My PSN Analysis

This is the Discord FAQ archive, I recommend reading all of it https://lemmy.ca/post/20577314

**Steam Announcement 5/2/24 **

This announces the return of PSN forced logins

“Due to technical issues at the launch of HELLDIVERS™ 2, we allowed the linking requirements for Steam accounts to a PlayStation Network account to be temporarily optional. That grace period will now expire. See details below in this post.

Account linking plays a critical role in protecting our players and upholding the values of safety and security provided on PlayStation and PlayStation Studios games. This is our main way to protect players from griefing and abuse by enabling the banning of players that engage in that type of behaviour. It also allows those players that have been banned the right to appeal.”

**Playstation Announcement 5/5/24 **

Backing out the PSN account changes, some corpo BS basically

"Helldivers fans—we’ve heard your feedback on the Helldivers 2 account linking update. The May 6 update, which would have required Steam and PlayStation Network account linking for new players and for current players beginning May 30, will not be moving forward. We’re still learning what is best for PC players and your feedback has been invaluable. Thanks again for your continued support of Helldivers 2 and we’ll keep you updated on future plans.”

**Some Analysis **

Basically from the information I gathered here’s how I see it went down. The notice requiring PSN connection was always there where all the EULA requirements are (right side of the store page next to the game features. You have to scroll past the buy button to see it. I never look at those. “Requires 3rd-Party Account: PlayStation Network (Supports Linking to Steam Account)” The PSN connection requirement was —active— on launch for a short amount of time. Due to the massive server lag this was causing they paused the feature. They then reenabled, leading to the previous 2 announcements.

**Problems I see with Sony **

They should never have sold to the 177 countries that it is illegal Corporate BS from the FAQ basically says go to a country that supports PSN, make an account, and go back.

Comment from @jet@hackertalks.com “Basically if you don’t live in a PSN country, they want you to lie to make a PSN account, making you in breach of the TOS. But they don’t want to say it directly. So they only answer in that mealy mouthed if you’re traveling scenario. What this means is if you live in one of the 66% of the world countries that doesn’t have access to PSN You’re going to lose access to the game. Unless you lie. And if you lie you could get banned.”

They needed to make it absolutely clear in-game that they were having server issues and that PSN login would be required once they got that sorted.

This was a fuck-up on their part not keeping their users informed. If they had put in that simple notification in-game none of this would have happened.

After one or two months of the feature not working and having huge success with the servers, amount of users, and player engagement, they should have just scrapped the feature.
Anyone being gifted the game would not have been aware of this, ever.

**Good things that happened: **

Steam offered full refunds to anyone that played, regardless of hours, which is extremely rare
After much collaboration from the gamers, PSN is no longer required
Gamers were able to push a corpo to not do some BS. Huge win

**To summarize: **

I didn’t notice the 3rd party login that was present when I purchased. That’s on me. Early gamers knew about the PSN connection. Any one of them that thought it was bad would have just returned it. Any one who didn’t care kept playing and didn’t bring it up because they didn’t care. Sony probably made the assumption people pay attention to those things. I will continue to play. For Democracy!

If you did leave a negative review consider taking it down. It is still a very great game. I’m going to delete mine but am not going to give a positive one due to the fuckery.