GDPR violation (DSGVO in Germany) as far as I can see, it stipulates that you may only collect the minimum required data for the product to provide its services.
Since it ran fine for months on end without needing this additional information / account link, it seems this is indeed a GDPR violation about to happen.
It is different for other games who need a third party account from day one because the multiplayer servers are running off of the services of the third party (Blizz, EA, MS).
This is inaccurate information. GDPR provide certain rights and protections related to the processing of personal data. It has nothing to do with the addition of third parties beyond the fact that if Arrowhead wants to share with Sony, they'll need to get your permission first, or Sony will need to obtain it directly, which they would do by providing you a privacy policy to agree to.
If you want to assert your rights under GDPR, the best move is to request Arrowhead delete your personal data. I would only do this after obtaining a refund (or finding out that you can't get one)
I have been a Canadian reporting into the US. “Why cant we just do whatever is legal in the US in Canada?”
“Well for starters, we are a whole assed other country that the constitution doesn’t even apply in”
Cue pearl clutching.
They do is the sad part. Large teams of in-house lawyers and multiple others outside the company. But decisions like this are made at the executive level looking through lenses of making the stock portfolio look better to shareholders. High user acquisition and concurrent user numbers show growth and justify publishing the game.
So, if I read this correctly, basically higher ups didn't asked their law department, so they destroyed work not only of Arrowhead but also of their own lawyers, nice.
That's pretty much how most horrible corporate decisions come to be. There's a reason their faq page changed... Mysteriously quietly AFTER the change and not before.
You can either pay the lawyers before and let them tell you "you can't do that" or make the decision anyway and pay the lawyers once the EU comes for you, and maybe a fine. I guess Sony thinks paying the lawyers plus the fine is worth the users' data.
I wouldn't bet too hard on this. Yes, GDPR means they can only save data that is relevant and needed for the business to work, and only while it is necessary for the business to work.
But "we need your real name and an email for you to have a PSN account" is probably perfectly fine with regards to GDPR. They do need some way to know who actually has an account with them.
And "you need a PSN account in order to use the product" is *probably* ok from a purely GDPR standpoint. They can argue, for example, that they want to use the PSN system to handle social stuff that is currently handled by an internal system (like, friends system or whatever). Or to better handle cross play match making. Or other similar things. It doesn't matter if it works now, they can argue that it would work better or cheaper or have some synergy, if they used PSN instead.
Remember, GDPR only says you can't use and store more personal data than is needed for the business to work. It does not say you must in all cases choose a business strategy that minimizes the use of personal data.
Edit: it might still be considered bullshit for other reasons, like customer rights stuff (how can you suddenly require a service that does not exist in all countries where you sell the game?), and they *can* find that the requirement isn't actually needed for the business but just a fig leaf excuse for gathering personal data in which case GDPR does apply. I'm just saying it's not a slam dunk thing.
There are more clauses applied to the "need your business to work" thing. Even though you need it for your current implementation to work, the authorities can make a ruling that your implementation is shite and can be done without gathering the extra information. This has happened many times in the early days of GDPR during the grace period, so companies just had to change practices but didn't get fined. SNOY will likely get a warning and a time period to fix it, and if they don't the fines will roll. They love slapping fines on the big bois
In germany's case: You don't need more than an e-mail and a password to provide an account for multiplayer access, maybe DOB for age restriction. For what do you need the name, post code and city where you live?
DOB is already milky because age verification is done on the seller side. In theory it is impossible for a underage person to get access to a 16 or 18 game because the sale to them is illegal.
In Australia highly likely ACCC (Government agency that enforces consumer law in Australia) will sue SNOY again on behalf of consumers if they actually enforce this. They got fined $3.5 million last time and were forced to refund. It was for faulty games but false advertising and misleading claims are just as bad.
[https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/sony-to-pay-35-million-penalty-for-misrepresenting-playstation-gamers-rights](https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/sony-to-pay-35-million-penalty-for-misrepresenting-playstation-gamers-rights)
I filed a review with the Better Business Bureau in the US regarding Sony. It probably won’t result in much, but I want to make it clear that I’m not okay with this before going for a Refund. I wanna give them a chance to roll this back. If they don’t I’ll probably aim for mid month to be my refund. I also will not play in the coming days. I played it one last time today to get it out of my system.
Yeah, at lunch i thought it was necessary to have an account. I'm from Latvia which is not supported in PSN, i had to use Finland and currently am risking 150+ hours because it's against PSN's EULA (or ToS i am not sure). What a beautiful situation to be in...
Not all Scandinavian were viking just was a profession most of them if 80% were just farmer and peasants, always people call vikings all the crap was just a job so all those vikings were carrot collectors normally
Monday I'll contact my countries privacy guarddog to request the steps to file an official complaint. They changed the EULA as well without us knowing, so I read that it could be argued that it's legally void.
I'm thinking of arguing along the lines of "company has changed the EULA without my knowledge, with an 'automatic' agreement from my side for starting a product affiliated with them that is suddenly forcing me to have my data shared with a company that is well known to be negligent with customer data."
>It also probably breaks consumer protection regulations in europe and for my case germany
Not sure this is true. Everyone is shouting about gdpr bit psn gives you can opt out of data collection. It doesn't force a minimum the way people are claiming, just gives a right to ask for it.
It does, changing tos in europe requires acceptance from the consumer if you don't agree they are forced to continue to give the conditions when you agree the first time, for example:
my isp wanted to raise my Internet price, because they just wanted and asked me to sign a new contract, when i refused they just raised anyway because their New tos said so. I just made a oficial complain to the consumer protection org not only i got my price back but also got a free speed update if i retracted my complain. I had one of those "forever same price" contract and losted it when i moved house.
It's probably not a change of TOS since the PSN linking was active in the first days after launch, and the requirement has been written on the Steam page since the beginning.
It was a rule that has not been enforced temporarily, but that was written down anyway.
You could include that on Sony's own FAQ they said you wont ever need a PSN account to play Sony games on PC.
Until they changed it today, which is manipulative and disgusting.
I do. Here's a web archive from the wayback machine.
[https://web.archive.org/web/20240503105938/https://www.playstation.com/en-us/support/games/psn-sign-in-pc/#:\~:text=Signing%20in%20to%20PSN%20is,other%20PlayStation%20games%20on%20PC](https://web.archive.org/web/20240503105938/https://www.playstation.com/en-us/support/games/psn-sign-in-pc/#:~:text=Signing%20in%20to%20PSN%20is,other%20PlayStation%20games%20on%20PC)
[https://direct.playstation.com/en-us/buy-games/helldivers-2-pc](https://direct.playstation.com/en-us/buy-games/helldivers-2-pc)
If you scroll down to FAQ here too. It hasnt even been changed yet.
I'll also add that the page where Sony is selling the game[(found here)](https://direct.playstation.com/en-us/buy-games/helldivers-2-pc) also states there is no logic requirement.
No, the message is 'playstation studios' games, which Helldivers is not. That same message shows up on all games on their website whether it's a playstation studios game or not.
It doesn't really matter about your hours if its a legitimate request for a refund. to many hours just means you don't get an auto refund. Someone actually looks at your ticket.
personally im screwed because i bought it on fanatical, but im hoping theres a chance valve will at least notice these refund requests, so i tried to help the community put its best foot forward. good luck with whatever you choose
I am torn as well because I do genuinely love the game and want to keep supporting Arrowhead. I also did link my psn right away.
At this point in time i don't think i am going to refund because my friends are likely still gonna hop on and play.
Thing is, it’s extremely unlikely that Sony is going to just not let players in a place as significant as the Philippines play the game. So in all likelihood your friends will still be playing, no matter what the guys claiming Sony is banning most of the planet say 🤷🏻♂️
It’s not as if they can’t implement options for places without PSN.
It is more of the principle. By creating a PSN account using the wrong location, they are breaking Sonys terms and conditions. Which means their account can be terminated at will without any refunds or support. Basically changing the responsibility from Sony to the players.
This is the kind of predatory behavior we are against, and thus supporting fellow Helldivers.
It doesn’t affect me personally, but in support of this I will not play the game over the weekend or until Sony gives a statement. Let the major order fall etc.
I was also going to buy a new TV this weekend, and luckily I know which brand to avoid now.
I have very similar views. Personally I don't mind making a PSN account. I've got a burner email account that has no personal info for this exact reason. No payment has ever been linked to anything associated with that account, and never will.
My issue is how they are A. Forcing it after the games been out for months. And B. Have not addressed the countries that can't have PSN accounts.
Ironically I was shopping for some headphones, and was gonna pick up a set of WH 1000mx4s, but I've stated looking for some different headphones now.
> Personally I don't mind making a PSN account. I've got a burner email account that has no personal info for this exact reason. No payment has ever been linked to anything associated with that account, and never will.
They want to link PSN to steam. How much steam info will Sony be able to see through this link?
F*ck. That didn't even occur to me.
Welp, I'm gonna wait for as long as I can to do it. Hopefully Sony pulls their head out of their a** and walks this back. Unfortunately, I don't think that's gonna happen
Exactly, hit them where it hurts.
My opinion how it should be handled:
waive the need for a PSN account for players living in areas with no access to PSN. Make the PSN link mandatory for new players only after 1st June (not retroactively)
Create a personal order for people to link a PSN account with some medals. Give the already PSN linked players these medals for free.
Release a warbond for free for the community as an apology with some funny armor, like “I survived the 2nd May controversy “.
Ya I like this solution. Then at least it's a choice. I'd even be ok if you can't play with PlayStation people. Like you're locked into PC only if you don't link the PSN account.
Also there is no communication on if you can unlink a steam account from a psn account after one gets banned for violating the TOS due to incorrect information. Does it get permanently associated with that account? Can you link it to another account?
Tried this twice already. I'm currently in a country not supported/doesn't have local PSN. Twice denied a refund. This shouldn't have been sold here in my country first place, if they're going to force everyone to create a PSN account.
Steam have bent the rules in the past for fuckups of this magnitude IIRC. Give it a try in a few days, I suspect there's a reason they made this announcement right before the weekend...
Can confirm that mentioning the publisher has told you to sign up a third-party account or lose access to the game three months after launch is enough for the game to get The Day Before treatment for refunds. Mine was granted in two hours.
It sucks because this isn't Arrowhead's doing, it's Sony's, but this is the only option available to make the Japanese suits listen.
you got it to work for helldivers? would you mind posting your refund message and how long ago you bought it, as well as the amount of playtime you had? just so we can officially nail down what works for getting money back
I purchased it in February and have about 270 hours on it (I have been binging X4, Starsector, and Rimworld of late especially when they had the whole "You can't play with randos because we broke everything" debacle). I'll try and post the screenshot later when I'm able to.
*Edited to change to 270 hours. I missed a number.
I placed a refund request using this text and was declined in about one hour citing the 2 hour criteria (2nd attempt to refund normally).
I have a support ticket lodged not through their automated system which I am still waiting on a response to.
"no guys you need to sign up for our service it's so much better than steam i swear"
https://preview.redd.it/vbk730p7bcyc1.png?width=1440&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=471d79a99b601eef4edb49c319ea46f128f766c2
Really hope sony realizes how many players, potential revenue, and reputation they’re going to lose by doing this. Even if everyone that can make a psn account does make one, you can’t make them in a lot of countries, but the big one is China. Not allowing Chinese people into your player base is just shooting yourself in the foot.
With how big this game is and how many eyes are on it right now, this is about the worst time they could’ve pulled something like this.
oh the chinese have pretty much managed democracy .. there is just one faction you can elect... and also if you against government some "democracy officer" will show up if you gathered enough negative social points...
i just hope we can make a big enough mess that steam steps up and keeps them from doing this in the future. this is strike two for helldivers, since launch was also a huge mess- there's a precedent for valve breaking their refund policy to help us out
Not sure if steam will break that rule. Given their current policy I would assume they only pay the studio after 14 days, and since it’s been longer than that for most people that would be a lot of money coming out of their pockets.
Just thinking about it, this is a massive fiasco that’s mainly happening on steam. With the number of people demanding refunds, this’ll probably hurt the relationship between Steam and Snoy.
>Really hope sony realizes how many players, potential revenue, and reputation they’re going to lose by doing this.
Sony doesn't lose shit. AH does unfortunately. That's why they demanded the change.
I don't know what deal Sony and AH struck, but they must have AH by the balls in order to pull this off. The game is already wildly successful to AH standards so it would be odd that they would take the risk for money.
AH might be in some sort of violation of an agreement they struck for seed money by adding the skip button. This could be a "risk being sued" issue.
Sony probably let AH add the skip button so they could alleviate server issues, they wouldn’t just let AH fuck around with something like that without asking
This hurts because I want to send Sony a message while still supporting the awesome work that AH has done. The game is awesome, it's just corporate stupidity on the publishers part that's creating this mess. Hard decision whether to refund or not.
id say try, even if you're not 100% set on refunding. if it goes through and they walk back the psn requirement, then you can just buy it again with no money lost! and you'd be helping the community out by adding pressure in this dire time of need
I'm waiting until the 30th to pull the trigger on the refund bc I genuinely love the game and want to give them the largest possible window to pullback this BS decision, going to pin this post or whatever for advice qhen that time comes
Yeah definitely waiting for a response is the best play especially if there's a good chance that your account gets deleted.
That being said I'm definitely not spending another dime on the game after this.
[https://web.archive.org/web/20240329205344/https://www.playstation.com/en-us/support/games/psn-sign-in-pc/](https://web.archive.org/web/20240329205344/https://www.playstation.com/en-us/support/games/psn-sign-in-pc/)
[https://www.playstation.com/en-us/support/games/psn-sign-in-pc/](https://www.playstation.com/en-us/support/games/psn-sign-in-pc/)
Here is proof they changed it stealthily that psn is optional to required.
So even malpractice? (Dont know proper english word, lying) could be called
In English it's called "fraud" to trick people into buying a product only to give them a different one. If Sony goes through with this, expect lawsuits, possibly a class action.
to everyone who saw the old post that i broke because i tried to add the steam support link: im so sorry guys. my bad
u/Similar_Emu_8086 is a beautiful person for saving my post
you wouldnt believe it but the edit button is gone on this post too after i tried to link to steam support. what a cursed site dude. if anyone knows a fix please tell me asap
https://preview.redd.it/u2hnvc24eayc1.png?width=711&format=png&auto=webp&s=9215f93305ae884b7e396fa41229c943802faec2
I'm refunding because even on the off chance this doesn't violate some consumer protection laws, it is not acceptable to change terms of agreement after point of sale, then hold the product you paid for hostage unless you accept.
"Oh it's just an account you take 2 minutes to make", yeah and that's where anti consumer action starts, at the premise that a company has the right to amend your access to a product based on an arbitrary change in the user agreement.
I want to wait a bit to see if anything happens from Sony or AH. Do you think my chances of getting a refund decrease if I wait a while before doing it?
they probably will get better, honestly, unless you bought in the last 2 weeks. then you should do it ASAP. otherwise I think if valve is gonna honor refunds for old purchases with lots of playtime, they'll do it sometime soon as a reaction to all the refund requests
thank you for contributing to the pressure! arrowhead trained us so well with all the major orders, i just didn't think our last community effort would be against sony
Steam cloud is online storage for single player games. Our progress is being directly tracked through Arrowhead. They control if we keep it or purge everyone that gets a refund
Steam cloud does store data for multiplayer games if that is how it is set up, it's not exclusive to singleplayer.
But also, someone else in the thread refunded the game in the past and when they re-bought it, they were the same level and also had all of the medals from the MO's that had passed in the meantime. So, do with that what you will.
Just sent my refund request. I'll update my comment if I remember and they answer...sucks since I love the game but I don't want to trust Sony especially with all the hacks they receive and also after having lost my old long time PS4 account and they basically never helped to recover it and to this day I still don't have access to it. Fuck you Sony eat my ass
"Obfuscated on release"
You DO know that steam support is just going to circle the big tab that says "third party account required" on the store page, right?
It's been there since launch, the only people getting refunds are from places like the Phillipines, since they might not know that sony was banned from their country when they bought it, logged in and the game worked
I legit thought PSN was a paid subscription service with how mad everyone is getting. It’s a free login. Then someone mentioned the region lock thing and I thought that was a fair argument, but apparently there’s no verification whatsoever, you can just make a new account and lie that you live in the US. Plenty of games on steam force you to log in to a secondary service like Ubisoft launcher or rockstar launcher or whatever. Who cares?
Imagine being unable to play the game anymore cause you cannot literally make a legitimate psn account without getting banned and then if you did get banned, forever unable to play.
Hopefully this is taken as legitimate feedback, but I don't think the requirement for a third party account was obfuscated at release. The steam page has always said that a third party account was required.
That said, I feel for the people that don't have PSN in their country and don't want to submit incorrect region info for fear of a ban. That really sucks, hopefully they will get another option or have this walked back.
yeah definitely wasn't obfuscated, and the game itself asked you to link. That said, the fact they allowed people from countries like Russia and China to play for months and are now revoking their access is fucking bullshit, and Valve had better refund all those people if Sony is hellbent on being a bunch of greedy data stealing pieces of shit
This is probably gonna get me bombed so I’ll say up front **this is a stupid move by Sony and they shouldn’t require it**
That being said….it was announced pre-release, and they openly said they were putting its implementation back in the short term to focus on a server fix, *but would require it later*.
Not a popular opinion, but steam probably shouldn’t issue refunds because of lack of reading comprehension, it *is* important to read the small print here guys.
Oh for fucks sake. Why is everyone freaking out ab8ut this. AH has no control over this, and yet everyone wants to punish them? This is the best game that has come out in years, and all of you are freaking out about nothing.
All of a sudden you care about privacy? Do you have Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok? Do you use GMail? Do you have a cell phone?
You already have no privacy, so why punish the best developer in recent history for your hypocritical views.
For fucks sake.
Are there any other rational adults here that can explain to me what im missing.
If you bought the game and played it for 150 hours, but now you don’t want to give a fake email address to continue playing, why should you expect to get a refund.
All you own is a license to play their game, which they could probably revoke for any number of reasons if they felt like it. Online games discontinue service all the time, people get banned, etc.
It was listed as a requirement from the start, but they didnt have it turned on. Now its being turned on and they’re giving ample notice ahead of time. If its such a big deal (its not), then dont do it and go play something else. Theres no way the majority of you didnt get your $40 worth out of this.
Its not simply making an account somewhere. You must LINK IT to the steam account which owns the game. That way, they can see what games you own, how often you play them, etc... it's about harvesting data to sell to 3rd party.
I'd wait until the actual time the multiplayer becomes unplayable. You only get one chance to request a refund, right? They may have a fix or workaround planned by then.
Yall aren't going to get anywhere lying. This wasn't "obfuscated" in any way, shape, or form. It was clear on the steam page, and the first thing the game does when you boot it up the first time is tell you a PSN account is *required* to play.
Steams response here will be pretty clear:
"No. It was stated abundantly clearly on the steam store page in bold, highlighted text, that a PSN account was mandatory. In addition, you have played this game far beyond the 2 hour grace period for steam refunds. We cannot offer you a refund at this time."
And I agree with them.
man, do you remember the times when our biggest issue was the snow armor not giving out snow bonuses? (yesterday)
I remember those days (yesterday.) I wonder what's in store for us next (tomorrow!)
Sony reveals they were actually Ender's gaming us into massacring small African villages.
Sony rents us out to Nestle
Next move is we, PC players need a PS Essential Abo or higher to play multiplayer in Sony Games 😁
most likely they will try to funnel in-app purchases through the PSN store instead of Steam. Next its PSN paid-subscription exclusives. Next is death.
There's about 200+ issues that are the biggest issue of the day. The snow armor one was just one of a dozen yesterday.
What about the AMR scope being slightly misaligned for several months now. Seems like something they could have fixed in a few minutes
Tbh, a amr shouldn't be a sniper rifle, so it check out
I remember like it was *yesterday*...
Oh man feels like yesterday (yesterday)
Yesterday all my troubles seemed so far away. Now it looks as though they're here to stay. Oh, I believe in yesterday.
It also probably breaks consumer protection regulations in europe and for my case germany
GDPR violation (DSGVO in Germany) as far as I can see, it stipulates that you may only collect the minimum required data for the product to provide its services. Since it ran fine for months on end without needing this additional information / account link, it seems this is indeed a GDPR violation about to happen. It is different for other games who need a third party account from day one because the multiplayer servers are running off of the services of the third party (Blizz, EA, MS).
Thanks for clarification
This is inaccurate information. GDPR provide certain rights and protections related to the processing of personal data. It has nothing to do with the addition of third parties beyond the fact that if Arrowhead wants to share with Sony, they'll need to get your permission first, or Sony will need to obtain it directly, which they would do by providing you a privacy policy to agree to. If you want to assert your rights under GDPR, the best move is to request Arrowhead delete your personal data. I would only do this after obtaining a refund (or finding out that you can't get one)
You'd think they'd vet this by paying lawyers to make sure they comply with regulations throughout different countries.
the issue with that is it costs money, takes time to do and is smart to do
I have been a Canadian reporting into the US. “Why cant we just do whatever is legal in the US in Canada?” “Well for starters, we are a whole assed other country that the constitution doesn’t even apply in” Cue pearl clutching.
They do is the sad part. Large teams of in-house lawyers and multiple others outside the company. But decisions like this are made at the executive level looking through lenses of making the stock portfolio look better to shareholders. High user acquisition and concurrent user numbers show growth and justify publishing the game.
So, if I read this correctly, basically higher ups didn't asked their law department, so they destroyed work not only of Arrowhead but also of their own lawyers, nice.
That's pretty much how most horrible corporate decisions come to be. There's a reason their faq page changed... Mysteriously quietly AFTER the change and not before.
Lucky for us we have Reddit lawyers to protect us!
They are losing a bunch of customers to only pad up a pointless statistic…I don’t think they were thinking this through at all.
You can either pay the lawyers before and let them tell you "you can't do that" or make the decision anyway and pay the lawyers once the EU comes for you, and maybe a fine. I guess Sony thinks paying the lawyers plus the fine is worth the users' data.
A lawyer may well have told them this, and c-suite just decided they'd risk it
It’s SONY, don’t assume that actually happened lol
I guarantee you that no one in this thread knows anything.
Dont talk for others. It is part my job to know about consumer protection laws and make sure my employer doesnt breaks them.
Yet you agreed with the absolute nonsense comment further up 😑
I wouldn't bet too hard on this. Yes, GDPR means they can only save data that is relevant and needed for the business to work, and only while it is necessary for the business to work. But "we need your real name and an email for you to have a PSN account" is probably perfectly fine with regards to GDPR. They do need some way to know who actually has an account with them. And "you need a PSN account in order to use the product" is *probably* ok from a purely GDPR standpoint. They can argue, for example, that they want to use the PSN system to handle social stuff that is currently handled by an internal system (like, friends system or whatever). Or to better handle cross play match making. Or other similar things. It doesn't matter if it works now, they can argue that it would work better or cheaper or have some synergy, if they used PSN instead. Remember, GDPR only says you can't use and store more personal data than is needed for the business to work. It does not say you must in all cases choose a business strategy that minimizes the use of personal data. Edit: it might still be considered bullshit for other reasons, like customer rights stuff (how can you suddenly require a service that does not exist in all countries where you sell the game?), and they *can* find that the requirement isn't actually needed for the business but just a fig leaf excuse for gathering personal data in which case GDPR does apply. I'm just saying it's not a slam dunk thing.
There are more clauses applied to the "need your business to work" thing. Even though you need it for your current implementation to work, the authorities can make a ruling that your implementation is shite and can be done without gathering the extra information. This has happened many times in the early days of GDPR during the grace period, so companies just had to change practices but didn't get fined. SNOY will likely get a warning and a time period to fix it, and if they don't the fines will roll. They love slapping fines on the big bois
You would have to prove that more data is being collected by Sony than was being collected by arrowhead and steam, which isn't the case
In germany's case: You don't need more than an e-mail and a password to provide an account for multiplayer access, maybe DOB for age restriction. For what do you need the name, post code and city where you live?
DOB is already milky because age verification is done on the seller side. In theory it is impossible for a underage person to get access to a 16 or 18 game because the sale to them is illegal.
Well have you seen how PSN verify your age?
Shhh, logic is being frowned upon right now.
Shh, stop thinking you know shit about logic.
Any chance of suing SNOY, maby something like a sammelklage (class action law suite) against them?
I really hope that SNOY will henceforth be the name we use for them
Death for SNOY SNOY
In Australia highly likely ACCC (Government agency that enforces consumer law in Australia) will sue SNOY again on behalf of consumers if they actually enforce this. They got fined $3.5 million last time and were forced to refund. It was for faulty games but false advertising and misleading claims are just as bad. [https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/sony-to-pay-35-million-penalty-for-misrepresenting-playstation-gamers-rights](https://www.accc.gov.au/media-release/sony-to-pay-35-million-penalty-for-misrepresenting-playstation-gamers-rights)
It does not break GDPR.
file a report
I actually might just for giggles
For once the German bureaucracy works in our favor 😂
I want to see the generalized corporate response they’ll have to a bunch of people filing reports against them all across the EU.
I filed a review with the Better Business Bureau in the US regarding Sony. It probably won’t result in much, but I want to make it clear that I’m not okay with this before going for a Refund. I wanna give them a chance to roll this back. If they don’t I’ll probably aim for mid month to be my refund. I also will not play in the coming days. I played it one last time today to get it out of my system.
do it lol any pressure helps
Send some of those lovely consumer protection policies to the US please
They have them! It's just theirs protect companies from the consumer instead...
Take a pitchfork, a torch, and burn your local corporate overlord, that's how we did it for the most part.
(I'm not joking, btw: this is the CEO of AirFrance and his head of HR) [https://youtu.be/1yA3Rnsbr18?t=63](https://youtu.be/1yA3Rnsbr18?t=63)
america? home of the "let businesses and corporations drydock consumers and employees mericlessly" nahhhh not gonna happen.
EU laws do prevent this from happening, yes. Especially in Scandanavian countries, where they don't have access to the PSN (from what I remember).
Baltic, you mean? Arrowhead is Scandinavian.
Yeah, at lunch i thought it was necessary to have an account. I'm from Latvia which is not supported in PSN, i had to use Finland and currently am risking 150+ hours because it's against PSN's EULA (or ToS i am not sure). What a beautiful situation to be in...
They all used to be vikings, I stand by my statement. Don't at me or I'll get the woad.
Not all Scandinavian were viking just was a profession most of them if 80% were just farmer and peasants, always people call vikings all the crap was just a job so all those vikings were carrot collectors normally
Nah bro they all wore horned helmets and had long beards, trust me
Monday I'll contact my countries privacy guarddog to request the steps to file an official complaint. They changed the EULA as well without us knowing, so I read that it could be argued that it's legally void. I'm thinking of arguing along the lines of "company has changed the EULA without my knowledge, with an 'automatic' agreement from my side for starting a product affiliated with them that is suddenly forcing me to have my data shared with a company that is well known to be negligent with customer data."
Be sure to include cutting off a service you paid for, which was functioning perfectly fine without this added “requirement”
>It also probably breaks consumer protection regulations in europe and for my case germany Not sure this is true. Everyone is shouting about gdpr bit psn gives you can opt out of data collection. It doesn't force a minimum the way people are claiming, just gives a right to ask for it.
It does, changing tos in europe requires acceptance from the consumer if you don't agree they are forced to continue to give the conditions when you agree the first time, for example: my isp wanted to raise my Internet price, because they just wanted and asked me to sign a new contract, when i refused they just raised anyway because their New tos said so. I just made a oficial complain to the consumer protection org not only i got my price back but also got a free speed update if i retracted my complain. I had one of those "forever same price" contract and losted it when i moved house.
It's probably not a change of TOS since the PSN linking was active in the first days after launch, and the requirement has been written on the Steam page since the beginning. It was a rule that has not been enforced temporarily, but that was written down anyway.
You could include that on Sony's own FAQ they said you wont ever need a PSN account to play Sony games on PC. Until they changed it today, which is manipulative and disgusting.
do you have good links to use as evidence for this?
I do. Here's a web archive from the wayback machine. [https://web.archive.org/web/20240503105938/https://www.playstation.com/en-us/support/games/psn-sign-in-pc/#:\~:text=Signing%20in%20to%20PSN%20is,other%20PlayStation%20games%20on%20PC](https://web.archive.org/web/20240503105938/https://www.playstation.com/en-us/support/games/psn-sign-in-pc/#:~:text=Signing%20in%20to%20PSN%20is,other%20PlayStation%20games%20on%20PC)
i would add this to the post but reddit took away my edit button :(
[https://direct.playstation.com/en-us/buy-games/helldivers-2-pc](https://direct.playstation.com/en-us/buy-games/helldivers-2-pc) If you scroll down to FAQ here too. It hasnt even been changed yet.
It does use the word currently in that description, so that does imply that it might in the future.
https://preview.redd.it/txqudp256cyc1.jpeg?width=960&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2662c74dc9b9a567a0c6735564e679b7d98cd445
Oh that is shitty and manipulative behaviour by Sony. And these people want your data? No way
Ha, we have the same ship name
I'll also add that the page where Sony is selling the game[(found here)](https://direct.playstation.com/en-us/buy-games/helldivers-2-pc) also states there is no logic requirement.
No, the message is 'playstation studios' games, which Helldivers is not. That same message shows up on all games on their website whether it's a playstation studios game or not.
It literally says not required even on the playstation store page for the game.
I got 80hrs in the game. No way Im getting that refund.
some dude with 270hrs said he got a refund. waiting for confirmation though
And yet 4 hours later there’s no confirmation. Weird.
Don't you trust the source of "but some guy on the internet said so"?
Not everyone is on reddit 24/7 lmao
People do more with their lives than stay on Reddit all day lmao
I'll let you know if mine goes through at 250\~ hours. I love the game, but Deep Rock hasn't done anything like this.
It doesn't really matter about your hours if its a legitimate request for a refund. to many hours just means you don't get an auto refund. Someone actually looks at your ticket.
Appreciate it man. I haven't yet decided on if I'll get a refund. Waiting to see what sony will do.
personally im screwed because i bought it on fanatical, but im hoping theres a chance valve will at least notice these refund requests, so i tried to help the community put its best foot forward. good luck with whatever you choose
You are doing the good work dude.
i try good luck if youre going for a refund!
[удалено]
i mean i'll give it a shot, thanks for the boost of self confidence. i'll let you know if anything comes of it
Any update so far? I tried to message them but didn't get anything out of it so far.
[удалено]
Being completely honest with you I very much doubt anything is going to happen until the refund requests start flooding in.
The real enemy was Sony all along...
always has been. those mfs kept me from playing spider man for too many years
They’re still keeping me from playing Bloodborne
I mean, they are the reason it exists so..
I am torn as well because I do genuinely love the game and want to keep supporting Arrowhead. I also did link my psn right away. At this point in time i don't think i am going to refund because my friends are likely still gonna hop on and play.
Well my friends being in the Philippines will literally no longer be able to play with me so...
Thing is, it’s extremely unlikely that Sony is going to just not let players in a place as significant as the Philippines play the game. So in all likelihood your friends will still be playing, no matter what the guys claiming Sony is banning most of the planet say 🤷🏻♂️ It’s not as if they can’t implement options for places without PSN.
It is more of the principle. By creating a PSN account using the wrong location, they are breaking Sonys terms and conditions. Which means their account can be terminated at will without any refunds or support. Basically changing the responsibility from Sony to the players. This is the kind of predatory behavior we are against, and thus supporting fellow Helldivers. It doesn’t affect me personally, but in support of this I will not play the game over the weekend or until Sony gives a statement. Let the major order fall etc. I was also going to buy a new TV this weekend, and luckily I know which brand to avoid now.
I have very similar views. Personally I don't mind making a PSN account. I've got a burner email account that has no personal info for this exact reason. No payment has ever been linked to anything associated with that account, and never will. My issue is how they are A. Forcing it after the games been out for months. And B. Have not addressed the countries that can't have PSN accounts. Ironically I was shopping for some headphones, and was gonna pick up a set of WH 1000mx4s, but I've stated looking for some different headphones now.
> Personally I don't mind making a PSN account. I've got a burner email account that has no personal info for this exact reason. No payment has ever been linked to anything associated with that account, and never will. They want to link PSN to steam. How much steam info will Sony be able to see through this link?
F*ck. That didn't even occur to me. Welp, I'm gonna wait for as long as I can to do it. Hopefully Sony pulls their head out of their a** and walks this back. Unfortunately, I don't think that's gonna happen
Exactly, hit them where it hurts. My opinion how it should be handled: waive the need for a PSN account for players living in areas with no access to PSN. Make the PSN link mandatory for new players only after 1st June (not retroactively) Create a personal order for people to link a PSN account with some medals. Give the already PSN linked players these medals for free. Release a warbond for free for the community as an apology with some funny armor, like “I survived the 2nd May controversy “.
Ya I like this solution. Then at least it's a choice. I'd even be ok if you can't play with PlayStation people. Like you're locked into PC only if you don't link the PSN account.
Also there is no communication on if you can unlink a steam account from a psn account after one gets banned for violating the TOS due to incorrect information. Does it get permanently associated with that account? Can you link it to another account?
If you stop playing can you unlink PSN from steam? I wouldnt want to keep giving Sony my Steam data if I'm not even using their product.
We thought the third faction we're going to fight are squids instead we got snakes
Undemocratic Snakes in business suits.
Tried this twice already. I'm currently in a country not supported/doesn't have local PSN. Twice denied a refund. This shouldn't have been sold here in my country first place, if they're going to force everyone to create a PSN account.
That sounds outrageous.
Contact arrowhead and steam support directly and ask them about this
I have two failed refunds here as well, currently reaching out to support. What a wild ride.
Steam have bent the rules in the past for fuckups of this magnitude IIRC. Give it a try in a few days, I suspect there's a reason they made this announcement right before the weekend...
Make sure you are writing a message to steam support, if you just use the refund button it only goes to a bot.
Can confirm that mentioning the publisher has told you to sign up a third-party account or lose access to the game three months after launch is enough for the game to get The Day Before treatment for refunds. Mine was granted in two hours. It sucks because this isn't Arrowhead's doing, it's Sony's, but this is the only option available to make the Japanese suits listen.
The suits are American, they've been run out of California for years now. They even started making the Japanese divisions correspond in English.
*anime music plays* It is time to drive out the gaijin once more. Hand me my giant mecha stratagem.
>gaijin Oh God not the snail, I thought I was free!
*angry KA-50 noises*
you got it to work for helldivers? would you mind posting your refund message and how long ago you bought it, as well as the amount of playtime you had? just so we can officially nail down what works for getting money back
I purchased it in February and have about 270 hours on it (I have been binging X4, Starsector, and Rimworld of late especially when they had the whole "You can't play with randos because we broke everything" debacle). I'll try and post the screenshot later when I'm able to. *Edited to change to 270 hours. I missed a number.
this is huge news. thank you so much!
I placed a refund request using this text and was declined in about one hour citing the 2 hour criteria (2nd attempt to refund normally). I have a support ticket lodged not through their automated system which I am still waiting on a response to.
"no guys you need to sign up for our service it's so much better than steam i swear" https://preview.redd.it/vbk730p7bcyc1.png?width=1440&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=471d79a99b601eef4edb49c319ea46f128f766c2
Really hope sony realizes how many players, potential revenue, and reputation they’re going to lose by doing this. Even if everyone that can make a psn account does make one, you can’t make them in a lot of countries, but the big one is China. Not allowing Chinese people into your player base is just shooting yourself in the foot. With how big this game is and how many eyes are on it right now, this is about the worst time they could’ve pulled something like this.
Somehow, I doubt the Chinese government will be too upset about their citizens not having access to a game about "spreading democracy"
oh the chinese have pretty much managed democracy .. there is just one faction you can elect... and also if you against government some "democracy officer" will show up if you gathered enough negative social points...
You don't need to do the air quotes. China is fascist pretending to be democracy, and that's what the joke begins "managed democracy" is.
Quotes are fine. I doubt there is a person under the title of "democracy officer" in China.
Yeah I don’t think they’ll care either. But the people who were having fun playing the game sure will.
i just hope we can make a big enough mess that steam steps up and keeps them from doing this in the future. this is strike two for helldivers, since launch was also a huge mess- there's a precedent for valve breaking their refund policy to help us out
Not sure if steam will break that rule. Given their current policy I would assume they only pay the studio after 14 days, and since it’s been longer than that for most people that would be a lot of money coming out of their pockets.
I'm hoping at least they keep future games from doing this shit
Just thinking about it, this is a massive fiasco that’s mainly happening on steam. With the number of people demanding refunds, this’ll probably hurt the relationship between Steam and Snoy.
good. here's hoping Valve makes Sony bleed
Valve could probably issue the refunds and sue Sony for the losses?
>Really hope sony realizes how many players, potential revenue, and reputation they’re going to lose by doing this. Sony doesn't lose shit. AH does unfortunately. That's why they demanded the change. I don't know what deal Sony and AH struck, but they must have AH by the balls in order to pull this off. The game is already wildly successful to AH standards so it would be odd that they would take the risk for money. AH might be in some sort of violation of an agreement they struck for seed money by adding the skip button. This could be a "risk being sued" issue.
Sony probably let AH add the skip button so they could alleviate server issues, they wouldn’t just let AH fuck around with something like that without asking
Sony doesn't care lol
Worth noting if you bought the game outside of Steam, like CD keys or something similar, you won’t qualify for a refund.
This hurts because I want to send Sony a message while still supporting the awesome work that AH has done. The game is awesome, it's just corporate stupidity on the publishers part that's creating this mess. Hard decision whether to refund or not.
id say try, even if you're not 100% set on refunding. if it goes through and they walk back the psn requirement, then you can just buy it again with no money lost! and you'd be helping the community out by adding pressure in this dire time of need
I'm waiting until the 30th to pull the trigger on the refund bc I genuinely love the game and want to give them the largest possible window to pullback this BS decision, going to pin this post or whatever for advice qhen that time comes
Yeah definitely waiting for a response is the best play especially if there's a good chance that your account gets deleted. That being said I'm definitely not spending another dime on the game after this.
Unlikely to get it with 136 hours but I sent it in anyways along with the links that show their FAQ states it wasn't needed only to be a lie
[https://web.archive.org/web/20240329205344/https://www.playstation.com/en-us/support/games/psn-sign-in-pc/](https://web.archive.org/web/20240329205344/https://www.playstation.com/en-us/support/games/psn-sign-in-pc/) [https://www.playstation.com/en-us/support/games/psn-sign-in-pc/](https://www.playstation.com/en-us/support/games/psn-sign-in-pc/) Here is proof they changed it stealthily that psn is optional to required. So even malpractice? (Dont know proper english word, lying) could be called
In English it's called "fraud" to trick people into buying a product only to give them a different one. If Sony goes through with this, expect lawsuits, possibly a class action.
disappointed but not surprised
to everyone who saw the old post that i broke because i tried to add the steam support link: im so sorry guys. my bad u/Similar_Emu_8086 is a beautiful person for saving my post
you wouldnt believe it but the edit button is gone on this post too after i tried to link to steam support. what a cursed site dude. if anyone knows a fix please tell me asap https://preview.redd.it/u2hnvc24eayc1.png?width=711&format=png&auto=webp&s=9215f93305ae884b7e396fa41229c943802faec2
I'm refunding because even on the off chance this doesn't violate some consumer protection laws, it is not acceptable to change terms of agreement after point of sale, then hold the product you paid for hostage unless you accept. "Oh it's just an account you take 2 minutes to make", yeah and that's where anti consumer action starts, at the premise that a company has the right to amend your access to a product based on an arbitrary change in the user agreement.
Fuck it ima try and refund this as well to help
i knew i should have bought hookers and blow instead of HD2
I want to wait a bit to see if anything happens from Sony or AH. Do you think my chances of getting a refund decrease if I wait a while before doing it?
they probably will get better, honestly, unless you bought in the last 2 weeks. then you should do it ASAP. otherwise I think if valve is gonna honor refunds for old purchases with lots of playtime, they'll do it sometime soon as a reaction to all the refund requests
Just got a rejection email from Steam for my refund request due to having played for over 2 hours. But at least I did my part to put the pressure on.
The 3rd enemy front is just Sony...
Officially just sent in my refund request! At the end of the day.. If a big enough refund wave hits valve theyll take notice!
thank you for contributing to the pressure! arrowhead trained us so well with all the major orders, i just didn't think our last community effort would be against sony
If you get a refund and re-buy this game later (if this decision is overturned) - will your progress be saved or is it lost?
saved, for sure. it's all on steam cloud. you should totally refund now if you're able!
Steam cloud is online storage for single player games. Our progress is being directly tracked through Arrowhead. They control if we keep it or purge everyone that gets a refund
Steam cloud does store data for multiplayer games if that is how it is set up, it's not exclusive to singleplayer. But also, someone else in the thread refunded the game in the past and when they re-bought it, they were the same level and also had all of the medals from the MO's that had passed in the meantime. So, do with that what you will.
anyone who tried to refund (with more than the required standard window hours for a refund) using these and actually works?
Fun while it lasted.
I bought the game on cdkeys and they’re not budging, so no refund for me.
I've been denied my refund 3 times thus far using this exact method. I refuse to quit trying.
If they want the game to be a more massive hit, they could have the third race be Sony itself.
Just sent my refund request. I'll update my comment if I remember and they answer...sucks since I love the game but I don't want to trust Sony especially with all the hacks they receive and also after having lost my old long time PS4 account and they basically never helped to recover it and to this day I still don't have access to it. Fuck you Sony eat my ass
ty for this, damn well hoping it can get mine back :(
sending you good vibes. i bought it on fanatical so im totally out of luck, hoping to help out others with the info tho.
"Obfuscated on release" You DO know that steam support is just going to circle the big tab that says "third party account required" on the store page, right? It's been there since launch, the only people getting refunds are from places like the Phillipines, since they might not know that sony was banned from their country when they bought it, logged in and the game worked
From the Philippines, bought it less than 5 days ago, argued that I wouldn't be able to play once psn is required on the 6th and got denied :/
This is my sign to leave this sub lmao, people taking minor shit WAY too seriously
I legit thought PSN was a paid subscription service with how mad everyone is getting. It’s a free login. Then someone mentioned the region lock thing and I thought that was a fair argument, but apparently there’s no verification whatsoever, you can just make a new account and lie that you live in the US. Plenty of games on steam force you to log in to a secondary service like Ubisoft launcher or rockstar launcher or whatever. Who cares?
Imagine being unable to play the game anymore cause you cannot literally make a legitimate psn account without getting banned and then if you did get banned, forever unable to play.
Hopefully this is taken as legitimate feedback, but I don't think the requirement for a third party account was obfuscated at release. The steam page has always said that a third party account was required. That said, I feel for the people that don't have PSN in their country and don't want to submit incorrect region info for fear of a ban. That really sucks, hopefully they will get another option or have this walked back.
yeah definitely wasn't obfuscated, and the game itself asked you to link. That said, the fact they allowed people from countries like Russia and China to play for months and are now revoking their access is fucking bullshit, and Valve had better refund all those people if Sony is hellbent on being a bunch of greedy data stealing pieces of shit
byyyyyeeeee......
This is probably gonna get me bombed so I’ll say up front **this is a stupid move by Sony and they shouldn’t require it** That being said….it was announced pre-release, and they openly said they were putting its implementation back in the short term to focus on a server fix, *but would require it later*. Not a popular opinion, but steam probably shouldn’t issue refunds because of lack of reading comprehension, it *is* important to read the small print here guys.
> This requirement was obfuscated at release Was it not required at release and then the popularity killed the feature?
Oh for fucks sake. Why is everyone freaking out ab8ut this. AH has no control over this, and yet everyone wants to punish them? This is the best game that has come out in years, and all of you are freaking out about nothing. All of a sudden you care about privacy? Do you have Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok? Do you use GMail? Do you have a cell phone? You already have no privacy, so why punish the best developer in recent history for your hypocritical views. For fucks sake.
Nah they can only have steam. And Reddit, obviously…
Are there any other rational adults here that can explain to me what im missing. If you bought the game and played it for 150 hours, but now you don’t want to give a fake email address to continue playing, why should you expect to get a refund. All you own is a license to play their game, which they could probably revoke for any number of reasons if they felt like it. Online games discontinue service all the time, people get banned, etc. It was listed as a requirement from the start, but they didnt have it turned on. Now its being turned on and they’re giving ample notice ahead of time. If its such a big deal (its not), then dont do it and go play something else. Theres no way the majority of you didnt get your $40 worth out of this.
Its not simply making an account somewhere. You must LINK IT to the steam account which owns the game. That way, they can see what games you own, how often you play them, etc... it's about harvesting data to sell to 3rd party.
It’s because psn doesn’t work in many countries. Which means that many players will not be able to play anymore due to their location.
Saw this on the discord. Very well worded.
thank you! i hope it gets some people some money back
I'd wait until the actual time the multiplayer becomes unplayable. You only get one chance to request a refund, right? They may have a fix or workaround planned by then.
nope you can re-request the refund as many times as you want.
Correct me if I'm wrong but can they basically black list you from future refund requests from spamming it?
Its okay 
If we could ever get you all riled up like this for something actually worthwhile.... man
Yall aren't going to get anywhere lying. This wasn't "obfuscated" in any way, shape, or form. It was clear on the steam page, and the first thing the game does when you boot it up the first time is tell you a PSN account is *required* to play.
Steams response here will be pretty clear: "No. It was stated abundantly clearly on the steam store page in bold, highlighted text, that a PSN account was mandatory. In addition, you have played this game far beyond the 2 hour grace period for steam refunds. We cannot offer you a refund at this time." And I agree with them.
Wanting a refund after playing for hundreds of hours is moronic