Wait a second!! Playstation consoles have always been available in my country (not officially) but PSN wasn't (still isn't available) but recently Playstation itself started officially selling consoles here (a little bit after PS5 launched) yet they don't expect me to make an account of a country that isn't where I live?! How come?! I thought it was fine by them all along, otherwise why the hell sell consoles here officially?!
From what I've researched, you can purchase the ps3, 4 or 5 and make the account. Without the console, you can't make a free account. Also, I was in the Philippines for a while and some of my friends had the ps4 and were online.
@@pjmack177 the problem isn't in the process of making an account in an unsupported country, that's easy as ryan mentioned and anybody anywhere in the world can do. it's the idea that sony sells the ps5 officially in a egypt and not supporting having an egyptian account, but if i make an account that isn't egyptian (which is the only option i have) then i'm violating the "terms of usage" or whatever. it's like sony wants me to have fingers but without hands! it's impossible.
The biggest sticking point in all this for me is that if it was always Sony's plan to require PSN linking for the game, then why did they choose to sell Helldivers 2 in regions that didn't have PSN? Either it wasn't always their plan to make it mandatory or they knowingly sold the game to people who would be unable to play it in just a few short months from release. Either option does not look good for them. Sony is really plummeting in my eyes this gen, and I'm someone who was defending them during the PS3 era.
It's clear this wasn't very well thought out and if I had to guess a communication issue between Arrowhead and Sony and they probably didn't expect the game to blow up the way it did and became an overnight sensation. I believe Sony when they say they are still learning about PC lol. Maybe this can push for a resolution to make PSN accessible in those countries where it isn't, at the very least for PC users in a way where they can create an account to play their games. Sometimes we learn things the hard way, no different for big corporations.
Beacuse thats Steam not Sony, the linking would have block that sale. The problem is Arrow Head CEO decide to skip the linking temporary which allow the situation to occur.
@@eded9157 That's not how Steam works at all. Steam is distributor and it's the publisher who chooses where and how to sell the game. Have you even played HD2 or are you just blindly defending Sony? You link your PSN account in-game after purchase, how would the requirement being there from Day 1 prevent people from purchasing it on Steam? Steam doesn't do a check for a PSN account when you buy a game from them, if the game is available to purchase then you can buy it.
Probably because Sony didn’t even know that you cant make a PSN account in certain countries or forgot. They probably think that if you have Steam in your country, you can make a PSN account. The CEO of Arrowhead didn’t know this problem either.
It never ceases to amaze me how disconnected these corporations are. It’s SO easy to make good PR to the gaming community and to put yourself in a good light with gamers/fans and yet these gaming companies consistently make themselves look foolish. Baffling.
It's actually not easy to make the correct decisions when you're as large as Sony. Every country they're in the player base has different thought process. Japanese player base most certainly doesn't care about other countries and only want great games. The US player base is all about keeping politics out of the games unless implemented in a fun way like Helldivers 2. The EU player base is heavily on pricing and what not.
@@KRIAJK The US is mostly pushing the politics in the games with the likes of sweet baby Inc and other woke entities. And Sony HQ in wokeville California.
@@KRIAJK yeah but the stuff you mentioned there is largely understood by players. This issue with Sony and hell divers was completely avoidable. And I’m also talking about stuff like Nintendo pressing copyright infringements on RUclipsrs who use Nintendo music. Stuff like that is just bad PR all around and these companies just don’t either get it or don’t care
It wasn't clear from the steam page what the PSN account was required for, whether it was to play the game at all, or if it limited access to some features (nor explained at all in the EULA). The Ghost of Tsushima page now actually says what the account is required for. Looking back at one of their pre-launch promo releases: "Legal: PSN Account Required. Gameplay requires internet access and paid for PlayStation Plus membership (sold separately) for PS5." Yep, this is not clear enough for selling on a non-Playstation platform.
This is one of the most common practices in online games. Publishers want to track the players activity. I really don't get why people have complained so much about it now (besides those in countries without PSN that would lose access)
Business old heads who clearly have zero clue how their userbase is like and even how their product works. All they care about is money and numbers, and of course they got to call the shots, no matter how it would affect the end user or the livelihood of their employees. Every big company has at least one of those people.
Honestly the worst part about situations like this are the people will take to sending death threats to anyone associated with the company. The community manager for Helldiver's 2 reported receiving death threats, like that will fix anything.
that's dumb but in the same time i can understand those ppls cause the yare mad pissed of cause they bought the game and i highly doubt it that Valve gave every gamer a refund of that game
There are 100% legit arguments why this was optically bad, main issue being PSN's availability around the globe but in the end it just turned into console war shenanigans and just another reason to hate Sony. Them fixing it wont matter 🤷🏻
The thing with the unsupported countries I don't get: is there not a single PS4/5 in the Philippines, for example, that can play online games? There's no way that's the case. There has to be a workaround accepted by Sony. I've even seen a screenshot of Sony support saying to create an account in a neighboring country, loke Hong Kong for the Philippines, but I can't confirm it's veracity. Like, if you live in the Vatican state, for example, you would create an Italian account, no? A lot of those 177 countries steam locked sales in were territories, some not even recognized anymore, that are part of bigger countries. It's not like Sony only supports like 20 countries
In those 20ish accepted countries, you can just "spend 120 seconds" and sign up to link your account. In the unaccepted countries, you need to buy (and own) a PS4/PS5 to make a PSN account, only for that console. You can't just make a universal account for free to play PC games. Many of these countries have really low wages, making buying a PS5 something unattainable for the average person.
@@deathpunchrigby1664 It's against Sony TOS, and they'll ban you if they catch you. Essentially, Sony sold a game in countries that couldn't possibly follow their own rules yet still collected the money.
Helldivers 2 was the straw that brokes the camel's back. And I personally: I think it's time to collectively discuss finding a better way to do Cross-Platform solutions, one that should be done and accepted across the board. Thus, we need a more centralized solution, something open source, something akin to FIDO standards.
The correct move IMO is to give in-game benefits (but not gameplay advantages) for those who link, but to not require it. Encourage and entice but don't force. Many players don't want an account with every gaming company ever.
@@yadeel8281Taiwan is a recognize country, you can find them listed on both playstation and Xbox. But yeah, there are probably some for dramatic effect, like North Korea 😅
I love how level headed Ryan's take are. IMO this whole thing is blown out of proportion. It is just very convenient to ignore the fact that the account requirement info was always on the Steam page. But I agree, Sony should have made sure players were being reminded of that change coming right from the start, perhaps with an in-game message.
Stuff we need in future PlayStation updates (DAY 5) 1. Being able to separate party chat audio from recordings when sharing them 2. Being able to use voice keyboard inside of games 3. Fix an annoying bug that suspends your game when trying to save a clip with a full storage, thus deleting your clip 4. Being able to record System UI 5. Explore tab in all regions 6. This is more of a visual thing but it would be cool to make the default selection in the quick menu to be on the home button rather than being on the far left 7. I'm not a storage expert but if it's possible to make video clips and screenshots to save on your m.2 SSD that would be helpful! 8. Letting more 3rd party services the ability to create media apps for the PlayStation 9. PlayStation Stars being in all regions 10. Being able to check for updates in the library tab, this is currently limited to games that are on the homescreen 11. Backing up save files using a usb on PS5 and not being limited to cloud storage only 12. PS4 players should be able to see your share screen 13. Ability to buy avatars on ps5 like you used to do on ps4 These were some of the most important things that the current state for the PS5 software need after owning the console since launch day. Let me know if there are more options you'd like to see added in the replies and I'll add them to the list ⚠⚠ Re-share this comment in every PlayStation related video! ⚠⚠
The biggest mistake really was not enforcing this day one. By not enforcing it, they give proof to the community that a PSN login is purely for arbitrary reasons instead of being a core part of their network infrastructure.
am angry about that PSN BS on PC but i will still buy their games on PC but i will never buy a Console i do not care if they have games like GTA 6 or the next GOW or TLOU 3 i can always wait seens we got so many games comming each month on PC while on Consoles are Timed Exclusives at this point
I wish. I left PS after they made PS+ required to play online. That said, this was mostly because PC gamers don't take this shit. Microsoft tried to add Xbox live in the past to PC but it failed. However console gamers just take it up the ass, hence why not enough people complained after Sony and Nintendo charged to play online
I wish this momentum could carry to get rid of all these extra launchers at the very least. It's ridiculous. I'll tell you I mostly game on PC and bought a PS5 a year and a half ago after not gaming on a console for a long time. I bought AC Valhalla for PS5 cheap and I couldn't remember my old Ubisoft account credentials. I had created a new one on PC and tried to link that one to my PSN and couldnt because an older Ubi account was already tied to my PS account a long time ago I dont even remember and I couldn't untie it because I didn't remember my credentials. I try to get in contact with Ubisoft nothing. I essentially cant play Ubisoft games on my PS5. It's insane. I hate all this extra stuff. Bethesda tried to make a launcher and there was enough push back where they got rid of it. I think the Helldiver community being so community driven and this decision being pivot point it was the perfect recipe for many people to stand up and I was surprised how many came together. I too never expected Sony to backtrack.
@@TerraWare this. I dont care if I will miss out on a game. If theres other stuff to do besides paying for thr gamr and downloading it, I will not play it. Ita ridiculous that in 2024 we still pay just to play online and use cloud system.
Yall remember when "eveyone" was "boycotting" ABK.. Probably not! And that was some serious real world issues not just yeah I don't wana sign into a next account!
The fact that Sony would mandate PSN accounts for a game sold on Steam, in regions where PSN isn't available, is mind boggling. It means some players who bought the game at full price would eventually have been locked out... seriously, who at Sony made this brain-dead decision? Heads need to roll in their headquarters. And I'm not even a PC player myself. But this was just a pathetic show of idiocy that I just can't wrap my head around.
Easy way to avoid this would've been to not sell it in those countries. However that'd affect sales so the best way would've just been an incentive "link your account and you get exclusive skins/credits or whatever". That way the countries that can't make accounts would miss out but only on optional things (and it's not unheard of, there's always been promotions and products only available in the US and Europe like the steamdeck)
The double standards are crazy. I wish there was an outcry for log ins to MS, Acti-Blizz, Ubi, and several others for their respective games. But I guess the line is with Sony
The problem with this is that every other AAA publisher did the same thing and nobody said anything UNTIL PlayStation did it. Absurd. I’ll be glad to find out how many actual PC players are playing this relative to PS5 players. I suspect there’s like 10M-11M PS5 and about 300k-400k Pc Players. Sony probably would have not relented if most of the players were on PC.
One thing too realize is Sony knowingly sold to countries that could not sign up for PSN, so it is not absurd that people got angry when they would lose their game they paid for in those countries. And, Actually 60 percent of players are pc players and only 40 percent are console. It has been posted in many articles that the pc player base made the game a bigger success. you can easily look it up. I found out the percentages by following the whole situation.
@@susancollins3971 Until I see actual sales numbers and not speculation or excitement of PC players/games media excitement about a day date release I will assume the ratio is that same as it has been for all PS games released on PC. The main objection most players aimed at Sony was that they just wanted to inflate PSN numbers, but if they were going to cut off 160 countries that seems to not make a lot of sense. I suspect that going forward they likely will reimplement the PSN account requirement for MP from the beginning of launch only for those countries where PSN operates.
It's hilarious a company like Sony thought shutting down basically half of the global fanbase of your current hottest game would generate more money in PSN subscriptions whoever thought this was a good idea should be fired on the spot.
@unicorntomboy9736, what do you mean why? You're suggesting killing your biggest game because you want to integrate your online service, which isn't available to most populations in the world, and you lose all that revenue? Seriously, a company like Sony should have seen something this dumb is from a business standpoint from miles away.
It's hilarious when it was originally planned, but slight issues caused a delay adding it, so Sony did the right thing launched the game without until it was ready to add it yet small number was crying EVIL SONY we hate playstation don't want psn account 🙄 yet, but sonys games🙄, anyway sony being a Fan friendly company YES FAN FRIENDLY went back in this to please the crybabies who can't be asses wasting 2 mins creating a FREE PSN account simple while other games like sea of thieves requires xbox account but pc gamers fine with that though
Normally I agree with Mystic, but not in this case. If people actually took some responsibility for themselves and read the terms of use before they agreed to it, none of this would be a surprise or a controversy. The only thing ambiguous is those 177 countries that think they'll be locked out of the game, but you're supposed to select your closest region when you can't select the region you actually live in. That was not communicated well and thus, Sony is not faultless, but the PSN requirement was made known up front from the start.
@@Jako101 these things blow over in a week or two, ALL THE TIME. Not seen anyone complaining about the digital PS5 price increase lately for example or the Dualsense Edge battery life
@@Jako101 that’s actually good. They handled it poorly but after the outrage they backed off. This wasn’t a big deal to begin with, the only real big thing was people who couldn’t play a game that they paid for. I mean, for once that they didn’t double down on their stupidity. I want to give them credit. Cheers mate.
Great coverage overall, Ryan, but one thing that wasn’t mentioned is what PSN represents to PC Players (beyond “just another account): Paid online gaming. One reason I’m moving to PC is because my kids and I want to play Granblue Fantasy Relink together and, on Playstation, I would have an annual expense of $300+ to make that happen. On PC, that’s free … but if they start requiring it for online multiplayer of Sony titles, what’s to stop them from charging for their “exclusives”? With the price hikes last year, I and many others cancelled our subscriptions because, ultimately, Sony have shown us that TDGAF about their players, so long as they can milk some or all of us dry. And in expanding to PC, that opens up another avenue for recurring revenue; Sure they’d have to offer something, but they’re a business and I find it highly naive to think that they would force this on players to just “leave it there”. Sony doesn’t have a track record that shows they know what and when to leave things the **** alone. For PC Players, that represents problematic history, bad precedent and a future that is not only antithetical to what we have had since the beginning, it’s not what we want at all.
Whilst I understand it’s frustrating, I think the fact that most of the players took their frustrations out on Arrowhead, who have been doing a fantastic job, is really really annoying. Just the average fool who wanted to follow the hivemind, and did not direct the criticism to Sony who was the main cause of this.
Fool describes you. Arrowhead was just as much responsible as Sony, and if you fell for their attempts to obfuscate responsibility then that is on you.
@@Gorgonzeye so after the CEO is incredibly transparent with what happened, his statements are verified by sources and even the video itself mentions that there’s really nothing they can do since they just make the game, you believe that? I know some of you are just “bRiNg dOwN tHe CoRp” far out people but a bit of reasoning goes a long way.
The best part is that they said that there was no resistance from PS users to games being ported to PC. There was. They just chose to ignore it because they DGAF about PS owners.
No, they followed the money both times. People boycotting the game makes less money. People boycotting and buying on PC makes a small difference, because in reality most do not care.
Why would you suppoort something THAT anti-consumer, it just seems like you want to be screwed over. If a game is locked to one platform that means that the developer needs to get ALL the money for the development for the game from one platform.
Why do people care if I can play PS "exclusives" on PC? One of the reasons I haven't bought a PS5 (or 4 for that matter) is that I have a PC, and I'm not gonna drop €500 on a different piece of hardware for like 6 exclusives that have my interest. The exclusives so far on PC haven't interested me either so I haven't bothered. After this, I'm very cautious about Ghosts of Tsushima (a game I'd love to play). I'm not going to buy a PlayStation for one game, and I'm not going to get a PSN account for it either with the lack of trust I have posy major security breaches.
Probably not a sizeable portion of PS users complaining. I personally don’t have an issue with it, Sony can sell their games where they like and are allowed to and costumers can buy the games on whatever platform it’s available on. Don’t see why anyone would have an issue with that, especially with the delay between PS and PC releases
I thought that at first until it was revealed that 120 countries that did not have access to PSN could lose access to the game. I agree that we've had a lot of completely overblown controversies this year (eg Dragon's Dogma 2 MTX) but this one seemed justified.
You could argue gamers more often than not, don’t overreact. It’s why they pay to play online, pay for cloud saves and generally get taken. You get ran over when you allow it. While this isn’t pay to play online, it’s mission creep. It starts small and they see how far they can go.
I feel like sony started to think it over when valve started issuing those refounds to ppl who have not only 2h over the refound limit but 200+ hours of playtime one could say that playtime could be enough for some ppl to say "I got bored of this, might as well refound it now that I can" lol. Tbh SIE prob thought they could get away with it but thank god valve cares more about keeping their user base happy then keeping "few extra bucks" for one game's sales.
PC players are willing to use the power of protest and the power of their wallets to actually get their rights respected, unlike console players who keep paying the increasingly high subscription ransoms just to use their own internet, and giving up the right to even back up their own saves, and internet browser, and so many more other features that they no longer have yet are somehow complacent with it anyway. If you want to stop gaming from getting worse, YOU have to get in the way of these all-powerful corporations and oppose it with whatever leverage you have. Use it or lose it.
This whole controversy was overly overblown, even more so since the steam page of the game mentioned the necessity to link a PSN account since before launch. My only issue really comes down to Sony allowing sales in countries where PSN isn't available. This is, in my opinion, the only reason as to why they decided to back down from imposing this requirement. Someone over at Sony messed up big time and they have no choice but to own up to that mistake. I expect all future multiplayer games on PC to require a PSN account from day one regardless.
@@eded9157 Arrowhead does not handle the selling of the game, that is all on the publisher Sony. Don't start defending the multi-billion dollar corporation, it's a very bad look.
@@NoonDragoon Sony require that linking, thats Sony to blame, but was ArrowHead CEO desabling the linking what create this whole limbo between countries with Steam but no PSN. He knew before hand and took the risk, he miscalculate the consecuences.
Ryan, all due respect - and I do mean that sincerely - it's not called 'lying' when you register and account that is outside the region, or otherwise breaks the terms of, the EULA, it's called coercion. I mean, you're a journalist - you understand the meaning of Information Parity, and how transnational corporations exploit their position of power to 'have their cake and eat it, too', so to speak. the same could be said of Arrowhead CEO's decision to disable the account linking 'reqirement'. it isn't a real requirement if it isn't enforced. the only authority is perceived authority, and no one can perceive the authority of a party which refuses to enforce it's own 'terms and conditions'. that decision, deliberate or not, was an act of coercion to onboard as many players and make the most of the bon homie the game received via organic word-of-mouth advertisement from fellow players. so when Arrowhead and Sony say "PSN Account Required" and then don't enforce that statement in order to make millions of dollars, now who is the liar? I really appreciate your journalistic integrity and objective viewpoint when it comes to many of these conflicts between Capital and the player base, and I'm not trying to call you out or say you've personally said or done anything bad here - I just want to bring to your attention that there is no reason for these apologetics on behalf of the studio or publisher, mild as they may be. the facts speak for themselves: this is a clear-cut case of coercion and duplicitous action on the side of Capital. you don't need to compromise your hard-earned integrity as a journalist in this niche just to appear to remain 'fair and balanced'. I only offer this critique out of a genuine appreciation for your channel and everything you do. you don't need to be critical of Sony or Arrowhead here. that isn't your style anyway, and I greatly enjoy the positivity and respect you show to all parties. just letting you know that straightforward reportage on the facts in cases such as this is still needed, but the apologetics are not. editorialize all you want however. I value your opinions, even if I may not always wholeheartedly agree with them - it's your channel, you can do what you like with it and I will continue to watch either way. with much 💛💜 and respect.
Why did sony as the publisher allow the sale on steam to be global and not restricted to the regions/countries where a psn account can be created for free from the start? On steam the publisher chooses where/how to sell the game
You don't need to sign up for the PSN account in Ghosts I presume unless you launch Legends. Which is a SEPERATE sub menu in the game. I imagine most people playing the single player wont even notice legends. And therefor not see that requirement page.
The only issue I have is even when Sony has accommodated the PC players and I also own the game on PC only actually is that the same audience is still acting like Sony is the bad guys here? It just seems a bit ridiculous of a situation, they did what the audience asked and they are still crapping on them for doing what no publisher has ever done on PC
@@SilverEye91 Oh no, a publisher wants people to use their own ecosystem accounts for a live service game so they can track data and moderate more effectively. That definitely never happened before and Sony is the first to do it /s Man, fucking Steam itself was basically kickstarted by forcing people to install it to play Half-Life 2, even if you bought a physical copy. Sony clearly stated from day 1 that this game was revealed that a PSN account was required. It's Arrowhead who fucked up and allowed people to bypass that and failed to reinstate themselves.
@@curryking1 This wasn't a requirement from the get go and forcing it later one is definitely the bad move. And did you seriously miss that this meant the game couldn't be played in many countries? It's like you people are genuinely trying to have the worst take.
@@SilverEye91 It was a requirement from day one, as evidenced by the big ass warning on all the trailers and the Steam store page. Arrowhead's CEO himself said on Twitter that he personally disabled the required linking on launch as the servers were getting slammed. He self admitted that he also failed to stress that it was a temporary solution. And what the hell do you think happens to console players in those countries? They didn't even get to play the game with no account for the past 3 months. They've had to play with a foreign account just like they need to for every game. No one cared about them until PC players got affected this weekend. This outrage was mostly about whiny Steam fanboys who refuse to do anything outside of Steam (just look at how much hate EGS gets, despite literally giving away games for free) and the fact that PSN isn't available in many countries was just a nice way for them to cover their outrage under the guise of a "noble cause".
Just checked the Steam page and the games reviews are already back up to mixed instead of mostly negative, so its possible that the game may recover from this.
Eh. I don't play this game so I don't really care.. But how is this any different than any of the other games/ services that require their own account to play regardless of what platform someone is playing on?
I think it's not that Sony and Dev Helldiver at arrowhead are to blame...it's a miscommunication, Arrowhead did know the playstation wanted to put PSN before launch for 6 months...
A lot of good info in this video, well done. Until PSN is supported in those countries that don't currently have it, SIE should just not sell their online focused PC games there to begin with. As you said, that's the real problem and the fact that it was being sold in those regions to begin with shows SIE didn't think this through. Obviously other publishers like Ubisoft, EA or Microsoft have a wider net of account support and therefore don't really have this issue but I'd have to assume if they don't have official support then they just don't sell that title there? Other than that serious issue though, people shouldn't be all pissy about making a PSN account for the online titles. It's 2024 and this is how it goes. I can only speak for myself but with my time in Helldivers 2 on PS5, I've almost never played with crossplay turned on because I'm weary of bad actors, all it took was some story about some idiots on PC who were using cheats to obtain tons of resources. I'm all for added security.
If Sony was smart, they would offer free game keys for the opposite platform to anyone that links their PSN and Steam accounts together. CrossBuy was huge when PS3 was around. I would like to see it make a comback.
this would be a great feature but it would have to be supported both ways, buying on psn to get steam key also, and steam/valve has to agree to it, so it's a long way off if it ever happens
Kinda crazy how different the PC and consoles audiences are. I doubt Sony would have done half the shit it did this generation (increasing prices, locking console features behind subscriptions, etc.) if the console folks were as "hardware" as the PC ones. At least I think they make some effort to add the option to change the PSN region after this whole situation. Who knows, perhaps in the next 20 years we will finally see a mere gifting system on the PS Store.
Their ultimate goal is probably to release their own PlayStation game client on PC (a la Ubisoft, EA, MS, etc..) I would be down for that if they offer cross-buy for first party titles.
Good job on the PC player for obtaining this concession. The PS players should take note and do the same to remove the PS Plus requirement for playing online after already investing in the console itself considering the PC alternative.
Currently reverted to 'mixed'. I hope once they reinstate the sale of the game to the whole market the users in said areas and others holding out will update their negative reviews to positive.
Yeah so I’ve been using and buying things on my UAE based PSN account while living in Iraq for about a decade now Its safe to say the numbers matter more for Sony than that PSN regions rule In fact this whole thing about requiring people to link to PSN is also to potentially boost numbers, get more PS Plus subscribers and promote more of their games or services to the PC audience
Sony should have incentivised it, not mandated it. It's interesting how you dismissed the FAQ/ website point. Many PC players have jumped both feet in with that one.
What is a person who bought this game on PC more likely to have seen... an outdated generic FAQ about PS games on PC (created before they had any live service games on it) or the Steam store page where the account requirement is literally highlighted in instantly noticeable yellow coloring?
1 - unlike MS/bethesda, more than 170 countries would be deprived of the game 2 - unlike MS, Sony has a history of many data breach. In my case who owns both a PC and a ps5, I had THREE!!!!! games removed from my library during one of the data breaches and Sony never did helped me and they are lost forever. 3 - PC players fight for what is right. If psn players did too maybe in 2024 we wouldnt need to pay ps plus just to play online and using cloud system
To make matters worse You cannot save your games on a USB without paying playstation plus and if that is not bad enough Sony is going to lose over 30 games on May 17.
@@rafaelgalindo4794 1. Xbox Live is only available in 42 countries which is way less than the 70 odd that PSN is in. 2. Xbox Live like PSN has a long history of security breaches. 3. The only reason PS+ exists is Xbox Live users were the first to bend over and take it.
For me at least, those data breaches AND the extremely invasive age verification you MUST go through here in the UK to set up a PSN account, yes Microsoft have this as well but only for adults verifying a child's account, means that no PC gamer in the UK is likely to sign up for a PSN account. I have to say though that this is a very fair take on the whole situation 👍
You dont buy a game, play it for 4 months and then get it taken away from you permanently because your country isnt linked to PSN. Thats the big one, then Sony needing your ID as a citizen or your face with your account, with them getting breached twice last year, also make PC not want to give that info, so no, not the same.
Difference is that at the start it was not required to have a PSN account to play the game and for many people who bought the game on steam and lived in countries that PSN isn’t supported would not be able to access the game
Steam probably told them they are going to refund every single one of the refund requests and hold any further game purchases from their games until it’s made up and they were like yeah no
The only way I see them coming back from this is offering Hell Divers 2 for free on PS and for the price of the pro consoles to be similar or same to the base models.
and there is an issue with PSN on PC cause think about it PSN Account/MS Account/EA Account/Ubi Account/Riot Accounts/Blizzard Accounts/Steam Account/EGS Account and the list goes on and on and we end up with 30 accounts min and how can u remember all those accounts?
Don't let up the pressure yet until all our brothers and sisters of 177 regions reach home before letting go of the reviews, we dive together or none at all
With how successful the game is to then this happening it makes you wonder why they can’t just leave stuff alone and just enjoy the success instead of trying to adjust things ( If it isn’t broke don’t change it )
The psn linking was always part of the plan though? It was literally on the steam page. They disabled it temporarily because of the server issues they had
The real damage is publish games on PC instead of keeping them exclusive to the console to add value to the platform. I guess for Sony now the PC is their main focus....
@@unicorntomboy9736 Not true? Sony raised the PS Plus cost by a lot, people claimed and they ignored. Then PC just claim about a stupid account link and they backtrack in 48h... they don't care about console consumers anymore, we are a second class citizens. We pay PS plus to play helldivers 2 on PS5, we pay for Cloud saves on PSN... open your eyes.
Can't be the only one who thinks all this shits over blown nearly every multiplayer game has these accounts sign ups hell sea of theives doesn't even disclose it on the store page on playstation until you buy the game and boot it up. It stated on the store page months in advance it would require psn the country thing is obviously a balls up but considering most people complaining weren't even talking about that. Can guarantee if the next game has this from the get go and the country thing doesn't happen there will STILL be complaining. There's 193 countries in the world psn is available on over 70, 177 math ain't mathing
@@aayushattri3238 Yeah definitely in reference to Sony's image, people don't forget slimy stuff like this, clearly Helldivers 2 is gonna be fine, definitely not what "damage is done" was referencing
Also them banning the cell of the game in those regions when they did would’ve prevented more people from those places asking for refunds you wouldn’t ask for a refund on something you didn’t buy
If the PSN requirement was always supposed to be mandatory, the game should never have been available in countries without PSN. This was handled terribly from the start.
This whole debacle was a lack of foresight on Sony’s part. The game should not have been sold at all in countries where PSN does not exist from the get go
Mixed feelings about this situation. On the one hand PSN accounts are free nobody would hurt if they register, but on the other hand: if you bought the game and cannot register to PSN, you have wasted time and money in this game. Sometimes I feel these companies are not lead by real gamers, only suits. That make me sad.
unfortunately Sony was hacked twice last year and has always had sketchy online security for both customers and employees, here in the UK PSN wants a scan of a government ID to make an account, theirs no way id have bought the game if i new that id have to give them anything like that
@@jeffreygranda9815 Helldivers 2 did really good when it first launched, but as soon as this requirement was announced, the game got review bombed and players immediately asked for refunds
I think It's great that Sony is releasing PC games but hopefully they make It simple and not complicated. PC gaming is fun but I prefer playing Sony games on Sony PlayStation. But I do find this topic interesting. Cool video. ^_^
I've been playing Helldivers since day two, and I would've kept playing even if they had PSN linking. I'm lucky enough to live in the UK, but I won't be buying another Sony-published game or even considering getting a PlayStation.
The damage has been done, but the damage is just a fart in the face. It stinks but people will get over it as long as Sony informs their customers properly.
it's all good. I've already added sony as publisher to my ignore list. Since they don't know they don't support PSN in my country i just made it easier for them
A real shame it claps the boys having such a huge success with this game. A true sony blunder, but the requirement was listed there all along. I thought it was related to trophy support to begin with, until this blew up. That being said, third party accounts for certain games isnt new to the steam library - as a user since launch of that platform - weve had to make EA, ubisoft and other accounts for certain games. But that have yet to prohibit use of the software or service, like this one. Great coverage as always, Ryan.
Did you know in places like Ukraine in India you can only make a PSN if you have the console so for the all the pc over there they’d to buy a console just to have a psn to link in the first place like wtf just let make it on their phone or pc like everyone else 🤦🏾♂️
From now on they won't allow devs to "turn off" PSN integration initially as they did with Helldivers. I expect going forward that it will always be mandated, starting from launch. With that said, I bet you won't see this kinda fuss when GTA VI makes it's way over to PC, and it requires the Rockstar launcher lmao.
Longtime Playstation Gamer here! Have a Pretty Extensive Library of Games, However I Recognize Sony as A Company Is Garbage; The fact they don’t take Us Seriously Is Despicable- even more Despicable, It took Steam players- A Completely different Group of Gamers, To make them back down! If i could Transfer my games to a Different Company, i would in A Second (Not Xbox) Sony is NOT to be trusted with Any personal Data Whatsoever! Had to change my passwords On several occasions due to their Incompetence! My Advice to Any Steam player? Do NOT Purchase any Game that might show up on your Store thats Associated with Sony; this isn’t the end And they will undoubtedly try again to Force Y’all to Link a PSN account, Don’t do it! Hopefully All of You Steam Users Realize What kind of Company Sony Is, And To not Associate in any way..
![RUMOR: PS6 Design is Complete, Dev Kits 2026. | Studio Shakeup & Live Service Updates - [LTPS #658]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/HLjFBlPqQeY/mqdefault.jpg)
![RUMOR: PS6 Design is Complete, Dev Kits 2026. | Studio Shakeup & Live Service Updates - [LTPS #658]](/img/tr.png)
![Sony Wants PC Gamers To Buy A PS5. | Big PS5 Reveal Faces Backlash. - [LTPS #624]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/ogk6IIIRStw/mqdefault.jpg)
Once steam stepped in and took it off the store front for those 100+ countries. That's when the suits stepped in lol
I didn't know there were that many countries to begin with
@@unicorntomboy9736Typical murican
@@unicorntomboy9736its actually pretty wild
@unicorntomboy9736 look at a map sometime lol
Sony removed them not steam.
I wish more people would realize the "console wars" aren't/shouldnt be between corporations, it should be between consumers and corporations
🎯
Sony PR destruction Speedrun
Exactly. Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft doesnt care about u. U should protest them all equally.
@@Cornhog1552 All 3 don't care about the consumer and only 1 actually cares about their developers.
Sounds a lot like the culture war vs. the class war...
Wait a second!!
Playstation consoles have always been available in my country (not officially) but PSN wasn't (still isn't available) but recently Playstation itself started officially selling consoles here (a little bit after PS5 launched) yet they don't expect me to make an account of a country that isn't where I live?! How come?!
I thought it was fine by them all along, otherwise why the hell sell consoles here officially?!
From what I've researched, you can purchase the ps3, 4 or 5 and make the account. Without the console, you can't make a free account. Also, I was in the Philippines for a while and some of my friends had the ps4 and were online.
What country are you from?
I played on ps since ps1 when I was just a kid. The same here in my country, but this is because they are fucking sony, take it from an old ps player.
@@Neko-sanmy guess is Egypt.
@@pjmack177 the problem isn't in the process of making an account in an unsupported country, that's easy as ryan mentioned and anybody anywhere in the world can do. it's the idea that sony sells the ps5 officially in a egypt and not supporting having an egyptian account, but if i make an account that isn't egyptian (which is the only option i have) then i'm violating the "terms of usage" or whatever.
it's like sony wants me to have fingers but without hands! it's impossible.
All they had to do was make it optional and give free credits or premium armor something! People would have gladly linked an account.
Yeah, because all it takes is a free in-game cosmetic and "gamers" forget all of a sudden.
@@user-sn8zx5mv1x yall forgot about abk management harrasing employees, think they will forget an extra sign in prompt.
The biggest sticking point in all this for me is that if it was always Sony's plan to require PSN linking for the game, then why did they choose to sell Helldivers 2 in regions that didn't have PSN? Either it wasn't always their plan to make it mandatory or they knowingly sold the game to people who would be unable to play it in just a few short months from release. Either option does not look good for them. Sony is really plummeting in my eyes this gen, and I'm someone who was defending them during the PS3 era.
It's clear this wasn't very well thought out and if I had to guess a communication issue between Arrowhead and Sony and they probably didn't expect the game to blow up the way it did and became an overnight sensation. I believe Sony when they say they are still learning about PC lol. Maybe this can push for a resolution to make PSN accessible in those countries where it isn't, at the very least for PC users in a way where they can create an account to play their games. Sometimes we learn things the hard way, no different for big corporations.
Beacuse thats Steam not Sony, the linking would have block that sale. The problem is Arrow Head CEO decide to skip the linking temporary which allow the situation to occur.
@@eded9157 That's not how Steam works at all. Steam is distributor and it's the publisher who chooses where and how to sell the game. Have you even played HD2 or are you just blindly defending Sony? You link your PSN account in-game after purchase, how would the requirement being there from Day 1 prevent people from purchasing it on Steam? Steam doesn't do a check for a PSN account when you buy a game from them, if the game is available to purchase then you can buy it.
Probably because Sony didn’t even know that you cant make a PSN account in certain countries or forgot. They probably think that if you have Steam in your country, you can make a PSN account. The CEO of Arrowhead didn’t know this problem either.
@@NoonDragoon because that would be on the 2 hour refund time, not 3 months after.
It never ceases to amaze me how disconnected these corporations are. It’s SO easy to make good PR to the gaming community and to put yourself in a good light with gamers/fans and yet these gaming companies consistently make themselves look foolish. Baffling.
Exactly. They just have to put themselves on the gamer's point of view for once.
It's actually not easy to make the correct decisions when you're as large as Sony. Every country they're in the player base has different thought process. Japanese player base most certainly doesn't care about other countries and only want great games. The US player base is all about keeping politics out of the games unless implemented in a fun way like Helldivers 2. The EU player base is heavily on pricing and what not.
@@KRIAJK The US is mostly pushing the politics in the games with the likes of sweet baby Inc and other woke entities. And Sony HQ in wokeville California.
Their interests don't align with ours (consumers)
@@KRIAJK yeah but the stuff you mentioned there is largely understood by players.
This issue with Sony and hell divers was completely avoidable. And I’m also talking about stuff like Nintendo pressing copyright infringements on RUclipsrs who use Nintendo music.
Stuff like that is just bad PR all around and these companies just don’t either get it or don’t care
It wasn't clear from the steam page what the PSN account was required for, whether it was to play the game at all, or if it limited access to some features (nor explained at all in the EULA). The Ghost of Tsushima page now actually says what the account is required for.
Looking back at one of their pre-launch promo releases: "Legal: PSN Account Required. Gameplay requires internet access and paid for PlayStation Plus membership (sold separately) for PS5." Yep, this is not clear enough for selling on a non-Playstation platform.
Got to wonder, who is actually making these anti consumer decisions at Sony?
This is one of the most common practices in online games. Publishers want to track the players activity. I really don't get why people have complained so much about it now (besides those in countries without PSN that would lose access)
mtx are anti consumer, making an account is not, let it go already
Business old heads who clearly have zero clue how their userbase is like and even how their product works. All they care about is money and numbers, and of course they got to call the shots, no matter how it would affect the end user or the livelihood of their employees. Every big company has at least one of those people.
Out of touch old business men?
Hermen Hulst right?
Honestly the worst part about situations like this are the people will take to sending death threats to anyone associated with the company. The community manager for Helldiver's 2 reported receiving death threats, like that will fix anything.
that's dumb but in the same time i can understand those ppls cause the yare mad pissed of cause they bought the game and i highly doubt it that Valve gave every gamer a refund of that game
There are 100% legit arguments why this was optically bad, main issue being PSN's availability around the globe but in the end it just turned into console war shenanigans and just another reason to hate Sony. Them fixing it wont matter 🤷🏻
Says who? This channel? They're returning in flocks back to the game
The thing with the unsupported countries I don't get: is there not a single PS4/5 in the Philippines, for example, that can play online games? There's no way that's the case. There has to be a workaround accepted by Sony. I've even seen a screenshot of Sony support saying to create an account in a neighboring country, loke Hong Kong for the Philippines, but I can't confirm it's veracity.
Like, if you live in the Vatican state, for example, you would create an Italian account, no? A lot of those 177 countries steam locked sales in were territories, some not even recognized anymore, that are part of bigger countries. It's not like Sony only supports like 20 countries
In those 20ish accepted countries, you can just "spend 120 seconds" and sign up to link your account. In the unaccepted countries, you need to buy (and own) a PS4/PS5 to make a PSN account, only for that console. You can't just make a universal account for free to play PC games. Many of these countries have really low wages, making buying a PS5 something unattainable for the average person.
American mindset as its finest until they realise Japan is one of the 177 countries
@@Bunnymorphosis no it is not. Japan has its own separate version because of voice actors unions. You can still buy the game in Japan
@@user-ck7tg1dq9y what's stopping them from selecting a country that is supported by PSN?
@@deathpunchrigby1664 It's against Sony TOS, and they'll ban you if they catch you. Essentially, Sony sold a game in countries that couldn't possibly follow their own rules yet still collected the money.
It such an arbitrary requirement.
Much like Ubisoft demanding you download their proprietary software 'Uplay' to launch their games on PC.
Helldivers 2 was the straw that brokes the camel's back.
And I personally: I think it's time to collectively discuss finding a better way to do Cross-Platform solutions, one that should be done and accepted across the board.
Thus, we need a more centralized solution, something open source, something akin to FIDO standards.
any off them that want more than my name email and date of birth usually gets my wallet closed on them, PC gamers hate his shit
The correct move IMO is to give in-game benefits (but not gameplay advantages) for those who link, but to not require it. Encourage and entice but don't force. Many players don't want an account with every gaming company ever.
there are 195 countries and PSN is available in 69 of them, SteamDB for example got this wrong saying it wasnt available in 177 countries.
Probably counted countries that not everyone recognizes, like Palestine, Taiwan, and Western Sahara, to make it more dramatic
@@yadeel8281Taiwan is a recognize country, you can find them listed on both playstation and Xbox.
But yeah, there are probably some for dramatic effect, like North Korea 😅
@@denmaakujin9161 ah ok thank you. I had no idea, I was giving my best guess
Don't know why people keep saying countries it's regions not countries.
I love how level headed Ryan's take are. IMO this whole thing is blown out of proportion. It is just very convenient to ignore the fact that the account requirement info was always on the Steam page. But I agree, Sony should have made sure players were being reminded of that change coming right from the start, perhaps with an in-game message.
Stuff we need in future PlayStation updates (DAY 5)
1. Being able to separate party chat audio from recordings when sharing them
2. Being able to use voice keyboard inside of games
3. Fix an annoying bug that suspends your game when trying to save a clip with a full storage, thus deleting your clip
4. Being able to record System UI
5. Explore tab in all regions
6. This is more of a visual thing but it would be cool to make the default selection in the quick menu to be on the home button rather than being on the far left
7. I'm not a storage expert but if it's possible to make video clips and screenshots to save on your m.2 SSD that would be helpful!
8. Letting more 3rd party services the ability to create media apps for the PlayStation
9. PlayStation Stars being in all regions
10. Being able to check for updates in the library tab, this is currently limited to games that are on the homescreen
11. Backing up save files using a usb on PS5 and not being limited to cloud storage only
12. PS4 players should be able to see your share screen
13. Ability to buy avatars on ps5 like you used to do on ps4
These were some of the most important things that the current state for the PS5 software need after owning the console since launch day.
Let me know if there are more options you'd like to see added in the replies and I'll add them to the list
⚠⚠ Re-share this comment in every PlayStation related video! ⚠⚠
The biggest mistake really was not enforcing this day one. By not enforcing it, they give proof to the community that a PSN login is purely for arbitrary reasons instead of being a core part of their network infrastructure.
Reminds me when Nintendo Switch online multiplayer was still free
am angry about that PSN BS on PC but i will still buy their games on PC but i will never buy a Console i do not care if they have games like GTA 6 or the next GOW or TLOU 3 i can always wait seens we got so many games comming each month on PC while on Consoles are Timed Exclusives at this point
It's mixed reviews now. Community is working hard to get it back to positive as they promised.
Damn imagine if many did this with paying to play online & cloud saves behind a paywall I wish
Main reason I am migrating from psn to PC after decades (playing on psn since thr 90s)
I never renewed ps plus after the disastrous price hike. $180 dollars for “premium”
I wish. I left PS after they made PS+ required to play online. That said, this was mostly because PC gamers don't take this shit. Microsoft tried to add Xbox live in the past to PC but it failed. However console gamers just take it up the ass, hence why not enough people complained after Sony and Nintendo charged to play online
I wish this momentum could carry to get rid of all these extra launchers at the very least. It's ridiculous. I'll tell you I mostly game on PC and bought a PS5 a year and a half ago after not gaming on a console for a long time. I bought AC Valhalla for PS5 cheap and I couldn't remember my old Ubisoft account credentials. I had created a new one on PC and tried to link that one to my PSN and couldnt because an older Ubi account was already tied to my PS account a long time ago I dont even remember and I couldn't untie it because I didn't remember my credentials. I try to get in contact with Ubisoft nothing. I essentially cant play Ubisoft games on my PS5. It's insane.
I hate all this extra stuff. Bethesda tried to make a launcher and there was enough push back where they got rid of it. I think the Helldiver community being so community driven and this decision being pivot point it was the perfect recipe for many people to stand up and I was surprised how many came together. I too never expected Sony to backtrack.
@@TerraWare this. I dont care if I will miss out on a game. If theres other stuff to do besides paying for thr gamr and downloading it, I will not play it. Ita ridiculous that in 2024 we still pay just to play online and use cloud system.
Damage is done? Nah, gamers will move on to the next big drama moment and complain about that.
agreed. Completely understand the hate from those who cant make a PSN account, but for those who can they just like to moan and moan and moan
literally, I mean I haven’t heard about Stellar Blade in almost two weeks now lmao
It's cute that people think anything changes from here 😂. Sweet summer children.
Yall remember when "eveyone" was "boycotting" ABK.. Probably not! And that was some serious real world issues not just yeah I don't wana sign into a next account!
Yep, all the content creators will move on to the next engagement farm.
The fact that Sony would mandate PSN accounts for a game sold on Steam, in regions where PSN isn't available, is mind boggling. It means some players who bought the game at full price would eventually have been locked out... seriously, who at Sony made this brain-dead decision? Heads need to roll in their headquarters.
And I'm not even a PC player myself. But this was just a pathetic show of idiocy that I just can't wrap my head around.
Easy way to avoid this would've been to not sell it in those countries. However that'd affect sales so the best way would've just been an incentive "link your account and you get exclusive skins/credits or whatever". That way the countries that can't make accounts would miss out but only on optional things (and it's not unheard of, there's always been promotions and products only available in the US and Europe like the steamdeck)
I think having psn account linking on launch would've filtered those countries that have psn unavailable to them. But it wasn't enforced so yeah..
The double standards are crazy. I wish there was an outcry for log ins to MS, Acti-Blizz, Ubi, and several others for their respective games.
But I guess the line is with Sony
Exactly. PC players are logged into MS, steam, and google, but God forbid they make a psn account.
Everyone hates those as well. There just wasn't a way to take stands against them.
I couldn't play doom eternal on my PS5 till I made a Bethesda account but nobody made a fuss about that iirc
Well if it requires it I simply don't buy it.
If they make it mandatory afterwards it's a problem, you don't see the problem here.
@@Chr15Payne That actually sounds dog shit
The problem with this is that every other AAA publisher did the same thing and nobody said anything UNTIL PlayStation did it. Absurd.
I’ll be glad to find out how many actual PC players are playing this relative to PS5 players. I suspect there’s like 10M-11M PS5 and about 300k-400k Pc Players. Sony probably would have not relented if most of the players were on PC.
One thing too realize is Sony knowingly sold to countries that could not sign up for PSN, so it is not absurd that people got angry when they would lose their game they paid for in those countries.
And, Actually 60 percent of players are pc players and only 40 percent are console. It has been posted in many articles that the pc player base made the game a bigger success. you can easily look it up. I found out the percentages by following the whole situation.
@@susancollins3971 Until I see actual sales numbers and not speculation or excitement of PC players/games media excitement about a day date release I will assume the ratio is that same as it has been for all PS games released on PC.
The main objection most players aimed at Sony was that they just wanted to inflate PSN numbers, but if they were going to cut off 160 countries that seems to not make a lot of sense. I suspect that going forward they likely will reimplement the PSN account requirement for MP from the beginning of launch only for those countries where PSN operates.
It's hilarious a company like Sony thought shutting down basically half of the global fanbase of your current hottest game would generate more money in PSN subscriptions whoever thought this was a good idea should be fired on the spot.
Why
Sony decision makers in a nutshell right now. Ever play an RTS game and start getting sloppy when you have the lead? Good players don’t do that.
@unicorntomboy9736, what do you mean why? You're suggesting killing your biggest game because you want to integrate your online service, which isn't available to most populations in the world, and you lose all that revenue? Seriously, a company like Sony should have seen something this dumb is from a business standpoint from miles away.
@@cynoflads PSN is available to most people, at least in all the important countries where most gamers are, like the UK and Japan
It's hilarious when it was originally planned, but slight issues caused a delay adding it, so Sony did the right thing launched the game without until it was ready to add it yet small number was crying EVIL SONY we hate playstation don't want psn account 🙄 yet, but sonys games🙄, anyway sony being a Fan friendly company YES FAN FRIENDLY went back in this to please the crybabies who can't be asses wasting 2 mins creating a FREE PSN account simple while other games like sea of thieves requires xbox account but pc gamers fine with that though
Normally I agree with Mystic, but not in this case. If people actually took some responsibility for themselves and read the terms of use before they agreed to it, none of this would be a surprise or a controversy. The only thing ambiguous is those 177 countries that think they'll be locked out of the game, but you're supposed to select your closest region when you can't select the region you actually live in. That was not communicated well and thus, Sony is not faultless, but the PSN requirement was made known up front from the start.
If they want PC players to sign into psn they need to offer a desktop app like xbox AND let users play the games they already owned on console
“The damage is done”. I don’t know. They listened. People are going to remember that to.
People will get over it and forget in 2 weeks. Why do you think this keeps happening over and over all over the industry?
Sony will too and just make sure it's there day one
Internet is forever. The damage was definitely done
@@Jako101 these things blow over in a week or two, ALL THE TIME.
Not seen anyone complaining about the digital PS5 price increase lately for example or the Dualsense Edge battery life
@@Jako101 that’s actually good. They handled it poorly but after the outrage they backed off. This wasn’t a big deal to begin with, the only real big thing was people who couldn’t play a game that they paid for.
I mean, for once that they didn’t double down on their stupidity. I want to give them credit.
Cheers mate.
man, i kinda can’t stand the state of modern video gaming
Get a PC
Great coverage overall, Ryan, but one thing that wasn’t mentioned is what PSN represents to PC Players (beyond “just another account): Paid online gaming.
One reason I’m moving to PC is because my kids and I want to play Granblue Fantasy Relink together and, on Playstation, I would have an annual expense of $300+ to make that happen. On PC, that’s free … but if they start requiring it for online multiplayer of Sony titles, what’s to stop them from charging for their “exclusives”?
With the price hikes last year, I and many others cancelled our subscriptions because, ultimately, Sony have shown us that TDGAF about their players, so long as they can milk some or all of us dry. And in expanding to PC, that opens up another avenue for recurring revenue; Sure they’d have to offer something, but they’re a business and I find it highly naive to think that they would force this on players to just “leave it there”. Sony doesn’t have a track record that shows they know what and when to leave things the **** alone.
For PC Players, that represents problematic history, bad precedent and a future that is not only antithetical to what we have had since the beginning, it’s not what we want at all.
Whilst I understand it’s frustrating, I think the fact that most of the players took their frustrations out on Arrowhead, who have been doing a fantastic job, is really really annoying. Just the average fool who wanted to follow the hivemind, and did not direct the criticism to Sony who was the main cause of this.
Fool describes you. Arrowhead was just as much responsible as Sony, and if you fell for their attempts to obfuscate responsibility then that is on you.
@@Gorgonzeye so after the CEO is incredibly transparent with what happened, his statements are verified by sources and even the video itself mentions that there’s really nothing they can do since they just make the game, you believe that? I know some of you are just “bRiNg dOwN tHe CoRp” far out people but a bit of reasoning goes a long way.
Honestly, maybe because I have not been super aware of this until yesterday. But I saw more comments against Sony than arrowhead
@@lemonlime8949 You're just wrong. We have leaked emails, we have archives of deleted tweets.
@@Nigatsu yeah but who do you think the review bombing affects more, arrowhead or Sony?
The best part is that they said that there was no resistance from PS users to games being ported to PC.
There was. They just chose to ignore it because they DGAF about PS owners.
No, they followed the money both times. People boycotting the game makes less money. People boycotting and buying on PC makes a small difference, because in reality most do not care.
I bought it on steam because i dont pay for online on ps... So no i am happy its on pc
Why would you suppoort something THAT anti-consumer, it just seems like you want to be screwed over. If a game is locked to one platform that means that the developer needs to get ALL the money for the development for the game from one platform.
Why do people care if I can play PS "exclusives" on PC? One of the reasons I haven't bought a PS5 (or 4 for that matter) is that I have a PC, and I'm not gonna drop €500 on a different piece of hardware for like 6 exclusives that have my interest. The exclusives so far on PC haven't interested me either so I haven't bothered.
After this, I'm very cautious about Ghosts of Tsushima (a game I'd love to play). I'm not going to buy a PlayStation for one game, and I'm not going to get a PSN account for it either with the lack of trust I have posy major security breaches.
Probably not a sizeable portion of PS users complaining. I personally don’t have an issue with it, Sony can sell their games where they like and are allowed to and costumers can buy the games on whatever platform it’s available on. Don’t see why anyone would have an issue with that, especially with the delay between PS and PC releases
Ive noticed pc players let them companies hear their voice more often I’ve noticed
It's so weird seeing people act like this controversy is the end of the world. I wish a lot of gamers wouldn't overreact to stuff.
I thought that at first until it was revealed that 120 countries that did not have access to PSN could lose access to the game.
I agree that we've had a lot of completely overblown controversies this year (eg Dragon's Dogma 2 MTX) but this one seemed justified.
You could argue gamers more often than not, don’t overreact. It’s why they pay to play online, pay for cloud saves and generally get taken. You get ran over when you allow it. While this isn’t pay to play online, it’s mission creep. It starts small and they see how far they can go.
I feel like sony started to think it over when valve started issuing those refounds to ppl who have not only 2h over the refound limit but 200+ hours of playtime one could say that playtime could be enough for some ppl to say "I got bored of this, might as well refound it now that I can" lol.
Tbh SIE prob thought they could get away with it but thank god valve cares more about keeping their user base happy then keeping "few extra bucks" for one game's sales.
Are pc gamers gonna lose their mind over Ghost of Tsushima requiring you to sign in to psn on pc too?
PC players are willing to use the power of protest and the power of their wallets to actually get their rights respected, unlike console players who keep paying the increasingly high subscription ransoms just to use their own internet, and giving up the right to even back up their own saves, and internet browser, and so many more other features that they no longer have yet are somehow complacent with it anyway. If you want to stop gaming from getting worse, YOU have to get in the way of these all-powerful corporations and oppose it with whatever leverage you have. Use it or lose it.
This whole controversy was overly overblown, even more so since the steam page of the game mentioned the necessity to link a PSN account since before launch. My only issue really comes down to Sony allowing sales in countries where PSN isn't available. This is, in my opinion, the only reason as to why they decided to back down from imposing this requirement. Someone over at Sony messed up big time and they have no choice but to own up to that mistake. I expect all future multiplayer games on PC to require a PSN account from day one regardless.
That was on ArrowHead, not Sony.
@@eded9157 Arrowhead does not handle the selling of the game, that is all on the publisher Sony. Don't start defending the multi-billion dollar corporation, it's a very bad look.
@@eded9157 Both can be at fault. Stop limiting your POV.
@@HuskerDerp lol
@@NoonDragoon Sony require that linking, thats Sony to blame, but was ArrowHead CEO desabling the linking what create this whole limbo between countries with Steam but no PSN. He knew before hand and took the risk, he miscalculate the consecuences.
Sonys Goal: Make Money
Sony when they reach set goal: nuh nuh nuh, this is too much money. Lets do something stupid
Ryan, all due respect - and I do mean that sincerely - it's not called 'lying' when you register and account that is outside the region, or otherwise breaks the terms of, the EULA, it's called coercion. I mean, you're a journalist - you understand the meaning of Information Parity, and how transnational corporations exploit their position of power to 'have their cake and eat it, too', so to speak.
the same could be said of Arrowhead CEO's decision to disable the account linking 'reqirement'. it isn't a real requirement if it isn't enforced. the only authority is perceived authority, and no one can perceive the authority of a party which refuses to enforce it's own 'terms and conditions'. that decision, deliberate or not, was an act of coercion to onboard as many players and make the most of the bon homie the game received via organic word-of-mouth advertisement from fellow players. so when Arrowhead and Sony say "PSN Account Required" and then don't enforce that statement in order to make millions of dollars, now who is the liar?
I really appreciate your journalistic integrity and objective viewpoint when it comes to many of these conflicts between Capital and the player base, and I'm not trying to call you out or say you've personally said or done anything bad here - I just want to bring to your attention that there is no reason for these apologetics on behalf of the studio or publisher, mild as they may be. the facts speak for themselves: this is a clear-cut case of coercion and duplicitous action on the side of Capital. you don't need to compromise your hard-earned integrity as a journalist in this niche just to appear to remain 'fair and balanced'.
I only offer this critique out of a genuine appreciation for your channel and everything you do. you don't need to be critical of Sony or Arrowhead here. that isn't your style anyway, and I greatly enjoy the positivity and respect you show to all parties. just letting you know that straightforward reportage on the facts in cases such as this is still needed, but the apologetics are not. editorialize all you want however. I value your opinions, even if I may not always wholeheartedly agree with them - it's your channel, you can do what you like with it and I will continue to watch either way.
with much 💛💜 and respect.
Why did sony as the publisher allow the sale on steam to be global and not restricted to the regions/countries where a psn account can be created for free from the start? On steam the publisher chooses where/how to sell the game
I want to know who thought needing a PSN for Helldivers 2 on steam was a good idea. *insert Peter Griffin i just wanna talk to him gif*
You don't need to sign up for the PSN account in Ghosts I presume unless you launch Legends. Which is a SEPERATE sub menu in the game. I imagine most people playing the single player wont even notice legends. And therefor not see that requirement page.
sony told arrowhead to sort it from the start but with the problems with servers at start they delayed it, but arrowhead knew it was coming
The only issue I have is even when Sony has accommodated the PC players and I also own the game on PC only actually is that the same audience is still acting like Sony is the bad guys here? It just seems a bit ridiculous of a situation, they did what the audience asked and they are still crapping on them for doing what no publisher has ever done on PC
What do you mean? Sony was definitely the bad guy here. That they backed down doesn't make them good guys, they were still intending to do it.
@@SilverEye91 Oh no, a publisher wants people to use their own ecosystem accounts for a live service game so they can track data and moderate more effectively. That definitely never happened before and Sony is the first to do it /s
Man, fucking Steam itself was basically kickstarted by forcing people to install it to play Half-Life 2, even if you bought a physical copy.
Sony clearly stated from day 1 that this game was revealed that a PSN account was required. It's Arrowhead who fucked up and allowed people to bypass that and failed to reinstate themselves.
@@danissary literally facts too steam started as a forced application to be able to even play cs or half life lmao 😂
@@curryking1 This wasn't a requirement from the get go and forcing it later one is definitely the bad move. And did you seriously miss that this meant the game couldn't be played in many countries?
It's like you people are genuinely trying to have the worst take.
@@SilverEye91 It was a requirement from day one, as evidenced by the big ass warning on all the trailers and the Steam store page. Arrowhead's CEO himself said on Twitter that he personally disabled the required linking on launch as the servers were getting slammed. He self admitted that he also failed to stress that it was a temporary solution.
And what the hell do you think happens to console players in those countries? They didn't even get to play the game with no account for the past 3 months. They've had to play with a foreign account just like they need to for every game. No one cared about them until PC players got affected this weekend.
This outrage was mostly about whiny Steam fanboys who refuse to do anything outside of Steam (just look at how much hate EGS gets, despite literally giving away games for free) and the fact that PSN isn't available in many countries was just a nice way for them to cover their outrage under the guise of a "noble cause".
What podcast is Ryan talking about @5min mark?
spawncast
Just checked the Steam page and the games reviews are already back up to mixed instead of mostly negative, so its possible that the game may recover from this.
Eh. I don't play this game so I don't really care.. But how is this any different than any of the other games/ services that require their own account to play regardless of what platform someone is playing on?
Made me realize that maybe if the console communities had as much resillience as PC, maybe PS Plus for online wouldn't cost $80, or anything at all...
Just the man I've been hoping to see a video from about this.
Now if only people could do this for literally everything else Sony does stupidly
Or any company. Sony aren't the only corporation that makes dumb decisions.
I think it's not that Sony and Dev Helldiver at arrowhead are to blame...it's a miscommunication, Arrowhead did know the playstation wanted to put PSN before launch for 6 months...
Lol funny how these mistakes always benefit the corporation
@@maalikserebryakov ikr 😂
A lot of good info in this video, well done. Until PSN is supported in those countries that don't currently have it, SIE should just not sell their online focused PC games there to begin with. As you said, that's the real problem and the fact that it was being sold in those regions to begin with shows SIE didn't think this through.
Obviously other publishers like Ubisoft, EA or Microsoft have a wider net of account support and therefore don't really have this issue but I'd have to assume if they don't have official support then they just don't sell that title there?
Other than that serious issue though, people shouldn't be all pissy about making a PSN account for the online titles. It's 2024 and this is how it goes. I can only speak for myself but with my time in Helldivers 2 on PS5, I've almost never played with crossplay turned on because I'm weary of bad actors, all it took was some story about some idiots on PC who were using cheats to obtain tons of resources.
I'm all for added security.
If Sony was smart, they would offer free game keys for the opposite platform to anyone that links their PSN and Steam accounts together. CrossBuy was huge when PS3 was around. I would like to see it make a comback.
this would be a great feature but it would have to be supported both ways, buying on psn to get steam key also, and steam/valve has to agree to it, so it's a long way off if it ever happens
Kinda crazy how different the PC and consoles audiences are. I doubt Sony would have done half the shit it did this generation (increasing prices, locking console features behind subscriptions, etc.) if the console folks were as "hardware" as the PC ones.
At least I think they make some effort to add the option to change the PSN region after this whole situation. Who knows, perhaps in the next 20 years we will finally see a mere gifting system on the PS Store.
Their ultimate goal is probably to release their own PlayStation game client on PC (a la Ubisoft, EA, MS, etc..) I would be down for that if they offer cross-buy for first party titles.
Didn’t somebody on the SpawnCast say that they wouldn’t back down? 😅
Good job on the PC player for obtaining this concession.
The PS players should take note and do the same to remove the PS Plus requirement for playing online after already investing in the console itself considering the PC alternative.
Currently reverted to 'mixed'. I hope once they reinstate the sale of the game to the whole market the users in said areas and others holding out will update their negative reviews to positive.
Forgoing the PSN linking initially is probably the reason why the friends list is still broken in game
I'm still surprised that after so long PSN is still not available in so many countries. Be better, do better, Sony!!!
Yeah so I’ve been using and buying things on my UAE based PSN account while living in Iraq for about a decade now
Its safe to say the numbers matter more for Sony than that PSN regions rule
In fact this whole thing about requiring people to link to PSN is also to potentially boost numbers, get more PS Plus subscribers and promote more of their games or services to the PC audience
Sony should have incentivised it, not mandated it. It's interesting how you dismissed the FAQ/ website point. Many PC players have jumped both feet in with that one.
What is a person who bought this game on PC more likely to have seen... an outdated generic FAQ about PS games on PC (created before they had any live service games on it) or the Steam store page where the account requirement is literally highlighted in instantly noticeable yellow coloring?
"This is for your own protection and security." -Sony, Totalitarian Dictator
I still don't get why it's such a big deal. You have to sign into xbox to play their games on PC and Playstation. Why are people throwing a fit?
1 - unlike MS/bethesda, more than 170 countries would be deprived of the game
2 - unlike MS, Sony has a history of many data breach. In my case who owns both a PC and a ps5, I had THREE!!!!! games removed from my library during one of the data breaches and Sony never did helped me and they are lost forever.
3 - PC players fight for what is right. If psn players did too maybe in 2024 we wouldnt need to pay ps plus just to play online and using cloud system
Do your research before you ask stupid questions
To make matters worse You cannot save your games on a USB without paying playstation plus and if that is not bad enough Sony is going to lose over 30 games on May 17.
@@rafaelgalindo4794
1. Xbox Live is only available in 42 countries which is way less than the 70 odd that PSN is in.
2. Xbox Live like PSN has a long history of security breaches.
3. The only reason PS+ exists is Xbox Live users were the first to bend over and take it.
@@rafaelgalindo4794xbox live is only available in 42 counties which is less than psn and they too have had lots of security breaches
For me at least, those data breaches AND the extremely invasive age verification you MUST go through here in the UK to set up a PSN account, yes Microsoft have this as well but only for adults verifying a child's account, means that no PC gamer in the UK is likely to sign up for a PSN account.
I have to say though that this is a very fair take on the whole situation 👍
There is still no buy button
I'm from Trinidad I wish it was available officially here
Isn't this super normal? Like every ubisoft game requires an ubisoft account? Fortnite requires an epic account?
People need to cry and whine about things.
How dare you take this away from them?
You dont buy a game, play it for 4 months and then get it taken away from you permanently because your country isnt linked to PSN. Thats the big one, then Sony needing your ID as a citizen or your face with your account, with them getting breached twice last year, also make PC not want to give that info, so no, not the same.
Difference is that at the start it was not required to have a PSN account to play the game and for many people who bought the game on steam and lived in countries that PSN isn’t supported would not be able to access the game
a bunch of the countries listed in the video required you to own a PS5 console to even make a PSN. so its not some small issue.
@@CertifiedMVPyou talk like you haven't had to deal with years of identity theft yet from creating a PSN account. You'll learn.
Imagine taking one of the most widely praised live service games of the last few years and making it widely hated for such a stupid reason.
Steam probably told them they are going to refund every single one of the refund requests and hold any further game purchases from their games until it’s made up and they were like yeah no
The only way I see them coming back from this is offering Hell Divers 2 for free on PS and for the price of the pro consoles to be similar or same to the base models.
and there is an issue with PSN on PC cause think about it PSN Account/MS Account/EA Account/Ubi Account/Riot Accounts/Blizzard Accounts/Steam Account/EGS Account and the list goes on and on and we end up with 30 accounts min and how can u remember all those accounts?
PSN account was required from beginning, just steam didn't enforce
Don't let up the pressure yet until all our brothers and sisters of 177 regions reach home before letting go of the reviews, we dive together or none at all
Corny
With how successful the game is to then this happening it makes you wonder why they can’t just leave stuff alone and just enjoy the success instead of trying to adjust things ( If it isn’t broke don’t change it )
The psn linking was always part of the plan though? It was literally on the steam page. They disabled it temporarily because of the server issues they had
The real damage is publish games on PC instead of keeping them exclusive to the console to add value to the platform. I guess for Sony now the PC is their main focus....
That is not true
The real damage is to publish music on streaming instead of keeping it exclusive to CD's to add value to the record labels.
@@DjDoggDad Ad hominem argument, try better. Comparing CDs/Streaming with videogames and consoles, lmao
@@unicorntomboy9736 Not true? Sony raised the PS Plus cost by a lot, people claimed and they ignored. Then PC just claim about a stupid account link and they backtrack in 48h... they don't care about console consumers anymore, we are a second class citizens. We pay PS plus to play helldivers 2 on PS5, we pay for Cloud saves on PSN... open your eyes.
@@CarlitosJP Try better? Think harder my guy.
Can't be the only one who thinks all this shits over blown nearly every multiplayer game has these accounts sign ups hell sea of theives doesn't even disclose it on the store page on playstation until you buy the game and boot it up.
It stated on the store page months in advance it would require psn the country thing is obviously a balls up but considering most people complaining weren't even talking about that.
Can guarantee if the next game has this from the get go and the country thing doesn't happen there will STILL be complaining.
There's 193 countries in the world psn is available on over 70, 177 math ain't mathing
I always love the descriptions. They always make me laugh.
"The damage is done" ? brother. we can recover and rebuild. It's not the end of Helldivers
Think he means sony's damaged their brand, the end of the video discusses it. Do hope they learn instead of trying to be greedy and save face again.
@@aayushattri3238 Yeah definitely in reference to Sony's image, people don't forget slimy stuff like this, clearly Helldivers 2 is gonna be fine, definitely not what "damage is done" was referencing
Hey, No Man's Sky recovered. Another game Sony screwed over.
@@aayushattri3238 Sony destroyed their brand a LONG time ago, my friend.
@@aayushattri3238 oh yes didn't think of it that way
I still will dive with cross play off.
Also them banning the cell of the game in those regions when they did would’ve prevented more people from those places asking for refunds you wouldn’t ask for a refund on something you didn’t buy
Now because of this controversy and the review bombs, helldivers 2 will never become goty.
GOTY is not determined by Steam review scores, it is by God-given right determined by Geogg Keighley's secretive committees
If I'm 1 of those who refunded this game, I don't be coming back. I'm pretty sure there are many ppl who are like that
If the PSN requirement was always supposed to be mandatory, the game should never have been available in countries without PSN. This was handled terribly from the start.
This whole debacle was a lack of foresight on Sony’s part. The game should not have been sold at all in countries where PSN does not exist from the get go
Mixed feelings about this situation. On the one hand PSN accounts are free nobody would hurt if they register, but on the other hand: if you bought the game and cannot register to PSN, you have wasted time and money in this game. Sometimes I feel these companies are not lead by real gamers, only suits. That make me sad.
unfortunately Sony was hacked twice last year and has always had sketchy online security for both customers and employees, here in the UK PSN wants a scan of a government ID to make an account, theirs no way id have bought the game if i new that id have to give them anything like that
This is how you throw all good reputation out the window and ruin a game quickly.
How..?
@@jeffreygranda9815 Helldivers 2 did really good when it first launched, but as soon as this requirement was announced, the game got review bombed and players immediately asked for refunds
Luckily we managed to defeat Sony and their shareholders.
I think It's great that Sony is releasing PC games but hopefully they make It simple and not complicated. PC gaming is fun but I prefer playing Sony games on Sony PlayStation. But I do find this topic interesting. Cool video. ^_^
I've been playing Helldivers since day two, and I would've kept playing even if they had PSN linking. I'm lucky enough to live in the UK, but I won't be buying another Sony-published game or even considering getting a PlayStation.
The damage has been done, but the damage is just a fart in the face. It stinks but people will get over it as long as Sony informs their customers properly.
Main hero in this story is Valve, who offered to refund the game, no matter the playtime. Sony couldnt afford 100,000 refunds
Valve is the king of refunds
I requested a refund and was denied multiple times? 76 hours bought it in February.
The problem will be that Steam might not sell any PlayStation games in those countries that do not allow PSN
it's all good. I've already added sony as publisher to my ignore list. Since they don't know they don't support PSN in my country i just made it easier for them
Undo the region lock on the 178 regions, now that PSN has been defeated
SteamDB Helldivers 2 restrictions
A real shame it claps the boys having such a huge success with this game. A true sony blunder, but the requirement was listed there all along. I thought it was related to trophy support to begin with, until this blew up. That being said, third party accounts for certain games isnt new to the steam library - as a user since launch of that platform - weve had to make EA, ubisoft and other accounts for certain games. But that have yet to prohibit use of the software or service, like this one. Great coverage as always, Ryan.
Did you know in places like Ukraine in India you can only make a PSN if you have the console so for the all the pc over there they’d to buy a console just to have a psn to link in the first place like wtf just let make it on their phone or pc like everyone else 🤦🏾♂️
2:56 Yeah but is Sony REALLY gonna care? I got a Hong Kong and Japanese account and doing fine.
From now on they won't allow devs to "turn off" PSN integration initially as they did with Helldivers. I expect going forward that it will always be mandated, starting from launch.
With that said, I bet you won't see this kinda fuss when GTA VI makes it's way over to PC, and it requires the Rockstar launcher lmao.
Also, if the game wasn’t available in regions or PSN wasn’t available that too would’ve helped with situation
Longtime Playstation Gamer here! Have a Pretty Extensive Library of Games, However I Recognize Sony as A Company Is Garbage; The fact they don’t take Us Seriously Is Despicable- even more Despicable, It took Steam players- A Completely different Group of Gamers, To make them back down! If i could Transfer my games to a Different Company, i would in A Second (Not Xbox) Sony is NOT to be trusted with Any personal Data Whatsoever! Had to change my passwords On several occasions due to their Incompetence! My Advice to Any Steam player? Do NOT Purchase any Game that might show up on your Store thats Associated with Sony; this isn’t the end And they will undoubtedly try again to Force Y’all to Link a PSN account, Don’t do it! Hopefully All of You Steam Users Realize What kind of Company Sony Is, And To not Associate in any way..
PS5 or PC at this point I don’t even know what to buy anymore
ps5 has framerate issues, but if you have a high end pc it is a good choice, depends on how powerful your pc is really
I have both