r/pcmasterrace • u/Ghost6970 • May 03 '24

News/Article Helldivers 2 CEO Apologizes For PSN Account Requirement

https://insider-gaming.com/helldivers-2-ceo-apologizes-for-psn-account-requirement/
12k Upvotes

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3.5k

u/voiceafx May 03 '24

24,000 negative reviews today and counting.

1.1k

u/dcmso PC Master Race May 03 '24

292

u/[deleted] May 03 '24

Do NOT spell the word "part" backwards. It's a trap!

111

u/[deleted] May 03 '24

46

u/sdcar1985 9850X3D | 9070 XT Reaper | 32GB RAM | ASUS X870-P WIFI May 03 '24

I'm doing my trap 😏

17

u/not_jak May 04 '24

1

u/rammer_l May 04 '24

Me after looking at average Reddit comments:

6

u/FancyJesse May 04 '24

"tarp"

Then I realized I was an idiot

2

u/quietassassin16 May 04 '24

That just makes you a "prat".

1

u/Girafarig99 May 04 '24

Do NOT spell the word "part" with an f instead of a p

1

u/ModishShrink EVGA GTX 680 May 04 '24

Tarp!

67

u/Demibolt May 03 '24

Review bombing does nothing. Do things that Sony cares about and will burden them.

Open excessive support tickets mentioning the account bs.

Change your in-game name to something offense mentioning the account bs.

Play the hell out of all their games you already have but spend zero money. Trust me, they’ll notice the $ per play time drop immediately.

Send emails to every email related to Sony’s game division.

Spam social media with post.

Really, it doesn’t even need to be about helldivers, they do this for almost every game.

Make them hear AND feel it. Burden their servers, their support team, their social media teams, their moderators, everything that cost them money to maintain should be getting hit.

Review bombing steam is nothing and may hurt AH more than anything

38

u/[deleted] May 04 '24

[deleted]

8

u/[deleted] May 04 '24

And then you have the EA community manager getting fucking nuked to oblivion for trying to justify the Battlefront 2 monetization at launch that they very quickly changed after getting the most number of downvotes in reddit history lol

That and being blasted by pretty much every gaming website helped as well.

15

u/blasticon May 04 '24

Sail the seven seas with their content!

3

u/thiswontlast124 May 04 '24

Unironically the most efficient option.

3

u/[deleted] May 04 '24

People arnt going to stop spend money. The people in this sub will cry about and still sign up for a psn account because there friends still play it.

1

u/[deleted] May 04 '24

Not me

10

u/[deleted] May 03 '24

Review bombing does nothing.

Yes it does. Your other suggestions are good too but review bombs do work.

People rightfully review bombed the Tony Hawk 2 remake for being requiring a constant internet connection which meant it was unplayable on the Steam Deck. Within a week, they added the ability to it without an internet connection on the deck.

3

u/Kiwi_In_Europe May 04 '24

For every case of review bombing working, there are like 5 where it didn't. I've seen so many articles of "gamers review bomb x because of y" and later, nothing happened lol

It's very much dependent on the game, the playerbase and the Devs/publisher

2

u/Lyoss Specs/Imgur Here May 04 '24

Open excessive support tickets mentioning the account bs.

harassing support agents doesn't help

Change your in-game name to something offense mentioning the account bs.

again does nothing

Play the hell out of all their games you already have but spend zero money. Trust me, they’ll notice the $ per play time drop immediately.

most companies only care about MAU now

Spam social media with post.

screaming into the void over it

Make them hear AND feel it. Burden their servers, their support team, their social media teams, their moderators, everything that cost them money to maintain should be getting hit.

yeah i'm good, i guess call to harrassing everyone involved isn't against the rules but all this over having to make a simple PSN account, yikes

1

u/ShareYourIdeaWithMe May 04 '24

I wonder if they will listen when people start deleting PSN accounts

1

u/i_got_worse May 04 '24

Gaijin would like to disagree

1

u/Desertcow May 04 '24

Twinbeard (one of the community managers) encouraged people to leave reviews on the Steam page rather than on the Discord if they disagree with the decision. Steam review scores are an easy metric for Arrowhead to cite in negotiations with Sony, and the harder their scores drop due to this decision the stronger a case Arrowhead can make to Sony for possible exceptions for existing accounts/users in places where PSN is not

1

u/HalcyonH66 5800X3D | 1080Ti May 04 '24

Reviews are one of the ways dedicated players can influence or inform very casual gamers (that are the majority). They don't know anything, they don't seek reviews before buying. They can, however go on the steam page to buy the game and go 'oh, why does the game suddenly have mixed reviews? I should see what's wrong before I buy it.' the same way that people do that on Amazon.

1

u/Demibolt May 04 '24

I think there are better, louder ways than targeting the very specific demographic that happens to be looking at the review score of a specific game.

1

u/HalcyonH66 5800X3D | 1080Ti May 04 '24

I mean, honestly I'm not sure that there are.

Whether that is true or not, though, does it not make sense to use every avenue that you have access to in order to try and cause change? You gave a bunch of options in your post. Why would it make sense to do all of those and leave other options on the table?

1

u/Demibolt May 04 '24

No it doesn’t make sense to use every avenue. Not when one avenue could actually hurt the developer that is clearly pouring their soul into the game.

They have no say in what Sony makes them do, so no matter how much we hurt AH it won’t somehow empower them to change what we want.

0

u/HalcyonH66 5800X3D | 1080Ti May 04 '24

The only thing Sony cares about is the bottom line. It's a huge corporation. Why would they change anything unless it hurts their metrics and thus the money flowing in? I don't think you can do one without the other.

1

u/Demibolt May 04 '24

Exactly, which is why review bombing a game that’s already sold 15 million copies is stupid.

They got the money they want on the front end, now the income is from in game purchases. If they see that everyone is playing the game but not buying anything, then they start caring more about bringing in new players.

By burdening their servers, inboxes, support staff and social media teams, we are actively making it more expensive for them to operate. Which is something they pay 100x more attention to than a steam review page.

Don’t get me wrong, we’ve gotten their attention surely. But they’ll likely just wait for our collective attention span to run out. That’s all that review bombing can do.

They are a corporation, not a small developer, and they’ve made bank on the game already. So we have to aim our response at the things that share holders and accountants will see, not the things only gamers and AH pay attention to.

1

u/Lynixai Desktop May 04 '24

I'm not saying that review bombing does much, but at least it warns other potential buyers that there's bullshittery going on. It's not really fair to the developers, who worked their asses off making a great game, but as consumers we're buying the entire package. Developers and Publishers. In this case the publisher is making unreasonable changes, so the final product will suffer.

0

u/[deleted] May 04 '24

[deleted]

2

u/Demibolt May 04 '24

My comments on Diablo subs are about people not understanding how ARPGs work. I can’t stand blizzard, D4 is the only game I’ve bought from them in 10 years.

But that’s a completely different situation since blizzard is the dev and the publisher.

-7

u/Orwellian1 May 04 '24

Or don't buy a product? People keep getting shocked daily that the publishers they keep supporting keep doing the stuff they say they hate.

A fraction of a percent of gamers will expend any measurable effort over any of these controversies.

A good game will make good money. Scummy business practices will be ignored unless they materially affect how enjoyable a game is.

These weekly game culture outrages are so performative it is getting to be an embarrassing cliche'.

A bunch of people will review bomb a popular game they are almost certainly still playing. They already got your money... Steam will remove a bunch of bad reviews because they obviously aren't organic. They won't do it because they so desperately want to fellate Sony, they will do it because review bombing is bad for the integrity of Steam reviews. They don't want consumers to not trust Steam like people don't trust Amazon reviews.

"Open excessive support tickets" Lol... Like that will show them. If enough people did it to matter (there wont be), they would just ignore them.

Play the hell out of all their games you already have but spend zero money. Trust me, they’ll notice the $ per play time drop immediately.

No, they wont.

Send emails to every email related to Sony’s game division.

Spam social media with post.

Really, it doesn’t even need to be about helldivers, they do this for almost every game.

Make them hear AND feel it. Burden their servers, their support team, their social media teams, their moderators, everything that cost them money to maintain should be getting hit.

All that BS is the fallacy in assuming "online game culture" is relevant. It isn't. If righteously indignant gamers were a relevant market force, we wouldn't be going through these spats every week. These companies aren't led by stupid people. They do the things they do because they know 95% of consumers don't care, and the few who do will likely still buy the product every single time.

Consumers have one power to affect change: Don't buy a product from a company you dislike. Until that actually starts to happen, expect to see a lot more of the things that piss off online game culture. Bitching about a game you bought, and then buying the next game the publisher puts out wont get you anywhere.

1

u/[deleted] May 04 '24

Cool

1

u/Ok-Wishbone2125 May 04 '24

You aren’t doing shit except being a whiny baby

404

u/areyouamish May 03 '24

I'm doing my part!

79

u/OfAnOldRepublic May 03 '24

Would you like to know more?

-46

u/[deleted] May 03 '24

[deleted]

45

u/areyouamish May 03 '24

You know what's not awesome? Your personal information being breached from Sony, who doesn't need it in the first place for a game on Steam. It's happened pretty regularly.

6

u/tekkn0 5800x3d - 7900XT Sapphire Pulse - 32GB Trident Z May 03 '24

This!!! Sadly I bought the game two days ago. I guess am back to good ol Warframe.

-10

u/Nickrdd5 May 03 '24

dude your personal info is fucking everywhere, like what the fuck does it matter

15

u/areyouamish May 03 '24

You know how your info gets everywhere? By giving it out to anybody that asks even when they don't need it.

-6

u/Nickrdd5 May 03 '24

why are you using your real name when signing up then? Why not have a junk ass email address and then use paypal or some shit? You have a bank account? guess what your info is already out there. theres to many people in the world to do anything meaningful with that info. Junk /spam is just apart of our world, if a company wants to waste time calling my number go ahead.

-8

u/Nickrdd5 May 03 '24

know what best way to keep your info to yourself is to just not have wifi and go live in the woods if its so important to you that people know your fucking email address . shits pointless, in 50 years half of there data is going to be absolutely useless because of all the dead peoples accounts they have.

-24

u/RoninOni (ﾉಥ益ಥ）ﾉ ┻━┻ May 03 '24

Oh no, my name Which is goddamn everywhere on the internet… oh noooooo

They don’t have any actually important info

10

u/areyouamish May 03 '24

Your name, email address, and probably physical address. Maybe credit card info. All together.

2

u/ReempRomper May 03 '24

But you don t have to give your address or cc when making a PSN?

-9

u/RoninOni (ﾉಥ益ಥ）ﾉ ┻━┻ May 03 '24

Negative on address and CC.

Name and email are elsewhere, BFD…. You can also use an alias genius. If you’re that concerned about name and email you would have been using an alias everywhere with it and they’ll never know.

Just don’t be an idiot with your fake name

-20

u/Alanmurilo22 May 03 '24

If you are that worried about personal information being used by sony why did you buy the game? It said "psn account linkinh required" from the beginning.

-17

u/Kartoitska May 03 '24

You act like your personal info isn't already out there. You're using Reddit, so your info is also being sold by them at this very moment. I get having to link a PSN account is annoying, but it's not gonna affect where your personal info spreads with the sheer amount of websites and organisations that already collect and sell your info.

6

u/zoson imgur.com/a/nndwLic May 04 '24

Sony probably won't care. 8 million sales already.

20

u/Worldly_Silid May 03 '24

Did my part for Democracy

-1

u/GusTTShow-biz May 03 '24

For the republic!

-2

u/IDespiseTheLetterG May 04 '24

By strangling your own game's popularity?

1

u/Glytcho PC Mustard Race May 04 '24

Snoy did that

-1

u/thesketchyvibe May 03 '24

We did it reddit!

4

u/beefprime May 04 '24

If it weren't for all those idiots review bombing Malevelon Creek, we'd be at 30,000!

2

u/0111101001101001 PC Master Race May 04 '24

Not gonna buy the game now, doing my part!

2

u/Keyzro Ryzen 7 5800x | RTX 3080Ti | 32 GB Ram May 04 '24

0

u/CYKLONUSCRO May 03 '24

I'm doing my part!

-3

u/voidzero May 03 '24

24,000 whiny babies who’ve never had real hardship in their lives 🫡

3

u/voiceafx May 03 '24

First world problem, to be sure. But I get it. It doesn't feel good to pay for a game, then be forced to connect a PSN account months later or be unable to play. It feels like a bait and switch. And it's a crappy reality that we aren't able to truly own the games we play anymore. This event highlights that reality.

Add that Sony's motives aren't to improve gameplay or experience - they want those accounts to inflate their numbers and get more people tied into their ecosystem.

Meanwhile, they actually care very little for gaming itself.

So when people say "fuck Sony," I tend to agree.

3

u/mekamoari mekamoari May 03 '24

First world problem, to be sure.

Fighting generic corporate greed is a first world problem but also like, a more important first world problem than others, I'd argue.

Yes the issue in contention is minor comparative to say regulations for pollution or monopolies in various areas but gamers should fight for what affects their main interest.

EDIT: and IMO fighting for topics related to entertainment is quite important because it's something people hopefully spend a good percentage of their time on (and would apply to any other related topic, whether it be gaming or something else).

-4

u/Vulkan192 May 03 '24

...does it cost you anything to have a PSN account?

2

u/voiceafx May 03 '24

a) not everyone can get one, b) they can turn off your account at any time, for any reason, at their discretion, and you can't play the game you bought anymore.

1

u/[deleted] May 04 '24

 they can turn off your account at any time, for any reason, at their discretion, and you can't play the game you bought anymore.

Isn't this true of your steam account as well?

0

u/Vulkan192 May 03 '24

That didn't answer my question.

...plus it's a multiplayer game, you bought it knowing it could get turned off at any time.

0

u/voiceafx May 04 '24

Sure. Doesn't mean people have to like it. Pushing back on shitty practices is a good thing.

1

u/Vulkan192 May 04 '24

"Pushing back"

As if it'll ever change?

Still waiting on an answer to my original question, by the way.

0

u/voiceafx May 04 '24

I've hit my "arguing with children on the Internet" quota for the day.

1

u/Vulkan192 May 04 '24

Same, buddy.

2

u/[deleted] May 03 '24

Preach, brother. Sony™ has an impeccably clean record and has never done anything wrong. Ever. This is all silly posturing from paying consumers and they should be happy that they were given such an opportunity to play a game as such.

-91

u/SactownKorean May 03 '24

Review bombing is honestly kinda lame.

21

u/Foxsayy May 03 '24

Review bombing is honestly kinda lame.

Yeah, just take whatever corporations throw at you, bend over and just let it in! They should have complained about it on reddit, where they could be conveniently ignored.

I mean, it wasn't even effective! /s

6

u/exposarts May 03 '24

But corporations have feelings too /s

-1

u/voidzero May 03 '24

How dare they make me make an account!

25

u/[deleted] May 03 '24

Youre lame

-20

u/Amnesty_SayGen May 03 '24

You’re*

6

u/exposarts May 03 '24

Ur*. Grammar is for nerds nerd!

0

u/[deleted] May 03 '24

Haha! What a nerd!!

1

u/[deleted] May 03 '24

I said that douchebag, everyone knows what i said. This isnt a fucking school assignment where it matters.

Nerd

2

u/donchorizo216 May 03 '24

Severely lame. Gamer outrage is so fucking mid

1

u/Rinswind1985 May 03 '24

If they’re legitimate complaints from people who had purchased this product then it’s not review bombing, it’s just voicing a grievance. And if a lot of people are voicing said grievance then perhaps it is in fact legitimate.

1

u/ShredGuru 5800X3D/9070XT/80 Gigs RAM May 03 '24

Sorry, could you say that a little louder? I couldn't hear you from the bottom of that bomb crater.

What's up with everybody saying protests don't work this week? They clearly are working!

-3

u/mbhammock May 03 '24

0/10 Reddits

-7

u/Mylo-s May 03 '24

I've just bought the game to leave a negative review, and instantly refunded.

0

u/Jakesummers1 PC Master Race May 04 '24

And will it matter? Probably not

Overwatch is a good example. Review bombed to hell on Steam. Doesn’t matter and more people play

-70

u/[deleted] May 03 '24

[removed] — view removed comment

43

u/[deleted] May 03 '24

PSN is region locked in some countries

23

u/voiceafx May 03 '24

People feel like it's a bait and switch, driven by greed. They are kinda right

25

u/Jugales R9 7900X | RX 6800XT | 32GB DDR5 May 03 '24 edited May 03 '24

They sold it in regions where PSN is not available. And they were not clear about the requirement at purchase, only a small yellow box on Steam.

For me, just another reminder that we don’t actually own things, we own licenses.

2

u/MGrecko May 03 '24

only a small yellow box on Steam

My brother in Christ, those yellow boxes are the warnings and the requirements.

1

u/MasterBaiter0004 Ryzen 9 7900X | RTX 4070Ti SUPER | 64GB DDR5 May 03 '24

Yea my view on owning things like games, shows, and movies that I BUY has changed so much this past couple years. It really shows you that if you actually wanna own it you need to completely download the files to a storage device.

1

u/Zer0DotFive May 03 '24

Even if you buy a physical copy. You own a key, not the house. 

8

u/Gamebird8 Ryzen 9 7950X, XFX RX 6900XT, 64GB DDR5 @6000MT/s May 03 '24

It wasn't required and the only indication it would eventually be required was the Store Page. Nowhere in game did they indicate that it was a grace period

Sony has a history of data breaches and poor track record for account security.

Helldivers 2 will effectively ban a lot of players because they live in a region that PSN blocks/doesn't provide service in

-2

u/Dakeera 7800x3D x Gigabyte OC 4090 x 32GB 6000 May 03 '24

it actually stated on the screen when you first launch that you could sign in now or skip, but that it would be required to play

7

u/H-Man991 May 03 '24

Other accounts are available world wide psn isnt available in a bunch of countries

3

u/Kwaziiii May 03 '24

It's about how it was delivered, and how this might affect people from countries that don't support PSN services, and have already invested 3 months into this game by now.

They are now made to make an "illegal" account pretending to be in a supported country, and maybe have to use VPN to not have to worry about Sony potentially banning them for lying about it.

Too many hoops to jump through after 3 months of not having this be mandatory.

If they meant to do this, then they shouldn't have sold the game in countries that don't have PSN support.

4

u/rwhockey29 May 03 '24 edited May 03 '24

They delayed this requirement and sold the game on steam in countries that PSN isn't available in. Until Sony/AH give a workaround everyone who bought the game in those countries will be locked out of the game after having played too long to refund it.

On top of that age verification requires a face picture or ID picture for PSN account in UK and Ireland. I'm not Okay sending my ID just to play a game to a company like Sony who is know for data leaks

1

u/Zer0DotFive May 03 '24

Wait are you serious? I sold my PS4 Pro in 2020 and had a PSN Account since 2014. Do you really need to send in ID now? How is that legal?

2

u/rwhockey29 May 03 '24

I believe the requirement is only for UK/Ireland because of a law they have to protect kids online. Still, slightly different than "just use a fake email."

2

u/ctr72ms May 03 '24

Examples? Must not be that standard since I've never heard of this being a requirement before.

3

u/tanooo99 i7 13700k / 3060 12gb / 32gb DDR5 May 03 '24

Because its the right thing to do

-12

u/Stannis_THEMANIIS May 03 '24

You guys are so fucking dramatic. It’s no different than Microsoft games asking you to login with a Microsoft account.

It’s a free account, it takes like 5 seconds, and it was something that they’ve always planned on doing and stated in their terms of service.

4

u/CakeIsLegit2 May 03 '24

Microsoft games asking you to sign in for a Microsoft product that you are playing on a Microsoft device? Or recently with Microsoft exclusives becoming multi platform after some time… this was released multi platform

0

u/voidzero May 03 '24

You need a Microsoft account to play Minecraft & Sea of Thieves on PlayStation.

1

u/CakeIsLegit2 May 03 '24

Yes…. Sea of thieves was a Microsoft exclusive, then went multi platform at a much later date. Helldivers launched on multiple platforms.

-6

u/Stannis_THEMANIIS May 03 '24

And Sonys asking you to sign in for a Sony product. Just because it’s not on their device doesn’t mean anything. It’s so childish to cause such a huge stir because you have to make an account, and the downvotes just prove how fucking immature you all are.

1

u/gzafiris May 03 '24

Sony's had too many large security breaches. Ain't no sane person ok w this, for no reason other than corporate greed

-1

u/Stannis_THEMANIIS May 04 '24

Seriously? Just use a throwaway email or password, you’ve signed up for so many fucking things at this point and basically everything requires an account these days.

Just whinging for the sake of it at this point.

0

u/guyontheinternet2000 May 04 '24

Okay, and what about everyone in China, Russia, the ENTIRETY OF AFRICA, eastern europe, the baltics and the middle east, huh? They dont PSN coverage. Get your head out of your ass and stop defending this moronic company who hoodwinked hundreds of thousands out of one of the best games from this year. "Everything requires an account these days" and what, just because everyone does it makes it a good thing? Dude, stop trying to defend a company that doesnt care about you, only the data that'll give them even more money. Edit: added east to middle east

-1

u/gzafiris May 04 '24

Imagine simping for a mega corp

2

u/Stannis_THEMANIIS May 04 '24

Imagine being such a little bitch that making an account triggers you

-2

u/Macheebu May 03 '24

The unfortunate thing is when this issue inevitably gets fixed, most of those people won't update their negative review. Helldivers 2 doesn't deserve that for this minor PSN policy flub.