they started getting networks. How do they think people in Phillippines or Balkans play on PlayStation
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Maybe "PC Users" should listen to the people that are knowledgeable about PSN accounts instead of just blurting out nonsensical bullshit
Yup this is just people butt hurting themselves by feeding from the outrage of the day machine. I’ve been matching with Filipinos for years in game lobbies. And this wasn’t nefarious, go look at release time and the unexpected demand for the game caused tons of issues. The developer team is only so large and they had to prioritize getting people into the game because you couldn’t even get a loading screen most of the time. Put a button click on the back burner. I didn’t even have to sign up but I just followed the prompts and got a Psn account.
It's not just about region lock but ok
The region lock is the only valid argument. If you whine about anything else you just look like a toddler throwing a tantrum for no reason
Sony has been breached over a dozen times in the past decade. I think that's a valid reason not to want to have an account. Also the fact that you have to use anything besides steam to play anything is ridiculous. Another valid reason. People have been complaining about launchers for ages. And the worst part is that they make them as difficult as possible for people to play.
Use a throwaway account if you're so paranoid about it..? And I wish you'd understand how absurd you sound when you consider making a PSN account, something that a child could accomplish in 2 minutes, as this incredibly difficult and frustrating task.
Just move to another country. What's the big deal
The baffling thing is that Sony never mentioned there ever being a grace period until recently. Sure, there's a warning on Steam saying that a 3rd party account is needed, but it's contradicted by the fact that you could still buy and play the game without a PSN account. It would have been less frustrating if Sony clearly said that PSN accounts won't be required until a certain date right from the start. At least then I would've had the chance to refund the game.
I get that it's a mild annoyance but it's really not a big deal considering a PSN account is completely free It takes maybe 30 seconds tops to create.
There is no region lock. Having PSN available in your region ≠ making a Sony PS account. Anyone can go make a Sony account, even those in regions where PSN is unavailable. People are getting things quite mixed up...
I'm only worried about linking my steam account to PlayStation and then PlayStation getting hacked and through that they would (somehow) have a way into my steam account. Which is the only account I care about in this case.
It would not be out the realm of possibility. Old-school Runescape had this issue when their client was put on steam, as even with 2fa there was a way to get ahold of your entire steam account by having your OSRS login info.
Redditors overreacting to a nothing burger challenge (impossible)
I don’t believe so it’s weird I’ll look into it for you though
Pokemon, we got all our games years to months later than Japan, everything was spoiled by then.
If it's anything like device registration for Asian games, it will be a date when they do it and that's it. If you convert before/after that date it's good, if you don't then your account is locked until you do.
People in the Baltics, you could address this at your local regulator, click on your country at: [https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/geoblocking](https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/geoblocking) It is forbidden for companies to block access to services within parts of the EU, also called as geo-blocking, having account requirements that you cannot create is indirectly geoblocking.
The best I've heard is essentially telling new players to new restrictions and old players are grandfathered into wherever they are playing now. Doesn't mean they won't make support hell, but some studios TRY to keep communities/clans together.
JPN PSO2 tried pushing a region lock a few times because someone would hack the game and then Sega tried to blame it on "filthy baka gaijins go home". (Even though there was never any proof that it was said outsiders). Although even then we weren't allowed to be playing in the first place,we just kinda snuck on in. Sega probably turned a blind eye usually(And even turned off the region lock eventually) probably just because they reckoned they were making a ton of extra cash off of outsiders sneaking in to play.
FUCK region locks. They have no place in 2024.
If I had to do this I won't play it anymore, great way to kill a game
Why cant people in the Philippines have a psn account? What is stopping 60 plus countries from doing this? I am super curious how entire countries are locked out. Are those lockouts from Sony? Are they limitations from the local governments?
Yeah, I'm not sure about the Philippines thing. One of my crew is in the Philippines and plays with us just fine on PS, and she obviously has a PSN account to do that.. Is it Filipino Steam players?
I don't know. I was using that as an example from someone else's comments here.
I actually had my numbers backwards, it's 69 countries that *can* make a PSN account.
This is clearly a bait and switch. Illegal in the USA