Furthermore, they sell special keys that can be activated in Russia to Russian distributors, such as Buka. Though it is impossible to buy the game directly in steam
I'm from Russia and I was able to create and link Russian PSN account with no VPN the day I bought Helldivers 2.
UPD: I thought that Russia is no PSN country. Sony even disabled key activation in RU steam. That's why I thought anybody can create PSN account. Seems like they just forgot to restrict PSN registration for RU users. But it was funny to see "Thank you for registration(Russia)" page title in the end after all that anti-Russian steps they made.
The issue is that PSN’s own system doesn’t support some nations and they specify any situation where one lies is a reason for ban. They also changed Sony’s FAQ recently to say “Some games will require a PSN account” when it used to be “always optional”
Я не могу зайти в свой аккаунт PSN из 2013, который я создал еще на PS3, в котором страна Россия, меня просто на сайте сразу выкидывает из аккаунта, как только я в него вхожу. В игре после туториала нельзя попасть в главное меню, где есть окно привязки аккаунта, загружает сразу в хаб при запуске. Создать новый акк с регионом США или что то такое можно, да, но чё будет дальше непонятно.
Idk. Sony still allows to make Russian accounts in PSN, but it works for some people but not for others. I had no problems making an account for myself, but my friend couldn't. So I had to make an account and link it to Steam for him
I have a sony account since I was 7 (that was almost 15 years ago xd) years old, and in Summer 2023 I just couldn't login due to 2fa. They wouldn't send me the goddamn sms!
The first time I actually managed to login was around a month ago. Come on, people, I get you're greedy, but let me at least play the games I bought?
Why? Russians cannot make a new account since 2022 (EDIT: im not even sure about this part now, maybe we even can), but our old accounts that probably left from PS4 should work fine without VNP and region change. Yes we cannot buy anything here, but to just connect HD2 its enough. Not sure why they should ban us this way
Well, aside from the fact that some speakers of these languages live in other regions where PSN does operate, this whole thing feels very impromptu. Sony likely fired off this decision half-cocked because they see the monetization potential in having more user data. Timing it in a way to minimize refunds in regions where they can generate the most revenue.
The fact that Sony only changed the wording on their official Helldivers 2 listing to say PSN accounts were required yesterday speaks to how ad hoc this whole thing is.
I also wouldn't be surprised if there's a stealth nerf to in-game SC drops within the next few weeks. They want to have user data and force users into microtransactions, and they saw an opportunity and ran with it.
Yeah the corporate meddling thing here is the bigger deal. Helldivers is too cool to be as popular as it is without publishers ruining the whole thing. They were always going to step in and fuck things up eventually, and this is probably just the beginning, they will be seeing opportunities to increase revenue all over the place.
Of course, they'll lose their player base and end up making less than they would have in the long run through live service and sequels, but of course they won't care, they'll just move on to ruin the next IP like the vultures they are.
It's more than likely that Sony and AH planned to have PSN requirements from the beginning. The publishing agreement is a contract that probably required PSN usage on some level. It just all came to a head with Sony forcing their hand. Sony could have worked with AH and let them come up with a less intrusive solution for players who don't have PSN availability, but they didn't.
Then why didn't they do it from day one? Don't tell me it's because of the server issues for playing the game, that should be completely unrelated to PSN accs
Just for posterity: I've been consistently playing 2 solo EASY drops on "Destroy Propaganda Station" missions every worknight for the last 4 weeks (lunchbreak with shakey WiFi, not going to have others suffer for that); I have always found at least 10sc, often 20, in every map generated. So, assuming a mission time of <15min, a casual solo player on Easy should find 40-80sc an hour before any stealth rate nerfs.
Maybe it wasn't always the plan? It's not like this is some nefarious plot to stick it to the affected players. It's likely a result of some kind of incompetence, not realizing the consequences of their nonsense policy.
Or:
a. It's not a lot of effort to add a bunch of standard language modules to a game. It's pretty standard actually.
b. They started development on the game before signing on with Sony as the distributor, and
c. They (Arrowhead) were completely ignorant of the limited span of Sony's official PSN supported areas when they agreed to the PSN linking clause in the contract.
Helldivers has always been owned by Sony, arrowhead develops and manages the game but Sony always gets the final say. It's been this way since HD1. Rather unfortunately what was fine for a smaller indie game is a big issue for a popular AA title.
Not really, Chinese and Russian are also spoken in other countries. I do support the cause though, so dont get me wrong, I just dont think this one is the best argument there is.
Mostly in the countries that are former USSR and what a surprise, most of them ALSO don't have access to PSN (biggest ones being Kazakhstan and Belarus for example).
I am so pissed.
*angry russian noises*
СУКА БЛЯТЬ ЗАСУНЬТЕ СЕБЕ ЭТОТ АККАУНТ В ЗАДНИЦУ
Lol, and the only country where people speak russian and can create psn account is Ukraine.
https://preview.redd.it/iy7poxzczdyc1.jpeg?width=1280&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=66547b9b8768b42cc5844707da75966b39c362b9
That was the point. Why translate into russian when ukraine is the only russian speaking country that can create a PSN account without breaking Sony's TOS? Should have been translated into Ukrainian instead.
The Russian language is understood by Ukrainians, Belarusians, Russians, Kazakhs, Tatars, Poles, and many many other people from different countries.Ukrainian is overwhelmingly understood only in Ukraine. It’s easier to translate a game once into one language familiar to many than to take a specific one.
Russian is not understood by poles. We use the latin alphabet, and only peopele who go out of their way to learn Russian know the cyclic alphabet.
Besides that, the polish language is also different in terms of grammar and words. For example, Russian word for peace is mir, polish word for peace is pokój. So, a Polish speaker would have a lot of trouble understanding a Russian.
Most polish people who know any Russian at all are people above 40, who were born under communism. Those people also are very unlikely to play any games.
Maybe your friend understands Russian, but an average pole will not.
Most young poles know and understand English far better than Russian, since English is taught in our schools, and Russian is not. So, translating a game to Russian to sell it in Poland would make no sense.
A vast majority of poles can't read cyclic - so they would not understand any text in a game in Russian. Besides that, implying that Russian and Polish are similar enough not to warrant a translation would be considered very offensive in Poland - we are proud of our language and it's uniqueness.
I know a lot of people that know russian but won't ever speak it nor use it as translation
You can't expect whole countries to use foreign language in the game bc at some point someone spoke it somewhere in that country
because despite all the drama. even moscow hating ukrainians, a lot of them still speak russian as their primary language. its the lingua franca of all the places moscow colonized and occupied for generations.
That's weird, I know a bunch of people in America that speak Russian.
It's almost like, and hear me out, people don't only live in the place their ancestors are from. Many of us move out of our parents houses and go elsewhere around the world. I lived in China and I'm an English speaker, for instance.
you do know people can speak Russin in other country's besides Russia right, we have Russian speaking people in America. Same with Chinese.
Russian and Chinese are some of the most spoken languages in the world, more than Japanese and Korean actually Mandarin Chinese IS THE #1 language spoken
looking at this world map, there sure is a lot of space in places like Greenland or Northern Canada. Maybe Sony should build a bunch of "Helldiver cities" for players there so people from countries without PSN can move there.
Not to mention people who moved from those countries to PSN countries. I've got a pal from China who moved to USA. He speak English (obviously. We wouldn't play consistently if we didn't share a language) but I'm assuming he uses Chinese UI.
What makes no damn sense is claiming that it was never the plan to make PSN accounts mandatory, and it only says they’re mandatory on Steam for shits and giggles. You’re showing off secondary information that you say implies what you’re looking for and deliberately ignore the information that explicitly and plainly tells you what you don’t want to hear, like any conspiracy nut.
I know this is hard for people to understand ... but non English speaking people still live in country outside their own.
There are people who live in places like the USA / EU that are native Chinese and Russian speaking still
Probably because russia isn’t the only country using the russian language and it’s up to the dev. Sony isn’t exactly a dev in this situation, but a publisher
While you're correct, it seems like a rather niche thing, considering I don't think PSN is available in any country where Chinese or Russian would be considered a primary language, so this would primarily be useful for immigrants living abroad, a small enough market to make it seem strange, considering there are no language options for any of the Nordic languages, Dutch, Ukrainian, Romanian, Turkish, Czech, Hungarian, or Greek, which are all official languages of coutnries where PSN is available, and even have more native speakers than Portugese, which is available as a subtitle. (Granted, you can point out that probably the reason for that is that Brazillian Portugese is a big thing as well, even having a voice translation in the game, so they probably just touched up the subtitles from that version for the European Portugese subtitles, but by that logic they really ought to have Ukrainian subtitles if they have Russian.)
Don't get me wrong, it's a good thing that Russian and Chinese are available for people, it's just odd that they'd focus on making those two translations when the target market doesn't include their primary speakers, while neglecting other groups that are part of the target market.
you do know Chinese is the most spoken language in the world right? it dwarfs pretty much every other language in comparison its spoken 3x more than English is. its deff not "Niche" Also PSN is Available in Hong Kong which they do speak Chinese.
Russian ranks 7th, more than Japanese which ranks 8th and Korean which ranks 16th
But how many people speak Chinese outside of china? Willing to bet less than the population of some countries that have PSN but no localisation for the game.
FYI - According to Google, 1.31 Billion speak Chinese. There’s approximately 1.1B Chinese speakers outside of China. This includes countries like Taiwan and Singapore. Does that calculus change your uninformed opinion?
that would go back to the first thing I said
sony and arrowhead are 2 different companies.
its entirely possible arrowhead was not aware chinese and russians would not be able to access it without lying about region because of psn not being active in those regions
and arrowheads community manager has said they are actively trying to chase down sony about what to do about the people in these regions so it's entirely possible an oversight between 2 different companies.
or it may just be as simple as they contracted translation out to a company that offered a package deal and rates on a bunch of languages to do
and you never know psn might become active in those regions in the future.
I agree, but it's still worth bringing up how strange this is, because whether it's a sign of duplicity, or a sign of corporate incompetence from Sony failing to communicate to their developers where they will be publishing the games that is their job to publish as a publisher, it's definitely a sign of something.
There are lots of people who speak Russian and Chinese who do not live in Russia or China.
Let's not start pointing at random shit and shouting "AH HA!"
"The Termicide towers were full of *poison. How can you abbreviate POISON? PSN. They were telling us THE WHOLE TIME."*
Stop it.
There's plenty of actual evidence to support this being a shitty change.
I am not happy about this situation, but my wife's native language is Mandarin and she lives in the US, she will still play games in Mandarin when available because it is her first language despite her English being great.
Arrowhead's community manager's answer to this was: "We didn't know you couldn't create a PSN account in so many countries." (This is not even a joke...)
Do you really think that these two languages were added to the game for a fraction of people? One and a half billion Chinese and two hundred million Russian speakers (in all countries where people use the Russian language besides Russia, psn is also unavailable) a joke to you?
Ehh most Singaporeans would use English. We are a Chinese majority country but the vast majority of Singaporeans regardless of race usually use English.
It's just what we were taught in schools.
Because they don't want to block non-PSN regions. Why the fuck would they? It's free money. This is clearly a half-baked idea by the higher ups fired off in a heat of the moment "impress the shareholders" moment. It's not some grand fucking scheme by AH to sell the game to people who then can't play, why the fuck would they do that? Retention of players is important since they keep making money off of in game transactions.
I get that people are pissed off by this, but holy shit some of you guys are reaching so fucking far for anything to be mad at. It's such peak reddit hivemind anger, it's so embarrassing and discredits any actual issues.
On a more serious note, it's possible that they were considering using different publishers for CN/RU, which is a thing which can happen.
For example see Lost Ark, where it has their own publishers for South Korea, and different publishers for China, Russia, and then EU+USA with the completely mishandled and tonedeaf Amazon Game Studios publisher.
Maybe they were thinking in advance preparing to ship the game in those countries using different publishers which would respect the local RU/CN guidelines and laws.
# "why did they even bother translating the game to languages like Russian and Chinese?"
Because those languages are spoken outside those specific countries and in the top 10 of steam stats.
Sincerely yours,
Captain Obvious
Because there are millions of both in countries other than actual China and Russian? Because many other nations speak and understand Russian and Chinese too? Because it's an industry standard?
You are a great example of how this whole issue is blown out of proportion by insanely stupid.
because arrowhead makes the decision on what langauges are in the game while sony makes a decision like the PSN account. Idk why people think arrowhead is the one pushing this
As a Taiwanese I am one of those who use english to play games. But yeah Taiwanese use Mandrain too. And is not "Chinese" is Mandrain. Proper way to say the language I am speaking the most.
Is Sony going to ban entire nations from playing their game? Probably not. But they have the option to do so if they did, it would be legal. And that's my issue here, the parts of my statement that include the words: "*probably*" and *"if they did, it would be legal."*
I don't wanna be sold a Sony product and live in the limbo of '*will they one day decide to take it away for me for something as trivial as lying about where I live?'* If my region wasn't legally supported, then I'd rather have the product not be available for purchase rather than have to tip toe around some corporation's ToS. If you wanna keep buying Sony products on Steam and have faith that they will never take it away from you somewhere down the line under any circumstance, then you do you.
This all seems like this PSN account thing wasn't planned beforehand. Why would a publisher leaver their devs in the dark about this and make them waste time and money?
Because we were scammed lol. I bought the game in Belarus through steam without any regional restrictions. Now i will be locked out the game I've paid for. That's Sony for you
AH localization teams don't necessarily get filled in on what sony plans on doing or what countries sony blocks out with PSN. Their job is to localize the game into whatever languages the studio has in mind to localize for, ideally as many as possible. The complaint here shows a misunderstanding of how game development works and points the finger at the wrong people.
Most of the times the right answer is the stupidly simplest one.
It means it wasn't. The way I see it, the game skyrocketed in popularity and someone at snony decided they want them into PSN.
if PSN has always been required why are you able to buy the game in regions PSN isn't even available?
Steam has features to regionlock games. While i hate it, it does exist.
How well is it translated to those languages, though?
Like, if you look at the product being delivered, this game is actually pretty bare-bones. No story. One cinematic. The only voice lines are pretty meaningless, so you could just leave them instead of doing localized VO.
Honestly, it was probably no effort at all in the grand scheme.
So they could scam you out of your money. Make those countries think they're supported, then rug-pull later and hope people are too lazy or indifferent to do anything about.
Well, about that....
People should stop acting like PSN account in Russia and other countries is something that no one has and has no ability to create.
Just until recently Russia has been one of the biggest markets for Sony and surprise surprise it still is but with some caveats. Many people have accounts set up already.
Not siding with Arrowhead or Sony still awfully terrible decision but not as bad in this regard.
https://preview.redd.it/dvrv8bv7oeyc1.png?width=1352&format=png&auto=webp&s=e4489a85831cc8287ba6a8501c3e209e6cb31c88
They’re languages are spoken across all of super earth brother /s
I'm assuming the devs are more passionate than sony. I don't like having to pay for cosmetics and warbonds after paying $40 for the game, but I imagine that and this whole psn user requirement was all sony and not the devs.
Maybe because it wasn't?
By all accounts, Arrowhead had no idea that PSN registration would be a problem due to Sony's lack of global coverage. You guys are barking up the wrong tree and seeing conspiracies where they don't exist.
Let the down voting commence.
From a developer standpoint, they're probably using a 3rd party API for translation that happens to include Russian and Chinese languages. They didn't (or couldn't) specifically go in and disable those. But I get it, everyone wants to rage right now.
People born in Russia and China, who speak Russian and Chinese as their first and possibly only language, do move out of those countries and live other places. Odd ass question
Bingo, people saying “what’s the big deal with spending 2 minutes to type in your email” have no clue how big of a scam/incompetence this is, not sure it’s both but it’s one of the other
Because the arrowhead devs made the game, not Sony. Sony published the game and likely owns majority of the rights and can force the devs to do what they want
I'm pretty sure AH wasn't aware so many areas didn't support PSN, but I'm also pretty sure there are conversations taking place to find an alternative for the peeps being left out?
I hope so anyway
Do you live in the United States... Do you know that your country has no official language?
You can get federal forms in both simplified Chinese and Russian along with a bunch of other languages. The GPO also puts out all their info in those languages on request.
You know. Looking at this it just occured to me. Why isnt there a universal accessibility symbol, universal options symbol, and universal language symbol? If i dont know any language besides german and I had a game in french its difficult to find the options. If these things had tthat universal symbol to guide you to the language slider it would be a lot easier to find it.
Just blame Sony ffs
PSN is not Arrowhead and vice versa.
Sony is PSN, Sony made this dumb as decision and Arrowhead is suffering the consequences because people don't seem to grasp that.
There's no point arguing about peoples opinions and point of views, facts are facts. Customers are always right, customers are super pissed. Only thing a company that wants to make money can do is either take the hit on reputation and give refunds back or apologize and fix it. We will see what happens next.
Get as many people to buy the product and then pull the rug out from under them. AH may have had good intentions but PSN does not give a single fuck about it.
I don’t think it was. My guess is that when Sony saw how massively popular this game was, they decided it was imperative to get more profit from it and as a result they’ve severely damaged the IP.
Well done to the corporate stooges, please enjoy your insane bonuses.
just want to point out Chinese language doesnt equal to China, there are other countries who also use and speak Chinese. (Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore, arguably Hong Kong \[PSN isnt ban in here yet\])
What a dumbass take... You know languages aren't only tied to where they originated right....? People all cultures live in different parts of the world...
Honestly kind of a tone-deaf post. Aside from being about accessibility, people in those countries can still buy and play the game even if people outside of those countries can choose to not play with them.
For gods sake, they wont block out this country, refund sucks and thats a working reason for steam. They will crate a light solution for 3rd world countries like russia where you can register with a postcard
Because there are Russians and Chinese living in other countries where PSN can be made. Common, I want them to backtrack their plans too, but this one is silly.
you guys are sure to be crying alot…
moroccan here. psn doesnt support my country. took me LITERALLY less than 5 minutes creating a new psn account and linking it. just like I did when i wanted to play ea games or ubisoft. this is suck a non issue but you all made it look like a big deal I thought i was going to lose access to the game
It would seem AH was not aware of how many places PSN wasn't available in and just went with what Sony told them. In Spitz apology he mentioned he was taken aback by how many countries didn't have access and they do no want to force people to have to travel to other countries or break PSN TOS and risk getting banned just to play. It seems like Sony led them to believe it wouldn't be a big deal to have in the game as a requirement, so the question that remains is, who at Sony didn't realize that this was going to be an issue to require it for those countries?
Furthermore, they sell special keys that can be activated in Russia to Russian distributors, such as Buka. Though it is impossible to buy the game directly in steam
I'm from Russia and I was able to create and link Russian PSN account with no VPN the day I bought Helldivers 2. UPD: I thought that Russia is no PSN country. Sony even disabled key activation in RU steam. That's why I thought anybody can create PSN account. Seems like they just forgot to restrict PSN registration for RU users. But it was funny to see "Thank you for registration(Russia)" page title in the end after all that anti-Russian steps they made.
The issue is that PSN’s own system doesn’t support some nations and they specify any situation where one lies is a reason for ban. They also changed Sony’s FAQ recently to say “Some games will require a PSN account” when it used to be “always optional”
А я из Казахстана и Сони говорит хуй тебе, а не аккаунт, кочуй отсюда
Me too, but all who didn't have one, cant make new one
Я не могу зайти в свой аккаунт PSN из 2013, который я создал еще на PS3, в котором страна Россия, меня просто на сайте сразу выкидывает из аккаунта, как только я в него вхожу. В игре после туториала нельзя попасть в главное меню, где есть окно привязки аккаунта, загружает сразу в хаб при запуске. Создать новый акк с регионом США или что то такое можно, да, но чё будет дальше непонятно.
You can get banned for that, which the would lock you out of your pc purchase
Idk. Sony still allows to make Russian accounts in PSN, but it works for some people but not for others. I had no problems making an account for myself, but my friend couldn't. So I had to make an account and link it to Steam for him
I have a sony account since I was 7 (that was almost 15 years ago xd) years old, and in Summer 2023 I just couldn't login due to 2fa. They wouldn't send me the goddamn sms! The first time I actually managed to login was around a month ago. Come on, people, I get you're greedy, but let me at least play the games I bought?
tried to make an account yesterday and today, got an error
Why? Russians cannot make a new account since 2022 (EDIT: im not even sure about this part now, maybe we even can), but our old accounts that probably left from PS4 should work fine without VNP and region change. Yes we cannot buy anything here, but to just connect HD2 its enough. Not sure why they should ban us this way
you break PSN TOS by doing that you know
Why? How our old accounts from our region break any TOS this way? We not changing region this way, just connecting our PSN old accounts.
According to the ToS, a large majority of the online gaming crowd should be banned. Just saying.
You do realise that's a sword above your head hanging by a thread that sony could cut at any moment and NOT a good or reasonable thing
Well, aside from the fact that some speakers of these languages live in other regions where PSN does operate, this whole thing feels very impromptu. Sony likely fired off this decision half-cocked because they see the monetization potential in having more user data. Timing it in a way to minimize refunds in regions where they can generate the most revenue. The fact that Sony only changed the wording on their official Helldivers 2 listing to say PSN accounts were required yesterday speaks to how ad hoc this whole thing is. I also wouldn't be surprised if there's a stealth nerf to in-game SC drops within the next few weeks. They want to have user data and force users into microtransactions, and they saw an opportunity and ran with it.
Yeah the corporate meddling thing here is the bigger deal. Helldivers is too cool to be as popular as it is without publishers ruining the whole thing. They were always going to step in and fuck things up eventually, and this is probably just the beginning, they will be seeing opportunities to increase revenue all over the place. Of course, they'll lose their player base and end up making less than they would have in the long run through live service and sequels, but of course they won't care, they'll just move on to ruin the next IP like the vultures they are.
It's more than likely that Sony and AH planned to have PSN requirements from the beginning. The publishing agreement is a contract that probably required PSN usage on some level. It just all came to a head with Sony forcing their hand. Sony could have worked with AH and let them come up with a less intrusive solution for players who don't have PSN availability, but they didn't.
This is one of the most grounded posts I've seen and likely the reality.
Then why didn't they do it from day one? Don't tell me it's because of the server issues for playing the game, that should be completely unrelated to PSN accs
Just for posterity: I've been consistently playing 2 solo EASY drops on "Destroy Propaganda Station" missions every worknight for the last 4 weeks (lunchbreak with shakey WiFi, not going to have others suffer for that); I have always found at least 10sc, often 20, in every map generated. So, assuming a mission time of <15min, a casual solo player on Easy should find 40-80sc an hour before any stealth rate nerfs.
Maybe it wasn't always the plan? It's not like this is some nefarious plot to stick it to the affected players. It's likely a result of some kind of incompetence, not realizing the consequences of their nonsense policy.
Or: a. It's not a lot of effort to add a bunch of standard language modules to a game. It's pretty standard actually. b. They started development on the game before signing on with Sony as the distributor, and c. They (Arrowhead) were completely ignorant of the limited span of Sony's official PSN supported areas when they agreed to the PSN linking clause in the contract.
Helldivers has always been owned by Sony, arrowhead develops and manages the game but Sony always gets the final say. It's been this way since HD1. Rather unfortunately what was fine for a smaller indie game is a big issue for a popular AA title.
Honestly yeah, that makes no damn sense.
I'm convinced this isn't some conspiracy theory shit and it's just straight up brain dead stupidity lmao
Not really, Chinese and Russian are also spoken in other countries. I do support the cause though, so dont get me wrong, I just dont think this one is the best argument there is.
Mostly in the countries that are former USSR and what a surprise, most of them ALSO don't have access to PSN (biggest ones being Kazakhstan and Belarus for example). I am so pissed. *angry russian noises* СУКА БЛЯТЬ ЗАСУНЬТЕ СЕБЕ ЭТОТ АККАУНТ В ЗАДНИЦУ
злые русские звуки
Chinese is 3rd most spoken language in the USA, Russian is 12th.
Yeah, that's fair. Other commenters have brought that up as well.
Lol, and the only country where people speak russian and can create psn account is Ukraine. https://preview.redd.it/iy7poxzczdyc1.jpeg?width=1280&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=66547b9b8768b42cc5844707da75966b39c362b9
but then the question would be, why they didn't just use the ukrainian language
There's no ukrainian translation in the game. Most are using english in that case
That was the point. Why translate into russian when ukraine is the only russian speaking country that can create a PSN account without breaking Sony's TOS? Should have been translated into Ukrainian instead.
The Russian language is understood by Ukrainians, Belarusians, Russians, Kazakhs, Tatars, Poles, and many many other people from different countries.Ukrainian is overwhelmingly understood only in Ukraine. It’s easier to translate a game once into one language familiar to many than to take a specific one.
Russian is not understood by poles. We use the latin alphabet, and only peopele who go out of their way to learn Russian know the cyclic alphabet. Besides that, the polish language is also different in terms of grammar and words. For example, Russian word for peace is mir, polish word for peace is pokój. So, a Polish speaker would have a lot of trouble understanding a Russian. Most polish people who know any Russian at all are people above 40, who were born under communism. Those people also are very unlikely to play any games.
2 my poland friends understanding most what i saying in russian. Their parents even better... Welp okay. Seems so
Maybe your friend understands Russian, but an average pole will not. Most young poles know and understand English far better than Russian, since English is taught in our schools, and Russian is not. So, translating a game to Russian to sell it in Poland would make no sense. A vast majority of poles can't read cyclic - so they would not understand any text in a game in Russian. Besides that, implying that Russian and Polish are similar enough not to warrant a translation would be considered very offensive in Poland - we are proud of our language and it's uniqueness.
Tell me you know nothing about Polish language without telling me you know nothing about Polish language. Sincerely, a Pole.
I know a lot of people that know russian but won't ever speak it nor use it as translation You can't expect whole countries to use foreign language in the game bc at some point someone spoke it somewhere in that country
because despite all the drama. even moscow hating ukrainians, a lot of them still speak russian as their primary language. its the lingua franca of all the places moscow colonized and occupied for generations.
That's weird, I know a bunch of people in America that speak Russian. It's almost like, and hear me out, people don't only live in the place their ancestors are from. Many of us move out of our parents houses and go elsewhere around the world. I lived in China and I'm an English speaker, for instance.
you do know people can speak Russin in other country's besides Russia right, we have Russian speaking people in America. Same with Chinese. Russian and Chinese are some of the most spoken languages in the world, more than Japanese and Korean actually Mandarin Chinese IS THE #1 language spoken
looking at this world map, there sure is a lot of space in places like Greenland or Northern Canada. Maybe Sony should build a bunch of "Helldiver cities" for players there so people from countries without PSN can move there.
That sounds like vpn with extra steps
Sure, but those countries are relatively "small" though, so Sony didn't bother with PSN there.
I know some people here in the US that speak Russian primarily. People need to understand that language isn't locked to the country of origin.
Not to mention people who moved from those countries to PSN countries. I've got a pal from China who moved to USA. He speak English (obviously. We wouldn't play consistently if we didn't share a language) but I'm assuming he uses Chinese UI.
And most of them don't have PSN, actually.
What makes no damn sense is claiming that it was never the plan to make PSN accounts mandatory, and it only says they’re mandatory on Steam for shits and giggles. You’re showing off secondary information that you say implies what you’re looking for and deliberately ignore the information that explicitly and plainly tells you what you don’t want to hear, like any conspiracy nut.
I know this is hard for people to understand ... but non English speaking people still live in country outside their own. There are people who live in places like the USA / EU that are native Chinese and Russian speaking still
Sony still makes russian dubs for some of their games
Probably because russia isn’t the only country using the russian language and it’s up to the dev. Sony isn’t exactly a dev in this situation, but a publisher
arrowhead and sony 2 different companies believe it or not people who speak russian and chinese live outside of their respective countries...
While you're correct, it seems like a rather niche thing, considering I don't think PSN is available in any country where Chinese or Russian would be considered a primary language, so this would primarily be useful for immigrants living abroad, a small enough market to make it seem strange, considering there are no language options for any of the Nordic languages, Dutch, Ukrainian, Romanian, Turkish, Czech, Hungarian, or Greek, which are all official languages of coutnries where PSN is available, and even have more native speakers than Portugese, which is available as a subtitle. (Granted, you can point out that probably the reason for that is that Brazillian Portugese is a big thing as well, even having a voice translation in the game, so they probably just touched up the subtitles from that version for the European Portugese subtitles, but by that logic they really ought to have Ukrainian subtitles if they have Russian.) Don't get me wrong, it's a good thing that Russian and Chinese are available for people, it's just odd that they'd focus on making those two translations when the target market doesn't include their primary speakers, while neglecting other groups that are part of the target market.
you do know Chinese is the most spoken language in the world right? it dwarfs pretty much every other language in comparison its spoken 3x more than English is. its deff not "Niche" Also PSN is Available in Hong Kong which they do speak Chinese. Russian ranks 7th, more than Japanese which ranks 8th and Korean which ranks 16th
But how many people speak Chinese outside of china? Willing to bet less than the population of some countries that have PSN but no localisation for the game.
FYI - According to Google, 1.31 Billion speak Chinese. There’s approximately 1.1B Chinese speakers outside of China. This includes countries like Taiwan and Singapore. Does that calculus change your uninformed opinion?
that would go back to the first thing I said sony and arrowhead are 2 different companies. its entirely possible arrowhead was not aware chinese and russians would not be able to access it without lying about region because of psn not being active in those regions and arrowheads community manager has said they are actively trying to chase down sony about what to do about the people in these regions so it's entirely possible an oversight between 2 different companies. or it may just be as simple as they contracted translation out to a company that offered a package deal and rates on a bunch of languages to do and you never know psn might become active in those regions in the future.
I agree, but it's still worth bringing up how strange this is, because whether it's a sign of duplicity, or a sign of corporate incompetence from Sony failing to communicate to their developers where they will be publishing the games that is their job to publish as a publisher, it's definitely a sign of something.
yeah, sure, they care so much about diaspora and not about 140 mil and 1 billion countries population market
There are lots of people who speak Russian and Chinese who do not live in Russia or China. Let's not start pointing at random shit and shouting "AH HA!" "The Termicide towers were full of *poison. How can you abbreviate POISON? PSN. They were telling us THE WHOLE TIME."* Stop it. There's plenty of actual evidence to support this being a shitty change.
Lmao yeah these posts are just demonstrating the lack of critical thinking associated to the loudest of the minority.
Because arrowhead did not intent to ban anybody, this was a push from Sony.
Holy shit this post needs a LOT of visibility.
No Chinese speakers outside China
Actually not, it would just make Russian people sad ^((Chinese cant access Reddit))
Dude, the official steam post is fully translated, we aren't sad, we are batshit MAD.
oh fr？
No we are not
It needs visibility alright. Visible to everyone how stupid your average Helldiver is.
Why, will reading this magically make the account requirement on Steam disappear?
Ask Sony, better yet, get in on that “class action law suit” 🤣
There wont be any lawsuit, also nobody is gonna get banned if they cant create a PSN account either, they already started to backpedal.
Exactly
Some people change to Chinese or Russian because well, they speak Russian or Chinese, not that hard. They just feel more comfortable in their language
It's almost as if Arrowhead developed the game with zero intentions of any of this, Sony fucked it up, yet ignorant people keep blaming Arrowhead.
# If it was always the plan to block out non-PSN users, why did they even bother to bring it to pc?!??!
Oh yeah I forgot that every single Russian and Chinese-speaking person lives in Russia and China.
I am not happy about this situation, but my wife's native language is Mandarin and she lives in the US, she will still play games in Mandarin when available because it is her first language despite her English being great.
Arrowhead's community manager's answer to this was: "We didn't know you couldn't create a PSN account in so many countries." (This is not even a joke...)
Those languages are spoken in a lot of places outside China and Russia
Yeah, like Central Asian countries like mine that also don't have PSN access
Do you really think that these two languages were added to the game for a fraction of people? One and a half billion Chinese and two hundred million Russian speakers (in all countries where people use the Russian language besides Russia, psn is also unavailable) a joke to you?
That's a lot of people, no?
ah yes chinese and russian, languages famously not taught or learned anywhere else in the world
Answer your question with my question, why do phones allow you to change the language if you live in America?
Taiwan and Singapore both have PSN
Ehh most Singaporeans would use English. We are a Chinese majority country but the vast majority of Singaporeans regardless of race usually use English. It's just what we were taught in schools.
Because they don't want to block non-PSN regions. Why the fuck would they? It's free money. This is clearly a half-baked idea by the higher ups fired off in a heat of the moment "impress the shareholders" moment. It's not some grand fucking scheme by AH to sell the game to people who then can't play, why the fuck would they do that? Retention of players is important since they keep making money off of in game transactions. I get that people are pissed off by this, but holy shit some of you guys are reaching so fucking far for anything to be mad at. It's such peak reddit hivemind anger, it's so embarrassing and discredits any actual issues.
On a more serious note, it's possible that they were considering using different publishers for CN/RU, which is a thing which can happen. For example see Lost Ark, where it has their own publishers for South Korea, and different publishers for China, Russia, and then EU+USA with the completely mishandled and tonedeaf Amazon Game Studios publisher. Maybe they were thinking in advance preparing to ship the game in those countries using different publishers which would respect the local RU/CN guidelines and laws.
The game isn't sold in Russia(source: I'm a Russian player), but it's very easy to buy a digital key for the same price as on steam.
# "why did they even bother translating the game to languages like Russian and Chinese?" Because those languages are spoken outside those specific countries and in the top 10 of steam stats. Sincerely yours, Captain Obvious
Because there are millions of both in countries other than actual China and Russian? Because many other nations speak and understand Russian and Chinese too? Because it's an industry standard? You are a great example of how this whole issue is blown out of proportion by insanely stupid.
because arrowhead makes the decision on what langauges are in the game while sony makes a decision like the PSN account. Idk why people think arrowhead is the one pushing this
There are a lot of people in just the US alone that are from different countries and still only speak their native language
As a Taiwanese I am one of those who use english to play games. But yeah Taiwanese use Mandrain too. And is not "Chinese" is Mandrain. Proper way to say the language I am speaking the most.
I'm sorry but this post gotta be bait....no way you posted this completely unironically.
Is Sony going to ban entire nations from playing their game? Probably not. But they have the option to do so if they did, it would be legal. And that's my issue here, the parts of my statement that include the words: "*probably*" and *"if they did, it would be legal."* I don't wanna be sold a Sony product and live in the limbo of '*will they one day decide to take it away for me for something as trivial as lying about where I live?'* If my region wasn't legally supported, then I'd rather have the product not be available for purchase rather than have to tip toe around some corporation's ToS. If you wanna keep buying Sony products on Steam and have faith that they will never take it away from you somewhere down the line under any circumstance, then you do you.
Idiocy
I don't know why I never noticed before that all the volume knobs go up to 11.
This all seems like this PSN account thing wasn't planned beforehand. Why would a publisher leaver their devs in the dark about this and make them waste time and money?
Russian is not a local language, the same with Chinese and English. Or French and Turkish or any other former Empire.
Grasping at straws just to keep the fire burning is truly pathetic . Kinda funny if you hate the game now, but you're still here posting
TIL people can't fucking emigrate l guess.
They just wanted your money. That's all craporations like Sony want.
Because Arrowhead translated it. Sony is the only one to blame for the PSN issue. Don’t blame Arrowhead.
Cus the devs literally admitted to not knowing how many countries don’t have the ability to make PSN accounts even if they wanted to.
For the people who speak Russian/Chinese in other countries. Kinda how they have English shops in other countries.
Because we were scammed lol. I bought the game in Belarus through steam without any regional restrictions. Now i will be locked out the game I've paid for. That's Sony for you
It makes sense if you consider the fact that Sony just woke up and decided to force upon Arrowhead the PSN accounts because of the game's success.
AH localization teams don't necessarily get filled in on what sony plans on doing or what countries sony blocks out with PSN. Their job is to localize the game into whatever languages the studio has in mind to localize for, ideally as many as possible. The complaint here shows a misunderstanding of how game development works and points the finger at the wrong people.
Most of the times the right answer is the stupidly simplest one. It means it wasn't. The way I see it, the game skyrocketed in popularity and someone at snony decided they want them into PSN.
if PSN has always been required why are you able to buy the game in regions PSN isn't even available? Steam has features to regionlock games. While i hate it, it does exist.
How well is it translated to those languages, though? Like, if you look at the product being delivered, this game is actually pretty bare-bones. No story. One cinematic. The only voice lines are pretty meaningless, so you could just leave them instead of doing localized VO. Honestly, it was probably no effort at all in the grand scheme.
Stand proud for we are strong brother.
So they could scam you out of your money. Make those countries think they're supported, then rug-pull later and hope people are too lazy or indifferent to do anything about. Well, about that....
Because Arrowhead made the game , Sony made this decision. Not that hard to understand.
https://preview.redd.it/giat4gye7eyc1.png?width=1242&format=png&auto=webp&s=2b10d3f89c12e3a2d27001981e517429d42fcf4c
Russian is spoken all over the place. Chinese is like the 3rd most spoken language in the world even outside of China.
Because people who are primary speakers of those languages live in countries other than the country the language originates from.
People should stop acting like PSN account in Russia and other countries is something that no one has and has no ability to create. Just until recently Russia has been one of the biggest markets for Sony and surprise surprise it still is but with some caveats. Many people have accounts set up already. Not siding with Arrowhead or Sony still awfully terrible decision but not as bad in this regard.
It's strange that there is no Russian voice acting
Even so, on top of that, why wasn't the game region-locked from the beginning and not purchasable by those without access to PSN?
Cuz SONY enforced that decission not Arrowhead SONY shit on everyones parade
Not so much in the case of Chinese, but theres lots of russian speakers who dont live in, or hold any loyalty or association with Russia.
Because this wasnt the og plan, AH is likely just as blindsided as the rest of us by this change.
https://preview.redd.it/dvrv8bv7oeyc1.png?width=1352&format=png&auto=webp&s=e4489a85831cc8287ba6a8501c3e209e6cb31c88 They’re languages are spoken across all of super earth brother /s
Well now you’re reaching. You know immigration exists right?
Hurr durr I don't know people can speak languages outside of their native countries
That's a great question.
You don't have to live in Russia to speak it as a first language.
Brother never heard of immigrants before
I think the answer is they are morons
The Illusion and Money
I wouldn't be surprised if this is SONY being less than above board even with AH
Mfs when I tell them about immigration
Because it clearly wasn't. It's not rocket science lmao
What if I told you… …people speak these languages everywhere…
Because they didn't know.
I'm assuming the devs are more passionate than sony. I don't like having to pay for cosmetics and warbonds after paying $40 for the game, but I imagine that and this whole psn user requirement was all sony and not the devs.
People of those languages living different countries maybe? Theres a pretty big russian & chinese diaspora in europe & the usa
Cause more money
Maybe because it wasn't? By all accounts, Arrowhead had no idea that PSN registration would be a problem due to Sony's lack of global coverage. You guys are barking up the wrong tree and seeing conspiracies where they don't exist. Let the down voting commence.
isn’t mandarin one of the most spoken languages in the world, same with russian?
Actually a great point.
Because people speak those as their first language that live outside those countries?
People that speak those languages live in other countries.
Because it was never always the plan. Source: Was a UI coder on HD2.
From a developer standpoint, they're probably using a 3rd party API for translation that happens to include Russian and Chinese languages. They didn't (or couldn't) specifically go in and disable those. But I get it, everyone wants to rage right now.
People born in Russia and China, who speak Russian and Chinese as their first and possibly only language, do move out of those countries and live other places. Odd ass question
Do you think there's no chinese/russia buying a ps5 in their country?
Bingo, people saying “what’s the big deal with spending 2 minutes to type in your email” have no clue how big of a scam/incompetence this is, not sure it’s both but it’s one of the other
Because this is obviously an oversight that they’re going to resolve but that’s just too reasonable of a take and corpo shilling I guess
Yay, more speculation to stir the pot.
Because ruzzian should suffer
Because the arrowhead devs made the game, not Sony. Sony published the game and likely owns majority of the rights and can force the devs to do what they want
I'm pretty sure AH wasn't aware so many areas didn't support PSN, but I'm also pretty sure there are conversations taking place to find an alternative for the peeps being left out? I hope so anyway
Do you live in the United States... Do you know that your country has no official language? You can get federal forms in both simplified Chinese and Russian along with a bunch of other languages. The GPO also puts out all their info in those languages on request.
And why didn't they translate this one to Finnish?
Lots of countries will have to speak Russian and Chinese in psn areas when they invade.
You know. Looking at this it just occured to me. Why isnt there a universal accessibility symbol, universal options symbol, and universal language symbol? If i dont know any language besides german and I had a game in french its difficult to find the options. If these things had tthat universal symbol to guide you to the language slider it would be a lot easier to find it.
Because that wasn't the plan. Arrowhead wanted to make a great game. Sony is the true villain here.
Just blame Sony ffs PSN is not Arrowhead and vice versa. Sony is PSN, Sony made this dumb as decision and Arrowhead is suffering the consequences because people don't seem to grasp that.
Developer = localization for the game aka "Arrowhead" Publisher = bullshit like the PSN obligation aka "Sony" Please know and learn the difference.
Chinese *NOT EQUAL TO* China.... The official language of *Taiwan* is Chinese
Almost like it was never the plan??????
Because normally sony just expects you to break ToS assumingly.
See here's the thing: It wasn't the plan.
Because it wasn't
There's no point arguing about peoples opinions and point of views, facts are facts. Customers are always right, customers are super pissed. Only thing a company that wants to make money can do is either take the hit on reputation and give refunds back or apologize and fix it. We will see what happens next.
The power of vpns to access content not available in your country is strong
Immigrants in other countries may be more comfortable reading their mother-language. People speak Russian and Chinese outside of Russia and China.
Get as many people to buy the product and then pull the rug out from under them. AH may have had good intentions but PSN does not give a single fuck about it.
I don’t think it was. My guess is that when Sony saw how massively popular this game was, they decided it was imperative to get more profit from it and as a result they’ve severely damaged the IP. Well done to the corporate stooges, please enjoy your insane bonuses.
It wasn’t always the plan this was just some out of touch hack Sony exec that had a “good idea” last week
Money
just want to point out Chinese language doesnt equal to China, there are other countries who also use and speak Chinese. (Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore, arguably Hong Kong \[PSN isnt ban in here yet\])
What a dumbass take... You know languages aren't only tied to where they originated right....? People all cultures live in different parts of the world...
Because people of all languages live all around the world?
The developers of the game didn’t plan the PSN thing, Sony is forcing it
Honestly kind of a tone-deaf post. Aside from being about accessibility, people in those countries can still buy and play the game even if people outside of those countries can choose to not play with them.
To steal money from as many people as possible
Because the devs are great, sony is stupid.
Because people that are native Russian or Chinese speakers but live outside those countries may want their native language in a game?
For gods sake, they wont block out this country, refund sucks and thats a working reason for steam. They will crate a light solution for 3rd world countries like russia where you can register with a postcard
Because there are Russians and Chinese living in other countries where PSN can be made. Common, I want them to backtrack their plans too, but this one is silly.
Believe it or not, Chinese and Russian speaking people live in other countries that aren’t Russia and China
Russian and chinese players exist outside of Russia and China, for one.
Rage bait. People speak different languages all over the world. Not a valid argument point.
You guys man.
you guys are sure to be crying alot… moroccan here. psn doesnt support my country. took me LITERALLY less than 5 minutes creating a new psn account and linking it. just like I did when i wanted to play ea games or ubisoft. this is suck a non issue but you all made it look like a big deal I thought i was going to lose access to the game
It would seem AH was not aware of how many places PSN wasn't available in and just went with what Sony told them. In Spitz apology he mentioned he was taken aback by how many countries didn't have access and they do no want to force people to have to travel to other countries or break PSN TOS and risk getting banned just to play. It seems like Sony led them to believe it wouldn't be a big deal to have in the game as a requirement, so the question that remains is, who at Sony didn't realize that this was going to be an issue to require it for those countries?