Data is beautiful.
Say what you will about the giant bugs and socialist toasters, but they never sold out their own for a percentage.
A Starship Troopers, BSG, and Aliens reference. Nice!
Weren’t we all discussing enshittification the other day?
I’m not sure how requiring an account in addition to the Steam account is enshittification. Especially given that it was intended to be the case from the start, but they temporarily disabled it due to technical issues.
That sounds like deliberate deception. That’s far shittier than being up front. They should have made a PS account optional. Cyberpunk does this, you don’t need an account to launch the game.
There was always a banner on the Steam page that states “Requires 3rd-Party Account: PlayStation Network (Supports Linking to Steam Account)”
You don’t need one for Horizon, God of War, or Spider-Man. And I’m sure you don’t need it for Uncharted or Day’s Gone.
Do any of those games have multiplayer, though?
Sure seems like Helldivers’ multiplayer works just fine without a Sony account.
All of their support and controls are tied to the PSN account system, though.
Probably why it’s not listed on those store pages.
It’s completely unnecessary, PlayStation accounts aren’t available in many countries which would make the game inaccessible to people who already bought it if it’s mandatory, and Sony has averaged a data breach every two years for the past 15 years so people don’t want to give them any personal data.
man I think people can take things too far and act like drama queens sometimes but yeah, forcing another unnecessary account onto people is enshitification
More like daily now unfortunately.
Look, I got hit with that stupid 2011 data breach PSN had and I still get scam emails with details from that due to the unique stuff I put in my various accounts. I’m not going to try to resurrect my now defunct account or create a new one so they can do more data mining and lose more of my PII, again.
Some countries like Ukraine are told that they need a console to make an account, you can’t make this shit up lmao
I am curious how this is going to effect the number of active players. I know a lot of people who were trying to get me to play this saying it was here to stay and not a trend like a Lethal Company but I feel like this hurdle might be enough to get them to give up.
I definitely have a low level of for Russian nesting dolls of accounts and launchers.
I’d be surprised if it really has much of an impact on number of players tbh.
Most people don’t care, Lemmy/Reddit are a vocal minority.
The game racked up over 10k negative reviews in 90 minutes yesterday. People are pissed. There’s also the issue of PSN only being available in a about a third of all countries.
I just uninstalled the game over this and I have 350+ hours.
They fumbled a (bigger) bag with this whole dungeon master Joel meme. This will be the last straw for many.
The player base is tearing itself apart with conservatives getting genuinely furious about the Creek incident and team-killing participants on sight while everyone else just wants to have fun playing the game.
With things like these you need to lean HARD away from the idiot fascists in all media out of game. They did not, and are reaping the consequences.
What in the world happened? I played a lot in the first few weeks and remember the Creek situation as just being some people who played that planet constantly. How tf did real world politics come into that situation specifically?
There was a major order that barely failed because people were playing on Creek instead of defending supply lines.
Yeah I know about that, like I indicated in my comment up there. How in the world do conservatives factor into that situation? That’s what the commentor above said and I’m curious.
Out of curiosity, what was the Creek incident? The initial fight for Malevelon?
There was a major order that barely failed because people were playing on Creek instead of defending supply lines.
deleted by creator
What was the Creek incident? Google hasn’t really helped
There was a major order that barely failed because people were playing on Creek instead of defending supply lines.
The supply lines were Creeking when people tried to play? Oh no. Why is that bad?
Yeah even if some people keep playing. Someone like myself who was entertaining of getting it would be turned off by seeing negative reviews (why go through the drama if I’m on the fence?).
I think said “most people” will care once the game forces them to register for a PSN account.
Vocal minority is the assumption when this sort of collective outrage manifests. This time though, thanks to Steam player count we will actually get some hard numbers and see if that has an effect or not.
At current, there are 32k negative reviews. That’s 32,000 people angry enough to go add or modify a review to be negative. The active player base is 100k. As far as “vocal minority” goes…
Yeah but how many are bark and no bite? Eg, they’ll write the review, but keep playing anyway. That will take some time to find out.
I don’t think it will affect the current playerbase too much. But I think the negative rating on steam will have an effect on sales.
Well, a number of countries will be forced out, simply because PSN is not available there. Especially the philipinos seem so be quite upset.
PSN is available in 69 countries around the world. (Source: https://www.playstation.com/country-selector/index.html)
right now there are (roughly) 190 independent countries in the world.
The whole of Africa (except for SA; thanks to u/ItzOnza), Egypt and even european countries like Belarus don’t have PSN.
The Baltics - states that are part of the european union - are also excluded.
These people can’t create accounts.
This is not a hurdle, its a nuisance at best. It’s stupid though.
This is on PC and unlike some other ported PS games I don’t think there is an option to play offline I imagine a lot of people are going to be creating PSN accounts I’d say that’s a hurdle for some people.
I know at least two people who live in countries w/o PSN support and can’t play now. This is a hurdle.
Crossplay is mandatory, and linking an account for crossplay was always mandatory, they had issues at launch, paused the requirement, and are now reestablishing it.
Thats kinda on them, or for Steam for selling it in their location, but they probably bypassed that to get the game.
I’m curious how you are so bold to say something as patently false as your first sentence with such confidence knowing that anyone with the game can deactivate it in settings and it works without a PSN account anyway.
From launch until now, creating a PSN account was optional due to technical issues. And while this wasn’t properly conveyed to the playerbase, the game was sold in tons of regions where you straight up can’t make a PSN account. Something like 50+ out of 123 regions where the game was sold cannot make PSN accounts. And using a VPN or lying about your region to make an account is a bannable offense.
The privacy complaints I have more of an issue with since GameGuard, the DRM used, is just as much, if not more, of a privacy issue compared to Sony’s horrible data security and invasive data harvesting. GameGuard has kernel level access to the entirety of your system while it’s running, usually installs itself as an on boot up background process, and has been caught by anti-virus software editing files outside of the game directory.
The first is a genuinely refund worthy issue, if not a class-action lawsuit in the making, while the second one is people being ignorant to how much data they’re actually giving away.
I didn’t get the game because it’s packed full of all the terrible corporate stuff you see in terrible corporate games. Always Online, Rootkit anticheat, in-game store to purchase items when the game is already expensive. I doubt adding “must give your information to Sony” is going to be the tipping point for anyone who is fine with everything else.
As I said in another comment I think it’s more about people having to create another account.
I also don’t know how or if PSN integration is going to impact matchmaking.
Playing not online is miserable
Waaaaaaa anti cheat
The in game store requires zero to actual money and is probably the most fair one to date.
Game is expensive (it’s the standard price?)
Jesus cry more about something you haven’t even done.
Why does a fully cooperative game needs an anti-cheat software in the first place. I don’t give a fuck about cheaters as long as its not competitive. Deep rock galactic for example works great without all of this bullshit.
To prevent people from spawning in unreleased content that is in the game, giving their group the maximum cap of in-game currency, and so on. Tamps down on the boosting market.
I signed into an old PSN account when I first downloaded the game near launch. It is in game. No launcher. I signed in once and forgot about it until right now. Not really a big deal. If your worried about security make some bogus email up and make an account that way. But other than signing in one time it hasn’t been a deal. 🤷♂️
Yeah, I used my old PS3 account. I didn’t even think twice about it. I’m not sure why people are freaking out about it?
I didn’t even think twice about it. I’m not sure why people are freaking out about it?
They thought about it twice
I play with a couple of friends in the Baltics. I have PSN. There is no PSN in the Baltics. So I guess I can’t play with the friends I solely bought this game for.
Just because it doesn’t affect you doesn’t mean it’s silly to complain about this.
Can they not create a Playstation account regardless of PSN service availability?
No because it is not available in their country, and making an account with a region different from your Steam account would have inherent EULA risks.
Hopefully Sony will see this as the biggest problem and do something about it. I don’t think these people should have been able to spend money on this for it to be taken away, but that’s a storefront issue as well. Steam and Sony will have to make some decisions about this, cause it wasn’t thought out and implemented very well. They should’ve had some stronger safeguards.
Ive been waiting to get helldivers until I had a bit of spare cash.
Now I’m not gonna get it.
Just like I don’t want 50 different streaming services, I dont want 15 different launchers open just to play a game.
There’s no launcher as far as I know, just a linked account.
Breaking peoples games after 4 months will do that
Nothing is broken, people are choosing to not abide by the terms they accepted to when the bought the game.
Pointing to the ToS / EULA like we are in a fucking South Park episode, LMAO
No I’m sorry with no due respect, get fucked. I’m in a country that doesn’t have access to PSN. I will be permanently locked out of the game I purchased.
This is the reason I didn’t buy the game, but people bought it and now they’re angry they’re enforcing it?
You’re totally right, except for the people from the countries that don’t get PSN. How is it legal to sell them the game in the first place if they can’t meet the requirements to play? Scummy move.
nobody accepted sony’s tos when buying helldivers 4 months ago
The devs themselves have asked users to review bomb their own game on their discord. Your not standing up for them, your standing for Sony and Sony alone.
Uhh axktuallay on page treefiddy on the TOS it says you get a downvote
They hated him because he spoke the truth.
I don’t like it either, but I had to make an account on day 1. It’s also a requirement for any game hosted on Sony’s game servers.
Thanks mate 🫂
I do not think enough people are aware of the limits to who can make the newly required accounts.
So for those who can’t have a PSN account the failure was on them for buying the game anyway, since it was included on the store page, terms, and shows up on launch. Now, I agree they should get a refund if it locks them out the game. For the rest of the caterwauling, what will they do when Steam denies their refund after playing 200hours? Boycott Steam?
You really are a dick
I’ve been called worse by better people. People who don’t read things that they are agreeing to and then complain they don’t like it after the fact should take the lesson and move on.
In general, even as a company, in most of the civilized world, you don’t get to just write stuff in some ToS and fuck around. Consumer protection agencies do care about this.
Sorry, on page 10,782 it says that if you don’t make a PSN account you have to become a slave. You signed it!
I’m with you buddy.
“the failure was on them for buying the game anyway”
Hold on let me just slip a note that says “you agree to give up your rights” in to the computers my clients buy, that means I’m covered right?
Here is the lesson i take out of it - if buying isn’t owning, then piracy isn’t stealing.
If your replying to this thread on mobile, I would like to remind you that you never read the EULA to your phone either (this would have taken several hours for android and slightly less for iOS) . You just saw the blurp “accept terms and conditions” and moved on with your life like everyone else did. There is no expectation to read usage contracts for small, non-bussiness purchases.
Also, your opposition to this discourse is futile… The ball is in Sony/Arrowheads court. We will see if they compromise with players in eastern europe, or double down to become the next Battlefront 2 (pride and accomplishment yall!). As for me, ill let the paint dry and move on if I feel they resolved this poorly. Lets see if EDF6 can stick the landing.
It wasn’t hidden in some legalese riddled document. It was listed on the store page on the right side where they put all the requirements for outside accounts. I get there are people who don’t want to have to install other launchers and make other accounts, but it was there. To complain that they are now enforcing it when it was obviously disclosed and claim it was a bait and switch are wrong.
Should they have sold it to countries Sony doesn’t serve? Obviously not.
File support tickets directly with Arrowhead
https://arrowhead.zendesk.com/hc/en-us
File a complaint with your local government body, I believe in Australia it is illegal to break a game after the fact. To substantially change how it runs to hold it hostage.
But even in other jurisdictions, even 1, 000 disgruntled gamers filing small claims against arrowhead would consume an outsized amount of resources to respond to.
Make noise, be disgruntled, don’t play the game, file a negative review, create busy work for the perpetrators. They’re stealing time and money from you, it’s fair to do it to them. But legally
Guuuuuuys… stop being mean to corporations! Didn’t you watch the HR video that says we are family? /$
(If only they knew how shitty, exploitative and gaslighting my family is and how correct they are)
“We’re all in this together”
terms,
It’s not in either terms linked on the steam store page. There’s no mention of a requirement to use PSN’s networks or to link your steam and PSN account in either EULA. It’s ONLY the banner on the steam page. And nothing in game makes it clear that skipping the login is only a temporary thing.
the virgin EULA worshipper vs the chad consumer rights advocate
virgin EULA worshipper
It’s actually not even in either EULA published on the steam page. This is just a shill.
lol that’s even worse
It’s not in the EULAs pertaining to this game, and Sony changed their PC Games FAQ on May 3rd after the announcement that PSN would be required, meaning the FAQ people read when they bought the game is different from the one Sony is trying to enforce.
Before:
After:
The Ol’ hivemind. I type this will dropping in to kill some bug hives.
“anyone who disagrees with me are part of the ‘hive mind’, the only way to not be part of a hive mind is if you agree with all the things I believe. You know, like some sort of hive mind.”
Nah man, it’s just a bunch of individuals that happen to agree that you’re an idiot.
I did not know we had controversial bots on Lemmy already!
I remember when it came out people were saying it’s anti-cheat was basically malware. Denuvo, I think?
Anyway, it’s disappointing because I hear it’s a truly great game. But between this and that, I think I’m soured on the idea of playing.
An hour after this announcement was made, a tiny update was pushed via GamGuard to steam players and now there’s a .DLL file that’s being flagged antivirus as a malware. My AV detects and cleans the file, making the game completely broken. There a Steam discussion about this issue and, surprise surprise, the file in question is used by GameGuard.
I’m sure it has nothing to do with Sony’s recent announcement of their patent for biometric harassment detection.
They’d ban themselves lol
n-protect actually
That’s exactly why I purchased the game on ps5 instead of PC. And now I also don’t have to worry about this issue.
Well that might work, if I had a PS5 laying about.
Good for you? The post isn’t about people like us playing on PlayStation, it’s about people like my buddies I play with that thought they were good to go with their steam accounts and are now being railroaded a few months later by having to give their data to PSN, who is notorious for not managing said data well.
“It’s in the ToCs”, you might say, which is only highlighting a broader issue where you basically have to wade through pages of legal bullshit to just play a game you bought and not get fucked by the EULA.
Well said.
Can someone explain what is the big deal of creating a Playstation account? I know they’ve added the requirement retroactively, and I know everyone wants steam to be it’s own thing, but this is not really a unique situation… I have a lot of games across many publishers that have their own useless accounts tied to it. What makes this different?
The big deal is that you are now forced to create an account with yet another service and give them analytics about your behavior, for literally no benefit to you.
Even though this is widely accepted, this is just not okay in any case. Not when Ubisoft did it, not now.
How can they enforce a ban if you don’t link your account?
They ban your steam id and you just family share it to another free account and do the same thing.
Get your tinfoil hat off.
Lol
I bet you $20 he made that comment either from his android phone or from chrome on a Windows PC. OH NO, I suddenly care about my gaming history being collected by Sony. You dont even have to install 3rd party software, it is an in-game link. No standalone launcher like most games nowadays.
PSN accounts, in particular, are pretty bad. In some places, they require a photo ID in order to make an account, and in many regions of the world, you can’t make one at all. Something like 50 of the regions where the game was sold can’t make PSN accounts, and using a VPN to make an account or lying about your region is a bannable offense.
It’s a valid concern, both from paying for something that you can’t even use and a privacy perspective.
It seems a lot of people did not realize that this was an initial requirement when the game first launched, but it was suspended while they figured out server and stability issues.
That was never mentioned in a meaningful way on my purchasing platform, or in the game. At no point was I told that I was only temporarirly allowed to play without a PSN account, and that the entire game would be locked down months later unless I created and linked one. We’re that the case, I would have refunded on day 1.
Right above the buy button on Steam, in yellow highlighted text, it has always said
Requires 3rd-Party Account: PlayStation Network (Supports Linking to Steam Account)
And yet we played for months without it… Looks like it was not required. Otherwise it would have been refunded immediately.
Can someone explain what is the big deal of creating a Playstation account?
I see other comments have covered some of the issues, I don’t see this one.
April 2011: Hackers Access Personal Data of 77 Million Sony PlayStation Network Users
May 2011: Personal Details on 25 Million Sony Online Entertainment Customers Stolen
June 2011: Sony Pictures Website Hacked, Exposing One Million Accounts
November 2014: Hackers Steal 100 Terabytes of Data from Sony Pictures
August 2017: Hacker Group Accesses Sony Social Media Accounts
September 2023: Sony Investigates Alleged Hack
October 2023: Sony Notifies Employees of Data BreachBasically Sony’s been caught before not securing anything. So people don’t want to deal with them. So for this to be retroactively pushed on users months later is a solid concern. To be forced to give Sony more data than is actually required to run the game (as we’ve proven it isn’t needed for months now). Is literally just handing it to the next hackers that access Sony’s shit.
Yeah this is all fair. I don’t give anyone or anything personally identifiable information, and wouldn’t suggest it. Just fill it out with fakes and move on.
The big deal is that it’s very obviously completely unnecessary.
This is no different than your other games with useless.one off accounts. That’s the problem. They all are a problem. I bought red dead 2 and refunded it as soon as I was required to create a rockstar account. It serves no purpose to me, I don’t need it or want it. If we don’t push back these useless account things will keep being added.
And retroactive add is a massive problem. They took people’s money then screwed them after. It sets the precedent that this is acceptable if people just take it.
What’s next? Removing areas and features of games after release for something that you paid for?
It’s scummy.
What’s next? Removing areas and features of games after release for something that you paid for?
Yeah, Destiny 2…
its past the refund window, PSN only allows 69 countries to make an account, so 66% of the countries in the world are simply not able to make an account at all. Depending on how things shake out, those players will be locked out of hell divers.
If this hadn’t been retroactive, then our gaming brothers from i.e. the Philippines would have bought the game, tried to run it, hit the wall, and refunded it… sucks but they wouldn’t have lost time or money… but now… they lose both.
Ah see, that’s the context I needed. Thank you. Outside a refund window or not - if I were in a country that got locked out, steam had better be real gracious with their refunds. That scenario is unacceptable.
Yeah, I’m sure some executive is trying to pump up “active monthly” PSN users for some political, KPI, or share evaluation purposes. We kind of expect them to play these games, its the retroactive bit that’s surprising here.
This isn’t something they tried to sneak past people, they were upfront about the issues and said there would be a grace period before they implemented the pairing originally planned at launch.
Edit for source jan it was part of steams requirements
So they sold it to people they knew couldn’t comply with the TOS, then started enforcing the TOS four months later.
They know where their customers live. They know customers ignore system requirements if the game works.
Steams the one selling it, not Sony. And the restrictions were active for about a week.
You seem to missing quite a few extremely important details.
It’s up to the publisher to choose which countries Steam should let players buys the game
Deserved. It’s just not necessary. Think, why would a multi-billion dollar company want you to sign up for some other service, even if it’s free? Because they want your data, and they want to sell it.
If only there was a digital bill of rights that applied to all tech companies that would make the selling of data illegal.
Nah, sounds difficult. let’s just ban ticktok for my lobbyist buddy.
Theoretically their community management tools are based on PSN, which does make some sense. This is the official reason for it. Of course they’re also hoovering up all your data to sell also. That’s the reason that gives them more money, so the real reason.
I mean, it IS their own game. Let’s not be disingenuous, they would be doing the same even if it was Steam data.
It’s so random, too. Just… why?! The other way around, sure, after all the PC player base is the big fish. But eh?
It was always required, there was an issue and they paused it.
https://www.neogaf.com/threads/helldivers-2-will-require-you-to-have-a-psn-account-on-pc.1665633/
It was always required
they paused it.
These can’t both be true.
Netflix password sharing is technically against TOS and did not enforce it until recently.
You’re technically breaking the law for going past the speed limit, but when did you last have to pay a fine for it (caveat: depends on location)?
Netflix password sharing is technically against TOS
Netflix literally advertised password sharing as a feature of the service. I would argue in a court of law that would probably negate their ToS.
Oh okay. Weird as hell still, but that at least makes some sense. TY!
This is also a sad look into the reality of how people buy stuff. Every single one of those complaints didn’t read the requirements. How many buy the game and can’t even run the thing as well…
The weirdest part is how the game was sold in tons of regions where you can’t even make a PSN account. That sounds refund worthy, at least, if not a class-action lawsuit in the making.
Yeah I feel like people also forget you can still return games out of the two hour window for legit reasons. Would be a bad look for Steam to deny those refunds at least.
Because published by Sony.
Which is all the info you need to avoid the game. Sony is a piece of shit
People really should have stopped buying anything Sony back with the original rootkit scandal.
Can’t buy anything from Sony, Blizzard, Activision, Microsoft, 2K, EA, Ubisoft, etc. etc. Pretty much just buy BG3 and nothing else.
Either go indie or start pirating shit. Wanted to play Fallout the other day, but Microsoft/Bethesda just broke all the mods on PC for an update that doesn’t really do anything on PC. Had to get an older pirate copy to play a game I legit purchased. At some point, I just gave up.
Context for those who didn’t live through it: Sony intentionally compromised the PCs of its customers to install a mechanism by which to prevent music piracy. There’s a lot more to it but you can read about here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootkit_scandal
None of the previous Sony titles that were released on PC required a PSN account.
None of the previous Sony published titles had this level of popularity.
It only got this popular partly because of the lack of a PSN account to play. Developer said they had somewhere between 5 and 20 times the number of players they expected.
Good luck explaining that to the suits.
I’m not going to. Ultimately, Sony is a megacorp and I’m just one dude. I’ll simply voice my displeasure to people inquiring about them, and never trust a Sony product or promise in my life again. They probably won’t give 2 shits, and I’m fine with that.
I think that’s called “moving the goalpost”. Also, I doubt Last of Us can’t be considered popular.
Well deserved imo
i don’t even care about making the account, it’s just a throwaway email and password, but the rug pull for players from other countries isn’t fair at all
Hypetrain game + publisher shenanigans… Pretty sure I’ve heard this one before.
At least the hype train was built on its merit and not an ad campaign.
Was it though? It was full steam ahead even in the early days when the servers were overwhelmed in what seemed like a classic case of the dishoom effect.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s a fine game, but I think folk got carried away.
I guess what I am saying is it was organic. Cyberpunk and many other games that are hyped are hyped because of marketing campaigns done by the the studio. People get the game, it sucks, and people are mad.
This game just existed, the community decided it was awesome and got their friends to get in on it and so on. It blew up because it was fun to play and the the devs weren’t shitbags. The devs didn’t expect it to blow up the way it did, thats why the servers sploded.
This game blew up organically, due to players experience. I am still having a blast
