Current Events > Playstation walking back on their Helldivers 2 bullshittery.

(+) Yeah! (+)

https://twitter.com/PlayStation/status/1787331667616829929

Sony* doh

lmao walked that shit back like Xbox One drm

The players have spoken and money talks

I'm happy for Arrowhead. They didn't deserve this.

It was inevitable. That was one of the hardest, most universal backlashes I've seen against any stupid corporate decision in the gaming world.

The only thing that even competes with it was when Blizzard tried to force people to use their real first and last names on the forums like a decade ago.

And the Pride and Accomplishment reddit post about Star Wars Battlefront II. That's another legendary one.

Once again, democracy is saved!

The only way I would've seen this being an okay decision in the first place is if they offered cross-platform progress and playing with others for linking to a PSN account.

Glad it got walked back. It had to happen eventually once people were requesting (and actually getting) refunds.

BakonBitz posted...

The only way I would've seen this being an okay decision in the first place is if they offered cross-platform progress and playing with others for linking to a PSN account.

Glad it got walked back. It had to happen eventually once people were requesting (and actually getting) refunds.

I think there is cross platform progress if you link PSN?

I wonder if they only did this because of Steam pulling it from so many countries

refmon posted...

I wonder if they only did this because of Steam pulling it from so many countries

It absolutely murdered their trajectory, and the fact Steam was forcing them to honor refunds because of the change was a big blow, too.

Once again, Steam proves that all it has to do is offer a strong service and reasonable customer service policies, and they just keep winning.

Good.

refmon posted...

I wonder if they only did this because of Steam pulling it from so many countries

Theres no way they wouldnt have known that was going to happen. They should know which countries they have PSN i would hope.

refmon posted...

I wonder if they only did this because of Steam pulling it from so many countries

I'd said before that it would take mass refunds for this to happen, I'm guessing enough purchases in regions without PSN were being refunded that Sony backtracked.

refmon posted...

I wonder if they only did this because of Steam pulling it from so many countries

The developers asked unhappy players to leave negative review, hence the review bombing.

This feels like some Execs didn't realize exactly how bad the backlash was going to be and how many refunds they were going to get hit with, then once it all started rolling and the negative press started hitting that someone with common sense managed to finally convince them how stupid this all was

But ya.. Now Sony just needs to stay the hell away from the game and lets the devs do their best to slowly repair the good will they earned up to the point this all went down

ironman2009 posted...

I think there is cross platform progress if you link PSN?

I assumed the backlash was it being mandatory and not offering anything new for it like cross-platform stuff.

Edit: Nevermind, looks like it was an option beforehand to enable cross-play, the backlash was making it mandatory in order to keep playing on your platform of choice, which is very stupid.

game was delisted in like 170 countries already. Wonder if this is too late

BakonBitz posted...

I assumed the backlash was it being mandatory and not offering anything new for it like cross-platform stuff.

Nah I think ppl just didn't want more layers to shit. And Sony has been hacked multiple times so maybe it's a security thing

Plus some folks legitimately couldn't play if they needed a PSN acct, guess Sony isn't in as many countries as Steam is.

solosnake posted...

game was delisted in like 170 countries already. Wonder if this is too late

I imagine Sony will have to remove the requirement from the store page for them to be restored by Steam.

Steam cannot be beat, by extension their customers can't be abused.

I just recently discovered this since I never played the game, but I guarantee there's only one thing that mattered. Sony didn't give a damn about the public backlash, the review bombing that the devs asked for, nothing. The only thing that changed their minds I bet is Steam giving out refunds to basically anyone who asked. They saw how much money they already lost and decided that this was a bad idea.

If Steam didn't give out refunds, I doubt Sony would have changed their minds.

wonder if the community is going to try to change the steam score back.

ironman2009 posted...

wonder if the community is going to try to change the steam score back.

I've seen a few people say they're removing their own negative reviews, so probably a lot of people will do it.

Gobstoppers12 posted...

Blizzard tried to force people to use their real first and last names on the forums

What the fuck

eggcorn posted...

What the fuck

Yeah, this was a huge controversy at the time. It was near the height of WoW's popularity (on the tail end of it). Basically, in 2010 they had a system called "Real ID" which was a way for players to be friends between Blizzard games. The system was only for "real" friends who were allowed to know each others' real names.

It worked fine. Some of my IRL friends and even a few online ones were on my list.

The problem was that Blizzard wanted to "reduce toxicity" on the forums by forcing people to use their Real ID profile in order to post at all on the public forums.

This was very unpopular. People were extremely angry right away. The community managers tried to calm people down by pointing out that knowing someone's real name "wasn't a big deal," so in a show of good faith, they shared their real first and last name.

Almost immediately, this poor individual was subject to credit card applications, pizza deliveries, doxxing, etc.

Shortly after that, Blizzard walked back the decision.

Heres the dimitri finds out on blizzard real ID tells you everything you need to know.

gobstoppers also had a fantastic write up

https://youtu.be/RNsyRa-fJXo?si=eSZUkFtB6c0PQJyb

This isn't Sony "listening" or compromising with their fans. They only did this because PSN is unavailable in many countries where Helldivers 2 is sold on Steam. This would render those copies of the game completely useless, only like 4 months after the game's release

I'm sure lawyers were lining up to file what would be the easiest lawsuit ever against Sony for this. That's why Sony relented. Make no mistake, they will do this again in the future. But next time they will clearly specify that linking a PSN account is required, and will make it required at launch instead of after the fact

It never should have been for sale in countries without PSN if they were going to implement that.

Good news. The bait and switch on requiring a PSN account was shitty.

Why couldn't Sony just launch PSN in many countries, what is preventing it?

SgtBash posted...

Why couldn't Sony just launch PSN in many countries, what is preventing it?

Could be loads of different reasons I doubt there's any single reason that applies to every region.

SgtBash posted...

Why couldn't Sony just launch PSN in many countries, what is preventing it?

There's a lot of bureaucracy involved with doing business in any given country. It may not be worth it for Sony if there's not enough of a profit to be made. Plus there's other factors to consider like whether their economy is stable, if they have any laws restricting the sale of games outside of what the ratings boards say, etc.

Steam has it a little easier since they're a purely online entity and aren't selling physical goods.

I'm glad they realized the mistake once it started hitting them in their pocket books.

I'm surprised they're walking it back, but it's pretty cool to see.

I wouldn't be surprised to see them try something else though. They try something like this once, they can easily try something else along the same lines.

This is typical Sony behaviour especially when it comes to live service games. Even when the PS4 was dominant Sony outright blocked companies from implementing crossplay and was rightfully called out (outside of a few deluded Sony shills who thinks it's a conspiracy by MS to "steal players") until they backpedalled.

SF_Okami posted...

I just recently discovered this since I never played the game, but I guarantee there's only one thing that mattered. Sony didn't give a damn about the public backlash, the review bombing that the devs asked for, nothing. The only thing that changed their minds I bet is Steam giving out refunds to basically anyone who asked. They saw how much money they already lost and decided that this was a bad idea.

If Steam didn't give out refunds, I doubt Sony would have changed their minds.

GabeN being the hero to the gaming community

Imagine if people could mobilise for a cause as hard as gamers do for some slight corporate bullshittery in a videogame

The world would be a utopia

Thank you Valve. Dont know what gaming would be without you.

Icing on the cake, responses like this lmao

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/9/95154b20.jpg

I have no idea why people post troll posts from Twitter. Majority of them are just bots or dudes who have no life. Im sure theres the odd nutter out there who genuinely believe what they are saying but why give them a platform on here lol?

voldothegr8 posted...

Icing on the cake, responses like this lmao

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/9/95154b20.jpg

Staggering to me that this is an actual mindset people have.
When did it become okay to just be a corporate bootlicker?
Customers should never be seen as loyal or guaranteed, companies should always see customers as unreliable.

So turns out so called "review bombing" works huh?

Who would have thought.

voldothegr8 posted...

Icing on the cake, responses like this lmao

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/9/95154b20.jpg

Sony fanboys are delusional. Like I said before, when Sony was blocking crossplay on Fortnite and Minecraft they went out with full force shilling for their favorite corporation, claiming that Sony is protecting itself from MS trying to "steal" its players.

WingsOfGood posted...

So turns out so called "review bombing" works huh?

Who would have thought.

I imagine its the refunds that did it tbh.

WingsOfGood posted...

So turns out so called "review bombing" works huh?

Who would have thought.

• Review bombing
• Refunds
• Potential legal issues for some countries
• and the official discord set on fire for 4 days straight.

The talks between Sony and Arrowhead were probably also not so chill anymore, and I would not be surprised if even Valve got involved with a "wtf are you doing?!?"

This wasn't just a can of worms they opened, it was a full shipping container.

But I'm still surprised that they caved in. That will slow down their ambitions about linking PSN accounts for quite some time, since they wont want to repeat this shitstorm.

I honestly expected Sony to throw Helldiver 2 under the bus.

Karovorak posted...

since they wont want to repeat this shitstorm.

Just wait till next quarter.

WingsOfGood posted...

So turns out so called "review bombing" works huh?

Who would have thought.

That's part of it. This kind of thing is actually the only thing that DOES work anymore. Sudden, loud, overwhelming numbers of bad reviews and complaints have done a lot of good lately. It has to be huge, though.

A good non-gaming example of this was the Sonic movie trailer. People memed on the design so hard that the studio spent millions redoing the CGI to look more like... you know, Sonic.

Then the movie was a strong success. It's almost like listening to the audience is a good way to get money from the audience.

Gobstoppers12 posted...

That's part of it. This kind of thing is actually the only thing that DOES work anymore. Sudden, loud, overwhelming numbers of bad reviews and complaints have done a lot of good lately. It has to be huge, though.

A good non-gaming example of this was the Sonic movie trailer. People memed on the design so hard that the studio spent millions redoing the CGI to look more like... you know, Sonic.

Then the movie was a strong success. It's almost like listening to the audience is a good way to get money from the audience.

Good point.
Sonic is the example of "review bombing" that did tremendous positive change.

LeCh0nk posted...

Just wait till next quarter.

I think they will have to wait a bit longer.

Even if they now go on with some PSN linking on some game from day 1, so without all the bullshit that caused the HD2 situation to explode, the community got their win against Sony, and they will try to repeat it again if they can.

But I'm not even aware of some upcoming multiplayer game from Sony where this would be relevant right now.

Karovorak posted...

But I'm still surprised that they caved in. That will slow down their ambitions about linking PSN accounts for quite some time, since they wont want to repeat this shitstorm.

They simply won't make this mistake again and require it for all future PC titles from the get go.

voldothegr8 posted...

They simply won't make this mistake again and require it for all future PC titles from the get go.

Yeah, that for sure, but probably slower than originally planned.

If they now announce a game with "PSN necessary" they will just heat up the community again, even if everything is clear from the beginning.