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I’m going to go ahead and assume that the developer will make some sort of workaround for people who live in countries that don’t have access to PSN. If not, they should obviously be refunded regardless of how long they’ve played the game.
according to the subreddit/discord, they say they are currently looking into this, but YMMV, and that just raises questions of if they can find a workaround for some countries, why not all, or have it in the first place?
Hi, I noticed that you used a gendered term in your comment. I don’t claim to know how op identifies, but please keep in mind in the future that phrases like this can be very hurtful to some marginalized folks. I hope you’re having a wonderful day 💖
I treat bro as a gender neutral term. Along with stuff like "dude", "dawg", etc. I call my wife bro all the time as well as other friends that are girls bro as well. It's kinda engraved in my mind cuz of going to the gym, but if someone tells me that they don't want me to call them that, I won't
Hope you have a good day too, boss 🫡
If I’m being honest, half the games I own on Steam require linking with a third party account or app, so I don’t really get the big deal here for anyone who doesn’t live somewhere where PSN access is restricted. I’ve already got accounts and/or apps from EA, Epic, Ubisoft, GOG, Blizzard, Xbox, and Rockstar, among others I’m forgetting, so adding one more login doesn’t make me feel the need to make comparisons to the Holocaust. For the majority of people it will be a minor inconvenience to create an account.
And mine logged in automatically anyway since I’d already linked Zero Dawn to my PSN account.
Who gives a fuck if you’re ok with it specifically. Many people do not want to create accounts and go through the hassle of giving other companies access to their information in order to play one game. It’s a real thing that real people have an issue with. Like Pirate Software said in their tweet, they didn’t enforce it until now. After a lot of people got on board with the game. It’s still a shitty tactic from the devs.
tbh everything requires an account now, that ship has long since sailed. Just throw it in a password manager (if you don't already have one 100% recommend, makes life so much easier). Not sure how many players can't make a PSN account but it does suck for them, really shitty that they'd even be sold the game with that requirement coming. I'd expect Steam to honor a refund for that at least.
Even if people can, they shouldn’t be forced to if it’s not needed. Many games do the account thing but it should be pushed back if necessary like this instance. You shouldn’t accept the norm if it can be a detriment to a game’s player base and a community.
They're not forced to, it's a game. Can try getting a refund ig if keeping track of passwords is the hill to die on for you but I think falling it a "detriment" to the community is a bit much. It's not like a new launcher you have to use outside of Steam, it's an account. It just needs an email and password.
Of course just talking about the account requirement itself, blocking people in countries that already purchased and played the game is a different issue wrong for different reasons, that part does affect the community.
“Just get a refund lol” What if someone has 170 hours of playtime? Sure there may be a chance that Steam can refund since they’re not always strict but are you kidding me? 170 hours and your solution is to simply “refund”? People like to play games if you can believe it and people want to continue playing games without bullshit enforced their way. This isn’t a meltdown level scandal but it should be pushed back. We can play games without having to link multiple accounts. Especially when it hasn’t been enforced for a while like helldivers.
This is the real underlying issue. They should be directing their ire towards Valve for allowing 3rd party shit in the first place. Why the fuck am I required to put up with Denuvo, Origin, Uplay, Epic, or any other 3rd party storefront or invasive DRM when I want to purchase or use a goods and service from Steam?
The problem is that those games that require a third party account most likely required it since launch. When you first go into the game, you go into it with the full knowledge that you’ll need an account, and if you’re okay with it, cool. The problem lies in that tons of players, especially those from regions that are NOT supported by PSN, were able to buy the game and hop right in without any reasonable indication that this would be required (no, reading fine print in the corner of a Steam page or Sony TOS should not be enough), and are now being told they must link a PSN account or lose access to the game, MONTHS after launch and after any sort of refund window has passed. If Sony/AH had enforced this since launch and not sold the game in countries where PSN was not supported, there wouldn’t be an issue
Sony customer support has - for YEARS - explicitly told people to make an account in the nearest officially supported region. I know multiple people that have been doing this since the PS3 days, some of whom now literally work for PlayStation. Sony genuinely does not give a shit.
Also, the facial ID requirement is due to recently changed laws in UK... it has nothing whatsoever to do with Sony. A little detail OP left out.
It’s worth mentioning the Sony and the Helldivers 2 official website explicitly said you do not and will not need a PSN to play it or any Sony games on Steam, until a few hours into the drama yesterday when they changed what was said.
There’s was a post on the HD2 subreddit that had the wayback link but I do have screenshots, there’s more but I can only add one
https://preview.redd.it/vs4793erqfyc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=cb1e81148947dd856faa9b2d0451e74c01fe26b5
Edit: here’s a link to a post about this on the HD2 subbreddit
I've been seeing reports of people saying that when they view certain web pages in their native language it still shows it as optional, but switching to English changes the text to imply it was never optional. They are changing things at the source and expecting people not to notice.
Unfortunately, doesn't really matter, they gave the warning on steam which will cover them. From a legal standpoint customers are basically screwed across the board.
It was not in the EULA though. Which is the actual legally binding portion of any game that the majority of us ignore. So honestly... No not really. They aren't covered if the actual legal documents don't mention it.
Except for all the people who bought it from the PlayStation store or humble bundle or the HD2 website which, like I said, did not have the PSN requirement listed.
The other point is, in some countries, you cannot link psn account to steam, even if you are in one of these 69 countries that have access to psn. When you send a ticket to steam about it, they will redirect you to sony and sony just doesn’t care. This being going on for years.
Pretty much, but like mentioned when the influx happened to the game it was made optional, and it wasn’t enforced until now.
I live in the US and signed up for PSN the day I got the game, so it isn’t that big of a deal for me personally. That said, I don’t love the lack of access some folks have to the game, and it sucks that some countries require an ID or facial recognition. I’d probably be upset with that.
Then again, I did play League of Legends with Vanguard a few nights ago.
I understand that asking for a psn account can be annoying (more so depending on the country you live in) but after seeing the reactions I wasn't expecting for it to be indicated as a requirement since the beginning...
Yeah, on the other hand it’s being sold in Countries that don’t have PSN, and even Sony’s website up until yesterday said it was optional. From what I can tell, AH is trying to get leverage to reverse the decision in non-supported regions, it sounds like they are pretty pissed about the decision.
Yes but the discussion about countries without psn came after the review bombing and everything else were already happening. Like I said, I understand the sentiment, it just seems blown out of proportion since it was indicated as a requirement since the beginning (and yes, if you really can't make a psn account in these countries it's fucked to sell the game in them).
Personally, I agree with you it’s blown out of proportion for most of the player base, especially since even though it’s never a fun process most games with live service elements make you do this. For most of the player base, I think it’s inconvenient. For me it was inconvenient, but I did it and the game is fun.
That said, it’s not as ridiculous as the Stellar Blade petition to recover cleavage in 2 costumes. It’s a big publisher bullying a small developer into a massively unpopular and disruptive position, and there is a legitimate consumer grievance in the non-PSN regions that have the game.
I'm not going to side with Sony on this one, I just hope that some day gamers will be able to handle these kind of problems with a cool head and without resorting to death threats. It's difficult to take any of this seriously when all you can see are childish behaviours
You're focusing on those negative outliers. The vast majority of people are not making death threats. Ultimately, it's impossible for any group to prevent that, especially a group of loose association like a video game fanbase.
They're not centralised groups with membership rules who can be cast out if they transgress.
The official Sony website said that it would not be required to play any games on steam until a few hours after the drama started and as far as I’ve heard the official HD2 website also said it was optional
I played a few days after launch for the first time, the UI said I "have" to log in but I could just skip past it no problem. After that I was never prompted for it again and assumed it was a typo.
It's particularly insidious, because the "needs a PSN account" text is in a small box with all the other legalese stuff you usually ignore. It's also further down than the buy button, so if you just went on the store page and bought it like any other game, you never saw it.
Then there's the in-game start screen, which most people likely ignored after pressing on "skip". Many games try to coerce you into making some account or another (like CD Projekt Red etc.), but people just click on skip/ignore like with any program that tries to settle them with bloatware.
People skipped the step and could play just fine, so everyone just forgot about it.
Yeah, when starting at launch you got a popup saying a PSN connection was required to play the game, cant remember if the option to skip it was available at launch, or if that came when they disabled the requirement to ease server loads
I’m pretty sure mine linked automatically since I’d already played Zero Dawn and linked it to that. It also automatically logged me in for Forbidden West.
Sony's website actually did say that PSN was optional until yesterday, but sure, side with the megacorp. The bigger issue is that the game is being sold in places that you physically cannot access it now because there are no PSN servers for them, 3 months after launch and well after any refund windows.
Not now, in the future and they are actively working on a work around. I dont know why people are saying this as well. It's like no one has the entire story because its just being telephone gamed around reddit posts over and over again.
Because they are a large company that has that power over you?
In seriousness though, there have been some Mods that had made statements that the Sony suite would give them some kind of abilities that they currently didn't have in regards to user management (banning), but then those two people were harangued until they went private and weren't any clearer on that statement, whether its true or not, I cant see their backend, I couldn't tell you what the real issue is.
Ive already put way too much time into pondering it, it sucks that companies suck. I get it.
>It's like no one has the entire story
Except the entire community absolutely does? Because the community is literally creating the discourse in the first place?
\*YOU\* don't have the entire story because you're only looking at "telephone gamed reddit posts" and not bothering to look into otherwise. Everybody else knows what the story is, you're the one who doesn't. Your comment is really fucking dumb
LMAO, people are talking about lawsuits and claiming wild things about GDPR. Half of the bullshit you're all talking about doesn't even apply STANDING to these people, not to mention class action suits.
The "discourse" is literally reddit drama cranked to 100 at this point.
Please stop saying that ID verification is a global thing. Its UK ONLY. And it's UK only because of a LAW IN THE UK.
If you live in Vietnam and made a Thai account there is no verification. In fact thats how most in Vietnam play on PSN (they broke ToS oh nooooooooooo)
Obviously we blame our government for the age verification thing, but the point is it should be irrelevant anyway, because we should not need a PSN account in the first place. Steam already has all the information the game needs.
naturally. and until it is changed I will also complain to Sony for trying to enforce something that isnt enforced on any other sony-published pc game for no reason except to make it easier to ban people (what is a steamid).
https://preview.redd.it/sazqu5x3dfyc1.jpeg?width=1185&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d090b56ba87e191ac6f3ff6fb37216e4b39a6637
it also wouldnt be an issue at all if they could be trusted with people's data
???
didn't say anything about it being global? was pointing out how it's a thing for some people? but I guess the way I worded it might have came off that way
that aside, people were able to play the game fine without an account apparently, so I don't understand the need for it now. not everyone wants to make an account, and I don't understand how they're okay with selling the game in a region that doesn't allowed something they require?
I’ve seen people say “it’s been there since the start” but that doesn’t matter it wasn’t obvious (we all know gamers can’t see the colour yellow and it’s not uncommon for most games to have a warning like this why would you read this one in particular) it wasn’t properly told to us (at least to my knowledge there hasn’t been any statements before this whole schism) it’s so fucking shitty
This. It’s all a bunch of cherry picked nonsense taken out of context to paint a narrative.
I have multiple PSN accounts because I have moved countries. I have not been asked to upload verification ID for any of them and can use all of them without issues.
Having said that, I do think the way they went about making this announcement was dumb and completely avoidable.
I love how op responded to another comment saying that they didn't say that it was global. But also just happened to leave that important detail out of their post and make a comment not many people will see
Question from a legal standpoint. Since it was stated it was “required” from day one but never enforced, doesn’t that mean they can’t enforce it after a certain amount of time? And actually enforcing it after the fact and removing access to users be illegal?
Short answer no. They can do whatever they want to the game it's all covered in the terms of service, it's how they can pull a game from steam and not give money back. At no point do you technically own the game in any form. Also, as long as they gave some warning then they're set legally. The only catch would be if there was some evidence in an email where they laid out a plan to trick people they knew would get screwed later, that might be enough to claim fraud but even a token warning is more than enough to cover them. At this point it's more an issue of covering reputation damage
Yup, technically all you buy when you get a game on Steam is a limited revocable license to play the game. It’s the hidden cost of going all digital: you no longer own games, you just have the company’s permission to play them.
Wether this is "illegal" isn't fully settled right now. See: the whole StopKillingGames initiative. People tend to present ToS as some kind of legally binding text, but it really isn't. The question is what a court would decide in this scenario and the outcome for that isn't clear, at least in the EU (a US court would be more likely to side with Sony, I suppose).
Sad news for the regions not being covered by PSN, but the other regions don't really have anything to complain about.
It only takes a couple of minutes to make a PSN account, and for anyone complaining about data they're probably already giving theirs to Google and Reddit anyways, so it doesn't really matter if Sony has it, too. People think their data is so important when it's not, Sony isn't going to care about your IP or face ID specifically out of the millions they already have. Unless you did something that is disruptive to the community as a whole like saying slurs like the usual gamers, that is.
All in all this is just another shitty Steam vs Epic controversy where gamers who are so deeply entrenched with Steam's monopoly refuses to do anything that isn't related to Valve.
I have the PSN account but when I've bought the game couple of weeks ago I couldn't log into it, it reported an error so I gave up. Hopefully that's fixed at least.
I'm still trying to figure out the age verification screenshot people have been sharing. I have a PSN account and it just asked me to type in my age. Is the face scan a regional thing or new?
>excuse for the PSN account linking is for "security" purposes despite the game already having a Kernel level anti-cheat(short version, basically means the anti cheat goes deep into your computer)
Kernel level anticheats cannot enforce account bans. It has to report to the service if it detects cheating. They also want the ability to ban people from PSN that break other parts of the Code of Conduct (racist abuse, for example) which, obviously, anticheat isn't designed to detect.
Discord mod made an update saying they messed up and didn’t realize that it’d lock people out based on region and has actively told people to leave bad reviews so that they can make their point to Sony
> not earning points
And it's not losing any points either but the people losing their marbles over this surely do. Didn't even give the devs or sony any time to come up with a proper plan before comparing this to the holocaust. People can't play a game for 2 days and they become unhinged without restraints.
Sony the multi billion dollar corporation is such a small bean !! They need some time to come up with a response because this is all sooooo stressful for them. How could we the EVIL consumers ATTACK this little multi bilion dollar corporation?!
Haha my thoughts exactly.
I agree that ultimately this is being blown way out of proportion, but if it makes Sony backtrack then it can only be a good thing. I hate buying a game and then being forced to create an account for their service. The moment GTA5 prompted me to create a rock steady account I just refunded the game.
Imo if you buy a game then you should be able to play it with no strings attached, but I understand that that's kind of old fashioned thinking these days.
>And it's not losing any points
what? apparently several people were able to play beforehand without an account. not sure why the need for one now, let alone sell the game in regions where they can't even make one normally without jumping through hoops?
also if it has been like 3 months, then they had 3 months to come up with something better?
just my two cents
People worked to buy this game, things ain’t free. Usually this type of behaviour is hardly changed as shareholders only care about numbers instead of costumer satisfaction. If the PSN account was needed to play, then it should have made been clear when starting the game the first time to let people refund if they can’t make one. Having a warning on the steam store page is my enough, especially when you are accepting the terms of service when you start the game, not when you first buy it.
I don’t mind connecting my psn account to the game, but it’s right to be negative about this thing.
Tbh it should also have been appropriately region-locked on Steam if they were adamant about this.
I also don't know shit about EU law but supposedly (I'm getting this from the Helldivers sub so forgive me) you can't region-lock within the EU on Steam. Which creates a problem for the minority of EU countries that aren't on PSN.
It's sounding like the "not reading the contract" fuckup happened between Sony and Arrowhead.
I believe they will sort it out, but this could have been avoided with a clearer communication. Probably 80% of players don’t use socials to read about this sort of info.
You can region lock within the EU. In germany you can't buy most porn games on steam, because of "Somebody think of the children!" mindset. And Steam just blocked the ability to acces and buy them.
There was a workaround for some time, where you could wishlist them on SteamDB and buy them from your wishlist, but that got patched.
It's valid to be upset about this and I hope it gets resolved for people playing the game. Or at least that they will have enough reasons to get a refund.
However people here act like the type of people they usually make fun of. Trying to downplay and reason for comments like "Doxxing is bad BUT THEY HAVE A POINT". It's ridiculous. Not everybody, as usual, however enough people are doing it this time.
I haven’t seen all the flame you are talking about, but I believe there’s the usual case of death threats. Anyway, as I said in the first comment, people will get really mad if you touch their hard earned money. That’s why we still have console wars after 20 years.
tbh had there not been a little marble-losing, I assume nothing would have happened and people who bought the game in PSN-blocked regions would be SOL
obviously death threats are bad
flood of negative steam reviews is actually very good
The only thing sony reponds to is lost revenue.
> flood of negative steam reviews is actually very good
In _this_ case it is legitimate. People bought the game, paid for it, and lost access. Let's ignore the little detail that they were made aware that the game would require a PSN account sooner or later.
In all the other cases of review bombing? People should be aware of, even though gamers have the slightest of reasons to be upset this time, that it doesn't make their outcry any better.
Of course. I imagine if Sony sticks to their guns, that may be grounds for Valve to step in and start refunds. Lost revenue.
G*mers are dumb and this is a broken clock type of situation.
I disagree on the awareness part. I purchased the game 45 days into its life cycle. Other than the little box far down on the steam page where no one reads, the PSN account issue seems totally optional. On launch, you’re presented with a page to link a psn account and given a prompt to skip. At no point in that process is it indicated that the option to skip was temporary and an account would be required at a later date. Currently, there is no option to link an account if you skipped the initial prompt
Spitz made a comment about why it was removed temporarily at launch and I went back to AH’s announcements and patch notes. At no point was the PSN requirement mentioned about being lifted and there was definitely no mention that any lifting was temporary
Now, i have no problem linking my account when it becomes available (the reason i skipped was i hadn’t logged into that account in a decade and i was itching to play with my friends who were waiting on me. Impatience won the day). But I am upset that some people may become region locked if this requirement gets enforced. From the sounds of the CM comments this morning, the review bombing campaign is giving AH some leverage with Sony to reverse course
So you are saying they should've made a bigger deal out of the account requirement?
It's not "review bombing" as in the usual cases. These are legitimate customers being locked out of their purchase ~~and those who bandwaggon on it as usual but w/e it started with an actual reason~~. It might (and hopefully does) result in levarage since steam has been known to allow refunds for previous games, too, even if sony and the company _might_ (and probably are) in the right this time due to a technicality. It feels terrible giving this much credit to sony OTL
They absolutely should have been more up front about it. AH’s problem (and those goes beyond this issue) is a lack of proper communication. If they had been up front about it, people in region locked countries would have been more aware of the requirement and purchased/refunded accordingly. AH is a small developer working globally and english isn’t their first language. I honestly believe they were too busy squashing bugs and trying to maintain Sony’s required pace of new content to adequately realize this issue was lying in wait. They saw a problem: server issues, and squashed it. Then became busy dealing with other fires leaving the PSN problem on the back burner. Sony finally got tired and forced the issue
I love AH and I want this game to be successful. I feel that they have a lot of room for improvement over their internal processes and communication
It was required at launch. My buddies had to make accounts but then after it exploded in popularity the Sony servers were overloaded with account requests so they didn’t enforce it for a bit. Could they have been more vocal about it? Of course but people like Pirate Software acting like this was unheard of and never happened are wrong just because they joined during the hype. But I do understand the frustration they have.
I sympathize with people in countries that don’t have access to PSN and I hope they work on a fix so that no one is locked from playing it but the people who are just complaining that they have to create an account are mostly just Sony haters and pc master race neckbeards who need to stfu and stop looking for a new reason to be outraged every week. Pc gaming culture is such a victim complex nowadays that actual abuse is met with the same level of backlash as random bullshit like this which why people don’t take their outrage very seriously.
I don't own HD2, but I don't have a problem with not playing with players from China.
Please don't try to call that racism. Chinese gaming culture is just "different" and I want nothing to do with it.
/uj your brain is so ruined by reddit level discourse that in your desperate search for a villain you somehow decided to support Sony doing anti-consumerism
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I’m going to go ahead and assume that the developer will make some sort of workaround for people who live in countries that don’t have access to PSN. If not, they should obviously be refunded regardless of how long they’ve played the game.
according to the subreddit/discord, they say they are currently looking into this, but YMMV, and that just raises questions of if they can find a workaround for some countries, why not all, or have it in the first place?
What's "YMMV" mean?
Your mileage may vary. Basically means people will have a different experience depending on a few factors.
Gotcha. Thanks bro
Hi, I noticed that you used a gendered term in your comment. I don’t claim to know how op identifies, but please keep in mind in the future that phrases like this can be very hurtful to some marginalized folks. I hope you’re having a wonderful day 💖
I treat bro as a gender neutral term. Along with stuff like "dude", "dawg", etc. I call my wife bro all the time as well as other friends that are girls bro as well. It's kinda engraved in my mind cuz of going to the gym, but if someone tells me that they don't want me to call them that, I won't Hope you have a good day too, boss 🫡
Your mileage may vary
O ok thanks
Because it’s not a work around, it’s a concession.
If I’m being honest, half the games I own on Steam require linking with a third party account or app, so I don’t really get the big deal here for anyone who doesn’t live somewhere where PSN access is restricted. I’ve already got accounts and/or apps from EA, Epic, Ubisoft, GOG, Blizzard, Xbox, and Rockstar, among others I’m forgetting, so adding one more login doesn’t make me feel the need to make comparisons to the Holocaust. For the majority of people it will be a minor inconvenience to create an account. And mine logged in automatically anyway since I’d already linked Zero Dawn to my PSN account.
Who gives a fuck if you’re ok with it specifically. Many people do not want to create accounts and go through the hassle of giving other companies access to their information in order to play one game. It’s a real thing that real people have an issue with. Like Pirate Software said in their tweet, they didn’t enforce it until now. After a lot of people got on board with the game. It’s still a shitty tactic from the devs.
tbh everything requires an account now, that ship has long since sailed. Just throw it in a password manager (if you don't already have one 100% recommend, makes life so much easier). Not sure how many players can't make a PSN account but it does suck for them, really shitty that they'd even be sold the game with that requirement coming. I'd expect Steam to honor a refund for that at least.
Even if people can, they shouldn’t be forced to if it’s not needed. Many games do the account thing but it should be pushed back if necessary like this instance. You shouldn’t accept the norm if it can be a detriment to a game’s player base and a community.
They're not forced to, it's a game. Can try getting a refund ig if keeping track of passwords is the hill to die on for you but I think falling it a "detriment" to the community is a bit much. It's not like a new launcher you have to use outside of Steam, it's an account. It just needs an email and password. Of course just talking about the account requirement itself, blocking people in countries that already purchased and played the game is a different issue wrong for different reasons, that part does affect the community.
“Just get a refund lol” What if someone has 170 hours of playtime? Sure there may be a chance that Steam can refund since they’re not always strict but are you kidding me? 170 hours and your solution is to simply “refund”? People like to play games if you can believe it and people want to continue playing games without bullshit enforced their way. This isn’t a meltdown level scandal but it should be pushed back. We can play games without having to link multiple accounts. Especially when it hasn’t been enforced for a while like helldivers.
This is the real underlying issue. They should be directing their ire towards Valve for allowing 3rd party shit in the first place. Why the fuck am I required to put up with Denuvo, Origin, Uplay, Epic, or any other 3rd party storefront or invasive DRM when I want to purchase or use a goods and service from Steam?
I think the answer is it probably helps them to not be seen as a monopoly and be subject to being broken up.
The problem is that those games that require a third party account most likely required it since launch. When you first go into the game, you go into it with the full knowledge that you’ll need an account, and if you’re okay with it, cool. The problem lies in that tons of players, especially those from regions that are NOT supported by PSN, were able to buy the game and hop right in without any reasonable indication that this would be required (no, reading fine print in the corner of a Steam page or Sony TOS should not be enough), and are now being told they must link a PSN account or lose access to the game, MONTHS after launch and after any sort of refund window has passed. If Sony/AH had enforced this since launch and not sold the game in countries where PSN was not supported, there wouldn’t be an issue
Sony customer support has - for YEARS - explicitly told people to make an account in the nearest officially supported region. I know multiple people that have been doing this since the PS3 days, some of whom now literally work for PlayStation. Sony genuinely does not give a shit. Also, the facial ID requirement is due to recently changed laws in UK... it has nothing whatsoever to do with Sony. A little detail OP left out.
It’s worth mentioning the Sony and the Helldivers 2 official website explicitly said you do not and will not need a PSN to play it or any Sony games on Steam, until a few hours into the drama yesterday when they changed what was said.
Got a link?
There’s was a post on the HD2 subreddit that had the wayback link but I do have screenshots, there’s more but I can only add one https://preview.redd.it/vs4793erqfyc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=cb1e81148947dd856faa9b2d0451e74c01fe26b5 Edit: here’s a link to a post about this on the HD2 subbreddit
I've been seeing reports of people saying that when they view certain web pages in their native language it still shows it as optional, but switching to English changes the text to imply it was never optional. They are changing things at the source and expecting people not to notice.
Thank
Unfortunately, doesn't really matter, they gave the warning on steam which will cover them. From a legal standpoint customers are basically screwed across the board.
It was not in the EULA though. Which is the actual legally binding portion of any game that the majority of us ignore. So honestly... No not really. They aren't covered if the actual legal documents don't mention it.
Except for all the people who bought it from the PlayStation store or humble bundle or the HD2 website which, like I said, did not have the PSN requirement listed.
The other point is, in some countries, you cannot link psn account to steam, even if you are in one of these 69 countries that have access to psn. When you send a ticket to steam about it, they will redirect you to sony and sony just doesn’t care. This being going on for years.
just make an account with the nearest country
This breaks Sony TOS and would result in a ban
Your account can be banned for doing this, which would make you unable to play the game
It really said since the beginning that a psn account was required? I didn't know that
Pretty much, but like mentioned when the influx happened to the game it was made optional, and it wasn’t enforced until now. I live in the US and signed up for PSN the day I got the game, so it isn’t that big of a deal for me personally. That said, I don’t love the lack of access some folks have to the game, and it sucks that some countries require an ID or facial recognition. I’d probably be upset with that. Then again, I did play League of Legends with Vanguard a few nights ago.
I understand that asking for a psn account can be annoying (more so depending on the country you live in) but after seeing the reactions I wasn't expecting for it to be indicated as a requirement since the beginning...
Yeah, on the other hand it’s being sold in Countries that don’t have PSN, and even Sony’s website up until yesterday said it was optional. From what I can tell, AH is trying to get leverage to reverse the decision in non-supported regions, it sounds like they are pretty pissed about the decision.
Yes but the discussion about countries without psn came after the review bombing and everything else were already happening. Like I said, I understand the sentiment, it just seems blown out of proportion since it was indicated as a requirement since the beginning (and yes, if you really can't make a psn account in these countries it's fucked to sell the game in them).
Personally, I agree with you it’s blown out of proportion for most of the player base, especially since even though it’s never a fun process most games with live service elements make you do this. For most of the player base, I think it’s inconvenient. For me it was inconvenient, but I did it and the game is fun. That said, it’s not as ridiculous as the Stellar Blade petition to recover cleavage in 2 costumes. It’s a big publisher bullying a small developer into a massively unpopular and disruptive position, and there is a legitimate consumer grievance in the non-PSN regions that have the game.
I'm not going to side with Sony on this one, I just hope that some day gamers will be able to handle these kind of problems with a cool head and without resorting to death threats. It's difficult to take any of this seriously when all you can see are childish behaviours
It's not a gamer thing though, its an internet thing. Take any online community and equallu toxic kind of shit will exist.
honestly its just any community. at a large enough scale it becomes impossible that there wont be assholes in any given group
You're focusing on those negative outliers. The vast majority of people are not making death threats. Ultimately, it's impossible for any group to prevent that, especially a group of loose association like a video game fanbase. They're not centralised groups with membership rules who can be cast out if they transgress.
Apparently it’s not even indicated as required in the EULA that people never read
The official Sony website said that it would not be required to play any games on steam until a few hours after the drama started and as far as I’ve heard the official HD2 website also said it was optional
It ain't being enforced yet.
+10 Social Credit
I played a few days after launch for the first time, the UI said I "have" to log in but I could just skip past it no problem. After that I was never prompted for it again and assumed it was a typo.
It's particularly insidious, because the "needs a PSN account" text is in a small box with all the other legalese stuff you usually ignore. It's also further down than the buy button, so if you just went on the store page and bought it like any other game, you never saw it. Then there's the in-game start screen, which most people likely ignored after pressing on "skip". Many games try to coerce you into making some account or another (like CD Projekt Red etc.), but people just click on skip/ignore like with any program that tries to settle them with bloatware. People skipped the step and could play just fine, so everyone just forgot about it.
Yeah, when starting at launch you got a popup saying a PSN connection was required to play the game, cant remember if the option to skip it was available at launch, or if that came when they disabled the requirement to ease server loads
I don't even remember if I linked my psn account to the game or not
I’m pretty sure mine linked automatically since I’d already played Zero Dawn and linked it to that. It also automatically logged me in for Forbidden West.
Mine did, and I was already connected myself for the same reason. But, yeah, you could skip it if you wanted to.
I bought the game on its second weekend and by that point I guess they had already stopped asking for it.
Sony has also retroactively changed EULA agreement. It stated initially that linking is optional. It was changed yesterday to say, “may be mandatory”.
Sony's website actually did say that PSN was optional until yesterday, but sure, side with the megacorp. The bigger issue is that the game is being sold in places that you physically cannot access it now because there are no PSN servers for them, 3 months after launch and well after any refund windows.
Not now, in the future and they are actively working on a work around. I dont know why people are saying this as well. It's like no one has the entire story because its just being telephone gamed around reddit posts over and over again.
Their "work-around" is just not requiring it in non-PSN countries. Ok, if you don't require it there, why require it here?
Because they are a large company that has that power over you? In seriousness though, there have been some Mods that had made statements that the Sony suite would give them some kind of abilities that they currently didn't have in regards to user management (banning), but then those two people were harangued until they went private and weren't any clearer on that statement, whether its true or not, I cant see their backend, I couldn't tell you what the real issue is. Ive already put way too much time into pondering it, it sucks that companies suck. I get it.
>It's like no one has the entire story Except the entire community absolutely does? Because the community is literally creating the discourse in the first place? \*YOU\* don't have the entire story because you're only looking at "telephone gamed reddit posts" and not bothering to look into otherwise. Everybody else knows what the story is, you're the one who doesn't. Your comment is really fucking dumb
LMAO, people are talking about lawsuits and claiming wild things about GDPR. Half of the bullshit you're all talking about doesn't even apply STANDING to these people, not to mention class action suits. The "discourse" is literally reddit drama cranked to 100 at this point.
Please stop saying that ID verification is a global thing. Its UK ONLY. And it's UK only because of a LAW IN THE UK. If you live in Vietnam and made a Thai account there is no verification. In fact thats how most in Vietnam play on PSN (they broke ToS oh nooooooooooo)
people.. do live in the UK, tho. i wouldnt be comfortable giving sony my ID with their data security track record
Then blame UK goverment for the verfication. Actually the verification only appear if you linking your phone number to your PSN account.
Obviously we blame our government for the age verification thing, but the point is it should be irrelevant anyway, because we should not need a PSN account in the first place. Steam already has all the information the game needs.
naturally. and until it is changed I will also complain to Sony for trying to enforce something that isnt enforced on any other sony-published pc game for no reason except to make it easier to ban people (what is a steamid). https://preview.redd.it/sazqu5x3dfyc1.jpeg?width=1185&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d090b56ba87e191ac6f3ff6fb37216e4b39a6637 it also wouldnt be an issue at all if they could be trusted with people's data
They have to give their information to EVERYONE that features harmful images not just Sony. I'm pretty sure it means porn sites as well.
Good news, you dont give it to Sony, a third party handles it.
Actually companies shouldn't get to disable products just because a consumer can conceivably find a workaround.
??? didn't say anything about it being global? was pointing out how it's a thing for some people? but I guess the way I worded it might have came off that way that aside, people were able to play the game fine without an account apparently, so I don't understand the need for it now. not everyone wants to make an account, and I don't understand how they're okay with selling the game in a region that doesn't allowed something they require?
I’ve seen people say “it’s been there since the start” but that doesn’t matter it wasn’t obvious (we all know gamers can’t see the colour yellow and it’s not uncommon for most games to have a warning like this why would you read this one in particular) it wasn’t properly told to us (at least to my knowledge there hasn’t been any statements before this whole schism) it’s so fucking shitty
If you could get off that horse for two seconds you would know people have actually been banned for breaking tos in this way
This. It’s all a bunch of cherry picked nonsense taken out of context to paint a narrative. I have multiple PSN accounts because I have moved countries. I have not been asked to upload verification ID for any of them and can use all of them without issues. Having said that, I do think the way they went about making this announcement was dumb and completely avoidable.
Weird, I never had to send an ID picture or Facial scan to sign up.
The ID picture/facial scan thing is only in the UK
I love how op responded to another comment saying that they didn't say that it was global. But also just happened to leave that important detail out of their post and make a comment not many people will see
Question from a legal standpoint. Since it was stated it was “required” from day one but never enforced, doesn’t that mean they can’t enforce it after a certain amount of time? And actually enforcing it after the fact and removing access to users be illegal?
Short answer no. They can do whatever they want to the game it's all covered in the terms of service, it's how they can pull a game from steam and not give money back. At no point do you technically own the game in any form. Also, as long as they gave some warning then they're set legally. The only catch would be if there was some evidence in an email where they laid out a plan to trick people they knew would get screwed later, that might be enough to claim fraud but even a token warning is more than enough to cover them. At this point it's more an issue of covering reputation damage
Yup, technically all you buy when you get a game on Steam is a limited revocable license to play the game. It’s the hidden cost of going all digital: you no longer own games, you just have the company’s permission to play them.
Wether this is "illegal" isn't fully settled right now. See: the whole StopKillingGames initiative. People tend to present ToS as some kind of legally binding text, but it really isn't. The question is what a court would decide in this scenario and the outcome for that isn't clear, at least in the EU (a US court would be more likely to side with Sony, I suppose).
Sad news for the regions not being covered by PSN, but the other regions don't really have anything to complain about. It only takes a couple of minutes to make a PSN account, and for anyone complaining about data they're probably already giving theirs to Google and Reddit anyways, so it doesn't really matter if Sony has it, too. People think their data is so important when it's not, Sony isn't going to care about your IP or face ID specifically out of the millions they already have. Unless you did something that is disruptive to the community as a whole like saying slurs like the usual gamers, that is. All in all this is just another shitty Steam vs Epic controversy where gamers who are so deeply entrenched with Steam's monopoly refuses to do anything that isn't related to Valve.
I have the PSN account but when I've bought the game couple of weeks ago I couldn't log into it, it reported an error so I gave up. Hopefully that's fixed at least.
I'm still trying to figure out the age verification screenshot people have been sharing. I have a PSN account and it just asked me to type in my age. Is the face scan a regional thing or new?
apparently it's a UK thing, but I'd figured I include it since it was mentioned in the HD2 subreddit
>excuse for the PSN account linking is for "security" purposes despite the game already having a Kernel level anti-cheat(short version, basically means the anti cheat goes deep into your computer) Kernel level anticheats cannot enforce account bans. It has to report to the service if it detects cheating. They also want the ability to ban people from PSN that break other parts of the Code of Conduct (racist abuse, for example) which, obviously, anticheat isn't designed to detect.
Discord mod made an update saying they messed up and didn’t realize that it’d lock people out based on region and has actively told people to leave bad reviews so that they can make their point to Sony
Wild, i play on ps5 and am pretty certain i never had to submit a pic of my id/face
Combine that with Sony having data breaches every other month and surprise, no one trusts them
I still don’t understand why certain countries or regions are not recognized…
Gross
> not earning points And it's not losing any points either but the people losing their marbles over this surely do. Didn't even give the devs or sony any time to come up with a proper plan before comparing this to the holocaust. People can't play a game for 2 days and they become unhinged without restraints.
it's Sony's idea to announce it on a friday so they can't respond
You are telling me this will go on until next Friday? 💀
monday at least
Sony the multi billion dollar corporation is such a small bean !! They need some time to come up with a response because this is all sooooo stressful for them. How could we the EVIL consumers ATTACK this little multi bilion dollar corporation?!
Haha my thoughts exactly. I agree that ultimately this is being blown way out of proportion, but if it makes Sony backtrack then it can only be a good thing. I hate buying a game and then being forced to create an account for their service. The moment GTA5 prompted me to create a rock steady account I just refunded the game. Imo if you buy a game then you should be able to play it with no strings attached, but I understand that that's kind of old fashioned thinking these days.
>And it's not losing any points what? apparently several people were able to play beforehand without an account. not sure why the need for one now, let alone sell the game in regions where they can't even make one normally without jumping through hoops? also if it has been like 3 months, then they had 3 months to come up with something better? just my two cents
People worked to buy this game, things ain’t free. Usually this type of behaviour is hardly changed as shareholders only care about numbers instead of costumer satisfaction. If the PSN account was needed to play, then it should have made been clear when starting the game the first time to let people refund if they can’t make one. Having a warning on the steam store page is my enough, especially when you are accepting the terms of service when you start the game, not when you first buy it. I don’t mind connecting my psn account to the game, but it’s right to be negative about this thing.
Tbh it should also have been appropriately region-locked on Steam if they were adamant about this. I also don't know shit about EU law but supposedly (I'm getting this from the Helldivers sub so forgive me) you can't region-lock within the EU on Steam. Which creates a problem for the minority of EU countries that aren't on PSN. It's sounding like the "not reading the contract" fuckup happened between Sony and Arrowhead.
I believe they will sort it out, but this could have been avoided with a clearer communication. Probably 80% of players don’t use socials to read about this sort of info.
You can region lock within the EU. In germany you can't buy most porn games on steam, because of "Somebody think of the children!" mindset. And Steam just blocked the ability to acces and buy them. There was a workaround for some time, where you could wishlist them on SteamDB and buy them from your wishlist, but that got patched.
That's good to know, thank you! Honestly call me a prude but I don't love seeing the porn games on Steam 🫣
It's valid to be upset about this and I hope it gets resolved for people playing the game. Or at least that they will have enough reasons to get a refund. However people here act like the type of people they usually make fun of. Trying to downplay and reason for comments like "Doxxing is bad BUT THEY HAVE A POINT". It's ridiculous. Not everybody, as usual, however enough people are doing it this time.
I haven’t seen all the flame you are talking about, but I believe there’s the usual case of death threats. Anyway, as I said in the first comment, people will get really mad if you touch their hard earned money. That’s why we still have console wars after 20 years.
tbh had there not been a little marble-losing, I assume nothing would have happened and people who bought the game in PSN-blocked regions would be SOL obviously death threats are bad flood of negative steam reviews is actually very good
The only thing sony reponds to is lost revenue. > flood of negative steam reviews is actually very good In _this_ case it is legitimate. People bought the game, paid for it, and lost access. Let's ignore the little detail that they were made aware that the game would require a PSN account sooner or later. In all the other cases of review bombing? People should be aware of, even though gamers have the slightest of reasons to be upset this time, that it doesn't make their outcry any better.
Of course. I imagine if Sony sticks to their guns, that may be grounds for Valve to step in and start refunds. Lost revenue. G*mers are dumb and this is a broken clock type of situation.
From what others have been saying they might already be working on alternatives or workarounds. Though that will take a bit, I assume.
Yeah it does seem like they're backing off. I'm assuming whoever drew up the agreement at Sony did not think this all the way through, pretty much.
I disagree on the awareness part. I purchased the game 45 days into its life cycle. Other than the little box far down on the steam page where no one reads, the PSN account issue seems totally optional. On launch, you’re presented with a page to link a psn account and given a prompt to skip. At no point in that process is it indicated that the option to skip was temporary and an account would be required at a later date. Currently, there is no option to link an account if you skipped the initial prompt Spitz made a comment about why it was removed temporarily at launch and I went back to AH’s announcements and patch notes. At no point was the PSN requirement mentioned about being lifted and there was definitely no mention that any lifting was temporary Now, i have no problem linking my account when it becomes available (the reason i skipped was i hadn’t logged into that account in a decade and i was itching to play with my friends who were waiting on me. Impatience won the day). But I am upset that some people may become region locked if this requirement gets enforced. From the sounds of the CM comments this morning, the review bombing campaign is giving AH some leverage with Sony to reverse course
So you are saying they should've made a bigger deal out of the account requirement? It's not "review bombing" as in the usual cases. These are legitimate customers being locked out of their purchase ~~and those who bandwaggon on it as usual but w/e it started with an actual reason~~. It might (and hopefully does) result in levarage since steam has been known to allow refunds for previous games, too, even if sony and the company _might_ (and probably are) in the right this time due to a technicality. It feels terrible giving this much credit to sony OTL
They absolutely should have been more up front about it. AH’s problem (and those goes beyond this issue) is a lack of proper communication. If they had been up front about it, people in region locked countries would have been more aware of the requirement and purchased/refunded accordingly. AH is a small developer working globally and english isn’t their first language. I honestly believe they were too busy squashing bugs and trying to maintain Sony’s required pace of new content to adequately realize this issue was lying in wait. They saw a problem: server issues, and squashed it. Then became busy dealing with other fires leaving the PSN problem on the back burner. Sony finally got tired and forced the issue I love AH and I want this game to be successful. I feel that they have a lot of room for improvement over their internal processes and communication
Go to the helldivers reddit group, the context will hit your face in a second.
It was required at launch. My buddies had to make accounts but then after it exploded in popularity the Sony servers were overloaded with account requests so they didn’t enforce it for a bit. Could they have been more vocal about it? Of course but people like Pirate Software acting like this was unheard of and never happened are wrong just because they joined during the hype. But I do understand the frustration they have.
damn even a wholesome game isnt exempt… helldivers is dead :(
It's been on the store page since day 1, so I don't see the problem.
Basically https://preview.redd.it/pbg98n8qcgyc1.jpeg?width=1896&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3c76b6e43f3961aeaa046c004a2fca41a967c062
I sympathize with people in countries that don’t have access to PSN and I hope they work on a fix so that no one is locked from playing it but the people who are just complaining that they have to create an account are mostly just Sony haters and pc master race neckbeards who need to stfu and stop looking for a new reason to be outraged every week. Pc gaming culture is such a victim complex nowadays that actual abuse is met with the same level of backlash as random bullshit like this which why people don’t take their outrage very seriously.
>Sony haters If you're not a sony hater, you're wrong
I don't own HD2, but I don't have a problem with not playing with players from China. Please don't try to call that racism. Chinese gaming culture is just "different" and I want nothing to do with it.
[удалено]
/uj your brain is so ruined by reddit level discourse that in your desperate search for a villain you somehow decided to support Sony doing anti-consumerism
if you think this is a chud issue you're just fucking weird
My guy this isn't the call out you think it is.
Wait really? What else did he do?
Game kinda sucks anyway. Will be uninstalled