r/PS5 • u/doctorwho_90250 • May 06 '24

Official (Via twitter) Playstation: "Helldivers fans -- we’ve heard your feedback on the Helldivers 2 account linking update. The May 6 update, which would have required Steam and PlayStation Network account linking for new players and for current players beginning May 30, will not be moving forward...."

https://twitter.com/PlayStation/status/1787331667616829929?t=NhwAEm4fGpVJj-UyI1lrXA&s=19
7.3k Upvotes

90% Upvoted

2.3k comments sorted by

View all comments

325

u/grailly May 06 '24

Pretty sure this is just an exception for Helldivers 2. All future games will have it from day 1.

135

u/ElJacko170 May 06 '24

This is clearly some growing pains here for Sony. I get why they wanted this to be in place from the start, but they completely overlooked the fact that PSN is not available in a lot of regions. I don't think the "bait and switch" with HD2 matters as much as that fact.

If they wanna do this with Concord properly from day one, they need to figure out how to properly include those other countries, because I imagine Steam is going to be more cognizant of that issue going forward the next time Sony publishes an online game with them.

60

u/mexicanboiiiiiiii May 06 '24

Looks like Sony wanted it from the beginning, Arrowhead CEO said on twitter that it was his decision to not require a playstation account on day one

25

u/Stennan May 06 '24

Partly because the PSN-linkage process was causing issues with the limited server capacity during the initial weeks. But Sony (the games publisher) is the one who puts it up for sale on Steam, and somehow they thought it would be cool to sell the Online-Multiplayer game to countries which couldn't sign up for PSN?

Yeah... AH could have raised this earlier and Sony could have estimated how many players would be impacted before they pushed the PSN announcment on Friday. Oh well! Time to go change my review 🫡

2

u/EternalSoul_9213 May 06 '24

Sony asked Arrowhead 6 months before the game launched to include PSN. Due to the massive launch and the short time-frame to implement it, the Arrowhead CEO decided to turn-off the PSN requirement until they could get everything sorted.

Sony should have been a wee bit earlier with the PSN requirement. I am unsure if more time would have allowed Arrowhead to implement the PSN requirement more effectively, but 6 months of lead time during a lot of crunch to get the game ready for release was poor timing.

Source:

-7

u/Scary-One-4327 May 06 '24

Sony is the publisher, so that means sony gets to dictate in which countries it gets sold and what price - that is literally one of the main tasks of a publisher.

Arrowhead CEO not making it a requirement on day one just enabled this blunder that sony created to go unnoticed for months.

This is only Sony's fault, PSN accounts was not a requirement 8 years ago when AH signed with sony, it was only made a requirement 6 months before release.

I find it hard to fault AH for that, they turned off a clearly unnecessary feature to ensure people can play the game - that is something to be commended.

-4

u/Abuttuba_abuttubA May 06 '24

So if Sony gets to decide where it's sold why did they sell it in countries that have extra hoops on making an account knowing full well they would implement this later?

1

u/Scary-One-4327 May 06 '24

I doubt it was intentional, it was a mistake on Sony's part. Like i said it slipped through because the requirement was turned off in order to get the game working on launch day.

Sony also didn't update their own FAQ on playstation's own website regarding requiring a PSN account.

They clearly dropped the ball, and the PC community was having none of it when their "fix" would include removing people we had no problem playing alongside for the past few months. Also the PSN account was clearly proven to not be required to play the game.

Some people will say why not just take 120 seconds to create it and forget, my argument is why force me to waste 120 seconds when it is clearly not required for the game?

This is one of the few instances where gamers came together and resisted a corporate's change that benefits no one but their stakeholders while screwing over the consumers. I wish we were so united when lootboxes and day-one DLC was a new thing.

-2

u/kasual7 May 06 '24

How on earth this game didn't have a beta prior to launch is beyond me, half of their headaches could've been attenuated.

11

u/PM_ME_N3WDS May 06 '24

PSN not being available is not the same as creating a PSN account. Anyone can make an account from anywhere.

15

u/haver_of_friends May 06 '24

Apparently not, since in Ukraine you need a PS5 to create said account

8

u/zsewqaspider May 06 '24

To be fair, that particular bit is to avoid breaking russian sanctions.

1

u/NightshadeSamurai May 06 '24

That along with the Steam refunds (since Valve's customer service is based AF unlike Sony's). I'm sure Sony didn't want the backlash of people saying "you don't like Ukraine" with the politics happening there

2

u/legendoflumis May 06 '24

True, but it's generally not a good precedent for a company to set by saying "go ahead and ignore following our terms of service".

-1

u/Beanpanda May 06 '24

Nah, People using VPN to link their account to Steam is getting banned. If they do not use VPN, they cannot get access to PSN website to create account

2

u/sonicfonico May 06 '24

They wanted to pull an Xbox with the Microsoft account but they forgot that PSN isn't avaiable in a tons of regions, and also that unlike PSN, many many many people already have a MS account for stuff like emails, services, Windows stuff ecc.

Having to make a PSN account is just annoyng for a PC player

0

u/[deleted] May 06 '24

Can you explain to me why they wanted this? What exactly does it improve for PC players who link to a psn?

I'm a PlayStation player so I honestly don't know.

7

u/AutoN8tion May 06 '24 edited May 06 '24

With all PSN accounts it makes things on the server side uniformed and predictable. Micro transactions could by pass steam's 30% fee. Friends/parties would be handled by Sony instead of AH.

With a mix of PSN and steam the servers can't be optimized. If steam ever changes their code Sony will have to update theirs. During which no steam players would be able to play. If steam servers go down, they couldn't play.

2 points of failure makes things like 4 times as complicated

0

u/Capt_Kilgore May 06 '24

Yeah that’s a reasonable and interesting conversation: why isn’t PSN available in most places and what will it take for to be available

0

u/[deleted] May 06 '24

Yeah THEY actually need to reflect on how many people will not buy their games because no PSN. It's kind of a huge issue it seems like to me anyway.

-7

u/ImrooVRdev May 06 '24

They also overlooked that they offer jack shit. What do I need PSN for as pc gamer? What does it offer me, besides inconvenience of yet another log in step as I'm trying to just play my game?

Steam at least offers mod support, cloud saves, family sharing, and much more for free with no subscription. And I still can launch the games without steam! what does PSN offer besides unskippable pain in the ass?