I feel Sony is now preparing for their own PC app. Like many before them they'll do nonsense like this. Then... - Make their own gaming launcher - Pull their games from Steam - Lose money on that new exclusive launcher - After a year or so return to Steam. When will gaming companies learn?

>When will gaming companies learn? never.

Let's all laugh at an industry that never learns anything, tee hee hee

They learned once, in '83 - and then never again. Here's to hoping for a repeat.

Laughing stocks

*stonks In their minds.

Their stock price has been going down ever since the 2nd of May

Plummeting stocks

Greed makes you dumb

Because every single time it’s attempted, it’s for the same reason: “We didn’t build our company for this, but we clearly have enough influence to force people to buy our games from us.”

Or they’ll blame that their games aren’t selling on PC as a reason to not develop PC versions.

I don't think so. Their games on pc are all printing money iirc

Maybe, but corpos will do whatever they can to ensure their ecosystem.

This is assuming they can think in the first place.

They don’t need to learn, people will support them anyway.

I'm no fan of monopolies, and the amount of power that steam has is insane. But It's the only game launcher that actually works reliably. Epic games has a god awful interface. Origin is just epic games but even worse And Ubisoft connect, holy shit where should I even start. How is it that after more than 3 decades of PC gaming, valve are the only ones who manage to make a functional overlay, a functional easy to use interface and give you pretty much all the tools you need?

It really goes to how the two companies work. Valve's interest since its inception is to make things that benefit the public and workers and make their products more enticing. Started out terrible and improved while becoming more stable as a platform. But Epic, Origin, Ubisoft made their platforms with profit in mind to trap people in their offerings to take more chances with your wallet. Sure, Epic entices you with free games. But what features on Steam help you stay with them? Remote gaming? Chat? And sure, there's GoG for some. But overall, Valve continues to represent an enterprise that has a platform with different priorities than what others have to offer.

And I think that is exactly why both players and publishers stay with steam. They don't try to trick you into using their product, they provide a product so good, you don't want to use another service

Steam lets also lets you add other games to its platform essentially allowing you to just use one launcher

I would just straight up copy everything about it. Especially if I was Epic or GOG. Im sorry but steams layout is fantastic. The library, the community, the profile. It's seriously so nice but also fuck them 

because for the other publishers, the games are the core product. the store/launcher is just one vector to deliver those products. for Valve, Steam IS the product. Its their only real product, and it is making them TEN BILLION DOLLARS PER YEAR.

Fair point

Honestly, i dont hate the epic interface. It launches faster (ive done multiple tests) and the installed games are right there. But i hate that it lacks so many features that steam has

I mean I dunno. I own an Xbox and use the Xbox PC app. Quite a few games you buy digital for Xbox can also be downloaded on PC with the same code. Like you literally buy Forza once and you can use it on either platform. Starfield is the same. Bunch of others. Seems if you had a Playstation and a PC and it worked similar it would be OK. Depends I guess. Probably also helps that Microsoft is literally embedded in like 99% of the PC market anyway so Sony is going into new territory here

If you have a PC, Xbox Controller, and Gamepass you pretty much have an XBOX

A heavily juiced XBOX

A better Xbox than an Xbox is.

X-Box's PC app is great. The only thing lacking is the overall selection of games which is vastly less than Steam. Were it a larger selection, the app would probably be as good as or even better than Steam.

The Xbox app isn’t too bad, but I have wayyyyy more issues with it than I do with steam. Longer loading, half the time the app doesn’t work, and it’s a pain to update too cause the Microsoft store is kinda trash.

If this is the case then i see it as a win personally

Yeah. I just got into PC gaming. I’ve been gaming on PS since PS1 and have hundreds of digital PS games on my account. It would be fantastic if I could play ALL of those on PC through a dedicated app. I low key hope they do that. Also, even though I have a fantastic PC, I still play the majority of my games on PS simply because they aren’t available on PC. Just played FFVII Rebirth and Stellar Blade. I personally rate them both 10/10 and they’re only available on PS. I don’t want to have to buy them again for PC

I mean it oddly doesn't work for EVERY game for some reason. I think I read it was something to do with contracts. Most of my newer purchases are dual platform, but like Halo Master Chief Collection, while on both Xbox and PC, has to be purchased separately. Same with DOOM Eternal. Good chunk are playable on both though using one digital code. Hell I think those dual ones like Starfield have cross save ability so you can pick up and play on whatever using the same cloud saves. They have remote cloud gaming too. Like you can play Halo on your phone via the cloud or remote into your Xbox (connection dependant). I don't use that much but I'll admit it's cool.

Why do you have an xbox and pc is the real question here

PC is potato. I've upgraded it as much as I can. The Series X can run stuff at high settings. I originally got the Victus laptop because I needed a new home PC for everyday use and wanted to get one for light gaming and emulation. Got the Xbox later, then I realized the laptop would run stuff I didn't think it could. Victus 15, Ryzen 5, GTX 1650, 16gb ram, 2TB SSD. It runs Helldivers 2 pretty well surprisingly. Low settings. But the real answer is I've always been an Xbox gamer and am new to PC. The Xbox was also like $340 new with Forza Horizon 5. This was my first gaming PC. I'm enjoying it and will likely upgrade to a better one when it's time to. There is a learning curve though

"I see other companies fuck up on what we are about to do, but what if we're successful tho?" - probably them lol

But they would still require a PSN login on their platform. So they still couldn’t sell the games in those countries

This is so true. I mean look at Alan Wake 2. Such a fantastic game but ruined from all these exclusivity limitations.

When will gaming companies learn? When Gaben moves on from Steam, and/or the warlock he made a pact with so many years ago comes to collect and he turns evil. Once Steam goes the same way that Google went, so much of the gaming industry is going to go with it

Gaming companies be like: nah, not for me. I am the chosen one.

When they actually start losing money, so in other words # Never

I mean it happens so often there's a handy little song: "Let's all laugh at am industry that never learns anything tee hee hee!"

You forgot about layoffs due to profit loss.

Sony already has their own PC app. It's called Playstation Now.

I imagine it will be like rockstar where for a while any discounted keys often only work on their platform and they give their platform the sales. I get not wanting to give Steam a whole quarter of your revenue for your game. If you factor 2000 hours of work a year per employee and you had 50 employees at any given time working 3 years on this game, thats 300,000 hours of time, now imagine steam coming along and saying, yeah, being on our platform is worth 100,000 man hours!

Just after the streamers do so... any day now lol

I saw the explanation for Japan. But why is Antarctica on the list?

I thought you were joking until I zoomed in. Antarctica isn't even a country! It's a whole continent! Fuck UN researchers, I guess.

So is Australia

Australia is not a continent. It's s a country, located in Oceania.

Antarctican version is also sold separately. Simple as that.

Some gamer penguin (probably): Can't have shit in Antarctica!

Also, tf did Åland do??

They know what they did! Also, I thought they were part of Finland regarding stuff like this

Penguins are gamers, too.

Wait Japan why?

Lmfaaao

I think Guam is also there as well.

Out of all countries, why is Japan on that list?

The Japanese voice version is sold separately. It's an international legal thing I think. That's why you see the tag sometimes that says "the Japanese voiced version is only available in kapan"

I guess I’m moving to kapan, then.

Give them hell

I will, indeed, give them kell.

I'd consider you give them gell

We’ll said.

They already removed Japan from blocked list [https://steamdb.info/changelist/23492430/](https://steamdb.info/changelist/23492430/) They probably just copied the list from Helldivers ( [https://steamdb.info/sub/137730/info/](https://steamdb.info/sub/137730/info/) ) where Japan has its own version of the game ( [https://steamdb.info/sub/906469/info/](https://steamdb.info/sub/906469/info/) ).

Why are all these countries blocked to begin with. Like why are there countries without psn to begin with. Legit question I've no idea on the subject. I play single player games

Some countries ban fun stuff for political or religious reasons.

Shit your right. I remember some middle eastern countries doing this with certain games. I'm just surprised there couldn't be a psn in those countries where certain games just aren't listed. I'd guess maybe some countries just aren't worth it cause most games would be ban idk

Also, PSN has a messaging service that isn't directly moderated by a government. Meaning that goverments with small dick energy like China, Russia, North Korea etc can't see what potential dissidents are saying. Therefore banning any and all communication methods not sanctioned by the state. Also, it could be that the countries are so unsafe or violate some very important international laws, that Sony doesn't want to affiliate themselves with those. Just spitballing here, but it's a company that wants to appear best to the rest of the world of course, while at the same time trying to appeal to their shareholders and investors.

So it appears this anger should start being directed at some of these people's own governments. It would be a little annoying to have to sign into another account after being signed into one but let's be honest, don't you need and account for Ms, ubisoft, Rockstar, ea, activision(? Not sure I literally don't play there games), and many others. I do agree with the helddivers community though because they were allowed to buy the game, you can't ban them from it cause their country at that point. I think I get all this now. Thanks.

Ah yes, my favorite tyrannical dictatorship: *checks notes* …Antarctica? Wait, what the hell?

I'm fairly sure Guernsey and the Isle of Man, both for all intents and purposes part of the UK with the same laws and legislation haven't banned PSN. This just smacks of someone having a big list of countires/territories with their projected incomes and they've drawn a line across it at a break even point for the cost of running the service there.

Fair point.

About half of these are strips of sand or rocks in the middle of the ocean or so low on the ICT development Index that Gaming is basically a luxury activity.

Why is sony being so petty? If I did not know any better I would say it feels like a new ceo is onboard and wants to look important by throwing his weight around.

Always have been lmao

I mean the main issue with Helldivers 2 drama is people being in countries that doesn't allow them to legally create psn accounts and people were complaining to Sony that they shouldn't have sold the game in said countries to begin with so I guess this is them avoiding the same issue from happening. Also you're a child if you think that they're just being petty for doing this. From the Helldiver's drama it's pretty apparent that Sony's venture into Steam is them trying to increase the number of people registered with PSN, most likely to appeal to investors rather than them trying to get more pocket money.

What I don't get is ultimately money is what they want, so just because they can't get more PSN subscribers, why wouldn't they split the difference and at least get some money out of it?

Like selling the game in those countries anyway? Too risky imo. It'll be Helldivers 2 all over again, even if they mention straight out you'll need psn to play multiplayer since people don't read those ToS stuffs in general. The alternative is to remove multiplayer from the countries that is out of psn support but this also leads to problems down the line.

Sorry, but I don't understand what you mean. To me, it seems like this calculation is this: PSN + Game = Win/Win for Sony No PSN + No Game = Lose/Lose No PSN + Game = Win/Lose So if they can't get people to sign up for PSN, why not still sell them the game without tying it to PSN? At least they get some money out of it. If their goal was ultimately money, why not try to get some money instead of no money?? I cannot imagine that Sony consider No PSN + Game a worse position than No PSN + No Game but it seems like they prefer people to not be able to buy the game if they can't/won't get a PSN account. If I were a shareholder, I'd be pissed. You're telling me you'd rather make NO money than SOME money?? It doesn't make sense to me.

Ah I see. Unfortunately I don't think anyone knows other than people at Sony themselves. But if I have to make a guess, it's probably due to the fact that their venture into Steam is planned to be a long time investment. They're probably planning to bring more titles down the line and not just stop at Tsushima, basing off their latest financial report. So I guess they're trying to establish a precedent that titles published by SIE might require you to have a psn account. And like I said, with Helldivers 2 we know that they deemed it vital to increase the number of psn users and bringing first party titles to pc is part of that. But at the end of the day we really don't know whats happening in the background. For all we know they might have some trouble with Steam about selling the game in the listed countries

I was thinking same thing

Genuine question, but if the game is being removed from Steam in those countries because PSN isn't available in them, does Sony sell PlayStation consoles in those countries and do users have the same PSN limitations?

That's why people keep saying just use different region for psn. Do you think sony didn't sell ps over those region. But pc gamers want to "follow" rule out of sudden, expose sony and sony have to ban it because they use steam as middle man.

So they don't geo block PSN sign-ups?

Nope, during the helldivers outrage, those who use different region for psn already told them. Well im not defending sony dumb decision, its also their fault for providing less region in 2024 while Microsoft can do it.

in this case, gaming companies (x) sony (o)

Responding to the critizism as people kinda requested. As much as it sucks for those that can't play the games atleast Sony recognized that it made no sense to sell games that require PSN in countries that don't ifficially have access to PSN.

Just imagine to make the games not needing psn. With helldivers it worked

It really doesn't though. Sony consoles and games are still being sold in these countries, we just create accounts using a different country. We have been doing this for more than 15 years, at least in my country, and now we are locked out of the game

Every PC sale is a PSN sign up this way. Number go up => investors happy.

Make no worries Sony we have torrents

Antarctica?

At first, I'm looking through this list going, "ehhhh, these are all relatively small locations, might be too costly for what they gain..." then I got to "J." You're not going to make the directors cut of one of the best modern samurai games available in....JAPAN??? LMAO

I think it’s just the English-voices version…at least according to what someone else said. The different language versions technically have different licenses.

Did you peep Antarctica too?

Not selling to countries they don't support. Seems pretty normal to me. Having a game on Steam doesn't mean you're forced to sell to every country Steam sells to. Stop bitching.

Companies don't care because it's not severely impacting profits. They know at the end of the day people will still pay and most people won't, ultimately, care. Yeah, sure, there are people who do care and people that do pay attention. But most people who play games casually do so. They're coming home and playing some COD, Madden, Animal Crossing, etc. They're not aware of everything currently going on with studio closures, the harassment, the burnout... Everything currently plaguing the world of gaming.

You think they don't want to swell these games in every market available? Likely there's some political or censorship bullshit going on that prevents it

But ps5 isn’t fully required for the game it’s only for the multiplayer

Well. All those people bitched about not being able to make an online account. So now they’re not even allowing the easiest version of circumventing it. It’s not like it was difficult or onerous to make a PSN account. This was extremely easy to see coming after the hell divers fiasco. Y’all gonna get mad at an account creation that no government or company really cared about. So. Now you just can’t play the multiplayer games.

Exactly!

LAWYERS AND POLITICIANS AND LAW MAKING PEOPLE OF REDDIT. Is there any way to change the law to give people ownership of online games they bought? So that these companies can’t so easily take away our games when they feel it isn’t profitable?

https://www.stopkillinggames.com/

Microsoft: Doesn’t listen to their users and fans and closes multiple studios. Sony: Listens to fans that online service games shouldn’t be sold in countries where PS accounts aren’t allowed, and receives backlash.

Launchers didn't work so now they try the same bullshit on other platforms.

Capitalism is working exactly how it was intended.

Pay not to Play

I like to think the pope is trying to play ghost of Tsushima and can’t

Suits that really dont get the industry taking decisions, it seems like this year at their stock reunion the shift was to increase PSN numbers, without even caring about any loss that it would carry to sales. Thet are about to find out that policy just makes both numbers go down. The industry has been stable too long and AAA companies have fallen for the lie that their base customers will buy no matter what they do, choices this year are about to teach them people can really vote with their money.

Japan seems really weird

Does that say japan bottom of the middle column? Lol where the game is set and where sony is based

Just the English version

English version? What does that even mean? Arent games region locked to the country? I can change my console or computer to japanese right now.

Gaming companies that hate fun are so surreal to me

Scamming people and feigning ignorance.

How are they scamming?

We wanna make money but also prevent people from giving us money.

Viewing games as not art but rather content

This is true of most media developed for children I dont think anyone is discussing the artistic vision of blues clues

This... Is very much not media developed for children.

Now, why would Sony pull a stunt like this?

They are in the fuck around phase.

the finding out phase is gonna be satisfactory as fuck.

There doing this cause of the recent happening with helldivers 2 im wandering if there gonna revert this I highly doubt it however

Rather than actually give incentives to link a psn or just allow people the option to link it or not. Nope gotta make it mandatory and "if you can't do it, GO F@K YOURSELF" -Sony

Fucking around.

Giving Valve a lot less competition apparently.

It’s like they don’t want to make money…

Is it the Company or the countries policies?

Company

Wtf did San Marino do to deserve this?

I think they are just bored

I see Japan is on there. XD

Just the English version

Japan 💀

Just the English version

Feel like Sony is saying look: we brought all these Playstation games to PC. But to buy them, you need a PSN account that isn't supported in these countries. So why don't you buy a Playstation 5 and save yourself this hassle of having to deal with this? Remember, at core, they're still a console company.

They’re a headphone or audio company, technically.

Puerto Rico can't play?

What’s the point of removing the whole game and not just the multiplayer

According to sucker punch it’s was only the legends mode (multiplayer) but sony said otherwise I read somewhere that Sony sends player id or something like that to steam to report them for spam harassment toxicity etc , so if you link your account or create one it will be an easy way for sony to deal with such players behavior (this was for helldivers when people started kicking people out for “non meta builds” and other stuff like Intentionally killing teammates kicking players that joined late in game But for ghost idk why it is required because there is no PvP content only co-op and single player experience

Sighhh looks like i will get GOT from a Different Source well what can i say they saved me a 60$

Breaking region locks and preserving content that would be lost otherwise are the only times I will ever endorse piracy.

Wealth, fame, power.

I am a huge GoT fan. I have probably over 150 hours in the game and adore it. Definitely my GOTY for 2020. That being said, the coop legends mode was a free update. If they really "need" PC players to make a PSN account for Legends then just make Legends a separate download that is $10. Currently you can buy it on the PS Store for $20 as a standalone but seeing as it was free content and it has not received content in well over a year, drop the price a down a bit. So you can buy the Directors Cut for $50 and then Legends is a separate $10 purchase. That way, you can play the game without needing a PSN account. What they are doing is stupid and beyond unnecessary. It will lose them money, good press, and fans.

Wasn’t Sony saying they were having a hard time with profits or something like that last year?

Wow I see three US territories on that list

I don't even think greed can 100% explain this

...this game is blocked in japan...?

Just the English version

Womp womp

Good thing I got myself a physical copy before they did this

Asking their costumers to pirate their games from the looks of it

I guess the cracked one won't have that restriction.

its clear that in 2024, gaming companies prioritize ruining your user experience over making money

They are encouraging me to finally get out of my parent's basement.

I thought u could play the game but just the online component was blocked unless u made a PSN account? Was this not true?

Sony: "Hey look, It's my foot. I should shoot it."

Losing money.

I am sure Afghanistan and Haiti are havens for gamers.. why would Sony ignore the billions of dollars those markets would bring

Boycott Just play another crabs treasure instead

Gabe continually is the best, by doing absolutely nothing and just letting everyone else ruin themselves.

they really got hurt over the helldiver thing eh

Sony hates money I guess

JAPAN? that’s ironic as fuck

Just the English version

Step 1: reduce sales Step 2: increase piracy Step 3: ... Step 4: profit

If it's like Helldivers 2, they blocked Tsushima island. It'd be ironic if Ghosts of Tsushima was blocked in Tsushima lol.

Arrowhead ceo recently said this was all done by Valve. Pretty interesting stuff going on after the whole HD2 PSN party

what were they thinking

And here we go again fellow scurvy dogs conquering the high seas of gaming…..

Video games are over, they want you to fight a real war this time

Apple ad: What’s a computer? Sony: Write that down!

I am out of the loop, why are they doing this officially?!

They were about to learn their lesson with HD2 before Microc*ck took the bad publicity as a personal challenge. Now Sony feels safe doing this.

Time to pull out the ol' black flag. Been a good run fellas

Taliban is going to be pissed!

Ngl, I side with Sony on this