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.
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?
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
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.
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.
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!
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.
“the failure was on them for buying the game anyway”
I’m with you buddy.
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.
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”
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
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.
Pointing to the ToS / EULA like we are in a fucking South Park episode, LMAO
nobody accepted sony’s tos when buying helldivers 4 months ago
deleted by creator
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 🫂
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.
I did not know we had controversial bots on Lemmy already!
Uhh axktuallay on page treefiddy on the TOS it says you get a downvote
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.
deleted by creator
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:
Well, I’m glad I didn’t end up buying it last week like I wanted to. I decided to wait another paycheck instead.
Saved me wasting time or money.
Honestly people shit on review-bombing over specific incidents but this is the kind of thing that 100% deserves it.
deleted by creator
“Oh no, finding out!” - corporation that fucked around probably
Review bombing is getting people to review something a certain way without them having have experienced the thing.
Basically a small group think their own opinion is so important, they try to convince as many people as possible to vote the same to make it seem more people share their opinion.
These reviews were from players who actually played the game and got affected by the changes. It isn’t review bombing, their opinions are valid.
Plenty of review bombing as the method protests can be valid. It’s just a method. It so happens that many of them are stupid, but ultimately that’s just how it goes.
Not really, at least on Wikipedia the page for review bombing and the one listing significant ones make no distinction between actually having played the game/watched the movie or not.
deleted by creator
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 tolerance 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.
deleted by creator
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?
Out of curiosity, what was the Creek incident? The initial fight for Malevelon?
deleted by creator
There was a major order that barely failed because people were playing on Creek instead of defending supply lines.
Ahhh, thanks for clarifying! Figured it was ridiculous lmao
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?).
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.
I think said “most people” will care once the game forces them to register for a PSN account.
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 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.
I didn’t even think twice about it. I’m not sure why people are freaking out about it?
They thought about it twice
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.
This is not a hurdle, its a nuisance at best. It’s stupid though.
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.
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’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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Exactly. That’s why I play with cross play off on PS5, but I also think PC players shouldn’t get locked out if they can’t make an account in their country, so in my eyes that’s the big fuck up. And it’s Sony’s fault, not Arrowhead. They should foot the community wrath and the remedy.
If i happen to encounter such stuff, i just leave. And for stuff like moneycheat that would affect my savegame, DRG for example provides a couple of backupsaves to roll back. So i can easily avoid being affected by cheaters and if others want to cheat, i just don’t mind. But i would mind having to install a rootkit of questionable origin.
deleted by creator
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.
I bought the game on release week. I don’t play often but when I do it’s with friends. After hearing about this incident my plan was to wait a few days or a week to see how it resolves before deciding if I want to refund the game. However, enough of my friends have already refunded the game that, if they don’t come back, I likely won’t be playing much if at all anyway so I’ll probably refund the game this week as well, especially if nothing changes.
Sony has a record of not respecting its workers, users or consumers.
2005 Sony BMG copy protection rootkit scandal
Now they want more userdata and kernel level anticheat. Surely there is no way for this to backfire
You missed some https://firewalltimes.com/sony-data-breach-timeline/
Is the last two their fault? They were attacked.
Yes. Their platform, their security. Their failure to secure their users data is solely their fault. Notice that other platforms don’t have this issue. You’d think after the first one, they’d fucking pony up and take security seriously. Sony didn’t learn anything.
If it was just one event, I’d advocate for leniency. But Sony doesn’t get that from me.
The last two were because Sony was storing personal data. This store made them a target.
Like the personal data they require when you sign up to PSN to play Helldivers 2.
If they don’t collect data, they wouldn’t be such a juicy target. So, yes, it is partly their own fault because they took the known risk of storing personal information.
They played with fire and got burned … more than once.
Source: https://www.playstation.com/en-us/legal/privacy-policy/
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.
Another victory lap for patient gamers.
There is a lifetime of content to consume without taking video games or the internet into account. You are optional.
I just started BioShock Infinite. I am only a few years behind.
Bioshock Infinite is 11 years old
Pretty fun so far. Bonus, it runs at 4k 144fps highest graphics.
But if you were impatient and played it on release you could have played it without requiring a PSN account.
And now they would need to fight for a refund, only some people got it, others are on their 5th try.
Patient gaming is great for single player games. Not so much for live service.
You say that, but it clearly worked here. And, for live service games in general, playing The Waiting Game™ lets you see how bullshit said live service ends up becoming after a awhile.
I was waiting until some sort of offline mode since I’ve been burned by The Crew, I don’t think it’s happening considering how anal they are being about a PSN account.
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 by 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.
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.
Well that might work, if I had a PS5 laying about.
Data is beautiful.
Weren’t we all discussing enshittification the other day?
More like daily now unfortunately.
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.
Probably why it’s not listed on those store pages.
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.
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
Wow what the fuck has happened?!
They’re mandating you have a playstation account to play on PC. That was always in the terms, and on the steam page, but you didn’t have to. Until very recently.
And if you don’t live in one of the 65 countries where PSN operates, you can go fuck yourself, because your game just stopped working.
Wow fuck all that
Can’t you just use an US account though? I don’t mean to say that this isn’t a major issue as it is, but are you really blocked from linking it? I don’t live in the US but I have a us pen account since forever
That would be violating the terms of service, and could presumably get your Helldivers 2 account banned.
I’m aware of this, but I’ve never heard of this being enforced outside of people trying to use credit cards of other regions, and they only resulted on temporary suspensions.
My question is on the enforcement of the linking. Does it stop you from doing something like this?
Violation of PSN terms of service.
Also worth point out that up until yesterday, Sony said a PSN account wasn’t it required to play games games on PC. They changed it shortly after the backlash.
Sony dropped an announcement requiring PSN accounts, even for PC players with no cross play enabled, presumably because it makes the numbers look better to their shareholders. Apparently it was supposed to be a requirement at launch but the PSN servers were busted and it was preventing people from getting in so they ‘temporarily’ disabled it.
Yeah bullshit on the technical issue, they got a whole lot of people playing who now are forced to make that account.
Something not rally being mentioned is that their monetization system has gotten predictably worse, for example nerfing a weapon in advance of a premium battle pass weapon that coincidentally fills the niche that was just nerfed away.
I mean, that’s not really so bad considering you can unlock the battle passes without spending a dime past your initial investment. The timing of the nerfs might be coincidental - I do also seem to remember a Breaker - Railgun - Shield Pack monoculture being a pretty big issue.
Unlocking the battle pass with grinding takes forever. With over 40 hours I only just made enough to unlock one. Except I didn’t because I spent a little along the way on armor. Playing normally does not get warbonds at a reasonable pace.
I mean, that’s the game, isn’t it? You either grind out the super credits, and the fact that’s an option at all is the Hallmark of a good game, or you pay for instant gratification. Live service doesn’t support itself.
“The scraps of barely available content is the hallmark of a good game” is something I’d be abjectly horrified to hear just ten years ago.
The game is not free to play. It’s a paid game with abusive monetization practices on top. You’ve already paid for the service.
The overton window has moved so much now. Sigh.
Capitalism
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.
I sure am happy i didnt buy this earlier because of the enforced rootkit.
Kernel Level Anti Cheat… In a co-op game!?
Why they did this is beyond me! 😔
Oh no! Billy cheated his way to a new cape!! 🙄
It really is quite silly. There aren’t even leaderboards or anything
Billy cheating made you unlock everything in 1 too, that’s their reasoning at least.
And fair enough, but you need to install a rootkit on my machine so Billy can’t get me a new cape?!
Lies!
It was a silly hat.
It’s doubly puzzling, because that component is just disabled on Linux and Steamdeck.
Honestly there were a few reasons I didn’t get it, but I’ll say the rootkit was a big one.
Yeah, that had me already decided that if I did get it, it would be on ps5 not pc. Though this move will probably make me do that in general for any ps exclusive game they make a pc port of.
Well deserved imo
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!
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
