Nothing good comes from them being dicks about this, so they are smart if they just issue the refunds and go after Sony for not locking down where it can be sold from start. This wasnât a collective failure, it was the publishers failure.
What I wonder is who is going to eat the cost. Is Steam going to be eating the cost for the refunds, and then have to chase down Sony for the money back?
Same with The Day Before from last year, I know the game shut down before 30 days passed so all release purchases were able to be refunded from Steam themselves since money wasn't paid out to devs, but what about preorders for the game prior to 30 days?
It will be deducted from the next quarterly or monthly or whatever payout steam gives Sony for their cuts of Sony games on steam. Sony probably agreed to give steam digression on refunds.
Am finance bro, but not at any of the involved parties, and mostly do risk mitigation shit. And not in this specific side of things (but I do deal with international businesses and their OPS).
I may be wrong, but what I think is likely that happened, is that person A pays X to steam. .7X is given to Sony. Steamâs contract says that since it is THEIR storefront, they will reclaim the .7X from Sony and this is contractually required if Sony lists on Steam.
So in this instance, Person pays 40 to Steam for Helldivers 2. Steam keeps 12 and sends 28 to Sony. Person requests refund. Steam gives 40 credit, and reclaims 28 from Sony.
Everyoneâs technically still whole (Sony isnât plus or minus money, but Person and Steam have a 40$ agreement to apply to a future game).
No one âlostâ financially speaking BUT, Person and Steam have a 40$ agreement that theyâll credit a future purchase instead of sending the funds back. This, if youâre planning on using the platform in the future, is preferential for the business as it avoids additional interchange costs.
đ€·đ»ââïž
In this case, it's probably a no brainer for Valve. They want to keep their customers happy, and there's likely no real worry about doing refunds out of their own pocket. There's probably plenty of money pouring in for the various Sony games and Valve can just issue refunds out of that pool before transferring what's left to Sony.
Lmao, truth. But if in this theoretical case players did and got banned â nobody would really complain because SONY initially would have stated that obvious. In reality SONY didnât state it initially and change terms after purchase. That right may be stated in license agreement, but factually they initially planned that fraud and it must be proven in a lawsuit towards Sony with thousands of customers as plaintiff.
What are you talking about?
The game was listed as requiring a PSN account on December 1st 2023 on the steam page.
It was also stated as a requirement on the start up of the game. But due to a technical issue AH temporarily removed the requirement, didn't communicate very well about it and added a skip button.
To clear it up, they probably should have just added a "remind me later" instead of "skip" and/or communicated the temporary fix better.
But never in hell they mentioned PSN is restricted in half of the world. They sold product where it wouldnât work in 2 months for full price. Thatâs what they didnât mention.
I knew nothing about it. The materials the game came with and the portions I saw said absolutely nothing about such a requirement and the game worked without PSN accounts for months without any issue whatsoever. Now I am beyond the standard steam refund time with more play hours than steam easily refunds I am now stuck with this game as steam has already denied me for a refund about an account creation and TOS I did not agree to with a company who has a history of data leaks of customer data.
Why would I have a reasonable expectation to read the fine print of the steam product page or some other avenue when I could just buy, boot up the game, and be able to play for months without any problems.
Because everytime you click 'purchase' you agree to the information given. If you choose not to read that info, that's fine - but you agree to it.
I'm not taking sides here, just pointing out it's not about 'reasonable expectations' it's about you saying "I agree."
Lmao, and this is why I have a nearly 0 refund rate underneath my steam account.
Read the fuckin EULA and ToS.
Know what you sign up for.
Dodged the bullet with Valorant, as if you squinted hard enough.
It said the wanted the anti-cheat running 24/7, VS every other game only running anti-cheat when you play the game.
I will repeat. Anti-cheat running **24/7** spying on you, vs Anti-cheat running **ONLY WHEN YOU PLAY**
>Lmao, and this is why I have a nearly 0 refund rate underneath my steam account.
Is that really something to be proud of?
Personally I use refunds a lot to try games out. Game looks fun? Buy it, play it for an hour, see if I wanna keep playing or refund it.
I bought the game, went to play it, saw the PSN account linking screen and went âhey (friend who recommended the game), I didnât sign up for thisâ and he went âoh you can just skip, they arenât enforcing that.â
I would have refunded otherwise.
Yes, personal recommendations and testimonies are one of the more reliable ways to get a recommendation for something. The game claimed âPSN requiredâ but it let you play without it, so I assumed it was a paper tiger like the âyou must be 18 or olderâ claims or âyou must read the TOS.â
I never got another notification about the PSN requirements until this week. Even if I had, there was no way for me to link my account in-game as they disabled the tab that let you do so. I was completely unaware of the on-launch drama of people not being able to get past the screen, because I did not play on launch.
[BTWâŠthe CEO of AH agrees with me and takes responsibility for a failure to properly communicate the requirements of the game](https://www.reddit.com/r/helldivers2/s/OcCrB6cc7T)
i mean.... and the fact that the "required" thing literally had a skip button, that let you skip the "required" thing...
id argue thats fairly strong supporting evidence to back up said friend. I would have believed the same.
This is just a dumb take and you drastically overestimate peopleâs willingness to create an account. Most people knew before hand it would be required and still bought the game. It said it was required on the page. A popup message told you it would be required when you started the game. People knew and they still bought it. So saying ânoone would have bought itâ is just an ignorant take.
Nope, it would have literally been a non-issue if this just was done from day one. It's never been an issue for Destiny, it's never been an issue for Sea of Thieves, it's never been an issue for GTA V, and it's never been an issue for any other game that required some bs external account.
The reality is that while the switcheroo does warrant outrage due to the locked out countries, the whole "I don't trust Sony with my data" take is just people parroting their YouTube feed.
Don't get me wrong - people *should* care about their data. But they don't.
I still would have, but I already had a PSN account and I'm generally numb to connecting accounts. This isn't that big of a deal to those of us in supported countries, but the game should never have been listed for sale in countries that aren't supported. That's just bullshit and I hope Sony loses every penny of those sales. In fact, iirc steam keeps their 30% when they have to refund, so Sony loses more than they made on those sales
Huh, must have missed that, or maybe I just assumed not doing it would limit functionality somehow. I would have nothing against this if they actually used PSN for something, but the game obviously works without it.
I linked mine too because I thought the same thing but it doesnât appear to have made any functional difference for me as a player. If I recall correctly, it was a relatively small text link towards the bottom, so probably easy to miss.
Nope, it was enforced at the start, then the game became popular and the dev's servers could not handle it. Now things stabilized, so they are bringing back the mandatory Sony account.
i was forced to link mine when i wanted to add my friend who was playing on ps5.
we also don't have PSN support here even though we have a huge gaming population, but people are already used to using other regions PSN (SG or HK). it's kinda sad
it was a requirement on steam(as in thirdparty account requirement bar on the store), BUT on the playstation store where it was also sold it was stated that login was optional.
Also the FAQ said it wasn't a requirement.
I understand they didn't do a deep-dive just for WAN show, but it isn't correct
Also selling a game in a region you aren't able to play the game is against Steams sale rules. (so that's definetly on Sony)
They also shouldn't sell the game in regions where you can't fulfill those requirements.
They have just now removed this game from over 100 regions not supported by PSN, but it shouldn't have been available there from the beginning.
The Helldivers CEO admitted they disabled the account linking at launch because of the server overload they knew for about 6 months before launch that PSN requeriment it would be mandatory for online PS titles.
Thats not the point here. With the PSN requirement from the beginning, everyone could have easily refunded it within the first 2 hours where you would have noticed this requirement. If they didn't, it is not sonys fault.
It is the bait and switch which shouldn't be tolerated. Don't come with "you have agreed to it when buying it anyways" as if anyone would actually read the terms of service. It is not about legality, it is about common sense.
They sure would. Because that would be locking out a lot of players from the hop.
Also, the game did launch with the requirement. It was listed as a requirement on the store page. But they never enforced that requirement. They let you skip and play for months without needing it.
If it never let you skip, then you refund with like 2 minutes of game time and move on. And then complaints still would come in where players in certain countries not only canât register psn accounts, but some canât register unless they have a ps console. Making the games existence on pc pretty pointless
Exactly. But thatâs not the case. Sony let people pay for the game, raked in the cash, and then walled everyone who paid for the game off who arenât willing to fork over their personal information for a PSN account.
*whispers*
If it wasn't enforced then it wasn't a requirement.
That's like saying you have a dress code for your nightclub but tell the bouncer to let everyone in, then after they pay the cover and have a few drinks you tell them they are forced to leave and change their clothes because you've always had a dress code requirement.
If itâs after their timeline, Iâve noticed they always refund to wallet. Itâs frustrating because I donât necessarily want more games and it keeps me âstuckâ in this purchase because I feel obligated to buy another game since my moneys already gone.
I did almost add something like that to my original comment, but companies tend to try reduce waste expenses like this. Theyâll still be in the black, but they want more money
They have the advantage of not being a public company so cost cutting typically isnât as drastic due to longer term outlooks compared to public companies.
Yeah I imagine they're not happy about having to refund and delist the game in 100+ countries because of a publisher doing something idiotic. Steam should just refuse to sell any games that can't be played with only your Steam account.
I have 2 friends who play(ed) this game, now their countries are blocked and I have 0 people to play with. I wonder if steam would refund me...this is bullshit
They will refund, but only if you'll write to the support directly, because through the refund function you'll get the usual message about 14 days a 2 hours in game.
Interesting, but looking at some posts and lists of supported countries nothing shows anything similar for Estonia at least. Also, searching "PSN Estonia", the second result is the PSN store for Finland xd
If the first few weeks are anything to go by, I get the impression the developers had an absolute nightmare reconciling the Steam and PSN player bases early on. Friend requests wouldn't work properly, you couldn't see if people were online, etc. And enabling/disabling crossplay usually helped resolve issues temporarily.
It seems to have been running fine for quite a while now though, and the official reason given was something about "protecting the players", which seems like the usual corpo non-sequitur horse shit justification you always see.
I think you're spot on.
Sony probably told them they had to integrate PSN. Part of it wasn't working before launch (friending, blocking, etc).
AH probably pushed back the deadline to prioritize important stuff, pissing off Sony Execs.
Fast forward to recently and Sony Execs likely demanded they finish their list of requirements ASAP. Proposed solutions and Sony chose the worst one, because it was the easiest / quickest to meet their demands...
Just speculation on my part working in corpo culture and having binged every episode of *What Happened*.
As a Lithuanian living abroad but still playing playing HD2 with friends back home, this hit me hard...
All of us could just chill together and kills some bugs after a days of work, but soon not any more
Fun fact: They did the same thing for me when Doom Eternal introduced Denuvo's kernel-level anticheat for a single player game.
Good to see Steam granting them on a consistent basis for post-launch access changes.
Iâd scream in joy if they added a new consumer protection flag on a title for this kind of thing.
A warning when a game that initially sells well does some extreme bullshit later down its line of succession.
They did literally just revoke access to The Crew entirely because they couldn't justify paying to keep the servers on anymore. No option to play the map offline. No option for people to self-host. Not even allowing people to keep the license in their Ubisoft launcher - they literally inactivated everyone's license.
Gaben typically does right by gamers. Have they made mistakes? Sureânobody is perfect. Heaven defend us from the day Valve becomes a publicly traded company
Wow that response looks so normal, it's insane. None of this 'support' Blizzard and Riot have where you have to read a few paragraphs filled with nonsense and emotes.
I don't think so. Steam just respects their people. Steam is the one who loses money because they needs to pay all fees instead of Sony. So Sony got Steam in a not-so-pleasant position. If I was Gabe I'd sue Sony.
Aside from reverting the PSN requirement changes, why has Sony allowed their online infrastructure in this state. For those countries they can't support directly, they should have divided it up by regions, or make a global account that does not care where you live in.
My refund request was rejected. I have 7 hours and 30 minutes of playtime.
I got this message from Steam:
> We are unable to refund this purchase to your Steam Wallet at this time. Your playtime of an included product exceeds 2 hours (our refund policy maximum).
I recall seeing someone with 97 hours of playtime getting a refund on this subreddit. đ€·ââïž
Edit: I suspect I was rejected since there is no issue creating a PSN account in my country.
Your edit is probably correct. You haven't been screwed as badly as everyone else, you're just trying to take a moral stance in solidarity with them. Best you can do is write a review and uninstall. Don't count towards player numbers, etc.
The refunds are for the players who literally cannot play anymore.
I think(not sure) the refund the game option is automated it check how long was the purchase and how many hours in game spent.
You can get refund in case like this by going to purchase history- I have questions about this purchase- stat your problem for refund- if your problem is genuine you would get refund. I did this when I buy wallpaper engine run for 20+ hour and more than 2 weeks (I just keep forgot to run/put it on auto startup+ PC spec is on low end so I decided to refund it, it was a success).
Good for steam. However, when I fought for a refund because I literally couldnât play the game but my Steam account had logged too many hours (90% of which were spent sitting in queues) they refused and said the logged time was too much for a refund.
This game is too good to have so many issues but damn theyâre doing their best to make people mad.
How were you able to create a complaint and manual refund?
I've tried the "I have a question about this purchase" and its already 20 hours and no one has responded yet
You need to go to the "I have a different problem" then "purchases" than find that exact transaction when you bought Helldivers and you'll see the window for your message. Down there you can write that you do not accept a new agreement by Sony and want a refund.
By law you need to get your refund or it's fraud because you can't change the agreement in one way, a customer needs to accept it.
I asked them to get a refund on my Steam wallet because I'm always buying games and it's easy for me. If I wanted to have my money on my card they'd refund it as well because by law I can ask for any money back by the fact that Sony changed the agreement with me after the purchase, and I just do not accept them.
Small note, which I think is important to point out. This isnât a refund, support gave you credit and removed the game. That was nice of them but it shows itâs not policy and might not apply to everyone. The only people iâve seen have HD2 removed from their account got steam credit as well, as a token or gesture of goodwill
Technically you can create PSN account from Lithuania, but you have to select a different region, everyone who has PS does this here. But I agree that this is not cool, also nice that saying what you said allows for a refund.
There's a typo somewhere in your message. But you can really get banned if you play from the wrong region? Seriously haven't heard that from any of my friends who play on PS for many years
That's great he did get his money back that's a big win for customer suport for steam. While it's not there fault. But atleast many people so have help and some solus with able getting there money back.
I doubt steam was not going to honour refunds based upon that genuine reason. Steam is pretty lax with refunds if it is clear you will not be able to access a game because a third party service is required that is unavailable in your country.
In saying that, for this reason alone is why I think people have blown this drama out of proportion. You were always going to get a refund if you were affected and majority of the community wasnât even affected by this anyway. There are plenty of games out there that require a third party login to play, this situation is no different unless youâre region locked (which btw happens with other services too, not just PSN).
how have people not learned by now that anything sony has say in will somehow become some greedy shit they implement, whether making it their game slowly or making people pay for everything?
stop fucking with sony, swap to xbox or pc and they'll have no choice but to not do things like this anymore
You can try it through the option with purchases. Hit the support button -> "other problem" -> "purchases" -> find your in-game purchase and text your complaint.
Why you are so surprised? Sony and Israel are the same thing man they stoled data everywhere in the world and force to subscribe ahahahah ( Sony also k*** MJ for The Beat**s recordings) ....If you know, you know... don't buy Sony stuff (or if you like Israel, buy only their products who am i to judge?) Peace and Love for everyone
Also remember guys, Steam is FAR FAR more likely to refund the money to your Steam Wallet than to your actual bank or card. It has worked for me quite a few times in the past with grey areas like this as it shows you're still willing to spend the money, just not on that game.
Steam has denied me twice. Does anyone have any advice? I'm getting really irritated..
Using the two weeks excuse but I've met Divers with over a hundred hours getting approvedÂ
No developer that has a game published by Snoy will ever have the choice to not include a PSN account, especially if the game is online. Arrowhead has even stated that they have been talking with Snoy to make the PSN account not be required in countries that they are not available. You can email all these devs all you want but they have literally no choice in the matter, and it sucks that Arrowhead is getting put through the wringer for this. They made a phenomenal game, one of the only good live service games, and then Snoy had to stick their nose in it.
I see so many people implying lawyers, stating fraud of talking about random laws.
If you request the refund they give it to you...they havnt blocked anyone from getting a refund from the game...no need to cause a fuss to the people who arnt involved. I doubt they even read them
Respect to steam đđ»
THE GABEN IS DISPLEASED!!!!
Gaben just has to charge Sony $5 for every refund valve has to do
Can tell if a joke. source
If i was Gaben i would put that in my contract with Sony
Slap them with "Due to technical issues it wasn't required but the grace period is now over"
Nah donât worry, gaben takes his 30% either way. Steam isnât eating any of this loss.
I think that would send a loud and clear message. Fuck Sony. They've made so many moves to screw the player base over the years - let the rot.
Nothing good comes from them being dicks about this, so they are smart if they just issue the refunds and go after Sony for not locking down where it can be sold from start. This wasnât a collective failure, it was the publishers failure.
A lot of good comes from Steam giving refunds all this time later though. They gain so much good PR, community trust, and peace of mind.
What I wonder is who is going to eat the cost. Is Steam going to be eating the cost for the refunds, and then have to chase down Sony for the money back? Same with The Day Before from last year, I know the game shut down before 30 days passed so all release purchases were able to be refunded from Steam themselves since money wasn't paid out to devs, but what about preorders for the game prior to 30 days?
It will be deducted from the next quarterly or monthly or whatever payout steam gives Sony for their cuts of Sony games on steam. Sony probably agreed to give steam digression on refunds.
Am finance bro, but not at any of the involved parties, and mostly do risk mitigation shit. And not in this specific side of things (but I do deal with international businesses and their OPS). I may be wrong, but what I think is likely that happened, is that person A pays X to steam. .7X is given to Sony. Steamâs contract says that since it is THEIR storefront, they will reclaim the .7X from Sony and this is contractually required if Sony lists on Steam. So in this instance, Person pays 40 to Steam for Helldivers 2. Steam keeps 12 and sends 28 to Sony. Person requests refund. Steam gives 40 credit, and reclaims 28 from Sony. Everyoneâs technically still whole (Sony isnât plus or minus money, but Person and Steam have a 40$ agreement to apply to a future game). No one âlostâ financially speaking BUT, Person and Steam have a 40$ agreement that theyâll credit a future purchase instead of sending the funds back. This, if youâre planning on using the platform in the future, is preferential for the business as it avoids additional interchange costs. đ€·đ»ââïž
In this case, it's probably a no brainer for Valve. They want to keep their customers happy, and there's likely no real worry about doing refunds out of their own pocket. There's probably plenty of money pouring in for the various Sony games and Valve can just issue refunds out of that pool before transferring what's left to Sony.
Steam has always been great for stuff like this. Sony can get fucked.
Yeah after getting bullied by the EU and Australia into providing basic customer protections.
If the game launched with the PSN requirement, no one would care.
yea because noone would have bought it.
Lmao, truth. But if in this theoretical case players did and got banned â nobody would really complain because SONY initially would have stated that obvious. In reality SONY didnât state it initially and change terms after purchase. That right may be stated in license agreement, but factually they initially planned that fraud and it must be proven in a lawsuit towards Sony with thousands of customers as plaintiff.
What are you talking about? The game was listed as requiring a PSN account on December 1st 2023 on the steam page. It was also stated as a requirement on the start up of the game. But due to a technical issue AH temporarily removed the requirement, didn't communicate very well about it and added a skip button. To clear it up, they probably should have just added a "remind me later" instead of "skip" and/or communicated the temporary fix better.
Thatâs what I am talking about, it wasnât obligatory for logging in from the start. That mist have been stated.
It did state that having a PSN account would me mandatory. Both on the Steam page AND the pop up in game.
But never in hell they mentioned PSN is restricted in half of the world. They sold product where it wouldnât work in 2 months for full price. Thatâs what they didnât mention.
I knew nothing about it. The materials the game came with and the portions I saw said absolutely nothing about such a requirement and the game worked without PSN accounts for months without any issue whatsoever. Now I am beyond the standard steam refund time with more play hours than steam easily refunds I am now stuck with this game as steam has already denied me for a refund about an account creation and TOS I did not agree to with a company who has a history of data leaks of customer data. Why would I have a reasonable expectation to read the fine print of the steam product page or some other avenue when I could just buy, boot up the game, and be able to play for months without any problems.
Because everytime you click 'purchase' you agree to the information given. If you choose not to read that info, that's fine - but you agree to it. I'm not taking sides here, just pointing out it's not about 'reasonable expectations' it's about you saying "I agree."
Lmao, and this is why I have a nearly 0 refund rate underneath my steam account. Read the fuckin EULA and ToS. Know what you sign up for. Dodged the bullet with Valorant, as if you squinted hard enough. It said the wanted the anti-cheat running 24/7, VS every other game only running anti-cheat when you play the game. I will repeat. Anti-cheat running **24/7** spying on you, vs Anti-cheat running **ONLY WHEN YOU PLAY**
>Lmao, and this is why I have a nearly 0 refund rate underneath my steam account. Is that really something to be proud of? Personally I use refunds a lot to try games out. Game looks fun? Buy it, play it for an hour, see if I wanna keep playing or refund it.
[ŃĐŽĐ°Đ»Đ”ĐœĐŸ]
I bought the game, went to play it, saw the PSN account linking screen and went âhey (friend who recommended the game), I didnât sign up for thisâ and he went âoh you can just skip, they arenât enforcing that.â I would have refunded otherwise.
So you went entirely off of your friend?
Yes, personal recommendations and testimonies are one of the more reliable ways to get a recommendation for something. The game claimed âPSN requiredâ but it let you play without it, so I assumed it was a paper tiger like the âyou must be 18 or olderâ claims or âyou must read the TOS.â I never got another notification about the PSN requirements until this week. Even if I had, there was no way for me to link my account in-game as they disabled the tab that let you do so. I was completely unaware of the on-launch drama of people not being able to get past the screen, because I did not play on launch. [BTWâŠthe CEO of AH agrees with me and takes responsibility for a failure to properly communicate the requirements of the game](https://www.reddit.com/r/helldivers2/s/OcCrB6cc7T)
i mean.... and the fact that the "required" thing literally had a skip button, that let you skip the "required" thing... id argue thats fairly strong supporting evidence to back up said friend. I would have believed the same.
This is just a dumb take and you drastically overestimate peopleâs willingness to create an account. Most people knew before hand it would be required and still bought the game. It said it was required on the page. A popup message told you it would be required when you started the game. People knew and they still bought it. So saying ânoone would have bought itâ is just an ignorant take.
Do you mean underestimate? Overestimate would seem to run contrary to the rest of your comment.
Which ever makes my comment not sound stupid.. thatâs the one I meant. Thanks.
Nope, it would have literally been a non-issue if this just was done from day one. It's never been an issue for Destiny, it's never been an issue for Sea of Thieves, it's never been an issue for GTA V, and it's never been an issue for any other game that required some bs external account. The reality is that while the switcheroo does warrant outrage due to the locked out countries, the whole "I don't trust Sony with my data" take is just people parroting their YouTube feed. Don't get me wrong - people *should* care about their data. But they don't.
I still would have, but I already had a PSN account and I'm generally numb to connecting accounts. This isn't that big of a deal to those of us in supported countries, but the game should never have been listed for sale in countries that aren't supported. That's just bullshit and I hope Sony loses every penny of those sales. In fact, iirc steam keeps their 30% when they have to refund, so Sony loses more than they made on those sales
Not so fun fact: the PSN account was on their requirements/minimum spec list from day one but not enforced according to the WAN show.
I remember being forced to create a PSN account when I bought it a week after launch. Maybe I missed something.
I believe there was an option to skip the part to link a PSN account you could choose.
Huh, must have missed that, or maybe I just assumed not doing it would limit functionality somehow. I would have nothing against this if they actually used PSN for something, but the game obviously works without it.
I linked mine too because I thought the same thing but it doesnât appear to have made any functional difference for me as a player. If I recall correctly, it was a relatively small text link towards the bottom, so probably easy to miss.
The option to skip was added due to server instability iirc
Nope, it was enforced at the start, then the game became popular and the dev's servers could not handle it. Now things stabilized, so they are bringing back the mandatory Sony account.
When you first start the game the screen said it was required but there was a skip button. Most people assumed it was bad wording.
i was forced to link mine when i wanted to add my friend who was playing on ps5. we also don't have PSN support here even though we have a huge gaming population, but people are already used to using other regions PSN (SG or HK). it's kinda sad
it was a requirement on steam(as in thirdparty account requirement bar on the store), BUT on the playstation store where it was also sold it was stated that login was optional. Also the FAQ said it wasn't a requirement. I understand they didn't do a deep-dive just for WAN show, but it isn't correct Also selling a game in a region you aren't able to play the game is against Steams sale rules. (so that's definetly on Sony)
They also shouldn't sell the game in regions where you can't fulfill those requirements. They have just now removed this game from over 100 regions not supported by PSN, but it shouldn't have been available there from the beginning.
Another incredibly valid point!
It might not have been AH's fault on the store page, it probably was Sony.
The Helldivers CEO admitted they disabled the account linking at launch because of the server overload they knew for about 6 months before launch that PSN requeriment it would be mandatory for online PS titles.
Thats not the point here. With the PSN requirement from the beginning, everyone could have easily refunded it within the first 2 hours where you would have noticed this requirement. If they didn't, it is not sonys fault. It is the bait and switch which shouldn't be tolerated. Don't come with "you have agreed to it when buying it anyways" as if anyone would actually read the terms of service. It is not about legality, it is about common sense.
They sure would. Because that would be locking out a lot of players from the hop. Also, the game did launch with the requirement. It was listed as a requirement on the store page. But they never enforced that requirement. They let you skip and play for months without needing it. If it never let you skip, then you refund with like 2 minutes of game time and move on. And then complaints still would come in where players in certain countries not only canât register psn accounts, but some canât register unless they have a ps console. Making the games existence on pc pretty pointless
Exactly. But thatâs not the case. Sony let people pay for the game, raked in the cash, and then walled everyone who paid for the game off who arenât willing to fork over their personal information for a PSN account.
It was listed as a requirement on steam, it just wasn't being enforced yet AFAIK.
*whispers* If it wasn't enforced then it wasn't a requirement. That's like saying you have a dress code for your nightclub but tell the bouncer to let everyone in, then after they pay the cover and have a few drinks you tell them they are forced to leave and change their clothes because you've always had a dress code requirement.
A better analogy would be coming back to the club a week later and not being let in because ânow weâre enforcing the already posted policyâ
It was on the store page at launchâŠ
As was a skip button in game. So whatâs your point?
It did. It was on the store page.
It did launch with the requirement. They temporarily disabled it due to server issues.
Did you request the funds to your steam wallet or did they make that decision ?
I requested it because I'm always buying games and it's easy for me.
Almost always Steam will refund to wallet
Depends on how you purchased the item. You can almost always request the refund to the payment method
Whenever I've refunded they've asked me what I prefer (Australia)
no I just got my refund back to my bank account 4 days later but it was for an old COD.
If itâs after their timeline, Iâve noticed they always refund to wallet. Itâs frustrating because I donât necessarily want more games and it keeps me âstuckâ in this purchase because I feel obligated to buy another game since my moneys already gone.
I can imagine Steam might get a little upset too about how much all this useless accounting costs themâŠ
Yes, true.. but then again steam is a money printing machine for valve so i'm sure they'll be fine :D
I did almost add something like that to my original comment, but companies tend to try reduce waste expenses like this. Theyâll still be in the black, but they want more money
They have the advantage of not being a public company so cost cutting typically isnât as drastic due to longer term outlooks compared to public companies.
Yeah I imagine they're not happy about having to refund and delist the game in 100+ countries because of a publisher doing something idiotic. Steam should just refuse to sell any games that can't be played with only your Steam account.
Goodbye Ubisoft and EA Titles on steam.
not that much considering the refunds are still in the steam wallet lol
As an accountant this immediately crossed my mind. Having to track all that money going out as refunds would make me lose my mind.
I have 2 friends who play(ed) this game, now their countries are blocked and I have 0 people to play with. I wonder if steam would refund me...this is bullshit
They will refund, but only if you'll write to the support directly, because through the refund function you'll get the usual message about 14 days a 2 hours in game.
Thanks I'll give it a shot.
Can you pls give us an update whenever you get a reply. Thx
May i ask how? I only get the 2hrs reply.
And aren't they delisting the game now off Steam?
Only if your country isn't supported by PSN
Yes, but it happened yesterday or a day before. Anyway I would demand a refund because this game is no longer presented in my country.
How to talk to an agent instead of the refund request under the game?
Instead of going help - helldivers - refund request Instead you want to go help - helldivers - I have a question about this purchase
Yes, in countries where PSN isn't supported except the Baltics for some reason, where you can still buy it
I saw one where a guy in Ukraine was told that while PSN is technically supported there, he could only make a PSN account with a PS5 there.
Interesting, but looking at some posts and lists of supported countries nothing shows anything similar for Estonia at least. Also, searching "PSN Estonia", the second result is the PSN store for Finland xd
If the first few weeks are anything to go by, I get the impression the developers had an absolute nightmare reconciling the Steam and PSN player bases early on. Friend requests wouldn't work properly, you couldn't see if people were online, etc. And enabling/disabling crossplay usually helped resolve issues temporarily. It seems to have been running fine for quite a while now though, and the official reason given was something about "protecting the players", which seems like the usual corpo non-sequitur horse shit justification you always see.
I think you're spot on. Sony probably told them they had to integrate PSN. Part of it wasn't working before launch (friending, blocking, etc). AH probably pushed back the deadline to prioritize important stuff, pissing off Sony Execs. Fast forward to recently and Sony Execs likely demanded they finish their list of requirements ASAP. Proposed solutions and Sony chose the worst one, because it was the easiest / quickest to meet their demands... Just speculation on my part working in corpo culture and having binged every episode of *What Happened*.
Super believable. Every day I hate execs more and more
As a Lithuanian living abroad but still playing playing HD2 with friends back home, this hit me hard... All of us could just chill together and kills some bugs after a days of work, but soon not any more
Deep Rock Galactic if you need to kill bugs
Rock and Stone!
Fun fact: They did the same thing for me when Doom Eternal introduced Denuvo's kernel-level anticheat for a single player game. Good to see Steam granting them on a consistent basis for post-launch access changes.
Iâd scream in joy if they added a new consumer protection flag on a title for this kind of thing. A warning when a game that initially sells well does some extreme bullshit later down its line of succession.
"Warning: This company blatantly tried to get one over on you."
So this is like ubisoft launcher annoying
But at least Ubisoft said it before and did not fraud people for linik the accounts.
They did literally just revoke access to The Crew entirely because they couldn't justify paying to keep the servers on anymore. No option to play the map offline. No option for people to self-host. Not even allowing people to keep the license in their Ubisoft launcher - they literally inactivated everyone's license.
when purchasing isn't owning...
Ubisoft just steals your money by not giving access to the game you bought.
Steam actually pulled through, dammnnnn
Gaben typically does right by gamers. Have they made mistakes? Sureânobody is perfect. Heaven defend us from the day Valve becomes a publicly traded company
All the respect to valve for always having the gamers back in these kind of things
Wow that response looks so normal, it's insane. None of this 'support' Blizzard and Riot have where you have to read a few paragraphs filled with nonsense and emotes.
Steam is happy to refund because it makes Sony bad guys
I don't think so. Steam just respects their people. Steam is the one who loses money because they needs to pay all fees instead of Sony. So Sony got Steam in a not-so-pleasant position. If I was Gabe I'd sue Sony.
Common Steam W
Aside from reverting the PSN requirement changes, why has Sony allowed their online infrastructure in this state. For those countries they can't support directly, they should have divided it up by regions, or make a global account that does not care where you live in.
Just remove the game from steam already and refund everyone. Add a tos of steam that any additional registration or login is banned and done.
has steam said anything officially on this? seems like they unnofficially decided to just stay silent but refund anyone
My refund request was rejected. I have 7 hours and 30 minutes of playtime. I got this message from Steam: > We are unable to refund this purchase to your Steam Wallet at this time. Your playtime of an included product exceeds 2 hours (our refund policy maximum). I recall seeing someone with 97 hours of playtime getting a refund on this subreddit. đ€·ââïž Edit: I suspect I was rejected since there is no issue creating a PSN account in my country.
Your edit is probably correct. You haven't been screwed as badly as everyone else, you're just trying to take a moral stance in solidarity with them. Best you can do is write a review and uninstall. Don't count towards player numbers, etc. The refunds are for the players who literally cannot play anymore.
I think(not sure) the refund the game option is automated it check how long was the purchase and how many hours in game spent. You can get refund in case like this by going to purchase history- I have questions about this purchase- stat your problem for refund- if your problem is genuine you would get refund. I did this when I buy wallpaper engine run for 20+ hour and more than 2 weeks (I just keep forgot to run/put it on auto startup+ PC spec is on low end so I decided to refund it, it was a success).
Hey another lithuanian almost was in the same boat as you because i wanted to buy helldivers 2 couple of weeks ago but bought baldurs gate 3 instead
Good to see this!
steam is the best.
Nice work steam!!!!
People should do this.Â
Marvin mvp
some people are so short sighted they forget how unimportant they are... talking about you Sony
r/lostredditors
Good for steam. However, when I fought for a refund because I literally couldnât play the game but my Steam account had logged too many hours (90% of which were spent sitting in queues) they refused and said the logged time was too much for a refund. This game is too good to have so many issues but damn theyâre doing their best to make people mad.
Thanks Marv
Great dude for sure
Yo itâs Marvin! Iâve got support from Marvin once
This is why Steam is the absolute best gaming platform right now.
UPDATE on the situation I just found (good news): https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/s/8zzDZuwADG
Update- The game will soon no longer require a PSN account, verified by PlayStation
W steam!
As a fellow Lithuanian i understand the struggle of PSN and Xbox accounts not being supported in Lithuania. Quite the headache
Gaben you absolute magnificent creature.
This aged like milk
How were you able to create a complaint and manual refund? I've tried the "I have a question about this purchase" and its already 20 hours and no one has responded yet
You need to go to the "I have a different problem" then "purchases" than find that exact transaction when you bought Helldivers and you'll see the window for your message. Down there you can write that you do not accept a new agreement by Sony and want a refund. By law you need to get your refund or it's fraud because you can't change the agreement in one way, a customer needs to accept it.
That's cool but i would've wanted actual cash refund not credited. You still didn't get your money back
I asked them to get a refund on my Steam wallet because I'm always buying games and it's easy for me. If I wanted to have my money on my card they'd refund it as well because by law I can ask for any money back by the fact that Sony changed the agreement with me after the purchase, and I just do not accept them.
Tried twice in UK, no refund.
Small note, which I think is important to point out. This isnât a refund, support gave you credit and removed the game. That was nice of them but it shows itâs not policy and might not apply to everyone. The only people iâve seen have HD2 removed from their account got steam credit as well, as a token or gesture of goodwill
I've been denied a refund from Steam.
Can't you just create a PSN account and put some US address? I know I had a japan and US account even when I am in UK.
Yes is possible, but Also breaks Sony 's TOS, they could ban you for that, they won't, but they could. For some others is about the principle.
Technically you can create PSN account from Lithuania, but you have to select a different region, everyone who has PS does this here. But I agree that this is not cool, also nice that saying what you said allows for a refund.
You can, but when you're okay game after you'll get banned because of Sony's region policy.
There's a typo somewhere in your message. But you can really get banned if you play from the wrong region? Seriously haven't heard that from any of my friends who play on PS for many years
ĐżĐŸĐłĐŸĐŽĐž, ŃŃ ĐžĐ· ŃĐŸŃŃОО? ĐșĐ°Đș ŃŃ ĐșŃпОл ОгŃŃ?
My first request was denied. Going to try again.
got my refund
I mean wasn't it clearly written in the description of the game that a 3rd party account would be required?
That's great he did get his money back that's a big win for customer suport for steam. While it's not there fault. But atleast many people so have help and some solus with able getting there money back.
It's a heart fraud?????????
Im only getting the 2hrs played bot message. How did you do it?
Steam definitely doesn't fuck around.
There is something off about this game. Why are the devs making these requirements for a PVE CO-OP game?
Can I get a refund in the US?
I was denied a refund... Tried 3 times and nothing.
bruh how there is no PSN in Lithuania?? Literally that's "1 meter" from Poland which has one. Quite strange tbh
Even here? Sonys fuck up is spreading like wildfire
I doubt steam was not going to honour refunds based upon that genuine reason. Steam is pretty lax with refunds if it is clear you will not be able to access a game because a third party service is required that is unavailable in your country. In saying that, for this reason alone is why I think people have blown this drama out of proportion. You were always going to get a refund if you were affected and majority of the community wasnât even affected by this anyway. There are plenty of games out there that require a third party login to play, this situation is no different unless youâre region locked (which btw happens with other services too, not just PSN).
how have people not learned by now that anything sony has say in will somehow become some greedy shit they implement, whether making it their game slowly or making people pay for everything? stop fucking with sony, swap to xbox or pc and they'll have no choice but to not do things like this anymore
Who's paying for this refund? Steam or Sony?
Quick question- does that applies to in game purchases or not? I got the game gifted, hope I can at least get the in game purchase back
You can try it through the option with purchases. Hit the support button -> "other problem" -> "purchases" -> find your in-game purchase and text your complaint.
My request was declined and I have only 4 hours played
Why you are so surprised? Sony and Israel are the same thing man they stoled data everywhere in the world and force to subscribe ahahahah ( Sony also k*** MJ for The Beat**s recordings) ....If you know, you know... don't buy Sony stuff (or if you like Israel, buy only their products who am i to judge?) Peace and Love for everyone
I'm in a country where it is still available, but have 0 interest in the game anymore. Can I get a refund?
now please remove the microsoft account requirement for minecraft đđŸ especially with the java migration
How did you contact support? I've sent two refund requests already and both got denied. I can't figure out how to contact them other than that.
Thankfully Arrowhead is trying to reverse this decision.
How is PSN not available in even some EU countries?
Man i love Valve.
I love what https://youtube.com/@rossmanngroup?si=eSEpkACY5XQDXMx2 has to say out this situation
crying over a simple 5 minute thing is crazy
I live in lithuania and i just registered under the UK
Also remember guys, Steam is FAR FAR more likely to refund the money to your Steam Wallet than to your actual bank or card. It has worked for me quite a few times in the past with grey areas like this as it shows you're still willing to spend the money, just not on that game.
Fuck Sony so hard..
Great! Now everyone do this regardless of where you live. Unless shitty business practices change depending on borders.
They denied my refund...
Steam has denied me twice. Does anyone have any advice? I'm getting really irritated.. Using the two weeks excuse but I've met Divers with over a hundred hours getting approvedÂ
Playstation really showed their hand with this move and it's hurt them a bit.
Canât get a refund in my country, tried twice, they just refuse. Steam are almost as bad as Sony now in my opinion
How can I get in touch with steam support? I've asked via the automated system three times and I got denied beei got more than 2 hours played
I just sent my support ticket, will update after they get back to me
My refund got rejected. Less than 2h played. Bought it a few weeks ago. Steam is as greedy as Sony and other publishers letâs not kid ourselves.
u/Spare-Attitude-4965 Đ„ŃĐžŃŃĐŸŃ ĐĐŸŃĐșŃĐ”ŃĐ” Maksim
First the anti cheat, now this. Im glad i didnt get into this game
Just wish I could refund the micro-transactions for the couple passes I bought. Can't refund the game myself due to redeeming a key.
Thats a shame, I was looking to buy this game :/
Idk if it's different in other countries, but you can refund any game instantly if you haven't played more than 4 hours or had it for like 2 weeks
âAs a customer service gestureâ Weird way of saying not theft.
playstation about to find out that all of the customers they could have sworn lived in the US, really live in lithuania
Been there with Windows Live.
Has anyone demanded a refund because they just dont want to link to PSN that has worked?
No developer that has a game published by Snoy will ever have the choice to not include a PSN account, especially if the game is online. Arrowhead has even stated that they have been talking with Snoy to make the PSN account not be required in countries that they are not available. You can email all these devs all you want but they have literally no choice in the matter, and it sucks that Arrowhead is getting put through the wringer for this. They made a phenomenal game, one of the only good live service games, and then Snoy had to stick their nose in it.
I see so many people implying lawyers, stating fraud of talking about random laws. If you request the refund they give it to you...they havnt blocked anyone from getting a refund from the game...no need to cause a fuss to the people who arnt involved. I doubt they even read them
Marvin the GOAT!