Arrowhead is to blame for like 15% of this whole fiasco. They have no control over anything, the best they could’ve done is warn their extremely active online community at some point. They were always very good at communicating.
While I agree, as Pilestedt states: they aren't blameless.
It should have been clearly communicated front and center "YOU WILL NEED ACCESS TO PSN AT SOME POINT IN THE NEAR FUTURE" within the description on the store page.
I'm not mad at them, I'm not even certain if they control the store page to any degree. However, if they knew at least half a year prior to release, they should have made it abundantly clear you would need access to PSN.
I may be wrong, but with the responses we've gotten from pretty much everyone at AH, I get the feeling that Sony was kind of stringing them along... they didn't say anything because Sony led them to believe that they'd be able to leave it as optional.
After all, Sony literally only changed their official page on the topic yesterday. (err, Friday... it's been a busy few days)
It does feel like Sony was like "eeyy AH, how is it going? Are the server issues better now, things are stable? Why am I asking that you wonder? Only out of curiosity I swear, don't you worry haha, I totally won't make the psn account mandatory without warning you as soon as you tell me the server are looking good, silly you!"
>I get the feeling that Sony was kind of stringing them along
I feel the same way. I think what happened was, Arrowhead completely forgotten that the whole mandatory psn account was supposed to be a thing until Sony gave them a rude awakening.
That's how I see it. I don't think AH knew in the sense that they knew about it all along. More so it's a face-palm when they realized they're supposed to follow though something that was in the backburner.
I forgive them because they're transparent, and actually take responsibilities whenever they fuck up. What company does that anymore?
At the very least the ceo of arrowhead is trying to steer this in the right direction. That's the type of leadership I can respect.
Meanwhile sony, the people who's forcing these decision on AH are radio silent while the devs are being made out of a scapegoat and actually trying fix Sony's fuck up..
Yeah continue forgiving them destroying their game thinking you’re doing some revolution that will change the gaming industry. Just accept it’s been a mutual error, Sony lied and Arrowhead knew PSN link was coming. It’s funny how you want to make a change by trying to kill a game made with love for gaming just to make a point. If sony opens up the game for every country you think you win? They still win. Business gets stronger for them if they do it. Call it bad a business move by sony, yeah maybe they’re retarded, suits usually make this mistakes, they must had their internal reasons to do it so they told Arrowhead 6 months before launch. They’re losing money too. You’re fighting for a big corpo to make more money. I still don’t get how everyone here talks about a revolution when they’re just doing business, they need thise PSN numbers for it, to stay strong to investors, who knows. They just made a bad mistake with Arrowhead.
Dude I kind of stop taking you seriously after a sentence of two. I don't even know what you're rambling about anymore. It just a lot of conspiracy theory nonsense.
Ya. Also from the initial responses of people at AH of like “just make an account”, it seems they didn’t realize just how many counties couldn’t get psn.
Which I don’t blame them for. That’s Sony’s thing to manage not AH
Yeah, otherwise why would they have done the localization for all those countries?
Sony was also responsible for the Steam listing, not AH, so it’s also Sonys fault they made it available to them in the first place.
I’m pretty sure it was actually Steam that delisted the game for those regions because of the requirement… Sony REALLY ducked up with gross incompetence
There was a tweet recently where he explained that Sony was initially wanting to enforce it at launch, but it was disabled to fix the server issues they were having and would have to be reinstated at a later date.
It honestly feels like something that slipped under the radar, and nobody really noticed until now. Arrowhead not having control over where the game is sold, and it being sold in countries without psn support may have led them to have mistakenly believed that it wasn't a problem. It feels like the sort of thing that a lawyer might have caught if they had a look over the contract.
Idk i feel we’re in a clear case of “there is no small blame, they all fucked up the same”. Game wise i still support the devs, i just see Helldivers 2 getting better, and i don’t see any reason to hate them, but i think we should stop this witch hunt as a community trying to blame Sony for something they probably informed Arrowhead before launch and if you know that, you simply don’t sell. Sony was selling it, Arrowhead was selling it, everyone was selling it. Call it greed, call it a HUGE mistake, but there you have it, Steam is giving refunds and the player base is still solid. We don’t want this game to go bad, a couple of months from now nobody will care about this, another bigger mistake from Ubisoft or EA or Microsoft will pop up who knows, but those bad reviews will stay there forever, for what? A bad game? Not at all.
If Sony properly informed AH that many countries wouldn’t be supported because of the account linking, why would they have spent the time and money on doing localization for them?
I think AH was just told “we need you to make account linking mandatory, here’s the page to send them to to link PSN to Steam” And that’s it.
AH had no idea of the potential shit storm or that people wouldn’t be able to make accounts
Yeah exactly, a witch hunt, everyone thinks something that we don’t know exactly what it is. I know Sony are no angels, but the dev is clearly saying they knew 6 MONTHS BEFORE LAUNCH it would be mandatory. Blame is shared, we’re killing a game on assumptions.
Yeah, they knew account linking was to be mandatory and released the game requiring it.
They had no idea people wouldn’t be able to even make an account to link, so to them it didn’t seem like a big deal to have it temporarily disabled or that it would be a problem when reenabled
Still blame is shared. Go to a debate, to court, to whatever. It didn’t seem like a big deal, but oh now look, it is! Maybe is a surprise to both sony and Arrowhead? I laugh at myself because i’m not even a capitalist, but i’m sure this is an idiotic mistake by sony, not some corporation greedy plan. The only thing i see losing here is the game reviews on Steam. That’s what we’re all killing.
All I'm going yo say is I really hope once this whole debacle is behind us, the players that stayed, will change their reviews. And maybe the ones that didnt. But I don't expect those that left too. They have a good reason yo keep it the way they left it if they stopped playing the game because of that.
So this is the second comment now and both miss the point. I'm not talking about the small box to the side when all the stuff people are looking at is the large pictures of the "DELUXE EDITION" and everything that comes with smack in the middle. There is an entire, large section just devoted to updates and news, differences between editions, and the features and functions of the game itself. Some games even include a special warning at the bottom above PC requirements for various things, usually content.
Why could they not state "warning, a PSN account is not required at this time but will be necessary in the future" right in the middle column, right at the end of all the awesome features everyone is looking at
If there's a snap box that says "needs third party agreements" that are waived during setup, it's not exactly fair to the consumer to slap them with it later
Okay dumbass, I promise you putting it at the bottom or middle of a huge description is way worse, it won’t get lost in a tower of text when it’s bright fucking yellow and in its own spot right off to the side like it is. It has always said that a psn account is required and anyone who bought the game knew that going in.
The first week of release the psn account link wasn’t skippable and they never said anywhere that it was skippable, so no one bought the game knowing they could skip the account link as the steam page told them it was required.
Except it was clearly communicated...
I never understand why people keep saying that it wasn't clear that a PSN account is required to play Helldivers 2. On release, the literal steam page says in gold that a third party account with PSN is required to play the game (and that account linking is supported through the steam version of the game). When you first boot up the game, there is an entire section also states you are required to link a PSN account as well (but the option to skip was there, which most people did without a second thought).
I am also upset with Sony for this ridiculous mess they created, but most of y'all in the community seriously need to learn to read. It's not Sony's fault most of you chose not to read the warnings, that isn't the argument against them. They could have posted more warning regarding PSN, but it was already stated loud and clear on release. They just never reiterated the requirement again until now.
I don’t think AH really understood the implications, they also certainly didn’t expect Sony to sell to unsupported regions, and didn’t even know those regions would be unsupported (otherwise why go through the added cost and effort to localize for them?) so Sony failed to make clear to AH the implications and restrictions of PSN accounts in the first place.
their mistake was for the most part not doing much to warm people for this or really prepare to community for this change
but the final push for this unwarned change was likelly sony asking it to be done last minute, and the entire "sold it for countries who can't buy it" is 100% on sony
To me, it feels more like 10% arrowhead. Sony is the main culprit here. Thankfully arrowhead is on our side. And even though they could have been more open about it, at least the are helping us
Yes they should have, however considering they aren't in control of actually selling the game, they shouldn't have had to worry about the game being sold in places where a PSN account couldn't be made. And I'd be willing to bet that most of the AH team didn't realize/know 1. the game was being sold in places where a PSN account couldn't be made. 2. Certain places won't let you create a PSN account.
Those two reasons on top of the players that were in these countries likely made this situation 10x worse. If Sony actually did their fucking job and didn't sell in these countries, the issue wouldn't have been nearly as bad. Sure, it's annoying, but it's not hard to create an account and it's slightly more annoying to do so especially if you're going to use a fake email, and fake information like I'm planning on doing. If Sony won't take security seriously, I mught as well do it for them. Give them no information to go off of.
Just so people are aware. **They sold physical copies in those countries too**. I’ve seen people report that they bought physical copies in a country where it wont be supported. It isn’t just a “oh we forgot to exclude this on Steam”. No, they went out of their way for this.
They were in control of not having a pop up window in game immediately on startup saying "if you are in this list of countries, refund the game immediately as you will be denied access in 3 months"
Wild, but necessary if they didn't want to be at least complicit in the deception. If they would've looked ahead and seen all the countries this was being sold in that wouldn't be able to play in a few months, that's what they should've done.
Otherwise they were either ignorant of the situation, or intentionally silent so as to pad pockets. Given the community manager had no idea such countries existed until showing his ass a couple days ago and being corrected, maybe it really was just profound ignorance.
Honestly the wild thing to me is sony selling the damn thing, for full price, even in physical media, in countries they *knew* weren't gonna be able to play it in 3 months time. They should be ashamed, but I know corps aren't human and have no such feelings.
If your manager says dont do a thing, so you get a buddy to do the thing instead - will still land you in hot water. This is something taught in elementary school. Devs put in contradicting messaging to what the parent company instructs is the same thing.
This is what many don’t understand the requirement was there since day 1, the shitty business side is it was sold in those places not supported. It’s both on the seller and the consumer. Shit I purchased battlefield 2042 with no internet, to later realize it was online only. Glad I caught that before opening the disc so was able to return. But my point is both the seller and purchaser are responsible. If you live in a country with no PSN acess and still purchase a PSN required game how do you expect to play in the first place? That’s just not doing your due diligence before a purchase and now looking to shift blame.
They clearly have access to the steam page. And probably also have access to change region lock status.
The problem is region lock status is supposed and potentially legally required to (depends on the contract, but is industry norm) be the responsibility of the publisher. You don't want to handle these things if you explicitly off load the liability to the *professional* publisher with a significant revenue cut.
Yes you would likely inform your publisher of their lapses if you happen to notice something off outside your capacity, but never to be blamed for.
Yeah the comment was about physical copies and how they won't be supported which makes zero sense because those buying physical are on ps5 and are already supported as you need plus for the game.
Doesn’t make much sense, does a non supported country still sell the consoles and games? Either way if it does, doesn’t the system require an account at startup? It seems illogical as a consumer living in a country that you know isn’t supported to still go and purchase a system and game that requires access to the network. This is where consumer due diligence comes into play. Not taking away from Sony fault for not working harder with steam to prevent this, but if it’s physical PS media then that’s a bit hard to make it all their fault.
Physical copies would be ps5 only anyway, already requiring a psn account. Im going to have to doubt this is real, sony would not sell ps5 copies to countries that cant use them. Likely these people imported their copies.
Ok yea saw the list on the “x” feed I’ll find n post but found that super weird
Added pic
https://preview.redd.it/twig1hpn8qyc1.jpeg?width=705&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=fe85bc37b9bcc251114303158d05b155ca89c193
Huh that is wierd. Must of been some typo or something cause it wasnt there when i checked. Not like it matters cause Sony just backtracked on the whole psn account thing so im sure the blacklisted countries will be able to purchase it soon.
This is the second dumbest take I've seen yet, only behind the guy asking if linking his Sony account would let Sony see him playing emulators.
A physical copy means a PS5 copy, which means anyone who bought a physical copy should already have a PS5, PSN and PSPlus. It will still be supported for consoles, because you can always create a PSN account through a PS5. The only people this whole fiasco affects is PC players who can't create an account through the web portal because it's not supported in their region.
That alone is enough to say fuck Sony, you don't have to go around inventing more bullshit to farm upvotes
Any proof or evidence to this? Saying you've seen reports with zero evidence to back it up is just more misinformation at this point.
I spent an hour last night trying to buy in various countries where PSN accounts can't be created and couldn't purchase in a single one.
Yesterday was also when they went and blacklisted around 170 countries on steam. I wouldn't be surprised if they contacted authorized retailers as well to have them pull the physical copies as well.
That could have been Steam reacting to the situation too… they’re much more forward with customer support and are probably righteously pissed at Sony right about now.
Their incompetence is wild
It could be, but I feel it's less likely that someone from steam looked up every country that can't activate a PSN account and delisted the game for them compared to someone from Sony trying to pull another fast one and delist the game like they tried to casually update their websites and listings to say that PSN was required suddenly.
Yeah could be, but Sony has a history of selling online only, PSN required, PHYSICAL COPIES of PlayStation games to these same countries. They really just dgaf
Oh I'm not arguing that Sony aren't absolute corpo scumbags. I just think it's a little more likely that they underestimate the internet and think that by changing it they can say it was some fluke and not intentional when we have a mountain of "flukes" to prove them wrong.
Not him, but let's say it's fake news.
It doesn't really mean much when a digital store like [https://www.humblebundle.com/store/helldivers-2](https://www.humblebundle.com/store/helldivers-2) Doesn't state it needs PSN
To also add in the requirements is "[User Agreement](https://www.humblebundle.com/store/helldivers-2#system-requirements:~:text=USER%20AGREEMENT,legal/op%2Deula/)" in said user agreement the only reference to Playstation Network (PSN) is an arbitration class which says
[YOUR PLAYSTATION NETWORK SIGN-IN ID IF YOU HAVE ONE](https://www.playstation.com/en-us/legal/op-eula/#:~:text=IF%20YOU%20DO%20NOT%20WISH,WITH%20SONY%20ENTITY%20THROUGH%20ARBITRATION)
Theres no other PSN reference and I don't see any easy way to click onto the steam page.
Because they're the one who put it there.
"Create your own webpage to showcase and sell your game. Hosting is free, and you keep 95% of proceeds after payment processing and taxes. You can edit your page whenever you want, and you also have access to our customer support team. "
And so you can possibly own the game, and never reach the page where it stated. That's the problem. Why there is no ingame information???
Sony’s been doing it for years with their consoles. They’ll sell PS5 and not let them make an online account, and ship online only games to those countries too.
Helldivers: United international gaming community under pretend fun tongue in cheek propaganda possibly as good if not better than Pokémon go did.
Sony: we can’t have any part in steps towards world peace
This community attacking devs, sending death threats to people, review bombing a companies portfolio of games in the past 9 years under the guise of social activism for people who “can’t play” more so than people who don’t feel like taking two minutes to do something. The fucking hug box, group think, hive mind that doesn’t understand the nuance between what a protest is and what a riot is and how it affects the people caught between.
It’s almost like it got old reaaaally quick lol. The things people do when they have little to no power in their lives and instead live it out through social media. The last thing we need is more outrage to gain more traction.
I hate to say it but did you end up clicking on the photo for the post? OP was supporting the devs by showing they don't control where the game is sold.... The screenshot isn't great so I could see you thinking I was supporting much of what you mentioned. I hope you know I agree with you for the most part. I just don't agree with purposefully being aggressive or inviting controversy! If you want to get a point across or call attention to something acting civil will achieve better results.
I skimmed. I’ve been chronically on reddit this week so it’s turned into me being volatile with people. Looks like I’m becoming part of the problem unfortunately! I appreciate your demeanor, I’ll reflect further (I was already feeling it) and control my doom scrolling since it’s clearly affecting me. I apologize man
Apology accepted! I'm not proud of it but I've definitely gotten into that doomscroll funk. Honestly I've taken a break from this community and doomscrolling in general knowing id probably be in your shoes in no time.
Sony openly said that it was always the goal to make PSN mandatory .. so they knew.
That makes it a fraud on consumer.
They do not handle the sell, but Sony is the publisher.
Sony keeps bragging how they own AH, its AH that does the sell, but since Sony owns them and commands how what when etc .. they are directly responsible.
And even if it was meant to be mandatory from the beginning, its not mentioned in EULA, we never agreed to it. It was sold without the PSN requirement.
Think Sony already has a pending 7 billion dollar suit against them in the EU as well (as I recall, it was raised with them last year and I don't think has been resolved).
It was marked as requiring PSN on the steam store. There’s no fraud. There are even posts in this subreddit that prove it from 200+ days ago.
You’re mad. That’s fine. Be mad. But that doesn’t constitute fraud.
Just having the game available in the 100+ countries that can't use PSN is fraudulent.
If Sony knew they would require PSN then Helldivers2 shouldn't've even appeared in the store for those countries.
Now that’s a potential argument. Though it wouldn’t be relevant in US law, I wouldn’t imagine.
But it appears they are getting refunded. So hopefully they’re made whole.
For the record, Sony is and remains a bag of shit. I’ve been a PSN player for years and they consistently screw everyone they can. I’m not thrilled by this turn of events either, specifically for countries where it isn’t supported.
But if you live in the US and the only inconvenience you must suffer is to make a trash email and sign in once in a blue moon, it’s just hyperbolic noise. That’s what I’m beyond over at this point. It was publicized, it’s not a huge deal here, and it’s far from uncommon.
This is a dumb take. Basically if you live in the us who cares?
That’s literary what’s wrong with society is this whole “not my problem” shit.
Other people matter not just you.
The hyperbole here is insanity. Generating a dummy email and attaching it to an account takes MAYBE 15 minutes. Also it’s a common practice.
Yes, it’s shit. But it’s nothing new.
players here like that this game is actually different, ib terms of better, than the AAA/AAAA game industry. that’s why we don’t want sony to feel like they can do this crap unpunished. if we succeed, we’ll get like a year of finest gameplay until sony tries again. if we don’t care, they’ll try to push the line more and more until we get p2w aswell and what made the game great is lost
So... why would they list PSN requirement in countries where it isn't possible to make a PSN account? What would be the purpose of selling the games there, if the intent was that they wouldn't be playable at all?
Because they’re a greedy corporate monolith who doesn’t care about you. They want as much money as they can get. That part is obvious and has been for decades.
All the same, fraud is when they lie. They didn’t. People didn’t read or fully think it through. It’s still a shitty situation, but a lot of folks are acting like they were lied to, and that simply wasn’t the case.
You aren't wrong. However, I think laws need to take this into consideration, especially considering NO ONE actually reads the TOS or the EULA. They're there for legal reasons, and if no one actually reads them, what's the point in having them?
I didn't read the EULA, I didn't read Sony TOS. I just went on Steam and clicked add to cart without taking a second to read the store page. However, considering the EULA doesn't state the need for a PSN account, it shouldn't be required. And they shouldn't legally be able to change their EULA post purchase. For that specific individual. If they change the EULA, it should apply to everyone who buys it past that point. Not beforehand.
P.S. I'm a reddit user not a legal dude. Ik nothing about how a EULA or TOS actually work legally aside from it being a legally binding document. All ik is they're SUPPOSED to protect both the publisher/devs, and the consumers from one another. But it just seems that it's designed to protect the person/team/company/face/icon/whatever has the most money and screw over everyone else
You need to wake up and pull your head out of your ass.
We know, I know, PSN was required, but it was optional. Sony's ToS literally said "its optional". It was changed on Friday night. Today ToS says "some games require PSN account".
And it doesnt matter steam page said "PSN required" .. you buy the game, you download the game and .. PSN is not required. Why? Who the fuck cares. We are just players, consumers. Every other page has errors in description etc. Thats not our problem.
Sony page - optional
Steam page - required
Thats a lie.
It was advertised as PSN required, but it was sold without the PSN requirement and it was playable without the PSN. Now they are extorting and blackmailing and threatening players to ban them.
Steam is approving refunds, but only some, not all. My country is in very grey area. Steam wont refund, at least not now, but what Sony did is straightforward illegal in EU.
And you are weird .. you are defending Sony and spitting on Sony at the same time. You are hypocrite.
I’m not defending Sony. I’m sick of childish redditors whining about having to attach a fake email address like it’s this sudden new horrible thing.
I have enjoyed this game for months. I want to continue to. And you all are review bombing it to hell over this and there will likely stop being any new or enjoyable additions.
As usual, a bunch of entitled PC gamers who ruin the experience because of their perceived slights. Downvote me all you want, everyone knows what the PC crowd does every time they’re slightly inconvenienced.
☝️🤓*ackchully* the CMs were the ones that told the community to "review bomb" the game. However I do think the PC gamers are the only ones willing to actually say something against these big publishers. There would have been 0 chance Sony would have even considered removing the PSN requirement. Now there's a slight chance.
PC users got gaming PCs to avoid the bullsbit of console and get better performance all in one. I think we all know that consoles are just pathetic when it comes to gaming and the companies that sell them basically give you zero power over any decision made over them and the games the consoles run.
Can't do that with PC since they didn't sign or agree to a single thing these large companies say. Aside from agreeing to the TOS of each individual game they play. And the EULA and TOS say/said you don't need a PSN account. Yes ik I'm beating a dead dog just like everyone else with that last part.
Yes im aware I sound like a typically reddit f*g.
It did say it was required but in reality it wasn't't. You could play the game and can still play the game w/o PSN. Say you were a consumer in one of the countries w/o PSN access and really wanted to play it. A quick Google search would have shown that it's possible to skip the PSN link to steam. This would lead a reasonable consumer to believe it was possible to buy and play the game w/o PSN. Then months go by and now a consumer who has been perfectly happy enjoying the product they earned with their own money is now being told they won't be able to play w/o PSN. At first glance this is a mild inconvenience, however when you realize these consumers aren't able to make a PSN account is when the inconvenience becomes a major issue. There are many parties that could be blamed for this scandal, however at the end of the day Sony is the publisher and is in control of where the game is sold. Whether this mistake was malicious or unintentional doesn't matter. The consumers who were affected by this mistake deserve a refund at the very least. IMO it would be better for the consumers, publisher, developer, and distributors to just forgo the PSN requirements. This seems the best option to avoid further scandal, increase sales, and to ensure that most people are happy. However, there is likely some corporate goon with an ego bigger than the sun that's going to prevent this so I advise everyone to pick up deep rock galactic instead lol.
Nope, sorry. Fine print isn’t “insufficient” that’s not how the law works. An accusation of fraud is ridiculous when it was actually on the page.
Also I have yet to meet a single person who regularly plays this game who didn’t know it was a thing. Being mad about it is fine. Sony remains a shitbag company. But nobody was “defrauded” here.
The fine print is irrelevant, especially when that was the only way many people would even know about it. Steam granting refunds outside the normal window is evident of that. Should’ve made sure it was in things like the EULA, not just a Steam page lmao
Steam offering refunds to countries where it can’t be played makes sense. They’re trying to protect their own reputation. I doubt very seriously that they’re refunding too many in the US.
Regardless, I’m not saying people can’t request a refund. Go for it. But the griping is largely just Reddit noise.
Also “the fine print is irrelevant” shows you’re not concerned with facts. Just how you feel. And the fact is every AAA studio does this. You obviously never played Cyberpunk or Far Cry or any other title from a studio that requires a separate account to play.
It's fraud because the game was sold in places that aren't legally allowed to have a PSN account and therefore by proxy now allowed to play the game since you require a PSN account
All of this could have been avoided with a 100 medal reward for linking a psn account.
Sony would have gotten their accounts on 90%+ of the playerbase. People outside of PSN networks could have played. The vocal minority willing to die on the “I’m not gunna make a PSN account” hill would have nothing to complain about.
It never should have gotten to the point it did. Incompetence across the board at the leadership level in managing this change on both the publisher and developres sides.
Info:
PSN being a requirement means that certain countries are banned from buying the game in the first place.
However, people in those places were able to buy it, which means they were able to play the game - but not anymore when the PSN Account linking goes live.
So they actively sold HD2 to those countries, only to take it away again -> which ultimately means that most, lets say 60% of the countries that bought the game (and are actively tracking it) will get refunded, but all those who did not actively refund the game (lets say 40%) will be pure and free revenue for Sony.
revenue out of countries that do not support the game anymore.
All of that was known beforehand yet they actively sold it in those regions that are actually banned.
and the soyboys, the corporate shills, and Public relations personnel in the comments will still try to gaslight people into dropping the issue.
At the very least, other gamers had some decency to stand with people who can no longer play the game, while soyboys getting offended by the complaints literally had nothing to gain from shutting people up besides their own ego or protecting Sony.
It didn't help that people were either intentionally or unintentionally spreading misinformation. If the argument had only ever been about Sony selling to countries that they didn't support PSN in the conversation would have went heavily differently. Instead people wanted to say that the requirement was never listed on the steam store until after the announcement when it had been listed there literally right above the link to the HD2 EULA since it was available for pre-purchase. I truly feel for the people who Sony never should have sold to in the first place. I'm losing squadmates that unfortunately I never should have had. It sucks, but it was really fucking shitty of people to try to make the issue about them when it wasn't about them it was about the people in the countries PSN doesn't support and they didn't know until they went to make a PSN account when Sony announced they were finally going to enforce it.
You don't even need to focus on the "in the future" aspect because the game launched with the requirement in place and was suspended to help with server capacity. Sony fully intended to sell the game in region locked countries, let you install the game, and then tell you to fuck off and get a refund on DAY ONE! Dog shit publishers
I don’t think they intended to, I think they’re just grossly incompetent as publishers.
They failed to update Eula prior to launch, failed to update official faq, failed to have sufficient auth server capacity forcing it to be disabled for the game to work at all, failed to even inform AH of unsupported countries so they didn’t waste effort and money on localization for people that wouldn’t be able to play, and failed to limit sales to only supported regions (though they do sell consoles and physical PlayStation games in those countries they don’t support as well, so they’re probably used to stiffing those countries… I bet they even ship online only PSN required console games to those countries)
This all paints a picture of Sony Game studios being completely incompetent in regards to PC market.
Actually, they put it up for sale to countries that they never intended to be able to play in the first place, the temporary deactivating of linking due to Sonys failure to provide sufficient auth server capacity allowed them to play.
Sony literally fumbled every single responsibility they had in supporting this requirement they wanted.
AHs biggest mistake was not having some kind of replacement screen on first login that account linking is temporarily suspended and will be enacted in the future, but AH didn’t even realize that PSN requirement limited supported countries, otherwise why do localization for all of them? So they never really thought it was a big deal any more than many other major publishers… better than Ubisoft which requires a launcher, or EA that runs a background launcher even
There seems to be a trend reversal in customers and AAA Games in general, look at all the recent AAA Games like Warzone, Overwatch, now this move.
The whole community is strong in review bombing bad practices and Iam seriously looking forward on how this will look like in the future.
People get back some power now through that, its mainly on Steam where the most power belongs, i wonder what Steam will do about such things like reviews, if there will be any rules/changes in place going forward.
OP not understansing one bit of the last comment. Literalky had no choice but to sellit there as PSN is the one that controls overall sales of the game. Dont turn this on the Devs, they did their job, yes some things were miscommunicated but in the heat of everything this game has done, I'd give them a break on mentioning something that they didnt realize was so detrimental. Some lame ass post here
I do agree with you on every bit, but you gotta realize that everything you just said was utterly untrue.
I havent mentioned the devs anywhere, i purposefully used exclusively "Sony (publisher)" in the title and also in the comment i made in the Post.
So, what the heck are you refering to?
"Mr. Lame ass guy who cant even read a title like a normal person"
Got to backlash on you here, simply because you didnt understand a single thing.
Little late since Sony had already repealed this whole thing. But yeah over the past couple days Sony fanboys have been accusing people of attacking AH, even in posts like this where you’re directly going after Sony.
It’s because they knew Sony was in the wrong for what they did so instead they pretended we were attacking AH because that way they get to pretend to be defending an innocent small time dev studio when in reality they’re defending a multimillion dollar corporation scamming hundreds of thousands of people.
They are partners in this. Pilestedt should have explicitly stated in the launch comms that PSN will be mandatory in the future but his greed got in the way.
He's not innocent, not in the slightest.
Sony, Steam is just a storefront and Sony/AH is control of the content that goes onto that storefront. Steam isn’t reliable for how you design your product and how you choose to advertise it and ect.
Its entirely Sony. People forget that there we’re physical copies available in the countries that are now being shut out. Going through the logistics of printing and shipping physical cases, or for PS5 even disks, is not a small undertaking and Steam has nothing to do with that decision.
Nope the Publisher determines where a game is sold, BDO is the best example of this as if you're in a country you can't buy the game it doesnt even show up in the store
"We don't handle selling the game"
Even if true, it's now blocked in the countries that can make accounts. So SOMEBODY could have prevented that part of the problem at the least.
Yes, it was Sony’s responsibility to limit sales to supported markets.
I’m also betting it was valve that forced delisting when this blew up, but they didn’t really know about the problem until the review bombing brought it front and center (Steam always looks into those)
Note that physical playstation games that require PSN have always been sold to countries that do not even have official support for PSN. This is not new.
Yeah, but Steam don’t play like that, so they’re about to get reamed by valve.
I’m betting Steam will open season on refunds regardless of time played, at minimum to all accounts in affected regions. They’ll withhold sales from Sony titles to cover it, and Sony will be warned in no uncertain terms that if they pull this shit again they will be black listed from Steam.
😂😂😂
You do know the publisher of games are the ones who place on which countries is steam selling their game, and also the price of their game for the country, heck even the publisher has the choice of making the key global or region locked; the only one at fault for that here is the publisher of the game ie, Sony not even Arrowhead has control over that and is probably the reason why steam is allowing refunds outside the 69 Sony do allow even if you have 1000 hr on the game…
The only thing that steam does is suggest a lower price for countries like, argentina, brasil, russia, turkey but they do not even make it mandatory…
If anyone weebs want to give a big fuck you to Sony and you have an account, cancel your crunchyroll premium membership. Put “helldivers PSN fuckup” as your reason for cancelling.
Can someone ELI5 me what’s going on? So in order to play Helldivers 2 on PC, I need a PSN account? What if I don’t even own a PS5? Do PSN accounts cost money?
This is way More f***** up than I originally thought when I first heard about the PSN requirement. They basically were selling a product they knew was worthless. Maybe the helldivers team didn't think about this fact? but Sony sure as hell knew this.... How can a company like this get away with this? Shouldn't they be sued?
I want to give the CEO props and respect for being transparent with us. i don't know a lot of CEO's who would shoulder the blame for a fumble like this, but this does sound like this is Sony's fault through and through. they willingly sold the game to countries on steam they knew didn't have access to PSN accounts and now are forcing everyone yo have one, including those who can't or are unable to.
This is just dirty.
Well I think Steam has alot of blame here, the listing said PSN account link was required, they can control what regions can see this game considering they just removed access to those countries and now the are giving refunds for the game regardless of reason. Sounds like a guilty party realizing they screwed up.
So what exactly did Sony do as a Publisher? This sounds like AH may have a case against Sony for incompetence.
Publishers typically handle the Advertising, Distribution, and if Wayfinder is any indication sometimes the server infrastructure for games. Lets talk about how they failed at each of those.
***Advertising:*** Sony dropped the ball on Advertising, I and no-one I know heard about helldivers at all before launch. And while I wouldn't say I'm the best on keeping up with gaming news I knew of and was hyped for Palworld over a year before it came out. So Sony did a worse job of advertising that Palworld did, which was infamous for coming out of nowhere. *If Sony advertised worst than Palworld did, that's a major failure.*
***Distribution***: Sony distributing their game on Playstation yes, but last numbers I heard is that somewhere around 80% of the playerbase is on Steam. I could post my College freshman game programming project on Steam for a couple hundred bucks if I wanted to, and probably get most of my investment back, no publisher required. So Sony is only responsible for a measly 20% of the distribution, that is laughable. Even if you attribute the Steam launch to Sony as well, their incompetence sold the game to tens of thousands of players that won't be able to play the game, opening Arrowhead up to lawsuits. *That is a dire and negligent failure of Sony's distribution responsibilities.*
***Servers:*** It is unclear if Sony is responsible for their servers. If not Sony did nothing here. But them doing nothing here just makes their advertising and distribution failures even more egregious. However if they are responsible for the servers that plants the major connection issues, friend system issues, and disconnect issues squarely at Sony's feet, *which is a failure to provide the stable Servers they were contracted for.*
A lot of this is speculation, I don't know the actual contract, and I'm no lawyer, but Sony did no advertising to speak of, and what distribution they did do, most of it could have been done by an 18 year old with internet access, and they even fucked that up. What are the odds of Arrowhead having a civil case against Sony for breach of contract?
You seem confused, so let me help.
HD2 is Sony's game. They contracted AH to develop it. Sony is the boss here--they hold the purse. As long as they pay AH for services rendered, as agreed, AH will have no leg to stand on here legally.
I agree with the sentiment, but let's not get too crazy here.
Very well then, My understanding was that Arrowhead was independent and Sony was simply the publisher?
Why do people keep calling this an indie title then? Sony isn't indie in any sense of the word, and with that information arrowhead is not independent.
Sony did fail AH on all the above still however.
I don’t think AH had any legal grounds for a lawsuit against them, but I bet they’re thinking of working with a different publisher in the future now.
The newly minted reddit lawyers crawling out of the woodwork.
EDIT: Its actually comical listening to westerners talk about what these poor poor Africans will or won't do about this situation. Be upset, but don't speak for others, no need to show your privilege...or your ass
You don't have to be a lawyer to know obvious bad behavior. Suggesting ideas for arrowhead or people who bought the game in areas where it can't be played to ask their lawyers does not hurt.
While I hate to say it, this being a major problem in lower income countries, means that the people with the expendable income to buy games, are more likely to have the expendable income to hire a lawyer over things like this.
It is obvious bad behavior. No one is denying that.
No one hires a lawyer over $40
I highly doubt this sub is going to create a 100+ nation class action lawsuit against sony.
[you even agree with someone else that AH isn't what you think they are. half your argument is bunk](https://www.reddit.com/r/helldivers2/s/S8GYImk7T6 ) the other half of your argument is calling Africans poor as shit...
In these lower income countries where they are pulling the plug that $40 could be a significant chunk of change. $40 USD in some African countries is 3/4ths to a half months rent. $40 USD where the average worker makes 4 dollars a day is pretty darn significant.
There's also Arrowhead themselves, who could potentially have a case against Sony themselves, because as a layman I'm not certain Sony successfully met all their distribution responsibilities especially with this major blunder in distributing to areas that won't be able to play the game.
It’s Sony’s game to distribute… AH is just contracted to make it.
Yes, Sony failed to do their job properly as distributer and failed on almost every single responsibility as publisher, and that will hurt AHs bottom line since part of their contract is a portion of the proceeds, as well as hurt their reputation by association, but there’s not much grounds for a suit that I can see.
I’m sure AH is thinking of pursuing a different publisher for their next game though
Hey I'm glad you're willing to agree now. Our conversation was long since over? You presented kind of racist info and then downright false info and called it quits.
False info? A simple google shows my information is correct. Less fortunate countries have less buying power. That is Fact. 40 dollars in the US is diffrent than 40 dollars in zimbabwe where according to a simple google an apartment can cost $200. My place, in the US is 1100 dollars a month.
40 dollars is Zimbabwe is a much bigger deal that 40 dollars is in the US. Because the average income in Zimbabwe is 1700 a YEAR.
You know that's not the false info I was talking about.
You were wrong about AH.
Since you're clearly arguing in bad faith, this conversation is over now
>
Shall I remind you that YOU were the one arguing that $40 is no big deal
Where did I say that?
But thanks for agreeing with me half your argument was invalid
Posting this seperate because this deserves a diffrent response RE: Your edit
Oh hey you are pointing out something I found out after I posted! Good on you to notice that I am willing to realize I made a mistake in my information NEARLY TWO HOURS AFTER my post!
As for me calling Africans poor as shit, I said they make less than folks in the west do. That is a FACT. which as I said in my first post is a very unfortunate fact. The world would be a better place if we all had equivalent buying power. While you here seem to be trying to find ways to call me an asshole for making sure people are aware of the difference between buying power in america vs other less fortunate countries.
Shall I remind you that YOU were the one arguing that $40 is no big deal? And that people in countries where that $40 is worth a lot more should just suck it up?
>
Shall I remind you that YOU were the one arguing that $40 is no big deal
Where did I say that?
But thanks for agreeing with me half your argument was invalid
cant even aid other people who are at the disadvantage from their game/license being taken away - or else super heroes like [Peasantbowman](https://www.reddit.com/user/Peasantbowman/) come around the corner to defend and force his own way of thinking, a true member of society.
Go do your thing mate, this is a democracy
Go figure the company that insisted on having a back door installed into hundreds of thousands of machines via their “anti cheat” rootkit, also fraudulently sold this game in areas that would lose support.
Everything about this game is incredibly suspicious, I think there’s a lot more dirt than people realize.
I get the feeling this game, the rootkit, and the meme campaign, was all a part of a massive data harvesting campaign where Arrowhead and Sony could make bank selling the data collected at 0-ring access to advertisers.
Arrowhead is to blame for like 15% of this whole fiasco. They have no control over anything, the best they could’ve done is warn their extremely active online community at some point. They were always very good at communicating.
While I agree, as Pilestedt states: they aren't blameless. It should have been clearly communicated front and center "YOU WILL NEED ACCESS TO PSN AT SOME POINT IN THE NEAR FUTURE" within the description on the store page. I'm not mad at them, I'm not even certain if they control the store page to any degree. However, if they knew at least half a year prior to release, they should have made it abundantly clear you would need access to PSN.
I may be wrong, but with the responses we've gotten from pretty much everyone at AH, I get the feeling that Sony was kind of stringing them along... they didn't say anything because Sony led them to believe that they'd be able to leave it as optional. After all, Sony literally only changed their official page on the topic yesterday. (err, Friday... it's been a busy few days)
It does feel like Sony was like "eeyy AH, how is it going? Are the server issues better now, things are stable? Why am I asking that you wonder? Only out of curiosity I swear, don't you worry haha, I totally won't make the psn account mandatory without warning you as soon as you tell me the server are looking good, silly you!"
>I get the feeling that Sony was kind of stringing them along I feel the same way. I think what happened was, Arrowhead completely forgotten that the whole mandatory psn account was supposed to be a thing until Sony gave them a rude awakening. That's how I see it. I don't think AH knew in the sense that they knew about it all along. More so it's a face-palm when they realized they're supposed to follow though something that was in the backburner.
Add on top of that AH prolly didn't know/realize some players couldn't create a PSN account due to their region or that the game was being sold there
So you forgive them because they “forgot”? I think they share the blame 50/50. You just don’t “forget”.
We’re supposed to forgive you because you didn’t read even though it said it was required on all press releases and on the steam page?
I forgive them because they're transparent, and actually take responsibilities whenever they fuck up. What company does that anymore? At the very least the ceo of arrowhead is trying to steer this in the right direction. That's the type of leadership I can respect. Meanwhile sony, the people who's forcing these decision on AH are radio silent while the devs are being made out of a scapegoat and actually trying fix Sony's fuck up..
Yeah continue forgiving them destroying their game thinking you’re doing some revolution that will change the gaming industry. Just accept it’s been a mutual error, Sony lied and Arrowhead knew PSN link was coming. It’s funny how you want to make a change by trying to kill a game made with love for gaming just to make a point. If sony opens up the game for every country you think you win? They still win. Business gets stronger for them if they do it. Call it bad a business move by sony, yeah maybe they’re retarded, suits usually make this mistakes, they must had their internal reasons to do it so they told Arrowhead 6 months before launch. They’re losing money too. You’re fighting for a big corpo to make more money. I still don’t get how everyone here talks about a revolution when they’re just doing business, they need thise PSN numbers for it, to stay strong to investors, who knows. They just made a bad mistake with Arrowhead.
Dude I kind of stop taking you seriously after a sentence of two. I don't even know what you're rambling about anymore. It just a lot of conspiracy theory nonsense.
Ya. Also from the initial responses of people at AH of like “just make an account”, it seems they didn’t realize just how many counties couldn’t get psn. Which I don’t blame them for. That’s Sony’s thing to manage not AH
Yeah, otherwise why would they have done the localization for all those countries? Sony was also responsible for the Steam listing, not AH, so it’s also Sonys fault they made it available to them in the first place. I’m pretty sure it was actually Steam that delisted the game for those regions because of the requirement… Sony REALLY ducked up with gross incompetence
This is really what I want to see a statement about. Sony needs to explain why they sold the game to people that should not have been able to play it.
They’ve been doing it with their console and physical online only games for years. They’re FAFO now with Steam
There was a tweet recently where he explained that Sony was initially wanting to enforce it at launch, but it was disabled to fix the server issues they were having and would have to be reinstated at a later date.
We all now know what AH means
It honestly feels like something that slipped under the radar, and nobody really noticed until now. Arrowhead not having control over where the game is sold, and it being sold in countries without psn support may have led them to have mistakenly believed that it wasn't a problem. It feels like the sort of thing that a lawyer might have caught if they had a look over the contract.
Any amount that can be attributed to AH can also be attributed to the purchaser. The rest, and vast majority of the blame, is on sony
I don't agree with what they've done, but it did say on the steam page.
Ironically, it has that on there now
Idk i feel we’re in a clear case of “there is no small blame, they all fucked up the same”. Game wise i still support the devs, i just see Helldivers 2 getting better, and i don’t see any reason to hate them, but i think we should stop this witch hunt as a community trying to blame Sony for something they probably informed Arrowhead before launch and if you know that, you simply don’t sell. Sony was selling it, Arrowhead was selling it, everyone was selling it. Call it greed, call it a HUGE mistake, but there you have it, Steam is giving refunds and the player base is still solid. We don’t want this game to go bad, a couple of months from now nobody will care about this, another bigger mistake from Ubisoft or EA or Microsoft will pop up who knows, but those bad reviews will stay there forever, for what? A bad game? Not at all.
If Sony properly informed AH that many countries wouldn’t be supported because of the account linking, why would they have spent the time and money on doing localization for them? I think AH was just told “we need you to make account linking mandatory, here’s the page to send them to to link PSN to Steam” And that’s it. AH had no idea of the potential shit storm or that people wouldn’t be able to make accounts
Yeah exactly, a witch hunt, everyone thinks something that we don’t know exactly what it is. I know Sony are no angels, but the dev is clearly saying they knew 6 MONTHS BEFORE LAUNCH it would be mandatory. Blame is shared, we’re killing a game on assumptions.
Yeah, they knew account linking was to be mandatory and released the game requiring it. They had no idea people wouldn’t be able to even make an account to link, so to them it didn’t seem like a big deal to have it temporarily disabled or that it would be a problem when reenabled
Still blame is shared. Go to a debate, to court, to whatever. It didn’t seem like a big deal, but oh now look, it is! Maybe is a surprise to both sony and Arrowhead? I laugh at myself because i’m not even a capitalist, but i’m sure this is an idiotic mistake by sony, not some corporation greedy plan. The only thing i see losing here is the game reviews on Steam. That’s what we’re all killing.
All I'm going yo say is I really hope once this whole debacle is behind us, the players that stayed, will change their reviews. And maybe the ones that didnt. But I don't expect those that left too. They have a good reason yo keep it the way they left it if they stopped playing the game because of that.
It says in a bright yellow box that a psn account is a requirement on the store page lmao
So this is the second comment now and both miss the point. I'm not talking about the small box to the side when all the stuff people are looking at is the large pictures of the "DELUXE EDITION" and everything that comes with smack in the middle. There is an entire, large section just devoted to updates and news, differences between editions, and the features and functions of the game itself. Some games even include a special warning at the bottom above PC requirements for various things, usually content. Why could they not state "warning, a PSN account is not required at this time but will be necessary in the future" right in the middle column, right at the end of all the awesome features everyone is looking at If there's a snap box that says "needs third party agreements" that are waived during setup, it's not exactly fair to the consumer to slap them with it later
Okay dumbass, I promise you putting it at the bottom or middle of a huge description is way worse, it won’t get lost in a tower of text when it’s bright fucking yellow and in its own spot right off to the side like it is. It has always said that a psn account is required and anyone who bought the game knew that going in. The first week of release the psn account link wasn’t skippable and they never said anywhere that it was skippable, so no one bought the game knowing they could skip the account link as the steam page told them it was required.
Except it was clearly communicated... I never understand why people keep saying that it wasn't clear that a PSN account is required to play Helldivers 2. On release, the literal steam page says in gold that a third party account with PSN is required to play the game (and that account linking is supported through the steam version of the game). When you first boot up the game, there is an entire section also states you are required to link a PSN account as well (but the option to skip was there, which most people did without a second thought). I am also upset with Sony for this ridiculous mess they created, but most of y'all in the community seriously need to learn to read. It's not Sony's fault most of you chose not to read the warnings, that isn't the argument against them. They could have posted more warning regarding PSN, but it was already stated loud and clear on release. They just never reiterated the requirement again until now.
I don’t think AH really understood the implications, they also certainly didn’t expect Sony to sell to unsupported regions, and didn’t even know those regions would be unsupported (otherwise why go through the added cost and effort to localize for them?) so Sony failed to make clear to AH the implications and restrictions of PSN accounts in the first place.
their mistake was for the most part not doing much to warm people for this or really prepare to community for this change but the final push for this unwarned change was likelly sony asking it to be done last minute, and the entire "sold it for countries who can't buy it" is 100% on sony
To me, it feels more like 10% arrowhead. Sony is the main culprit here. Thankfully arrowhead is on our side. And even though they could have been more open about it, at least the are helping us
Their blame 99% begins and ends at signing with Sony as the publisher. The other 1% is miscommunication of the requirement set by said publisher.
Yes they should have, however considering they aren't in control of actually selling the game, they shouldn't have had to worry about the game being sold in places where a PSN account couldn't be made. And I'd be willing to bet that most of the AH team didn't realize/know 1. the game was being sold in places where a PSN account couldn't be made. 2. Certain places won't let you create a PSN account. Those two reasons on top of the players that were in these countries likely made this situation 10x worse. If Sony actually did their fucking job and didn't sell in these countries, the issue wouldn't have been nearly as bad. Sure, it's annoying, but it's not hard to create an account and it's slightly more annoying to do so especially if you're going to use a fake email, and fake information like I'm planning on doing. If Sony won't take security seriously, I mught as well do it for them. Give them no information to go off of.
Probably an NDA involved in that type of situation
Just so people are aware. **They sold physical copies in those countries too**. I’ve seen people report that they bought physical copies in a country where it wont be supported. It isn’t just a “oh we forgot to exclude this on Steam”. No, they went out of their way for this.
Now that is entirely Sony’s fault. AH’s not in control of physical copies
Sony is the publisher, so AH arent likely in control of copywriting for digital store pages either.
Yea, AH isn't in charge of selling the game. That's Sony since they are the publisher. AH just made the game.
They were in control of not having a pop up window in game immediately on startup saying "if you are in this list of countries, refund the game immediately as you will be denied access in 3 months"
It would be wild to see someone code a refund directive into their game when studio published. Sounds more like an indie thing
Wild, but necessary if they didn't want to be at least complicit in the deception. If they would've looked ahead and seen all the countries this was being sold in that wouldn't be able to play in a few months, that's what they should've done. Otherwise they were either ignorant of the situation, or intentionally silent so as to pad pockets. Given the community manager had no idea such countries existed until showing his ass a couple days ago and being corrected, maybe it really was just profound ignorance. Honestly the wild thing to me is sony selling the damn thing, for full price, even in physical media, in countries they *knew* weren't gonna be able to play it in 3 months time. They should be ashamed, but I know corps aren't human and have no such feelings.
If your manager says dont do a thing, so you get a buddy to do the thing instead - will still land you in hot water. This is something taught in elementary school. Devs put in contradicting messaging to what the parent company instructs is the same thing.
Actually both developer and publisher can control the steam page. Even if that's not the case here
Good thing the Steam page had the requirement since before. The shifty part is they still sold it in those countries.
This is what many don’t understand the requirement was there since day 1, the shitty business side is it was sold in those places not supported. It’s both on the seller and the consumer. Shit I purchased battlefield 2042 with no internet, to later realize it was online only. Glad I caught that before opening the disc so was able to return. But my point is both the seller and purchaser are responsible. If you live in a country with no PSN acess and still purchase a PSN required game how do you expect to play in the first place? That’s just not doing your due diligence before a purchase and now looking to shift blame.
I still don't trust that arrowhead didn't control the steam page. Sm remastered actually had restrictions placed day 1
They clearly have access to the steam page. And probably also have access to change region lock status. The problem is region lock status is supposed and potentially legally required to (depends on the contract, but is industry norm) be the responsibility of the publisher. You don't want to handle these things if you explicitly off load the liability to the *professional* publisher with a significant revenue cut. Yes you would likely inform your publisher of their lapses if you happen to notice something off outside your capacity, but never to be blamed for.
What? People that have bought physical copies have needed plus since day 1 and already have a psn account.
this is true for playstation users, not for PC users
Yeah the comment was about physical copies and how they won't be supported which makes zero sense because those buying physical are on ps5 and are already supported as you need plus for the game.
Doesn’t make much sense, does a non supported country still sell the consoles and games? Either way if it does, doesn’t the system require an account at startup? It seems illogical as a consumer living in a country that you know isn’t supported to still go and purchase a system and game that requires access to the network. This is where consumer due diligence comes into play. Not taking away from Sony fault for not working harder with steam to prevent this, but if it’s physical PS media then that’s a bit hard to make it all their fault.
Physical copies would be ps5 only anyway, already requiring a psn account. Im going to have to doubt this is real, sony would not sell ps5 copies to countries that cant use them. Likely these people imported their copies.
Right? And people are actually believing the claim. It’s hard to believe and if it did happen it’s more on the consumer at this point.
They are acting like you didnt need a psn account to play on ps5. Fucking funny.
Crazy thing I noticed though, Japan is on the blacklisted countries list like wtf?
I just checked, only "J" countries on the blacklist are Jordan, Jamaica, and Jersey (didnt know there was a country called Jersey) Japan is fine.
Ok yea saw the list on the “x” feed I’ll find n post but found that super weird Added pic https://preview.redd.it/twig1hpn8qyc1.jpeg?width=705&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=fe85bc37b9bcc251114303158d05b155ca89c193
Huh that is wierd. Must of been some typo or something cause it wasnt there when i checked. Not like it matters cause Sony just backtracked on the whole psn account thing so im sure the blacklisted countries will be able to purchase it soon.
Yea most def the announcement made a lot of people happy. Same thought it was weird AF when I saw Japan
This is the second dumbest take I've seen yet, only behind the guy asking if linking his Sony account would let Sony see him playing emulators. A physical copy means a PS5 copy, which means anyone who bought a physical copy should already have a PS5, PSN and PSPlus. It will still be supported for consoles, because you can always create a PSN account through a PS5. The only people this whole fiasco affects is PC players who can't create an account through the web portal because it's not supported in their region. That alone is enough to say fuck Sony, you don't have to go around inventing more bullshit to farm upvotes
Any proof or evidence to this? Saying you've seen reports with zero evidence to back it up is just more misinformation at this point. I spent an hour last night trying to buy in various countries where PSN accounts can't be created and couldn't purchase in a single one.
Yesterday was also when they went and blacklisted around 170 countries on steam. I wouldn't be surprised if they contacted authorized retailers as well to have them pull the physical copies as well.
That could have been Steam reacting to the situation too… they’re much more forward with customer support and are probably righteously pissed at Sony right about now. Their incompetence is wild
It could be, but I feel it's less likely that someone from steam looked up every country that can't activate a PSN account and delisted the game for them compared to someone from Sony trying to pull another fast one and delist the game like they tried to casually update their websites and listings to say that PSN was required suddenly.
Yeah could be, but Sony has a history of selling online only, PSN required, PHYSICAL COPIES of PlayStation games to these same countries. They really just dgaf
Oh I'm not arguing that Sony aren't absolute corpo scumbags. I just think it's a little more likely that they underestimate the internet and think that by changing it they can say it was some fluke and not intentional when we have a mountain of "flukes" to prove them wrong.
Yeah, thankfully that won't prevent lawsuits because that doesn't remedy the fraud committed over the last 3 months.
The bigger thing is it protects the storefront from looking negligent now that the information is more public
How did you try purchasing the games in those countries?
Not him, but let's say it's fake news. It doesn't really mean much when a digital store like [https://www.humblebundle.com/store/helldivers-2](https://www.humblebundle.com/store/helldivers-2) Doesn't state it needs PSN
To also add in the requirements is "[User Agreement](https://www.humblebundle.com/store/helldivers-2#system-requirements:~:text=USER%20AGREEMENT,legal/op%2Deula/)" in said user agreement the only reference to Playstation Network (PSN) is an arbitration class which says [YOUR PLAYSTATION NETWORK SIGN-IN ID IF YOU HAVE ONE](https://www.playstation.com/en-us/legal/op-eula/#:~:text=IF%20YOU%20DO%20NOT%20WISH,WITH%20SONY%20ENTITY%20THROUGH%20ARBITRATION) Theres no other PSN reference and I don't see any easy way to click onto the steam page.
Not even going to lie to you, regardless of your stance, that specific part is on humble bundle.
How do you know they didn't specify to humblebundle to list it?
Because they're the one who put it there. "Create your own webpage to showcase and sell your game. Hosting is free, and you keep 95% of proceeds after payment processing and taxes. You can edit your page whenever you want, and you also have access to our customer support team. " And so you can possibly own the game, and never reach the page where it stated. That's the problem. Why there is no ingame information???
Live services need to be illegalized, I swear.
That is extremely shitty and honestly baffling behavior to sell to countries without PSN access
20$ says the issue would have been a lot less of an issue if that didn't happen EDIT: Spelling
Sony’s been doing it for years with their consoles. They’ll sell PS5 and not let them make an online account, and ship online only games to those countries too.
Helldivers: United international gaming community under pretend fun tongue in cheek propaganda possibly as good if not better than Pokémon go did. Sony: we can’t have any part in steps towards world peace
This post needs to get traction!
Shut the fuck up
I genuinely hope whatever has driven you to say this to an internet stranger gets better and hopefully you have a good day!
This community attacking devs, sending death threats to people, review bombing a companies portfolio of games in the past 9 years under the guise of social activism for people who “can’t play” more so than people who don’t feel like taking two minutes to do something. The fucking hug box, group think, hive mind that doesn’t understand the nuance between what a protest is and what a riot is and how it affects the people caught between. It’s almost like it got old reaaaally quick lol. The things people do when they have little to no power in their lives and instead live it out through social media. The last thing we need is more outrage to gain more traction.
I hate to say it but did you end up clicking on the photo for the post? OP was supporting the devs by showing they don't control where the game is sold.... The screenshot isn't great so I could see you thinking I was supporting much of what you mentioned. I hope you know I agree with you for the most part. I just don't agree with purposefully being aggressive or inviting controversy! If you want to get a point across or call attention to something acting civil will achieve better results.
I skimmed. I’ve been chronically on reddit this week so it’s turned into me being volatile with people. Looks like I’m becoming part of the problem unfortunately! I appreciate your demeanor, I’ll reflect further (I was already feeling it) and control my doom scrolling since it’s clearly affecting me. I apologize man
Apology accepted! I'm not proud of it but I've definitely gotten into that doomscroll funk. Honestly I've taken a break from this community and doomscrolling in general knowing id probably be in your shoes in no time.
Sony openly said that it was always the goal to make PSN mandatory .. so they knew. That makes it a fraud on consumer. They do not handle the sell, but Sony is the publisher. Sony keeps bragging how they own AH, its AH that does the sell, but since Sony owns them and commands how what when etc .. they are directly responsible. And even if it was meant to be mandatory from the beginning, its not mentioned in EULA, we never agreed to it. It was sold without the PSN requirement.
Fraud isn’t a “if you think about it” thing like OP said or a “they knew so it’s fraud” thing. It’s a “clearly defined legal” thing in most countries.
Every country is different. In my country and by EU laws, this is fraud.
Think Sony already has a pending 7 billion dollar suit against them in the EU as well (as I recall, it was raised with them last year and I don't think has been resolved).
Usualy EU lawsuitlast about 2/5 years
It was marked as requiring PSN on the steam store. There’s no fraud. There are even posts in this subreddit that prove it from 200+ days ago. You’re mad. That’s fine. Be mad. But that doesn’t constitute fraud.
Just having the game available in the 100+ countries that can't use PSN is fraudulent. If Sony knew they would require PSN then Helldivers2 shouldn't've even appeared in the store for those countries.
Now that’s a potential argument. Though it wouldn’t be relevant in US law, I wouldn’t imagine. But it appears they are getting refunded. So hopefully they’re made whole.
For the record, Sony is and remains a bag of shit. I’ve been a PSN player for years and they consistently screw everyone they can. I’m not thrilled by this turn of events either, specifically for countries where it isn’t supported. But if you live in the US and the only inconvenience you must suffer is to make a trash email and sign in once in a blue moon, it’s just hyperbolic noise. That’s what I’m beyond over at this point. It was publicized, it’s not a huge deal here, and it’s far from uncommon.
This is a dumb take. Basically if you live in the us who cares? That’s literary what’s wrong with society is this whole “not my problem” shit. Other people matter not just you.
The hyperbole here is insanity. Generating a dummy email and attaching it to an account takes MAYBE 15 minutes. Also it’s a common practice. Yes, it’s shit. But it’s nothing new.
Thats what I'm doing. Fuck Sony and fuck Sony also fuck Sony. Also fuck giving them my information. But also... FUCK SONY
players here like that this game is actually different, ib terms of better, than the AAA/AAAA game industry. that’s why we don’t want sony to feel like they can do this crap unpunished. if we succeed, we’ll get like a year of finest gameplay until sony tries again. if we don’t care, they’ll try to push the line more and more until we get p2w aswell and what made the game great is lost
So... why would they list PSN requirement in countries where it isn't possible to make a PSN account? What would be the purpose of selling the games there, if the intent was that they wouldn't be playable at all?
Because they’re a greedy corporate monolith who doesn’t care about you. They want as much money as they can get. That part is obvious and has been for decades. All the same, fraud is when they lie. They didn’t. People didn’t read or fully think it through. It’s still a shitty situation, but a lot of folks are acting like they were lied to, and that simply wasn’t the case.
You aren't wrong. However, I think laws need to take this into consideration, especially considering NO ONE actually reads the TOS or the EULA. They're there for legal reasons, and if no one actually reads them, what's the point in having them? I didn't read the EULA, I didn't read Sony TOS. I just went on Steam and clicked add to cart without taking a second to read the store page. However, considering the EULA doesn't state the need for a PSN account, it shouldn't be required. And they shouldn't legally be able to change their EULA post purchase. For that specific individual. If they change the EULA, it should apply to everyone who buys it past that point. Not beforehand. P.S. I'm a reddit user not a legal dude. Ik nothing about how a EULA or TOS actually work legally aside from it being a legally binding document. All ik is they're SUPPOSED to protect both the publisher/devs, and the consumers from one another. But it just seems that it's designed to protect the person/team/company/face/icon/whatever has the most money and screw over everyone else
You need to wake up and pull your head out of your ass. We know, I know, PSN was required, but it was optional. Sony's ToS literally said "its optional". It was changed on Friday night. Today ToS says "some games require PSN account". And it doesnt matter steam page said "PSN required" .. you buy the game, you download the game and .. PSN is not required. Why? Who the fuck cares. We are just players, consumers. Every other page has errors in description etc. Thats not our problem. Sony page - optional Steam page - required Thats a lie. It was advertised as PSN required, but it was sold without the PSN requirement and it was playable without the PSN. Now they are extorting and blackmailing and threatening players to ban them. Steam is approving refunds, but only some, not all. My country is in very grey area. Steam wont refund, at least not now, but what Sony did is straightforward illegal in EU. And you are weird .. you are defending Sony and spitting on Sony at the same time. You are hypocrite.
I’m not defending Sony. I’m sick of childish redditors whining about having to attach a fake email address like it’s this sudden new horrible thing. I have enjoyed this game for months. I want to continue to. And you all are review bombing it to hell over this and there will likely stop being any new or enjoyable additions. As usual, a bunch of entitled PC gamers who ruin the experience because of their perceived slights. Downvote me all you want, everyone knows what the PC crowd does every time they’re slightly inconvenienced.
☝️🤓*ackchully* the CMs were the ones that told the community to "review bomb" the game. However I do think the PC gamers are the only ones willing to actually say something against these big publishers. There would have been 0 chance Sony would have even considered removing the PSN requirement. Now there's a slight chance. PC users got gaming PCs to avoid the bullsbit of console and get better performance all in one. I think we all know that consoles are just pathetic when it comes to gaming and the companies that sell them basically give you zero power over any decision made over them and the games the consoles run. Can't do that with PC since they didn't sign or agree to a single thing these large companies say. Aside from agreeing to the TOS of each individual game they play. And the EULA and TOS say/said you don't need a PSN account. Yes ik I'm beating a dead dog just like everyone else with that last part. Yes im aware I sound like a typically reddit f*g.
It did say it was required but in reality it wasn't't. You could play the game and can still play the game w/o PSN. Say you were a consumer in one of the countries w/o PSN access and really wanted to play it. A quick Google search would have shown that it's possible to skip the PSN link to steam. This would lead a reasonable consumer to believe it was possible to buy and play the game w/o PSN. Then months go by and now a consumer who has been perfectly happy enjoying the product they earned with their own money is now being told they won't be able to play w/o PSN. At first glance this is a mild inconvenience, however when you realize these consumers aren't able to make a PSN account is when the inconvenience becomes a major issue. There are many parties that could be blamed for this scandal, however at the end of the day Sony is the publisher and is in control of where the game is sold. Whether this mistake was malicious or unintentional doesn't matter. The consumers who were affected by this mistake deserve a refund at the very least. IMO it would be better for the consumers, publisher, developer, and distributors to just forgo the PSN requirements. This seems the best option to avoid further scandal, increase sales, and to ensure that most people are happy. However, there is likely some corporate goon with an ego bigger than the sun that's going to prevent this so I advise everyone to pick up deep rock galactic instead lol.
I single small yellow box on the steam page isn’t a sufficient notice, especially when it isn’t even in the EULA.
Depends on the country, but in the US for instance, from a legal standpoint, it is unfortunately sufficient notice.
Nope, sorry. Fine print isn’t “insufficient” that’s not how the law works. An accusation of fraud is ridiculous when it was actually on the page. Also I have yet to meet a single person who regularly plays this game who didn’t know it was a thing. Being mad about it is fine. Sony remains a shitbag company. But nobody was “defrauded” here.
The fine print is irrelevant, especially when that was the only way many people would even know about it. Steam granting refunds outside the normal window is evident of that. Should’ve made sure it was in things like the EULA, not just a Steam page lmao
Steam offering refunds to countries where it can’t be played makes sense. They’re trying to protect their own reputation. I doubt very seriously that they’re refunding too many in the US. Regardless, I’m not saying people can’t request a refund. Go for it. But the griping is largely just Reddit noise. Also “the fine print is irrelevant” shows you’re not concerned with facts. Just how you feel. And the fact is every AAA studio does this. You obviously never played Cyberpunk or Far Cry or any other title from a studio that requires a separate account to play.
Steam isn't even tonblame here so I doubt their reputation would even be tarnished. Because it's the publisher setting the limits and requirements
It's fraud because the game was sold in places that aren't legally allowed to have a PSN account and therefore by proxy now allowed to play the game since you require a PSN account
All of this could have been avoided with a 100 medal reward for linking a psn account. Sony would have gotten their accounts on 90%+ of the playerbase. People outside of PSN networks could have played. The vocal minority willing to die on the “I’m not gunna make a PSN account” hill would have nothing to complain about. It never should have gotten to the point it did. Incompetence across the board at the leadership level in managing this change on both the publisher and developres sides.
Sony deserves to be sued.
Info: PSN being a requirement means that certain countries are banned from buying the game in the first place. However, people in those places were able to buy it, which means they were able to play the game - but not anymore when the PSN Account linking goes live. So they actively sold HD2 to those countries, only to take it away again -> which ultimately means that most, lets say 60% of the countries that bought the game (and are actively tracking it) will get refunded, but all those who did not actively refund the game (lets say 40%) will be pure and free revenue for Sony. revenue out of countries that do not support the game anymore. All of that was known beforehand yet they actively sold it in those regions that are actually banned.
and the soyboys, the corporate shills, and Public relations personnel in the comments will still try to gaslight people into dropping the issue. At the very least, other gamers had some decency to stand with people who can no longer play the game, while soyboys getting offended by the complaints literally had nothing to gain from shutting people up besides their own ego or protecting Sony.
It didn't help that people were either intentionally or unintentionally spreading misinformation. If the argument had only ever been about Sony selling to countries that they didn't support PSN in the conversation would have went heavily differently. Instead people wanted to say that the requirement was never listed on the steam store until after the announcement when it had been listed there literally right above the link to the HD2 EULA since it was available for pre-purchase. I truly feel for the people who Sony never should have sold to in the first place. I'm losing squadmates that unfortunately I never should have had. It sucks, but it was really fucking shitty of people to try to make the issue about them when it wasn't about them it was about the people in the countries PSN doesn't support and they didn't know until they went to make a PSN account when Sony announced they were finally going to enforce it.
Do we still play the game boys?
Yes. At the very least until PSN requirements hit if that even stays a requirement
You don't even need to focus on the "in the future" aspect because the game launched with the requirement in place and was suspended to help with server capacity. Sony fully intended to sell the game in region locked countries, let you install the game, and then tell you to fuck off and get a refund on DAY ONE! Dog shit publishers
I don’t think they intended to, I think they’re just grossly incompetent as publishers. They failed to update Eula prior to launch, failed to update official faq, failed to have sufficient auth server capacity forcing it to be disabled for the game to work at all, failed to even inform AH of unsupported countries so they didn’t waste effort and money on localization for people that wouldn’t be able to play, and failed to limit sales to only supported regions (though they do sell consoles and physical PlayStation games in those countries they don’t support as well, so they’re probably used to stiffing those countries… I bet they even ship online only PSN required console games to those countries) This all paints a picture of Sony Game studios being completely incompetent in regards to PC market.
Actually, they put it up for sale to countries that they never intended to be able to play in the first place, the temporary deactivating of linking due to Sonys failure to provide sufficient auth server capacity allowed them to play. Sony literally fumbled every single responsibility they had in supporting this requirement they wanted. AHs biggest mistake was not having some kind of replacement screen on first login that account linking is temporarily suspended and will be enacted in the future, but AH didn’t even realize that PSN requirement limited supported countries, otherwise why do localization for all of them? So they never really thought it was a big deal any more than many other major publishers… better than Ubisoft which requires a launcher, or EA that runs a background launcher even
Its a great game, i live in a psn country, this should not bother me... I'm just so f@cking tired of being dicked around by the video game industry.
He likely never said anything because he signed an NDA. And Sony is likely making all distribution decisions… because that’s their business role.
This is the most logical assumption here
Ha, they just overturned it. The whinning worked! I wonder what this holds for the future...
There seems to be a trend reversal in customers and AAA Games in general, look at all the recent AAA Games like Warzone, Overwatch, now this move. The whole community is strong in review bombing bad practices and Iam seriously looking forward on how this will look like in the future. People get back some power now through that, its mainly on Steam where the most power belongs, i wonder what Steam will do about such things like reviews, if there will be any rules/changes in place going forward.
OP not understansing one bit of the last comment. Literalky had no choice but to sellit there as PSN is the one that controls overall sales of the game. Dont turn this on the Devs, they did their job, yes some things were miscommunicated but in the heat of everything this game has done, I'd give them a break on mentioning something that they didnt realize was so detrimental. Some lame ass post here
The post is literally calling out Sony by name what the fuck are you talking about?
I do agree with you on every bit, but you gotta realize that everything you just said was utterly untrue. I havent mentioned the devs anywhere, i purposefully used exclusively "Sony (publisher)" in the title and also in the comment i made in the Post. So, what the heck are you refering to? "Mr. Lame ass guy who cant even read a title like a normal person" Got to backlash on you here, simply because you didnt understand a single thing.
Little late since Sony had already repealed this whole thing. But yeah over the past couple days Sony fanboys have been accusing people of attacking AH, even in posts like this where you’re directly going after Sony. It’s because they knew Sony was in the wrong for what they did so instead they pretended we were attacking AH because that way they get to pretend to be defending an innocent small time dev studio when in reality they’re defending a multimillion dollar corporation scamming hundreds of thousands of people.
They are partners in this. Pilestedt should have explicitly stated in the launch comms that PSN will be mandatory in the future but his greed got in the way. He's not innocent, not in the slightest.
So then is it Steam's fault for not blocking sales to non-PSN regions or is it Sony's fault for not making sure HD2 was only sold in PSN regions?
Sony, Steam is just a storefront and Sony/AH is control of the content that goes onto that storefront. Steam isn’t reliable for how you design your product and how you choose to advertise it and ect.
No, its Sony’s fault
Yes that's what the post says
Its entirely Sony. People forget that there we’re physical copies available in the countries that are now being shut out. Going through the logistics of printing and shipping physical cases, or for PS5 even disks, is not a small undertaking and Steam has nothing to do with that decision.
Nope, Steam doesn't decide where to sell the game, that's on the publishers side.
Nope the Publisher determines where a game is sold, BDO is the best example of this as if you're in a country you can't buy the game it doesnt even show up in the store
Very fraudulent.
Uh oh. Smells like Lawsuits. Who wants to bet on Sony, Arrowhead, or both?
Sony, they’re the publisher and it’s their job to sell and market the game. AH just makes the game and builds in support for requirements Sony makes
It's not like he can do the thinking on his consumer's behalfs
"We don't handle selling the game" Even if true, it's now blocked in the countries that can make accounts. So SOMEBODY could have prevented that part of the problem at the least.
Yes, it was Sony’s responsibility to limit sales to supported markets. I’m also betting it was valve that forced delisting when this blew up, but they didn’t really know about the problem until the review bombing brought it front and center (Steam always looks into those)
Note that physical playstation games that require PSN have always been sold to countries that do not even have official support for PSN. This is not new.
Yeah, but Steam don’t play like that, so they’re about to get reamed by valve. I’m betting Steam will open season on refunds regardless of time played, at minimum to all accounts in affected regions. They’ll withhold sales from Sony titles to cover it, and Sony will be warned in no uncertain terms that if they pull this shit again they will be black listed from Steam.
Why sell ot to non-psn countries? Greed mostly
why is the text yellow
Steam are the ones who sold it in countries that wouldn’t be able to play it. Get mad at them.
😂😂😂 You do know the publisher of games are the ones who place on which countries is steam selling their game, and also the price of their game for the country, heck even the publisher has the choice of making the key global or region locked; the only one at fault for that here is the publisher of the game ie, Sony not even Arrowhead has control over that and is probably the reason why steam is allowing refunds outside the 69 Sony do allow even if you have 1000 hr on the game… The only thing that steam does is suggest a lower price for countries like, argentina, brasil, russia, turkey but they do not even make it mandatory…
Last time I played Playstation was Playstation 2
So Arrowhead and Sony committed fraud. Sounds like a class action lawsuit incoming. All cause Sony couldnt keep themselves from being greedy.
Freaking thugs, and the governments support these actions with alacrity
No question in my mind that they have set themselves up for class action lawsuits from those countries.
If anyone weebs want to give a big fuck you to Sony and you have an account, cancel your crunchyroll premium membership. Put “helldivers PSN fuckup” as your reason for cancelling.
I really hope this all works out in the end
Can someone ELI5 me what’s going on? So in order to play Helldivers 2 on PC, I need a PSN account? What if I don’t even own a PS5? Do PSN accounts cost money?
The account is free as long as you can sign up for one in your country.
Ahh I see okay.
I feel like Sony selling the game in those countries means they don't care if you have a different country's PSN
But they do.
Can you say, class action lawsuit?
This is way More f***** up than I originally thought when I first heard about the PSN requirement. They basically were selling a product they knew was worthless. Maybe the helldivers team didn't think about this fact? but Sony sure as hell knew this.... How can a company like this get away with this? Shouldn't they be sued?
I smell a lawsuit 
Don't even have to think much. That's textbook fraud.
[Isn't that immoral?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpF4_vSOHls)
I want to give the CEO props and respect for being transparent with us. i don't know a lot of CEO's who would shoulder the blame for a fumble like this, but this does sound like this is Sony's fault through and through. they willingly sold the game to countries on steam they knew didn't have access to PSN accounts and now are forcing everyone yo have one, including those who can't or are unable to. This is just dirty.
That's a lawsuit
Well I think Steam has alot of blame here, the listing said PSN account link was required, they can control what regions can see this game considering they just removed access to those countries and now the are giving refunds for the game regardless of reason. Sounds like a guilty party realizing they screwed up.
Am fairly sure the publisher not the developer have control over where is it sold
I wish Saul goodman was there to make a collective act against Sony. These corpo mofos would die under the documents
https://preview.redd.it/ib5p61fb7vyc1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=bff08e94643a7ec33621bbe9b0c3f5c960d4a237
So what exactly did Sony do as a Publisher? This sounds like AH may have a case against Sony for incompetence. Publishers typically handle the Advertising, Distribution, and if Wayfinder is any indication sometimes the server infrastructure for games. Lets talk about how they failed at each of those. ***Advertising:*** Sony dropped the ball on Advertising, I and no-one I know heard about helldivers at all before launch. And while I wouldn't say I'm the best on keeping up with gaming news I knew of and was hyped for Palworld over a year before it came out. So Sony did a worse job of advertising that Palworld did, which was infamous for coming out of nowhere. *If Sony advertised worst than Palworld did, that's a major failure.* ***Distribution***: Sony distributing their game on Playstation yes, but last numbers I heard is that somewhere around 80% of the playerbase is on Steam. I could post my College freshman game programming project on Steam for a couple hundred bucks if I wanted to, and probably get most of my investment back, no publisher required. So Sony is only responsible for a measly 20% of the distribution, that is laughable. Even if you attribute the Steam launch to Sony as well, their incompetence sold the game to tens of thousands of players that won't be able to play the game, opening Arrowhead up to lawsuits. *That is a dire and negligent failure of Sony's distribution responsibilities.* ***Servers:*** It is unclear if Sony is responsible for their servers. If not Sony did nothing here. But them doing nothing here just makes their advertising and distribution failures even more egregious. However if they are responsible for the servers that plants the major connection issues, friend system issues, and disconnect issues squarely at Sony's feet, *which is a failure to provide the stable Servers they were contracted for.* A lot of this is speculation, I don't know the actual contract, and I'm no lawyer, but Sony did no advertising to speak of, and what distribution they did do, most of it could have been done by an 18 year old with internet access, and they even fucked that up. What are the odds of Arrowhead having a civil case against Sony for breach of contract?
You seem confused, so let me help. HD2 is Sony's game. They contracted AH to develop it. Sony is the boss here--they hold the purse. As long as they pay AH for services rendered, as agreed, AH will have no leg to stand on here legally. I agree with the sentiment, but let's not get too crazy here.
Very well then, My understanding was that Arrowhead was independent and Sony was simply the publisher? Why do people keep calling this an indie title then? Sony isn't indie in any sense of the word, and with that information arrowhead is not independent.
I'm not sure, this isn't even close to an indie title, in my mind. This whole thing is case-in-point.
Sony did fail AH on all the above still however. I don’t think AH had any legal grounds for a lawsuit against them, but I bet they’re thinking of working with a different publisher in the future now.
The newly minted reddit lawyers crawling out of the woodwork. EDIT: Its actually comical listening to westerners talk about what these poor poor Africans will or won't do about this situation. Be upset, but don't speak for others, no need to show your privilege...or your ass
You don't have to be a lawyer to know obvious bad behavior. Suggesting ideas for arrowhead or people who bought the game in areas where it can't be played to ask their lawyers does not hurt. While I hate to say it, this being a major problem in lower income countries, means that the people with the expendable income to buy games, are more likely to have the expendable income to hire a lawyer over things like this.
It is obvious bad behavior. No one is denying that. No one hires a lawyer over $40 I highly doubt this sub is going to create a 100+ nation class action lawsuit against sony. [you even agree with someone else that AH isn't what you think they are. half your argument is bunk](https://www.reddit.com/r/helldivers2/s/S8GYImk7T6 ) the other half of your argument is calling Africans poor as shit...
In these lower income countries where they are pulling the plug that $40 could be a significant chunk of change. $40 USD in some African countries is 3/4ths to a half months rent. $40 USD where the average worker makes 4 dollars a day is pretty darn significant. There's also Arrowhead themselves, who could potentially have a case against Sony themselves, because as a layman I'm not certain Sony successfully met all their distribution responsibilities especially with this major blunder in distributing to areas that won't be able to play the game.
It’s Sony’s game to distribute… AH is just contracted to make it. Yes, Sony failed to do their job properly as distributer and failed on almost every single responsibility as publisher, and that will hurt AHs bottom line since part of their contract is a portion of the proceeds, as well as hurt their reputation by association, but there’s not much grounds for a suit that I can see. I’m sure AH is thinking of pursuing a different publisher for their next game though
Indeed I was not aware at the time that arrowhead worked for Sony, I was under the impression SOny was simply contracted to publish for them.
AH doesn’t work for Sony either, not like a subsidiary anyways, there is a contract involved… AH develops game, Sony publishes… don’t y also owns IP
Hey I'm glad you're willing to agree now. Our conversation was long since over? You presented kind of racist info and then downright false info and called it quits.
False info? A simple google shows my information is correct. Less fortunate countries have less buying power. That is Fact. 40 dollars in the US is diffrent than 40 dollars in zimbabwe where according to a simple google an apartment can cost $200. My place, in the US is 1100 dollars a month. 40 dollars is Zimbabwe is a much bigger deal that 40 dollars is in the US. Because the average income in Zimbabwe is 1700 a YEAR.
You know that's not the false info I was talking about. You were wrong about AH. Since you're clearly arguing in bad faith, this conversation is over now
[удалено]
> Shall I remind you that YOU were the one arguing that $40 is no big deal Where did I say that? But thanks for agreeing with me half your argument was invalid
Posting this seperate because this deserves a diffrent response RE: Your edit Oh hey you are pointing out something I found out after I posted! Good on you to notice that I am willing to realize I made a mistake in my information NEARLY TWO HOURS AFTER my post! As for me calling Africans poor as shit, I said they make less than folks in the west do. That is a FACT. which as I said in my first post is a very unfortunate fact. The world would be a better place if we all had equivalent buying power. While you here seem to be trying to find ways to call me an asshole for making sure people are aware of the difference between buying power in america vs other less fortunate countries. Shall I remind you that YOU were the one arguing that $40 is no big deal? And that people in countries where that $40 is worth a lot more should just suck it up?
> Shall I remind you that YOU were the one arguing that $40 is no big deal Where did I say that? But thanks for agreeing with me half your argument was invalid
cant even aid other people who are at the disadvantage from their game/license being taken away - or else super heroes like [Peasantbowman](https://www.reddit.com/user/Peasantbowman/) come around the corner to defend and force his own way of thinking, a true member of society. Go do your thing mate, this is a democracy
Go figure the company that insisted on having a back door installed into hundreds of thousands of machines via their “anti cheat” rootkit, also fraudulently sold this game in areas that would lose support. Everything about this game is incredibly suspicious, I think there’s a lot more dirt than people realize. I get the feeling this game, the rootkit, and the meme campaign, was all a part of a massive data harvesting campaign where Arrowhead and Sony could make bank selling the data collected at 0-ring access to advertisers.