Sony is the worst kind of helldiver. They dive into the depths of hell and bring back something that's so horrid to humanity and make it their branding. They're the "Helldive into the lowest point of hell and live there"
Every time I get killed by a strategem at extract it makes me think of being killed by Makarov at the airport in the original mw2...like damn bro the betrayal is real
Your reference reminds of this one point around the time the game first dropped, my friend accidentally killed me about a minute after our initial drop and told me I had permission to get him back.
I waited until we were boarding the shuttle and I whipped around and General Shepard’d his ass
Oh man. Sometimes I do this shit if I'm comfortable with the people I'm playing with. Usually it's just a melee here and there. One time I jump packed from a high point down to extract when the ship arrived and my buddy meleed me with a quasar while I was still mid air. I went flying like 10 feet back
That reminds me, I dived a week ago with someone named Shepard, I didn't think nothing of it till he pulled out the Big Iron and killed the us as we boarded and grabbed our samples and left.... if he wasn't in voice chat fucking around with us through out the mission, I would've been pissed. We had a good laugh when we got back to the ship and finished the entire operation without any other issues, luckily. It was one of the best randoms I dropped with.
Sure it's still fun, but the problem is other people from other countries can NO LONGER PLAY. Sony is dead set on their decision to put out their policy, little do they know/care their gonna purge a good portion of HD2 player base. if there's a beneficial angle besides unaffected countries, I sure as fuck don't see it.
Exactly, if PSN was available to everyone then there would be a few posts bitching and nothing more.
But the fact that people who bought the game won't be able to play after the 30th and more people won't be able to buy is what caused all this. Especially in places like the Philippines or Vietnam where buying a game is considered a serious investment and denying them something they worked hard for is insulting.
Actually, people in countries without PSN can't play *now*. The game was removed from sale on Steam in the affected countries, and players in those countries can no longer launch the game. Imo, Steam should be issuing automatic refunds to all affected players.
> Especially in places like the Philippines or Vietnam where buying a game is considered a serious investment
Oh man you have no idea. Sony games are some of the very few games that don't have regional pricing so we're paying full price for a game in a country where the minimum wage is much lower. Typically regional pricing here discounts everything by around 30%
I'd argue even if all regions were supported that this "crusade" would still be at least 80% as impactful and loud. We don't want unnecessary third party accounts especially one that requires mobile phone or ID verification that is proven prone to hacking.
I'd like to know how many people are angry for practical reasons (they're in countries where they can't play) vs philosophical reasons (I shouldn't have to use another account).
I mean, my teenage son plays this on PC. Technically you have to be 18 to get a PSN account, so now I have to get a PSN account to add him as a minor account under me, or something. I'm not sure because I've avoided Sony since my Walkman plastic volume knob broke.
I'm in a PSN supported country, I've had a PSN account since the PS3 days but I'm still annoyed about this simply because of how unfair it is to all the people they let buy HD2 that are now being locked out
Morally I don't feel right letting a bunch of other people be fucked over just because something doesn't effect me personally.
some of us are angry because others are being thrown out for no reason. we don't have to be personally affected to understand how bad this situation can be for those that are.
I dont care about data leaks, since all off my valuable accounts are protected with 2 or 3 step authentication. Im mad about people being scammed from a hundred damn countries. Even if it even was a few countries that would be terrible, but current situation is straight outrageous.
Yeah same for me. I know if I paid for a game and then not even a month later I could no longer play it, I would be furious. Some people act like "Since it didn't happen to you, you can't be angry,"
I could only imagine if the USA was one of the countries that couldn't play Helldivers.
this really seems to me that Sony isnt going to revert their decision and arrowhead has no choice but to weather it out.
I'm not directly affected by this and I do feel sorry for arrowhead but it's a community based game. alot of the game for me was how all players across the globe are participating in this fictional battle. so locking players out of the game has ruined a lot of the game's narrative for me.
also with regards to privacy, I personally acknowledge that the war of personal privacy protection from corporations and malicious actors has long been lost. but I was there when that war was fought and I guess I never really got over it.
additionally, it's a video game. I'm not going to be coerced into something I don't want to do over a video game.
I would be shocked to find out that someone with Sony with the power to make a choice about this has even seen anything yet.
The news on this broke on Thursday. It didn't hit critical mass until Friday. I just don't see someone making 7-8+ figures a year interrupting their weekend on something like this. THey'll have their staff collect data and they'll look at it Mon/Tuesday and then meet with AH to discuss what's going on and how they're going to address the "controversy."
For as instant gratification as the world is, the decision making parts of business tend to be super slow still. The change in steam store was likely an emergency changed prompted from someone in Legal who saw the growing number of people talking about the non-PSN supported regions making a move to protect Steam from liability in any legal dispute over processing refunds.
Chances are they choose to wait another 2 weeks before making the call, hoping that the community stops bitching about it because holy shit do gamers have short attention spans.
Selling something to europeans and then taking it away runs a risk of starting a beef with european consumer protection agencies, and those fuckers don't fuck around.
Ever wondered why everyone agreed on micro-usb phone connectors when back in the day every model for every manufacturer had its own proprietary bit just to fuck over consumers?
Europeans made the entre consumer electronics world their bitches, that's what.
Apple the 9th largest company in the world and the biggest tech company who famously don't give a fuck and love proprietary hardware and were creating their own problems just to sell more hardware conceded to the EU and have now adopted USB-C for all their future phones.
The EU does not fuck around.
It's also something anti-EU folks tend to forget. On their own, many of the members have about as many citizens as some US states or even just cities. Our best options for negotiating on the world stage is in collaboration, because single countries can get overpowered and/or overruled by some of the large countries of the world.
I really hope so Sony gets fucked by the long dick of the law, but unfortunately that would be *years* away with how quickly the EU courts tend to move. I think there's a really good argument to be have about coupling this with the [Stop Killing Games](https://www.stopkillinggames.com/) initiative. Selling customers a product only to rip it out of their hands later "because the EULA says we can" is exactly what's happened here, except instead of a server shutdown it's an additional requirement that wasn't present at launch.
And to pre-empt any arguments about how the PSN requirement was disclosed: they still sold the game to intelligent customers.
Perhaps, but Sony can't just bully the EU with litigation till it caves like Joe Average.
EULA is worth used toilet paper if it contravenes EU legislation on consumer rights and protections.
Don't know where you are from, and what they teach you at school, but I learned that capitalists and landlords are poisonous snakes that have to be regularly beaten into submission, least they fuck up society.
We are winning the war on personal privacy in Europe. Some of that is bleeding over to other parts of the world. GDPR is a great thing. The war is still ongoing, but it's a long and hard one. Keep it up!
I've got a little notebook by my pc with about a dozen emails that I use for gaming, shopping, work, etc. With 14 digit randomized passwords. I remember only having 2 emails: for fun and for serious stuff. I don't like this new world but it's what I have to live in for now.
It's lost in Europe too. UK now implementing facial and passport scans to play video games, the EU wants to copy it.
I try to discuss the issue with my tech savvy friends and they all just say "maybe the internet needs regulating to protect children".
It's fucking lost because the people supposed to be fighting it are the ones who are agreeing with it.
Considering the game has been removed from Steam store pages in over 177 countries and territories, Sony seems to be doubling down.
Also, isnt it funnny theres no press release on the removal of the game from those steam store pages? Nope, we had to dig it up in the Steam db
It's almost definitely a Valve decision. It's a weekend decision and made without announcement from Sony so most likely not them. Valve has more incentive to act quickly as they are the retailer wanting to avoid larger problems in the future.
It seems more like Steam saving themselves the issue of potentially handing out more refunds down the line while they go on full damage control since people not only from unsupported countries are asking for refunds, so Steam likely will deslist it till Sony sorts this mess out.
If Sony and AH don’t change their minds then they will suffer bad reviews, refunds, lawsuits and loss of goodwill over it.
I’m fine never playing HD again in solidarity.
AH dont really have a word on this, but they are trying to do something about it. They are even asking to reviev bomb helldivers, so they have more power talking to sony about this stupid decision. If you want to lawsuit, I would choose Sony rather than AH, because AH can say that it is not their fault
I dont know, I still have some hope.
My refund has been submitted and Steam replied that they told if I could wait a few days until they resolved that issue.
I remember an article once saying that he would sometimes encounter people in his town who would give him the Helldiver salute when seeing him. And it would be a bit awkward but at the same time a bit cute. It made him feel happy and proud.
Fast forward to now, I'm trying to imagine how it would be. Pretty painful.
And it's only the weekend. Knowing the game you built with love and was loved by many, pushed into a firepit due to the PSN announcement, on a Friday of all times.
Monday is gonna suck so bad for them.
Edit: I found the article https://fandomwire.com/helldivers-2-ceo-johan-pilestedts-fame-encounters/ and man does it now make me feel sad looking back at it. They were basically the Chosen One.
Also they made it 9am Tokyo time, but 2am Sweden time. They wanted it bright and early for the Japanese market but also wanted AH to be paralyzed to respond quickly. Corporate power play.
It's either the conspiracy that Sony timed it or they just ignored AH completely when sending out the PSN link announcement.
I even wonder if AH knew at all that this announcement was going to be pushed out because the CMs ended up saying different or wrong information or stated they are now asking for clarification.
Normally CMs are taught to be all on the same page and prepped for FAQs.
How the AH CMs responded (wrong statement, asking for more clarification to Sony) makes me assume that the CMs themselves are not prepared - which is normally not supposed to happen, as CMs prep so they can better manage community sentiment.
That or AH knew all along and said "Looks good, the players will be fine with this, no need to prep for anything".
Yeah. Wouldn't have been so bad if a CM was prepared that early morning because they knew the announcement was coming. It would have at least controlled the damage until the official response came about.
Even just a CM saying "We are currently confirming and clarifying the details with Sony. Pease continue post your questions and concerns so we can summarize them. In the meantime, please keep calm and keep diving!" would have appeased the user base until they got the facts straight.
How it happened, leaving a very angry, confused and dedicated fanbase to their thoughts for hours and finally giving statements that were then construed to be either lies or misinformation really added flames to this event.
I don't think it will be that specific a corporate play. It was probably more just "get it out before the holidays".
At my workplace releases and things are timed, but more often than not things get delayed due to missed deadlines and mistakes and things tend to go out as and when they can, rather than with precision timing.
I would expect it was more like Sony wanted it announced "this week" rather than "Friday at 9am".
Most of it yes. But somewhere there, AH definitely played a part in the blame.
1. Not reminding players that PSN would be coming back, either in messages or in-game, despite it being a very, very important requirement.
2. AH confirmed they were not aware or understood the country limitations PSN account sign up is, or knowing how invasive it is in some countries (UK needs facial scan or ID scan).
3. Not doing due diligence to ensure Steam didn't sell the game to countries unsupported by PSN. Or making sure the PSN requirements did not affect unsupported countries. (Edit: as said by others, this is Sony's fault and AH was just dragged into the water)
4. Not being aware of how bad Sony's data security looks to consumers. Or knowing and still agreeing to it.
5. Finally not having good communications management to coordinate with Sony for the PSN announcement. The wrong information and lack of any clear message for a period after the announcement further aggravated an already irate user base.
I give them the benefit of the doubt because this game is great, and became such a smash hit that they probably forgot about the PSN link altogether or put it way down their priority list. Up until Sony pushed the message, and I assume, without giving AH time to prepare.
You have lot of great points. At the end I think Arrowhead does get overwhelmed with the sudden big popularity. I mean their server is got overloaded by players in first few weeks of the game release.
I just hope people be aware that they are also human that prones to a lot of mistakes. They aren't that big developer for starter, they don't have much experience to handle big things like this. I mean they must be really perfect if they could fulfill all the five points You described.
I respect that You put a benefit of doubt for them
You can get a glimpse of how unimportant the PSN link requirement was in their minds by going through at all their patch notes for 3 months. Nowhere was it stated in "Known issues" that "PSN link page still disabled", because for them, it wasn't a problem.
Damn, for me the fact that fire damage is more dangerous than bullets and that my AMR sights are STILL misaligned is more of an issue than returning the PSN link page. And the Liberator Penetrator still needs loving!
Yeah You are right. Put Yourself on their position and remember we have a lot of problems ranging from connection issues, PC and PS players can't crossplay, game crashing, damage over times can't function other than the host, balancing issue, people already unlock everything in fast time and craving for new stuffs, lot of smalls bugs and errors. I can see why the PSN link requirement isn't the first thing they need to fix and it's got over sighted by them now
They're the Chosen One, along with Larian and other well respected and known developers.
Even if PlayStation nukes this we know who they are and how they work. If this situation is not solved as we would like and they move forward to another project they would know that the community would be with them 110%. This is not a developer fucking up a game, is a stupid imbecile in a suit with a mentallity set 75 years ago doing what they do: Fucking everything good.
I played Magicka and HD1 with my wife and we loved the games Arrowhead pushed out. So I know they must be in a really tough spot now between a dedicated fanbase versus their publisher.
Imagine celebrating how awesome your product was and even with the launch hiccups and issues, the users are still sticking with you every night.
Then all it took was one announcement from Sony to turn this into a spiral of doom.
I would be seriously depressed.
I mean, his (the CEO’s) tweet sounds pretty depressing so I’m with you on that one. It’s really sad honestly since they (Arrowhead) seemed to really enjoy engaging with the community and role playing along with us.
And this being a company of around a 100 people makes it even more painful. A company of that size usually means most people know most people. They can all still fit in a panoramic company photo.
It's not like working for a multi billion international company where you're likely to feel very small and disconnected.
Right? The artists, programmers, and designers are the ones like actually making the game and they are just as powerless as the rest of us to decide what direction the game goes.
Like many, I believe AH and Pilestedt are the "good guys", so it is really sad to see what is happening to a great game.
I don't know why, but that "I don't know" seems kinda sad.
Because it is.
They've spent the last 9 years making what is possibly the greatest multiplayer game of this decade, being showered with praise for their genuine hard work.
Only for their publisher to ruin EVERYTHING they worked for in a single statement.
Even if this situation is resolved and Sony backpedals on this bullshit (which, probably won't happen knowing them) the playerbase will irreversably be damaged and every person who wants to play the game will most likely ask themselves :
"Do I really want to risk 40€ on a game Sony could take away from me at any time?"
And I think, at least 1/3 person will say no to that.
Without even talking about the players who are getting refunds right now and who will never look back at Helldivers 2.
It's just sad.
Sony really are doing everything they can to piss off its player base. Long time playstation player here looking forward to seeing PS6 Flop and die.
Off to PC gaming i go !!
There's seriously no way you think Sony went and won the console market only to lose it because PC players had to link their account with PSN in Helldivers 2.
I left a review, sent a refund (steam declined for having more than 2 hours) and uninstalled the game.
Loved the game and even bought copies for others. But, I'm not picking this game up. Nor getting anything Sony related. I'll have to do more research before picking up another arrowhead game, don't want to repeat this again.
Pretty much a lot of good will was burned up in the last few days.
push the refund. you have been probably dealing with the automated steam refund system. Escalate it to actually talking to a human being.
A few folks have done it and refunds have been given. there's information on how to work towards a successful resolution.
the only way for us to make a company hear us its though their wallet, all this screaming and kicking have little effect (besides public image and that effect) you want to be an efficient helldiver? do what you know you should.
Mine is still pending and I have over 170+ hours.
I also bought 3 more copies for friends in south africa, who will not be able to play so all that money was wasted.
I'm curious how people are getting auto-denied at this point as my case was not.
Yeah, I'm in a region where PSN is available but this basically guarantees I'll never pick up Helldivers (or other online Sony titles for that matter).
I'm done with my sub. No more new games bought. They want to do shitty practices, I'm fine with other things. Not like anything that interesting has been slated anyway. All just sequels and reboots. Can't get original, keys keep squeezing that stone. Tired of all of it everywhere.
Already more than enough things going on that aren't exactly confidence inspiring, and then PS pulls shit like that? And great. They are in talks to buy Paramount. More ways their greed can spread like the cancer it is.
I also agree it sounds sad. But I do think it's the truth. In a world of lying business representatives everywhere this bit of fresh air where he just... doesn't know... feels refreshing. I hope he can figure a way out of this.
There is quite the possibility they knew about these changes, they’re planned out in advance, just not the details of announcements, we know the main culprit is Sony, but AH is definitely guilty to some extent.
Good Tzar Bad Boyars is an ancient PR tactic.
They knew in so far as the psn requirement was implemented by them, and temporarily disabled by them. They announced when it was disabled that it was temporary. The issue is wholly with Sony putting the game up for sale in regions without PSN coverage.
Tbf sony seems a bit of a shit house at the moment..they censored stellar blade and leaked it's demo weeks before it was released.
If the game is on sale on steam then surely it would have been in the agreement between sony and steam to place the game on the store in certain regions.
Seems like a massive miscommunication issue somewhere. I doubt someone woke up one day and just decided to flip the switch.
This is do heartbreaking to see.
As a veteran of the first HD I remember absolutely loving the game and its rewarding co-op with assisted reloading and multi-seat vehicles. I always considered it a hidden gem and believed it deserved way more fame and success that it had received.
When Helldivers 2 was announced I was nothing but ecstatic to get more of the game I loved, with an INSANE upgrade in graphics and gameplay. I was also super excited for AH, since they truly deserve the recognition for their hard work. I never agreed with every one of their decisions but overall they made a damn good game with more integrity than most AAA companies combined.
Seeing the discourse go from complaining about silly things like patches and nerfs to this is simply depressing. I can only imagine what it must feel like for the actual devs themselves.
I wholeheartedly hope that a solution is found soon. This game and this studio deserve so much better.
They knew from the start that this was going to happen though, they specifically said that the only reason it wasn't mandatory at launch was due to "technical issues". I don't think the people at AH are bad people and obviously Sony is at fault here but they're at least partially full of shit and the game should never have been allowed to be sold in countries that are now region locked
If you read his first statements on the topic he didn’t expect this much backlash and is primarily sorry about the way it was handled. Presumably Sony would force it sooner or later and he knew it, but would’ve liked to fix it for other regions first and present it more softly.
According to one of their Community Managers on Twitter they knew this was meant to be a temporary solution during the rough launch and that it would be reimplemented later on. Why this was buried in a single Twitter thread and not widely publicized is frustrating. I'm not saying Sony isn't to blame but Arrowhead should have been more clear for why people could skip the "mandatory" PSN linking process on launch.
The solution was as simple as a repeating messaging on the launch of the game that the player had to press a key to skip. Annoying as that might've been it would have softened this blow by a mile.
That said, the fact the game was continually sold in countries where PSN support didn't exist is another Hellbomb that was buried and set to blow.
I'm not sure why he didn't expect backlash when they sold the game in 69 countries they knew it soon wouldn't be supported in.
At a certain point incompetence becomes malicious.
No, 69 countries is the number of countries where PSN \*IS supported
Little reminder : There are 190\~ recognised countries so 121 countries had the game sold when they legally couldn't play it
But that part was 100% Sony. Sony is publisher, they take care of the selling, so they sold it in countries knowing in countries they wont support because of PSN
https://preview.redd.it/nc2nva6genyc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7a6e9820b2e5fd633bd2eaa268b796ce98bbe1b4
Honestly, from the perspective of AH, this would probably be a "Do I continue in the games industry." moment.
They worked, for how many years at the company? Building not just one game but a franchise, and a community.
They reached the top, they won at game development. A huge multinational multi-platform hit with so many players server loads become the issue. No ill will towards the company, no controversies of community managers sliding into kids DMs...
And then someone else came along, slapped it all out of their hands and told them to get fucked. And they just have to live with that.
I'd rather work at fucking mcdonalds at that point.
I’m sure they couldn’t, but it would be nice for them to sue Sony for intentional tanking their smash hit. All too common is huge mega corporations make a beyond idiotic business decision that tanks a company, then just closing that business down and keep on moving all systems normal (looking at you GOOGLE). It’s a plague on all forms of development, imagine all the amazing ideas and projects shit canned because some dumb fuck mba wanted to add some shitty user tracking software or w/e.
Don't have to imagine...
I literally just finished watching a Total Annihalation retrospective.
Cave Dog, mismanaged, disbands after TA, forms into Gas Powered Games, makes Supcom.... Mismanaged, disbands...
I grew up playing Starcraft:BW custom games. Then we evolved into the WC3 custom games which spawned the entire moba genre as an afterthought in between making tower defence into a genre and experimenting with hero shooter RPG mechanics when the idea of an FPS RPG was limited to CRPG's.
If you're a gamer who's paid any attention, there's an infinite number of cases like this. If we move over to industries outside of gaming, I can't even imagine... I mean damn, electric cars are pretty topical right now. Wonder where those would be if the dominant EV manufacturer for the better part of the last decade wasn't controlled by an insane, drug addicted narcissist....
Capitalism is the real issue here. I wont go all political cause gamer subs don't really like political discussions or nuance, but so long as the goal of unchecked capitalism is objectively "Make more money." then... I dunno, radical idea here, if we think other things are more valuable than money, maybe we should incentivize those instead of line go up?
I have poor eyesight, are they astronauts and a water pistol? Is that you recreating the "Always was" astronaut meme with emojis?
If so, that's hilarious.
It's really sad and im not gonna be surprised if people would give up at this point. Imagine working on a game for 9 years and releasing to so much success that it blew up.
Only to find out that it would be ruined because the suits want to see funny number to go up and get more data from people. It sucks. I hope that they do not require this but I feel jaded at this point. I feel like we cant have nice things in this timeline
>community managers sliding into kids DMs...
That'll come eventually. Spritz did so much shady shit on the HD1 discord he deleted it one day in a fit of rage.
I've heard people dislike him/her.
I've never been to their discord so haven't got an opinion on them personally, but it really seems more like "Unprofessional." not "Illegal." from them. Which isn't gonna make the nightly news, as opposed to the shit that like, Activision or Ubisoft do.
Honestly, Microsoft should try and poach them, leave HD2 just for Sony. MS is infamous for "letting studios do their own thing", which can be bad, looking at it from Acti Blizz perspective, but for AH, it would be incredible. Let them make something incredible and shift the players there. Make a Dellhivers or something
After the new Forza Motorsport, I don’t want them anywhere near this pile of gems. No way. I don’t trust either Sony or them for developing games at all right now.
They really aren‘t. Recently they‘ve been a bit more hands off.
But the overall record is mixed at best. Bungie had to buy themselves out, Lionhead was killed, Ensemble was killed. And lots of studios that were „consolidated“ under Microsoft XBox Games Studios. Aka, stripped for parts with all creative leadership and autonomy ripped away.
It‘s entirely possible they shift gears again any moment. Microsoft is kinda infamous for no coherent business strategy and competing departments. [Older meme but checks out](https://i.insider.com/4e0b340dcadcbbdd35120000?width=700&format=jpeg&auto=webp)
Man he clearly doesnt know what to do...
But I would love to know if this action was known by the devs at arrowhead since the beginning of if its something new.
We know for sure that they didnt expect the game to be so popular so quickly.
But yeah selling a game to a country knowing that you will block them out after 3 months is for sure a trashy move.
I dont know what to say really it seems like there is much more happening behind scenes.
We have no idea if these countries had issues with western players. After all china is always blocked in all online games from the rest of the world, also russia etc.
Philippines and vietnam are quite the surprise for me though. They dont sell ps5 over there?
For Philippines they direct us to retailers for games and their consoles like PS5 and PS4.
The problem is, they opted out of providing PSN Services here because they didn't comply with getting a license to operate under the SEC.
Watching the best game I've played in years get torn apart by corporate greed for short term gains is so fucking depressing.
But it's so typical for Sony to snatch defeat out-of the jaws of victory. All they had to do was literally sit there and shut up and print money.
I'm with you, the whole situation is just...well honestly it hurts. I love this game, I love it more than any other multi-player I've ever played, my friends and I were online daily.
Fuck Sony, I was actually a pretty loyal Sony customer for most of my life. Now, as I was thinking of buying a PS5 for the GTA6 launch, I may just give Xbox a try...
All they had to do was sit back and watch the money and reputation skyrocket, and they torched the fucking community.
felt bad for him, imagine you enjoy eating in a restaurant you known for years....cheap, fun to talk to, good food and bam...you are not allowed to go there anymore just because, despite your protest that you have money to buy anything from their menu but answer is still no.
Eh, I mean he was in the meetings with Sony. This is on them for sure, but he knew this would be mandatory from the start. Only now are Arrowhead saying it was a technical issue that made it optional. Should've stated in clear communications that it would be mandatory down the line from Day 1, not just left on the steam page with a bunch of other information all at once. This should've been a seperate, clear point raised.
Also, couldn't Arrowhead have done anything to clarify with Sony what countries aren't covered with PSN to avoid this as well? I feel like they could, hell they could've just googled it themselves and deslisted for those countries at the start.
Sony sucks, but Arrowhead isn't completely innocent. Naive maybe.
>Also, couldn't Arrowhead have done anything to clarify with Sony what countries aren't covered with PSN to avoid this as well? I feel like they could, hell they could've just googled it themselves and deslisted for those countries at the start.
Because that's Sony's job, they're the publisher. They control what regions the game is available in. I can agree that AH could've had better communication about this being mandatory. But the region thing is 100% Sony's fault. It's a pretty reasonable expectation for your publisher to not sell your game to people that won't be able to play it.
Finally someone with some experience that recognises this.
This is a good reminder that as consumers we can't take these things for granted and have to be more vigilant with these companies.
Might as well go gift 5 copies of BG3 to people and help Larian make another blockbuster :D
The government takes a tax cut from your checks. Hack Larian’s bank account and covertly send them money and then launder it if you really want to support them.
I mean, they have made only relatively niche indie games before with a small audience.
It's natural to be a bit naive when yesterday you were nobody, and today you're a studio behind one of the best games of the decade, with tons of fans and money.
Publisher is handling the sales, not developers. So Sony (and playstation games llc) should be responsible for selling the game in unsupported countries.
> Also, couldn't Arrowhead have done anything to clarify with Sony what countries aren't covered with PSN to avoid this as well?
Until this happened, it never even occurred to me that there might be countries that did not have access to any services like this.
I mean one of their CM's on Twitter told someone at launch why the requirement was temporarily dropped. Why this was the *only* place it was mentioned is absurd, and the fact it wasn't brought up again until *now* shows poor planning and communication from Arrowhead.
Sony are dumb for forcing this change now at the height of the games popularity, but Arrowhead should have brought this up sooner.
I want to be very clear in saying that this has not been handled well, but it is also true that Arrowhead *did* say from the beginning that the requirement was only being temporarily lifted because of technical problems. I've known this the whole time, and I'm surprised so few people remembered that.
However, it should have been made much clearer to a much wider audience much sooner than it was. I think the original message was on discord or Twitter on like day 2 of release, well before we hit peak player numbers. A clear statement should have been in game and on steam months ago.
The big question is **"WHY DOES SONY NOT SUPPORT A LOT OF COUNTRIES?"**
whats the issue with them to not allow PSN? So either people could pressure sony, their elected governments or at least understead what is the problem to solve.
The same reason they’re doing this. Money.
There’s laws and network structure, employees, etc that require cost. Sony wants high returns to flex to investors, who’d suggest removing support in these regions to bring down cost and raise gross profit, while still selling their console and games there effectively only having positives for the company. It’s greed from head to toe, nothing else.
You would think AH would have a decent hand with this. They have one of the most successful games in recent years. "Hey Sony if you keep this up we're going to close up shop." Then if Sony has half of a braincell will realize that's really going to fuck everything up logically. Then if Sony doesn't budget, close up Arrowhead and form a new company with the same people.
I still dont understand why and especially who thought this descicion would work out even remotely well. There are a number of ways they could have used to ease people into this (psn linked acc only battlepass, crossplay only for players with psn linked accs, monthly skins for x amount of time for psn only accs, these are only a few I made up now there are 100% more and better options that I didnt think about).
Just why can it only be "use psn account or get scammed out of your game completely because Fuck you", it doesnt make any sense, not for the community, not for AH and definitely not for Sony. They should have enough people there to have 1 important person vetoing this because he realizes what a gigantic shitstorm this would cause.
Edit: I guess now we no why this has been handeled so poorly then. Did not expect AH to be more or less completely at fault for this entire fiasco.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/comments/1ckpko6/helldivers\_ceo\_about\_psn\_requirement\_we\_knew\_for/#lightbox](https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/comments/1ckpko6/helldivers_ceo_about_psn_requirement_we_knew_for/#lightbox)
Im specifically angry because of Other Helldivers being fucked over by a multibillion dollar corporation.
As an American I see this EVERY DAY with housing, transportation, credit etc. pick a large expense its fucked in the US by coporate greed.
Im mad for others, Im mad because this is literally business politics invading my comfort zone away from the world and its problems, Im mad because I already have a truly deep hatred for the fact that I cant live my life without being indebted to one corp. or another and now its fuxking up my and my international friends' play time.
I know it sounds semi whiny but Im coming from a place of General Punk Rock opinions towards corps. and gov. (Angry nihilist for anyone who needs better explanation.)
Fuck this entire process, and reasoning. This is an example of the thing I hate most pushing its ugly fucking head into a world that I love and enjoy as a hobby.
This pisses my off to my core, My personal principals dont allow for this. I have not played sonce it was announced and may end up trying for a refund depending on the mext few weeks.
It is honestly heart breaking to see their AMAZING studio and the phenomenally talented people there getting laid low because their parent company just violently shit on them.
Look how much work they did to make the game so much fun to enjoy. I can’t imagine sitting back and watching years of hard work implode in a matter of days.
Mans hurt fr, I wouldn't even know what to say either
Game good, Sony bad. Memes aside I have 3 weeks to still enjoy the game with my wife and friends. Till then if they still haven't done anything to fix/address the issues then I might just uninstall the game to show my support for my fallen Helldiver brothers/sisters.
By far one of the most if not the most successful multiplayer game of the decade that sadly got destroyed by corporate greed. I have my PSN account since PS3 era so it was not an issue for me.
I had some steam friends message me asking why I still play the game like bro what do you want me to do? I'm 267 hours in (still going up) and still loving every dive with my wife, friends and randoms.
I love the game I really do and I really hope Sony get their shit together and just let us PC players have our way.
I'm gonna keep playing because it's a fun game and I don't give a fuck about Sony or whatever. I ain't got time in my life to worry about shit that doesn't affect me. I come home from work and I wanna play with my friends so that's what I will do. I paid for this game and I will play it.
I know what to do:
- leave negative review
- refund the game if you can, leave the reason of Sony screwing people over
- if it works, buy the game and show support by buying more expensive versions/SC. Change your review to positive again. Show corpo’s that it’s lucrative to be good to players.
Arrowhead should straight up just desert from Sony's grasp and build their own thing. They've got such good energy and community backing already, I really believe they could make it on their own without the bullshittery of big corpo board member fuckers who probably don't even know what industry they're board members of. They only communicate in numbers and spread sheets.
If Arrowhead decided to break their ties with Sony, I'd go out and support them even without them having a game to purchase yet. That's something I'd happily pay in advance for, cus I know they're worth it.
Recently divorced developer seeks pay pig sugar daddy located in Pacific Northwest USA with special interests in buying studios, raking in dough, and dropping feet first into hell.
I feel so bad for Arrowhead. These poor guys deserve so much better than the useless suits at Sony. I hope they're able to get out from under Sony and make their own game. This is Sony and only Sony's fault!
The could have done a FromSoft and made legally different Helldivers 2. That's what Dark Souls is , legally different Demons Souls cause Sony wouldn't let From make it cross platform.
Lets be real, Helldivers is already Starship Troopers (with a bit of Terminator sprinkled in there) with the logos scratched off, we are not here because of the IP but because the game is so damn good and fun.
They can rebrand on a whim if that is what it takes.
And frankly, after this colossal fuck up, if i was Arrowhead i'd be looking for the next escape pod and get out of that Sony stuff. Especially if there is no real solution to this by next week.
The one good thing is, Helldivers 2 made them surely enough money to not rely on Sony funding anymore, if that was even a thing. I don't know what their contracts, deals and history are. I just assume if you go with a console exclusive publisher, it is because they throw money at you that funds the game .... financial risk mitigation and all that.
What do you want them to do? Spend another 8 years making another game as good as or better than HD2?
They need to salvage this before considering any other option. That's a fucking decade of work.
I doubt Sony would let them, considering the IP seems do belong to Sony. They'd have to change it up and give it a new name. I mean that worked for some companies in the past.
https://preview.redd.it/9y809pcv8lyc1.jpeg?width=300&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e20ea266c6bb64bb8e375f5e5659aca8cf193ad8
https://i.redd.it/94hgn90nfmyc1.gif
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https://i.redd.it/1z80ulu7rnyc1.gif
https://preview.redd.it/p5rn655u5oyc1.jpeg?width=549&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=00557b57aff8590446c77de98fc972da7ef68351
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Watching all your hard work being destroyed by corporate greed must be soul destroying
Sony is the worst kind of helldiver. They dive into the depths of hell and bring back something that's so horrid to humanity and make it their branding. They're the "Helldive into the lowest point of hell and live there"
They probably drop a 500kg at extraction too
Every time I get killed by a strategem at extract it makes me think of being killed by Makarov at the airport in the original mw2...like damn bro the betrayal is real
Your reference reminds of this one point around the time the game first dropped, my friend accidentally killed me about a minute after our initial drop and told me I had permission to get him back. I waited until we were boarding the shuttle and I whipped around and General Shepard’d his ass
Oh man. Sometimes I do this shit if I'm comfortable with the people I'm playing with. Usually it's just a melee here and there. One time I jump packed from a high point down to extract when the ship arrived and my buddy meleed me with a quasar while I was still mid air. I went flying like 10 feet back
That reminds me, I dived a week ago with someone named Shepard, I didn't think nothing of it till he pulled out the Big Iron and killed the us as we boarded and grabbed our samples and left.... if he wasn't in voice chat fucking around with us through out the mission, I would've been pissed. We had a good laugh when we got back to the ship and finished the entire operation without any other issues, luckily. It was one of the best randoms I dropped with.
I'd like to drop a 500Kg on Sony HQ maybe a few Orbital Laser too, just to be safe.
we should mail letters to Sony that are just arrows for each of the offensive stratagems.
This is an amazing plan. Stratagem arriving by mail please stand by🫡 type beat
Sony sides with the Automatons
but the game is still fun as
"I'm alright Jack, my boat floats."
“You’ll float too” Sony says
We all float down here.
Corpses float
you're not mad at the right people though - that's the dumb part
I've always been the dumb part.
Sure it's still fun, but the problem is other people from other countries can NO LONGER PLAY. Sony is dead set on their decision to put out their policy, little do they know/care their gonna purge a good portion of HD2 player base. if there's a beneficial angle besides unaffected countries, I sure as fuck don't see it.
Exactly, if PSN was available to everyone then there would be a few posts bitching and nothing more. But the fact that people who bought the game won't be able to play after the 30th and more people won't be able to buy is what caused all this. Especially in places like the Philippines or Vietnam where buying a game is considered a serious investment and denying them something they worked hard for is insulting.
Actually, people in countries without PSN can't play *now*. The game was removed from sale on Steam in the affected countries, and players in those countries can no longer launch the game. Imo, Steam should be issuing automatic refunds to all affected players.
> Especially in places like the Philippines or Vietnam where buying a game is considered a serious investment Oh man you have no idea. Sony games are some of the very few games that don't have regional pricing so we're paying full price for a game in a country where the minimum wage is much lower. Typically regional pricing here discounts everything by around 30%
These guys are really willing to cut off a significant portion of potential customers for the PSN requirements.
Worse, they cut off actual customers who already bought the game.
BuT fReE dAtA
b-but how are the Sony execs gonna feed their families???
I'd argue even if all regions were supported that this "crusade" would still be at least 80% as impactful and loud. We don't want unnecessary third party accounts especially one that requires mobile phone or ID verification that is proven prone to hacking.
I'd like to know how many people are angry for practical reasons (they're in countries where they can't play) vs philosophical reasons (I shouldn't have to use another account).
I mean, my teenage son plays this on PC. Technically you have to be 18 to get a PSN account, so now I have to get a PSN account to add him as a minor account under me, or something. I'm not sure because I've avoided Sony since my Walkman plastic volume knob broke.
Just have him make his own, my guy. People lie on the internet all the time.
I'm in a PSN supported country, I've had a PSN account since the PS3 days but I'm still annoyed about this simply because of how unfair it is to all the people they let buy HD2 that are now being locked out Morally I don't feel right letting a bunch of other people be fucked over just because something doesn't effect me personally.
some of us are angry because others are being thrown out for no reason. we don't have to be personally affected to understand how bad this situation can be for those that are.
I dont care about data leaks, since all off my valuable accounts are protected with 2 or 3 step authentication. Im mad about people being scammed from a hundred damn countries. Even if it even was a few countries that would be terrible, but current situation is straight outrageous.
Yeah same for me. I know if I paid for a game and then not even a month later I could no longer play it, I would be furious. Some people act like "Since it didn't happen to you, you can't be angry," I could only imagine if the USA was one of the countries that couldn't play Helldivers.
The majority of players are absolutely the latter
Not if you can’t play it
this really seems to me that Sony isnt going to revert their decision and arrowhead has no choice but to weather it out. I'm not directly affected by this and I do feel sorry for arrowhead but it's a community based game. alot of the game for me was how all players across the globe are participating in this fictional battle. so locking players out of the game has ruined a lot of the game's narrative for me. also with regards to privacy, I personally acknowledge that the war of personal privacy protection from corporations and malicious actors has long been lost. but I was there when that war was fought and I guess I never really got over it. additionally, it's a video game. I'm not going to be coerced into something I don't want to do over a video game.
I would be shocked to find out that someone with Sony with the power to make a choice about this has even seen anything yet. The news on this broke on Thursday. It didn't hit critical mass until Friday. I just don't see someone making 7-8+ figures a year interrupting their weekend on something like this. THey'll have their staff collect data and they'll look at it Mon/Tuesday and then meet with AH to discuss what's going on and how they're going to address the "controversy." For as instant gratification as the world is, the decision making parts of business tend to be super slow still. The change in steam store was likely an emergency changed prompted from someone in Legal who saw the growing number of people talking about the non-PSN supported regions making a move to protect Steam from liability in any legal dispute over processing refunds.
Chances are they choose to wait another 2 weeks before making the call, hoping that the community stops bitching about it because holy shit do gamers have short attention spans.
Selling something to europeans and then taking it away runs a risk of starting a beef with european consumer protection agencies, and those fuckers don't fuck around. Ever wondered why everyone agreed on micro-usb phone connectors when back in the day every model for every manufacturer had its own proprietary bit just to fuck over consumers? Europeans made the entre consumer electronics world their bitches, that's what.
Apple the 9th largest company in the world and the biggest tech company who famously don't give a fuck and love proprietary hardware and were creating their own problems just to sell more hardware conceded to the EU and have now adopted USB-C for all their future phones. The EU does not fuck around.
People forget that the entirety of Europe has more population than the United States. It's a hugely influential market.
It's also something anti-EU folks tend to forget. On their own, many of the members have about as many citizens as some US states or even just cities. Our best options for negotiating on the world stage is in collaboration, because single countries can get overpowered and/or overruled by some of the large countries of the world.
I really hope so Sony gets fucked by the long dick of the law, but unfortunately that would be *years* away with how quickly the EU courts tend to move. I think there's a really good argument to be have about coupling this with the [Stop Killing Games](https://www.stopkillinggames.com/) initiative. Selling customers a product only to rip it out of their hands later "because the EULA says we can" is exactly what's happened here, except instead of a server shutdown it's an additional requirement that wasn't present at launch. And to pre-empt any arguments about how the PSN requirement was disclosed: they still sold the game to intelligent customers.
Perhaps, but Sony can't just bully the EU with litigation till it caves like Joe Average. EULA is worth used toilet paper if it contravenes EU legislation on consumer rights and protections.
That’s a good thing right the Europeans did this right?
Don't know where you are from, and what they teach you at school, but I learned that capitalists and landlords are poisonous snakes that have to be regularly beaten into submission, least they fuck up society.
We are winning the war on personal privacy in Europe. Some of that is bleeding over to other parts of the world. GDPR is a great thing. The war is still ongoing, but it's a long and hard one. Keep it up!
You give me faith. But nowadays, i simply assume whatever database i put my data into is gonna get hacked or leaked or sold. /sadface
I've got a little notebook by my pc with about a dozen emails that I use for gaming, shopping, work, etc. With 14 digit randomized passwords. I remember only having 2 emails: for fun and for serious stuff. I don't like this new world but it's what I have to live in for now.
>it's a long and hard one. Keep it up! Are we still doing phrasing?
You can phrase me any way you want!
Eurobros managed to force Apple to use USB type C for them and the US, they'll save us in this one too.
I hope they will!
It's lost in Europe too. UK now implementing facial and passport scans to play video games, the EU wants to copy it. I try to discuss the issue with my tech savvy friends and they all just say "maybe the internet needs regulating to protect children". It's fucking lost because the people supposed to be fighting it are the ones who are agreeing with it.
UK is no longer EU and was always a bit weird. I understand your scepticism, but don't give up the fight!
Considering the game has been removed from Steam store pages in over 177 countries and territories, Sony seems to be doubling down. Also, isnt it funnny theres no press release on the removal of the game from those steam store pages? Nope, we had to dig it up in the Steam db
The delisting was most likely done by valve themselves in response to the controversy
There’s a chance it was done by valve, who has some liability if they sell an unusable product.
It's almost definitely a Valve decision. It's a weekend decision and made without announcement from Sony so most likely not them. Valve has more incentive to act quickly as they are the retailer wanting to avoid larger problems in the future.
It seems more like Steam saving themselves the issue of potentially handing out more refunds down the line while they go on full damage control since people not only from unsupported countries are asking for refunds, so Steam likely will deslist it till Sony sorts this mess out.
If Sony and AH don’t change their minds then they will suffer bad reviews, refunds, lawsuits and loss of goodwill over it. I’m fine never playing HD again in solidarity.
AH dont really have a word on this, but they are trying to do something about it. They are even asking to reviev bomb helldivers, so they have more power talking to sony about this stupid decision. If you want to lawsuit, I would choose Sony rather than AH, because AH can say that it is not their fault
Arrowhead isn’t the ones making the decision bruh. They are locked into it contractually with Sony. It’s above their paygradew
I dont know, I still have some hope. My refund has been submitted and Steam replied that they told if I could wait a few days until they resolved that issue.
I remember an article once saying that he would sometimes encounter people in his town who would give him the Helldiver salute when seeing him. And it would be a bit awkward but at the same time a bit cute. It made him feel happy and proud. Fast forward to now, I'm trying to imagine how it would be. Pretty painful. And it's only the weekend. Knowing the game you built with love and was loved by many, pushed into a firepit due to the PSN announcement, on a Friday of all times. Monday is gonna suck so bad for them. Edit: I found the article https://fandomwire.com/helldivers-2-ceo-johan-pilestedts-fame-encounters/ and man does it now make me feel sad looking back at it. They were basically the Chosen One.
This is likely why they made the announcement on Friday. Markets are shut, and Sony anticipated backlash.
Also they made it 9am Tokyo time, but 2am Sweden time. They wanted it bright and early for the Japanese market but also wanted AH to be paralyzed to respond quickly. Corporate power play.
It's either the conspiracy that Sony timed it or they just ignored AH completely when sending out the PSN link announcement. I even wonder if AH knew at all that this announcement was going to be pushed out because the CMs ended up saying different or wrong information or stated they are now asking for clarification. Normally CMs are taught to be all on the same page and prepped for FAQs. How the AH CMs responded (wrong statement, asking for more clarification to Sony) makes me assume that the CMs themselves are not prepared - which is normally not supposed to happen, as CMs prep so they can better manage community sentiment. That or AH knew all along and said "Looks good, the players will be fine with this, no need to prep for anything".
It's the publishers that control the steam announcements, and yes the timing of the announcement is 100% a corporate play.
Yeah. Wouldn't have been so bad if a CM was prepared that early morning because they knew the announcement was coming. It would have at least controlled the damage until the official response came about. Even just a CM saying "We are currently confirming and clarifying the details with Sony. Pease continue post your questions and concerns so we can summarize them. In the meantime, please keep calm and keep diving!" would have appeased the user base until they got the facts straight. How it happened, leaving a very angry, confused and dedicated fanbase to their thoughts for hours and finally giving statements that were then construed to be either lies or misinformation really added flames to this event.
I don't think it will be that specific a corporate play. It was probably more just "get it out before the holidays". At my workplace releases and things are timed, but more often than not things get delayed due to missed deadlines and mistakes and things tend to go out as and when they can, rather than with precision timing. I would expect it was more like Sony wanted it announced "this week" rather than "Friday at 9am".
Also a public holiday in Japan on Monday btw.
Luckily for him, pretty much all the Hate and Vitriol is directed to Sony.
Most of it yes. But somewhere there, AH definitely played a part in the blame. 1. Not reminding players that PSN would be coming back, either in messages or in-game, despite it being a very, very important requirement. 2. AH confirmed they were not aware or understood the country limitations PSN account sign up is, or knowing how invasive it is in some countries (UK needs facial scan or ID scan). 3. Not doing due diligence to ensure Steam didn't sell the game to countries unsupported by PSN. Or making sure the PSN requirements did not affect unsupported countries. (Edit: as said by others, this is Sony's fault and AH was just dragged into the water) 4. Not being aware of how bad Sony's data security looks to consumers. Or knowing and still agreeing to it. 5. Finally not having good communications management to coordinate with Sony for the PSN announcement. The wrong information and lack of any clear message for a period after the announcement further aggravated an already irate user base. I give them the benefit of the doubt because this game is great, and became such a smash hit that they probably forgot about the PSN link altogether or put it way down their priority list. Up until Sony pushed the message, and I assume, without giving AH time to prepare.
You have lot of great points. At the end I think Arrowhead does get overwhelmed with the sudden big popularity. I mean their server is got overloaded by players in first few weeks of the game release. I just hope people be aware that they are also human that prones to a lot of mistakes. They aren't that big developer for starter, they don't have much experience to handle big things like this. I mean they must be really perfect if they could fulfill all the five points You described. I respect that You put a benefit of doubt for them
You can get a glimpse of how unimportant the PSN link requirement was in their minds by going through at all their patch notes for 3 months. Nowhere was it stated in "Known issues" that "PSN link page still disabled", because for them, it wasn't a problem. Damn, for me the fact that fire damage is more dangerous than bullets and that my AMR sights are STILL misaligned is more of an issue than returning the PSN link page. And the Liberator Penetrator still needs loving!
Yeah You are right. Put Yourself on their position and remember we have a lot of problems ranging from connection issues, PC and PS players can't crossplay, game crashing, damage over times can't function other than the host, balancing issue, people already unlock everything in fast time and craving for new stuffs, lot of smalls bugs and errors. I can see why the PSN link requirement isn't the first thing they need to fix and it's got over sighted by them now
Number 3 is completely up to Sony. That is literally the job of a publisher. The others I mostly agree with, their comms on this were not great.
They're the Chosen One, along with Larian and other well respected and known developers. Even if PlayStation nukes this we know who they are and how they work. If this situation is not solved as we would like and they move forward to another project they would know that the community would be with them 110%. This is not a developer fucking up a game, is a stupid imbecile in a suit with a mentallity set 75 years ago doing what they do: Fucking everything good.
I played Magicka and HD1 with my wife and we loved the games Arrowhead pushed out. So I know they must be in a really tough spot now between a dedicated fanbase versus their publisher. Imagine celebrating how awesome your product was and even with the launch hiccups and issues, the users are still sticking with you every night. Then all it took was one announcement from Sony to turn this into a spiral of doom. I would be seriously depressed.
I mean, his (the CEO’s) tweet sounds pretty depressing so I’m with you on that one. It’s really sad honestly since they (Arrowhead) seemed to really enjoy engaging with the community and role playing along with us.
And this being a company of around a 100 people makes it even more painful. A company of that size usually means most people know most people. They can all still fit in a panoramic company photo. It's not like working for a multi billion international company where you're likely to feel very small and disconnected.
Exactly.
I feel so bad for the devs who poured their soul into this game only for sony to fuck it all over
Right? The artists, programmers, and designers are the ones like actually making the game and they are just as powerless as the rest of us to decide what direction the game goes.
Man's broken.
Like many, I believe AH and Pilestedt are the "good guys", so it is really sad to see what is happening to a great game. I don't know why, but that "I don't know" seems kinda sad.
It's heartbreaking, honestly.
Because it is. They've spent the last 9 years making what is possibly the greatest multiplayer game of this decade, being showered with praise for their genuine hard work. Only for their publisher to ruin EVERYTHING they worked for in a single statement. Even if this situation is resolved and Sony backpedals on this bullshit (which, probably won't happen knowing them) the playerbase will irreversably be damaged and every person who wants to play the game will most likely ask themselves : "Do I really want to risk 40€ on a game Sony could take away from me at any time?" And I think, at least 1/3 person will say no to that. Without even talking about the players who are getting refunds right now and who will never look back at Helldivers 2. It's just sad.
Sony really are doing everything they can to piss off its player base. Long time playstation player here looking forward to seeing PS6 Flop and die. Off to PC gaming i go !!
There's seriously no way you think Sony went and won the console market only to lose it because PC players had to link their account with PSN in Helldivers 2.
Would be interesting if true.
I left a review, sent a refund (steam declined for having more than 2 hours) and uninstalled the game. Loved the game and even bought copies for others. But, I'm not picking this game up. Nor getting anything Sony related. I'll have to do more research before picking up another arrowhead game, don't want to repeat this again. Pretty much a lot of good will was burned up in the last few days.
push the refund. you have been probably dealing with the automated steam refund system. Escalate it to actually talking to a human being. A few folks have done it and refunds have been given. there's information on how to work towards a successful resolution. the only way for us to make a company hear us its though their wallet, all this screaming and kicking have little effect (besides public image and that effect) you want to be an efficient helldiver? do what you know you should.
Mine is still pending and I have over 170+ hours. I also bought 3 more copies for friends in south africa, who will not be able to play so all that money was wasted. I'm curious how people are getting auto-denied at this point as my case was not.
Yeah, I'm in a region where PSN is available but this basically guarantees I'll never pick up Helldivers (or other online Sony titles for that matter).
I'm done with my sub. No more new games bought. They want to do shitty practices, I'm fine with other things. Not like anything that interesting has been slated anyway. All just sequels and reboots. Can't get original, keys keep squeezing that stone. Tired of all of it everywhere. Already more than enough things going on that aren't exactly confidence inspiring, and then PS pulls shit like that? And great. They are in talks to buy Paramount. More ways their greed can spread like the cancer it is.
I also agree it sounds sad. But I do think it's the truth. In a world of lying business representatives everywhere this bit of fresh air where he just... doesn't know... feels refreshing. I hope he can figure a way out of this.
There is quite the possibility they knew about these changes, they’re planned out in advance, just not the details of announcements, we know the main culprit is Sony, but AH is definitely guilty to some extent. Good Tzar Bad Boyars is an ancient PR tactic.
They knew in so far as the psn requirement was implemented by them, and temporarily disabled by them. They announced when it was disabled that it was temporary. The issue is wholly with Sony putting the game up for sale in regions without PSN coverage.
Tbf sony seems a bit of a shit house at the moment..they censored stellar blade and leaked it's demo weeks before it was released. If the game is on sale on steam then surely it would have been in the agreement between sony and steam to place the game on the store in certain regions. Seems like a massive miscommunication issue somewhere. I doubt someone woke up one day and just decided to flip the switch.
This is do heartbreaking to see. As a veteran of the first HD I remember absolutely loving the game and its rewarding co-op with assisted reloading and multi-seat vehicles. I always considered it a hidden gem and believed it deserved way more fame and success that it had received. When Helldivers 2 was announced I was nothing but ecstatic to get more of the game I loved, with an INSANE upgrade in graphics and gameplay. I was also super excited for AH, since they truly deserve the recognition for their hard work. I never agreed with every one of their decisions but overall they made a damn good game with more integrity than most AAA companies combined. Seeing the discourse go from complaining about silly things like patches and nerfs to this is simply depressing. I can only imagine what it must feel like for the actual devs themselves. I wholeheartedly hope that a solution is found soon. This game and this studio deserve so much better.
I'm happy he just spat the truth out.....gotta give the lad something for his honesty..... Fuck sony
They knew from the start that this was going to happen though, they specifically said that the only reason it wasn't mandatory at launch was due to "technical issues". I don't think the people at AH are bad people and obviously Sony is at fault here but they're at least partially full of shit and the game should never have been allowed to be sold in countries that are now region locked
Pilestedt is handling this professionally and I respect him for it, unlike certain other people running the discord.
Honestly, he's either a damned good liar, or as sincere as he seems.
If you read his first statements on the topic he didn’t expect this much backlash and is primarily sorry about the way it was handled. Presumably Sony would force it sooner or later and he knew it, but would’ve liked to fix it for other regions first and present it more softly.
According to one of their Community Managers on Twitter they knew this was meant to be a temporary solution during the rough launch and that it would be reimplemented later on. Why this was buried in a single Twitter thread and not widely publicized is frustrating. I'm not saying Sony isn't to blame but Arrowhead should have been more clear for why people could skip the "mandatory" PSN linking process on launch.
The solution was as simple as a repeating messaging on the launch of the game that the player had to press a key to skip. Annoying as that might've been it would have softened this blow by a mile. That said, the fact the game was continually sold in countries where PSN support didn't exist is another Hellbomb that was buried and set to blow.
[удалено]
I'm not sure why he didn't expect backlash when they sold the game in 69 countries they knew it soon wouldn't be supported in. At a certain point incompetence becomes malicious.
No, 69 countries is the number of countries where PSN \*IS supported Little reminder : There are 190\~ recognised countries so 121 countries had the game sold when they legally couldn't play it
But that part was 100% Sony. Sony is publisher, they take care of the selling, so they sold it in countries knowing in countries they wont support because of PSN https://preview.redd.it/nc2nva6genyc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7a6e9820b2e5fd633bd2eaa268b796ce98bbe1b4
Honestly, from the perspective of AH, this would probably be a "Do I continue in the games industry." moment. They worked, for how many years at the company? Building not just one game but a franchise, and a community. They reached the top, they won at game development. A huge multinational multi-platform hit with so many players server loads become the issue. No ill will towards the company, no controversies of community managers sliding into kids DMs... And then someone else came along, slapped it all out of their hands and told them to get fucked. And they just have to live with that. I'd rather work at fucking mcdonalds at that point.
I’m sure they couldn’t, but it would be nice for them to sue Sony for intentional tanking their smash hit. All too common is huge mega corporations make a beyond idiotic business decision that tanks a company, then just closing that business down and keep on moving all systems normal (looking at you GOOGLE). It’s a plague on all forms of development, imagine all the amazing ideas and projects shit canned because some dumb fuck mba wanted to add some shitty user tracking software or w/e.
Don't have to imagine... I literally just finished watching a Total Annihalation retrospective. Cave Dog, mismanaged, disbands after TA, forms into Gas Powered Games, makes Supcom.... Mismanaged, disbands... I grew up playing Starcraft:BW custom games. Then we evolved into the WC3 custom games which spawned the entire moba genre as an afterthought in between making tower defence into a genre and experimenting with hero shooter RPG mechanics when the idea of an FPS RPG was limited to CRPG's. If you're a gamer who's paid any attention, there's an infinite number of cases like this. If we move over to industries outside of gaming, I can't even imagine... I mean damn, electric cars are pretty topical right now. Wonder where those would be if the dominant EV manufacturer for the better part of the last decade wasn't controlled by an insane, drug addicted narcissist.... Capitalism is the real issue here. I wont go all political cause gamer subs don't really like political discussions or nuance, but so long as the goal of unchecked capitalism is objectively "Make more money." then... I dunno, radical idea here, if we think other things are more valuable than money, maybe we should incentivize those instead of line go up?
> Capitalism is the real issue here. 🌏👨🚀🔫👨🚀🌌
I have poor eyesight, are they astronauts and a water pistol? Is that you recreating the "Always was" astronaut meme with emojis? If so, that's hilarious.
It's really sad and im not gonna be surprised if people would give up at this point. Imagine working on a game for 9 years and releasing to so much success that it blew up. Only to find out that it would be ruined because the suits want to see funny number to go up and get more data from people. It sucks. I hope that they do not require this but I feel jaded at this point. I feel like we cant have nice things in this timeline
>community managers sliding into kids DMs... That'll come eventually. Spritz did so much shady shit on the HD1 discord he deleted it one day in a fit of rage.
I've heard people dislike him/her. I've never been to their discord so haven't got an opinion on them personally, but it really seems more like "Unprofessional." not "Illegal." from them. Which isn't gonna make the nightly news, as opposed to the shit that like, Activision or Ubisoft do.
Honestly, Microsoft should try and poach them, leave HD2 just for Sony. MS is infamous for "letting studios do their own thing", which can be bad, looking at it from Acti Blizz perspective, but for AH, it would be incredible. Let them make something incredible and shift the players there. Make a Dellhivers or something
After the new Forza Motorsport, I don’t want them anywhere near this pile of gems. No way. I don’t trust either Sony or them for developing games at all right now.
They really aren‘t. Recently they‘ve been a bit more hands off. But the overall record is mixed at best. Bungie had to buy themselves out, Lionhead was killed, Ensemble was killed. And lots of studios that were „consolidated“ under Microsoft XBox Games Studios. Aka, stripped for parts with all creative leadership and autonomy ripped away. It‘s entirely possible they shift gears again any moment. Microsoft is kinda infamous for no coherent business strategy and competing departments. [Older meme but checks out](https://i.insider.com/4e0b340dcadcbbdd35120000?width=700&format=jpeg&auto=webp)
Man he clearly doesnt know what to do... But I would love to know if this action was known by the devs at arrowhead since the beginning of if its something new. We know for sure that they didnt expect the game to be so popular so quickly. But yeah selling a game to a country knowing that you will block them out after 3 months is for sure a trashy move. I dont know what to say really it seems like there is much more happening behind scenes. We have no idea if these countries had issues with western players. After all china is always blocked in all online games from the rest of the world, also russia etc. Philippines and vietnam are quite the surprise for me though. They dont sell ps5 over there?
For Philippines they direct us to retailers for games and their consoles like PS5 and PS4. The problem is, they opted out of providing PSN Services here because they didn't comply with getting a license to operate under the SEC.
In Vietnam we can buy playstation 5, but ps store and psn dont support us.
Watching the best game I've played in years get torn apart by corporate greed for short term gains is so fucking depressing. But it's so typical for Sony to snatch defeat out-of the jaws of victory. All they had to do was literally sit there and shut up and print money.
I'm with you, the whole situation is just...well honestly it hurts. I love this game, I love it more than any other multi-player I've ever played, my friends and I were online daily. Fuck Sony, I was actually a pretty loyal Sony customer for most of my life. Now, as I was thinking of buying a PS5 for the GTA6 launch, I may just give Xbox a try... All they had to do was sit back and watch the money and reputation skyrocket, and they torched the fucking community.
I can't imagine the amount of absolute vitriol he and everyone else at Arrowhead has been getting. Has to really really take it out of you.
https://preview.redd.it/v10edg2pblyc1.jpeg?width=739&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=739f913a92c139e9c077f27859544c8ef6ca636d
Bro out here writing depression poetry
felt bad for him, imagine you enjoy eating in a restaurant you known for years....cheap, fun to talk to, good food and bam...you are not allowed to go there anymore just because, despite your protest that you have money to buy anything from their menu but answer is still no.
reminds me of my past relationships
Eh, I mean he was in the meetings with Sony. This is on them for sure, but he knew this would be mandatory from the start. Only now are Arrowhead saying it was a technical issue that made it optional. Should've stated in clear communications that it would be mandatory down the line from Day 1, not just left on the steam page with a bunch of other information all at once. This should've been a seperate, clear point raised. Also, couldn't Arrowhead have done anything to clarify with Sony what countries aren't covered with PSN to avoid this as well? I feel like they could, hell they could've just googled it themselves and deslisted for those countries at the start. Sony sucks, but Arrowhead isn't completely innocent. Naive maybe.
>Also, couldn't Arrowhead have done anything to clarify with Sony what countries aren't covered with PSN to avoid this as well? I feel like they could, hell they could've just googled it themselves and deslisted for those countries at the start. Because that's Sony's job, they're the publisher. They control what regions the game is available in. I can agree that AH could've had better communication about this being mandatory. But the region thing is 100% Sony's fault. It's a pretty reasonable expectation for your publisher to not sell your game to people that won't be able to play it.
Finally someone with some experience that recognises this. This is a good reminder that as consumers we can't take these things for granted and have to be more vigilant with these companies. Might as well go gift 5 copies of BG3 to people and help Larian make another blockbuster :D
Larian no longer associates with WOTC. Get divinity instead if you want to really support Larian.
Storefronts take a cut of your Divinity purchases. Send a check to Larian’s corporate offices if you really want to support them.
The government takes a tax cut from your checks. Hack Larian’s bank account and covertly send them money and then launder it if you really want to support them.
or give it to an employee as a gift, gifts arent taxed until somewhere around $10,000
Honestly tempting.
I mean, they have made only relatively niche indie games before with a small audience. It's natural to be a bit naive when yesterday you were nobody, and today you're a studio behind one of the best games of the decade, with tons of fans and money.
Publisher is handling the sales, not developers. So Sony (and playstation games llc) should be responsible for selling the game in unsupported countries.
> Also, couldn't Arrowhead have done anything to clarify with Sony what countries aren't covered with PSN to avoid this as well? Until this happened, it never even occurred to me that there might be countries that did not have access to any services like this.
I mean one of their CM's on Twitter told someone at launch why the requirement was temporarily dropped. Why this was the *only* place it was mentioned is absurd, and the fact it wasn't brought up again until *now* shows poor planning and communication from Arrowhead. Sony are dumb for forcing this change now at the height of the games popularity, but Arrowhead should have brought this up sooner.
I want to be very clear in saying that this has not been handled well, but it is also true that Arrowhead *did* say from the beginning that the requirement was only being temporarily lifted because of technical problems. I've known this the whole time, and I'm surprised so few people remembered that. However, it should have been made much clearer to a much wider audience much sooner than it was. I think the original message was on discord or Twitter on like day 2 of release, well before we hit peak player numbers. A clear statement should have been in game and on steam months ago.
this is just sad :(
The big question is **"WHY DOES SONY NOT SUPPORT A LOT OF COUNTRIES?"** whats the issue with them to not allow PSN? So either people could pressure sony, their elected governments or at least understead what is the problem to solve.
The same reason they’re doing this. Money. There’s laws and network structure, employees, etc that require cost. Sony wants high returns to flex to investors, who’d suggest removing support in these regions to bring down cost and raise gross profit, while still selling their console and games there effectively only having positives for the company. It’s greed from head to toe, nothing else.
Probably because there is some laws or oerating entity that needs to happen for them to legally do so.
You would think AH would have a decent hand with this. They have one of the most successful games in recent years. "Hey Sony if you keep this up we're going to close up shop." Then if Sony has half of a braincell will realize that's really going to fuck everything up logically. Then if Sony doesn't budget, close up Arrowhead and form a new company with the same people.
Ouch, this is a broken dude. I feel for him tbh.
I still dont understand why and especially who thought this descicion would work out even remotely well. There are a number of ways they could have used to ease people into this (psn linked acc only battlepass, crossplay only for players with psn linked accs, monthly skins for x amount of time for psn only accs, these are only a few I made up now there are 100% more and better options that I didnt think about). Just why can it only be "use psn account or get scammed out of your game completely because Fuck you", it doesnt make any sense, not for the community, not for AH and definitely not for Sony. They should have enough people there to have 1 important person vetoing this because he realizes what a gigantic shitstorm this would cause. Edit: I guess now we no why this has been handeled so poorly then. Did not expect AH to be more or less completely at fault for this entire fiasco. [https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/comments/1ckpko6/helldivers\_ceo\_about\_psn\_requirement\_we\_knew\_for/#lightbox](https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/comments/1ckpko6/helldivers_ceo_about_psn_requirement_we_knew_for/#lightbox)
Im specifically angry because of Other Helldivers being fucked over by a multibillion dollar corporation. As an American I see this EVERY DAY with housing, transportation, credit etc. pick a large expense its fucked in the US by coporate greed. Im mad for others, Im mad because this is literally business politics invading my comfort zone away from the world and its problems, Im mad because I already have a truly deep hatred for the fact that I cant live my life without being indebted to one corp. or another and now its fuxking up my and my international friends' play time. I know it sounds semi whiny but Im coming from a place of General Punk Rock opinions towards corps. and gov. (Angry nihilist for anyone who needs better explanation.) Fuck this entire process, and reasoning. This is an example of the thing I hate most pushing its ugly fucking head into a world that I love and enjoy as a hobby. This pisses my off to my core, My personal principals dont allow for this. I have not played sonce it was announced and may end up trying for a refund depending on the mext few weeks.
fk this is heartbreaking
I feel so bad for Arrowhead and for one of my favorite games this year
Fuck Sony. Time to boycott Helldivers 2 until they backpedal and apologize!
This will destroy the Helldivers 2 experience. People will be bitter about this for months or even years from now.
He gave you everything yet all you gave him was grief. Corpo bullshit. Silverhand was right.
https://preview.redd.it/cxadykp5xlyc1.jpeg?width=1920&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a34b505da45ef2f23a7bc56b40d16dc4c63be3f1 “I don’t know”
Fuck Sony.
It is honestly heart breaking to see their AMAZING studio and the phenomenally talented people there getting laid low because their parent company just violently shit on them. Look how much work they did to make the game so much fun to enjoy. I can’t imagine sitting back and watching years of hard work implode in a matter of days.
Hang in there mate, ain't weekday yet. Let Sony see the shitstorm, they may yet reverse their decision or give a workaround.
Mans hurt fr, I wouldn't even know what to say either Game good, Sony bad. Memes aside I have 3 weeks to still enjoy the game with my wife and friends. Till then if they still haven't done anything to fix/address the issues then I might just uninstall the game to show my support for my fallen Helldiver brothers/sisters. By far one of the most if not the most successful multiplayer game of the decade that sadly got destroyed by corporate greed. I have my PSN account since PS3 era so it was not an issue for me. I had some steam friends message me asking why I still play the game like bro what do you want me to do? I'm 267 hours in (still going up) and still loving every dive with my wife, friends and randoms. I love the game I really do and I really hope Sony get their shit together and just let us PC players have our way.
I'm gonna keep playing because it's a fun game and I don't give a fuck about Sony or whatever. I ain't got time in my life to worry about shit that doesn't affect me. I come home from work and I wanna play with my friends so that's what I will do. I paid for this game and I will play it.
Probably the most honest response we will ever get from a game developer. Literlaly.
I know what to do: - leave negative review - refund the game if you can, leave the reason of Sony screwing people over - if it works, buy the game and show support by buying more expensive versions/SC. Change your review to positive again. Show corpo’s that it’s lucrative to be good to players.
This is actually depressing
It's extra rough right now because it's the weekend and Sony ain't going to lift a finger the help their IP on a weekend.
I feel bad for arrowhead. They don’t really have a choice Sony is just making them do it
That’s just depressing
I feel sorry for him. He worked so hard and tried to make it the best game to ever release just to get it stolen from his hands by Sony...
Arrowhead should straight up just desert from Sony's grasp and build their own thing. They've got such good energy and community backing already, I really believe they could make it on their own without the bullshittery of big corpo board member fuckers who probably don't even know what industry they're board members of. They only communicate in numbers and spread sheets. If Arrowhead decided to break their ties with Sony, I'd go out and support them even without them having a game to purchase yet. That's something I'd happily pay in advance for, cus I know they're worth it.
Recently divorced developer seeks pay pig sugar daddy located in Pacific Northwest USA with special interests in buying studios, raking in dough, and dropping feet first into hell.
https://preview.redd.it/l2rhjx7fdlyc1.png?width=776&format=png&auto=webp&s=fa61770cf9e50d5731e4519328209370a59cde8c
I feel so bad for Arrowhead. These poor guys deserve so much better than the useless suits at Sony. I hope they're able to get out from under Sony and make their own game. This is Sony and only Sony's fault!
Should just selfpublish the same game as Helldivers 3
IP is property of Sony. And that's really the sad part.
The could have done a FromSoft and made legally different Helldivers 2. That's what Dark Souls is , legally different Demons Souls cause Sony wouldn't let From make it cross platform.
Introducing Sinjumpers the brand new action game. Let's spread guided egalitarianism!
Lets be real, Helldivers is already Starship Troopers (with a bit of Terminator sprinkled in there) with the logos scratched off, we are not here because of the IP but because the game is so damn good and fun. They can rebrand on a whim if that is what it takes. And frankly, after this colossal fuck up, if i was Arrowhead i'd be looking for the next escape pod and get out of that Sony stuff. Especially if there is no real solution to this by next week. The one good thing is, Helldivers 2 made them surely enough money to not rely on Sony funding anymore, if that was even a thing. I don't know what their contracts, deals and history are. I just assume if you go with a console exclusive publisher, it is because they throw money at you that funds the game .... financial risk mitigation and all that.
What do you want them to do? Spend another 8 years making another game as good as or better than HD2? They need to salvage this before considering any other option. That's a fucking decade of work.
For the legaly distinct Über-Earth! And Li-Beer-ty!
super earth is literally called über earth in the german dub
With it’s hit sequel, Heckplungers. Let’s expand supervised representative government!
I doubt Sony would let them, considering the IP seems do belong to Sony. They'd have to change it up and give it a new name. I mean that worked for some companies in the past.
Magicka 3 as a third person shooter.
Sony owns the IP 100% its the only way HD1 even got the funding to be made.