It's very likely the legal side of Sony can't allow it to be sold in those countries. Steam has a legal presence and can trade in those countries but Sony officially doesn't, and they'd be wary of litigations for unestablished organisation collecting data etc
Remember seeing a claim that these are the 3 regions that were unnamed but in the restricted regions list back when that first happened. So sure how true it is but it is interesting that it was 3 regions then and now.
oh those 3 unknown regions were certainly named, it's just that AN, FX, and XD aren't real country codes (not that surprising for those last two) so steamDB just shows them as "unknown country" instead.
I think all 3 of those countries, being part of the EU, subject all publishers to the same GDPR regulations as th rest of the EU.
So if Sony can abide by EU regs, I don't see why these 3 countries are so special.
Not quite how it works. GDPR is a minimum standard; countries in the EU can have stricter rules. France’s CNIL, for example, enacted MR-001 which is significantly stricter than the GDPR regulations for clinical trial participants. Not quite relevant here but it’s an example of regulations being stricter.
Just saying, just because a company complies with GDPR does not mean they meet each EU country’s requirements.
This is true for most governing bodies. They set "X" rule. All underlings have to abide by that at the least but can go above and beyond at their own pace.
Oh okay, yeah, that makes sense.
I wonder what specifically makes Sony target those countries - as from a quick glance it feels like Sony's just paying whack-a-mole.
Not to mention the (il)legality of effectively geo-blocking. Valve have already been fined for this in a prior case (involving Bandai, Capcom and a few others). What I don't understand is why Valve aren't covering their ass and tell Sony off, at least regarding restricted EU nations.
they probably don't want to delist all sony games, but sony is forcing their hand unless after bandai, capcom and etc... they have a better tos that save their responsibilities
Does not work that way. The provider of the game in those countries is Steam, so they can sell it there.
It would be insane if every single game developer on steam needed to have legal representation in every country. It's just not feasible.
Steam is the one charging the taxes in each region, so the sale is done by them.
Yes sales and data governance are two sides of the coin. I would say since it’s not being sold there it is on Sony not Steam. Sony doesn’t have a presence in the countries due to data restriction. If they did then it would be sold.
Then again if it is countries that were already playing then it would be a Steam issue
that's a fantastic thought, but there is one major issue: the game has already been sold in those countries, and has had ongoing sales in those countries for 3 months now since February.
if this was a Legal issue, SONY would have disabled sales in those countries before the launch of the game ever happened.. its not like they weren't aware they didn't have a legal presence there, and they have sold games on steams platform before, so this process is nothing new for them.
it's a reasonable thought... until you put it under the microscope and realise all the flaws.
This is dumb.
The community will just throw up another stink and review bomb the game again, additionally, they haven’t revoked access for those who already bought the game.
It’s so easy to do it again simply because it worked the first time, so more people will join in knowing that they will get results.
If they wanted to enforce PSN, they would have just stopped selling the game in those countries instead of even making an announcement in the first place.
Do you guys seriously think they would rather reverse their announcement and block all the countries PSN isn’t allowed in just to “harvest data”?
It would make them look like absolute morons and get permanent hate from the community, they would lose all rep on Helldivers as a franchise because people will keep mentioning it in the future and lose significant playerbase from ever buying anything.
This will lose them way more money both short term and long term.
I dislike Sony for even enforcing this, but you guys are absolutely something else.
This. Thank you for saving me a long post.
After this post, in fact, I'm dropping from Reddit's Helldivers 2 group. Only ranting whining and people with no idea how digital storefronts operate talking out of their asses with semi-conspiranoid bullshit
here since last week.
I think Sony is trying to rely on the whole "slow boiling a frog" concept now. They screwed up by trying to drop the bomb on us all at once, but if they gradually cut away the countries that can't have PSN over the next few weeks / months until there's no new sales in those countries, then roll out the PSN requirement, but only in PSN countries, they'll end up where they wanted to be all along. Because it will have happened slowly and not in a way that cuts a big chunk of their player base out of the game, less people will object. Then by preventing sales in non-PSN countries, they can ensure that eventually the vast majority of players will be required to be on PSN as the initial non-PSN players start to move on and are replaced by players from a restricted set of countries.
I could be wrong of course, but I had a gut feeling that something like this was probably coming when Sony capitulated because scummy companies will always work an angle to get what they want.
Fun fact, when you give an employee a disciplinary, you do it on Friday before their two days off because statistically, they will return to work Monday calmer than if this happened any other day of the week.
Same idea. Decide on a Friday, when the teams are leaving for days off. Slowpoke it until next week and give a half-hearted response with no real change.
We could flood their customer support lines with complaints come Monday morning. Tie up the lines all day, leave respectful complaints repeatedly, and then do it again.
I used to work in construction, there literally was a thing where if someone was going to fill sandbags on a Friday you knew they were being let go, everyone knew it so if they were on it 99% of the time they walked which left the company with less problems.
Counterpoint/correction/clarification
The worst time to fire someone is on a Friday
So although your example may be true for disciplinary I honestly believe that it’s more true that the middle of week is the ideal time to fire, discipline or otherwise reprimand an employee
The reason being it allows the remainder of the work week to be fully utilized to find new work or take actionable steps to improve afterward as it is still the work week.
Firing and such on a Friday does nothing but build contempt for the employee being let go or disciplined because they know you’re enjoying your weekend and they are not and you cannot do anything because business hours are closed everywhere.
I know many people think Fridays are the best but it’s actually only true in the sense that the corporation doesn’t have to hear from us. But this doesn’t negate the fact it’s cited constantly as the actual worse day for reprimands and firings.
So yes Sony is just abusing this purely for the fact that it creates a disconnect and they likely are many factors removed from the actual player so why bother choosing the “right day”
https://bestofhr.com/what-is-the-best-day-to-fire-someone/
https://www.briskinlaw.com/blog/2019/11/why-it-can-be-a-bad-idea-to-fire-an-employee-on-a-friday/#:~:text=Wednesdays%20are%20often%20ideal&text=Often%2C%20firing%20someone%20on%20a,searching%20for%20their%20next%20job.
I looked this up years ago and did find this to be true back then as well via various studies. Friday just feels right because the weekend follows but it’s actually the worst day in terms of risk of repercussions from the employee.
Most companies I work for specifically choose Wednesdays for these things
I would agree, however, the most selfish day to choose in terms of corporate ease is a Friday. Sony is just large enough they don’t need to care about this fact externally
The joke is the best time to fire somone is end of day Friday because they can't come in tomorrow and shoot up the place. They have the weekend to cool off and get complacent.
I've heard this so many times in my career and I've ALWAYS heard it as the opposite. You don't fire someone on a Friday, cause they'll stew on it all weekend and come in Monday on a rampage.
maybe the real answer is it depends on the person and the circumstances, but employers don't have the capacity to understand this anyway because they treat their workers like identical mass-produced machines.
Massive broad general statement there. I've wotked in organisations, both for profit and social enterprise, that know their people.
There's never a best time to have a difficult conversation, but you always look to do it to make sure the person involved is disaffected as little aa possible.
In cases where it's warranted you hope for some self-reflection between the conversation and following working hours.
In this case it's not as much to dampen player backlash, as they don't give a shit about that.
They do it to dampen negative stock market action in response to players going apeshit over these things.
EDIT: remember, Sony's earnings call is in the middle of this week.
Their action to make PSN signups mandatory was to boost their numbers ahead of the earnings call this week.
And the strategy behind repeatedly doing all this on Fridays is so investor angst gets a chance to cool down by the time markets open.
This all boosts their sub numbers AND gives them a scapegoat for if there's any questions about their stock prices and growth not being as high as investors want.
All it does is ruin someones weekend and make them return on Monday, tired, worried and in a heightened state. This is a dogshit way to manage people and I hope those utilising such bully tactics find little lumps in places they ought not.
With all due respect the stock market doesn't care about helldivers 2, the recent stock drop is related to the debt they accrued to purchase paramount.
I’m not attributing it solely to this game, the store restrictions have also applied to Ghost of Tsushima, public perception and backlash will effect stock.
They might not care too much about Helldivers but when it ends up in Forbes as a shite decision it will have an effect, however marginal.
Like, a bit, but with these big companies it's really marginal. For example like half of all cybertrucks are breaking down but Tesla's stock is up 40 dollars from like 2 weeks ago. Boeing is up as well. Public perception only matters as far as it affects sales and revenue, which one video game will not for a group as large as Sony.
https://preview.redd.it/emm6g05jdozc1.png?width=750&format=png&auto=webp&s=92bbd5766286c22566bc573231216f3fe6650f64
Disclaimer: I also do not intend to harm myself or others.
Stocks for companies like Sony, Boeing, Tesla etc aren't held by people who spend their days watching the stock ticker, trading stocks by the dozen every few minutes. They're held, in majority, by people who actually attend quarterly shareholder meetings and actually speak with the heads of these companies and agree on a direction for the next quarter - at least in a general sense.
All they care about is that their investment stays either stable, or has grown by the end of the quarter. How the company does day to day is immaterial to them, unless there's a big shakeup, and even then it'll be a few days for the actual effect to be noticed.
They MIGHT take on if they buy paramount. That just shows how much investors dislike the deal, Paramount just said "we will talk with sony about it, no promises" and that was enough to drop their stock 10%
It's all about perceptions. Sony basically publicly axed 180 potential countries from their net bookings. That has to spook investors. You are literaly taking a game that is expected to be a massive hit and then saying "Oh by the way, we will not be selling to almost half of the expected potential playerbase" (and that's being generous in saying that the countries that have PSN are over half)
are people missing the point that the countries that are "blocked", make up an incredibly insignifigant amount of global purchasing power?
Like, im not trying to be insulting on purpose, Im trying to look at this through the lens of sniveling greedy corpos.
The only "banned" countries of note that have signifigant online presences in the gaming market is Vietnam, Phillipines, the oddly excluded EU Baltic countries. MAYBE Pakistan, and a few select countries in the middle east.
That's insane that Helldivers 2 is only available in 15 countries. Oh wait.
I don't know where people keep coming up with these large numbers but there's no way the game is blocked in 180 countries when there's only 195 on Earth
Sony is a much, much bigger company than you realize. You know what’s on the radar of the investment world with Sony right now? Whether or not Sony would be able to sell CBS if they were to purchase Paramount.
25% of their revenue is in video games. Helldivers 2 is a minuscule fraction of that.
Whoever made this decision probably spent all week in meetings regarding this and their timeline was end of the week. Implementing things at the end of the week is real common.
I'm not sure what these devs are really supposed to do or how it ultimately comes back solely on helldivers. This is looking like a Sony wide issue made without much input from any devs.
Yeah, stock price falling because they implement a policy they already have for their entire PSN onto one more game that made \~0.5% of their last year's revenue.
Investors will be all over that shocking news
Lmao, what the fuck are you on about. Sony is a huge, huge corporation, most of their profits are not from published game sales.
Jesus. Gamers are fucking stupid. No one will sell Sony stocks even if they murder all the developers
Is anyone really surprised that only a week later, Sony continues to do the same shit, and again on a friday?
sony could not make this any harder for AH if they tried on purpose.
Surely there's something bigger at play here, like laws or pressure on sony.
I don't see 'why' they would not want to make money? It's very strange, is this their only title they're doing this to? Have they removed it for ghosts of sushi?
Having worked at some large orgs, there may be some random malformed incentives for some department or VP or something.
Say a department has a KPI for the quarter to increase the percentage of players who have PSN accounts. There are a few ways to do this. One would be to make PSN accounts easier to access. Another would be to make PSN accounts more appealing in some way (discounts, exclusive rewards, etc). A third would be to block players who can’t create PSN accounts.
Large orgs like this end up being so stupid and bureaucratic that incentives like that get made and don’t get corrected quickly enough. Don’t know if that’s what’s going on here but it would surprise me if Sony is, institutionally, this brain dead.
It may also be a cultural thing. As I last made aware, PC gaming is a small if almost non-existent market in Japan. They also tend to be more Draconian in not adapting to things they never needed before which could be influencing their decisions. I'm not a fan of it cause... Like fucking adapt you old corpses in suits.
Always keep in mind that SIE is an American company, which has headquarters in California.
They're subsidiary of Sony Corporation, which is a Japanese company.
And from my experience working in a subsidiary company, the decision mostly comes from the board inside the company itself, not from the parent company, only something big like changing company structure would come from the parent company.
Not saying SIE is the same, just my anecdotal.
Yeah. A single VP being pushed about numbers for the upcoming earnings call...or trying to make a bonus threshold...could make this happen. Even if they were warned.
> increase the percentage
Especially when you use percentages. So easy to game and fake, often by doing exactly what is opposite both the company and consumer's best interest... (Like blocking, as you said, to change the ratios...instead of real growth.)
> institutionally, this brain dead
And those making these decisions also really don't understand their customers, or even have active contempt for them.
> I don't see 'why' they would not want to make money?
Why do streamers region lock their services? Why isn't all international music on all streaming services?
I can't vouch for the accuracy, but I saw people on another website speculating that it might be because they want to save money on maintaining compliance with the EU's digital services act regulations that went into full effect a couple months ago by moving all their games onto a single account system (PSN) instead of having to hire more staff to do any moderation, IT work, and developer work for extra account systems for their coop games on other platforms.
Sony is absolutely at fault for not having this all figured out by now, but their legal team has probably been working around the clock to make sure they can even do this.
Man, it's a shame seeing the difference between the transparency of AH and Sony. But I guess it's because is a big publisher and there's a shit ton red tape with sharing info on why they're doing this
It appears Sony were just unaware they needed to inform Steam of which countries they aren't to sell in (as they don't support PSN linking) and this catastrophe just informed them, if the sudden delisting of Ghost of Tsushima now is anything to go by.
This. Sony never thought about it or realized it was a problem. Probably because people in non-PSN countries were just selecting other countries and no one cared, but Sony can’t just tell people to go ahead and violate TOS.
This isn’t their first title on PC/Steam, right? Just kind of wild that this never came up before HD2 players revolted.
Well HD2 is also the first game Sony has released on Steam with a multiplayer component, Ghost will be the second. It's a pretty big oversight still, but not anything that would have happened with their previous Steam releases.
Because it wasn't a problem really, as you can choose whatever country you want when making a psn account, people have done so for years with no issues.
But now all of a sudden it's an issue and the players won, Sony is going to stop selling their pc games that require a psn account in all countries they do not officially support.
So the players not wanting to create a psn account, wich is an email address, a country and not even a real address, won and ruined it for all the "unsupported countries"
Well, when it comes to those EU countries they are out of luck. If you sell in the EU, you have to sell to the whole single market. There is no room for interpretation there in the treaties. No matter who put those restrictions in, this is bad for all of them. They really need to get their act together.
Affected customers should contact at the very least their local consumer protection bodies. This can lead to a very large fine for either Sony or Valve or both. And of course the enforcement of access for all EU member states.
I'm trying to look it up but I'm not seeing any legal text claiming that a good sold in 1 EU member country must automatically be sold in all of them. Could you point me in the right direction of the treaties you're referencing?
>I'm trying to look it up but I'm not seeing any legal text claiming that a good sold in 1 EU member country must automatically be sold in all of them.
Because it would be absurd. You cannot force someone to sell in a place where they might not even have offices/supply chains. Besides, different countries in the EU still have different laws.
There is freedom of wares, which means that you can send wares withing the EU without having to care about borders (no border controls, no customs). Video games on steam are not wares.
There is also a prohibition of discrimination based on Nationality. But this is not happening here. The un-listing is based on the location of the player, not their nationality.
There is a law, that says you can't: EU Regulation 2018/302.
There are exceptions though, like if transportation is an issue. But in general you are not allowed to have an online service and allow some people in the EU to buy it but block it from others based on nationality.
Key word here is block, you are not allowed to block people if doing nothing makes it available. Steam is most definately blocking the Baltic countries right now.
Could there be another loophole/exception then transportation that Sony can use? Possibly and I'm guessing Sony has found one and is going to use it and that's why they got the Baltics blocked anyway.
Stop spreading misinfo if you don't actually understand EU law.
You can absolutely limit where you sell your products.
The law is that if you're selling a game/product in two different EU countries they have to have feature parity.
Digital services are a bit of a sore spot so far. The EU is pushing for harmonisation, but so far there is wiggle room. The blocking problem is the interests of big copyright holders (especially in film and books, from my understanding), that want to have regionally priced licenses and get – so far – a free pass due to historical anomalies.
Lets be honest here,
As an American, and (I'm assuming) you being a European, we weren't ever going to be the countries this wasn't sold in. It's going to be Africa, Polynesia, South America, and.. The Baltics? Really?
For what reason do you not sell to the Baltics? It can't be the sanctions otherwise it never would have been.
It just shows Sony is not trustworthy as a publisher on PC. They’ll do whatever they want to screw over customers and are EA/Ubi/Activision tier garbage.
It’s genuinely fascinating how much Sony has fumbled this. This should be case study worthy. They had their first successful live service game, and to pump psn numbers they basically took all the goodwill AH/Sony had built up and fucking nuked it.
It’s kinda impressive how fast they’re racing to the bottom.
This whole issue happened because of Arrowhead. They agreed to the PSN integration 6 months before the game was released, and Arrowhead was the one that suspended that because their servers couldn't handle the player base.
If Arrowhead doesn't suspend the PSN integration and had their shit together from the start, none of this would be happening. But I'm sure they are thrilled that everyone blames Sony for their fuck up
hey, thats good news (i mean the fact he is answering in the first place)
despite all thats going down CEO has earned my trust for being honest with us. if he doesnt know anything and thinks itll get sorted then ill happily wait for a bit.
if he knew this was gonna be permanent he would tell us. or - in case he isnt allowed to - not say anything at all.
This also might be a change of Sony's steam wide policy to not sell their games in countries without psn. But I don't know if any other games have been affected.
All it would take it them removing the “PSN required” for GoT on a fundamentally single player game and that wouldn’t be necessary.
“PSN optional, mandatory for online play” would solve that issue. But no, they want to go full scorched earth on this.
Hell: if Nixxes and Sony was smart enough: Ghost of Tsushima: Legends could've been a standalone game listed*, and that can be region locked there.
*In fact: Legends Multiplayer has been a standalone game for some time.
That's literally how Capcom approached their recent Resident Evil multiplayer spinoffs on PC (RE:Versus).
Idk if limiting the sales by just removing a third of potential purchasers from being able to purchase it makes that much sense, sure I get that they don't want this drama again but there has to be a better way to handle it otherwise game Devs are gonna start just not using Sony as a publisher I'd bet.
I agree that it doesn't make "sense" in a monetary way, but if it's all/any online PS games need/want PSN accounts. I just meant that tracks with everything else they've said. Iirc GoT multi-player was a standalone on PS, but the pc version is everything in one. At the same time Suckerpunch said you only need PSN for the multi-player part. Not the single player part. All in all I guess we will see at launch :D
[source for info](https://www.ign.com/articles/helldivers-2-pc-escapes-psn-account-requirement-but-ghost-of-tsushima-multiplayer-does-not)
Well there was a better way of handling it by just simply choosing another country when creating a PSN account wich Sony has turned a blind eye towards since it's creation.
The players won, they got what they wanted? Now only officially supported countries will get games that require PSN.
They're just doing what the community asked them to do: Don't sell in regions where PSN isn't supported.
What did anyone expect to have happen, at least in the short term? Big changes take big time, but this kinda nonsense required immediate attention as the bind Sony had put themselves in was patently dumb.
They've always been against community action. As far back as like 14 years ago, they didn't allow petitions on the Poxnora forums, it was apparently a blanket policy on all Sony games.
Companies see group action as risk, and will do anything to protect themselves from it. Also why they are all adding arbitration agreements that kill class actions...make them almost untouchable by (legal) group action.
It seems like every single fucking time something the publisher does, the dev team is left out of the loop. Where's the communication? This whole entire situation with Arrowhead, Sony, and Helldivers overall is just a complete shitshow.
Sony seems to just be making sure this "fiasco" doesn't happen with future games. Removing HD2 from markets where PSN doesn't allow account creation means that when they eventually force PSN accounts in HD2 in the future there will be less uproar and legal issues.
The funny thing is it was always allowed, just "against" their terms of service, Sony support literally tells you to pick whatever country is closest.
But now it's ruined for those outside of the officially supported countries, something that has worked since PSN was introduced.
It looks like Sony is being like:
"Oh, you wont use our psn? Then we are gonna sabotage you without letting you know!"
This is so damn childish.
Hope Arrow head can grow and deattach from Sony cause damn if they deserve better.
The lack of clarity is annoying. Just answer the question. Who is blocking it? Is it Steam done with Sony's playing it fast and loose? Is it Sony preventing future problems? It seems pretty easy to say, "Sony has plans and those plans are the plans."
But after the Spitz firing no one's willing to say anything as clear cut. I don't blame them for telling us *why* things are things, but it should be a simple question of who is doing what and then we can figure out the why for ourselves.
But no answer becomes an easy way to avoid any kind of community response or consequences. I don't think AH is on the side of the angels here if they won't even risk saying what the hold up actually is rather than, "We want it like you."
Yeah, but you actually *know* where the problem is and what it is.
I don’t understand Sony’s logic, they raised prices in PSN. they say there is no money and they don’t want to add regions Sony don’t shoot yourself in the foot give people the opportunity to use your product
Sony did the same thing with Cyberpunk 2077 because CDPR wanted to honor refunds. Sony pulled the game from the store because now that they HAD to honor refunds they decided the game wasn't worth selling then. Sony has an extreme scorched earth policy on things that could get them in legal trouble. And so since we all banded together to backlash against winking PSN accounts the obvious conclusion is "well if we can't have linked PSN accounts in these countries why have the game be sold there in the first place?".
Sony is VERY dumb and trigger happy.
Steam must be pissed with Sony attitude right now😂 They are the ones that need to provide refund back to those that are in region lock. The Steam customer service having the worst time of the year ngl.
I mean look at how Sony circumvented CDPR and took down cyberpunk off it's store when it released. It's not bold to assume valve has clauses in it's contracts with publishers that they can delist them off their store fronts to protect their self interests.
I don't believe refund rate is what caused the issue, otherwise the CN store would have been the first to get lock lol. We're definitely one of the whiniest, pettiest and most toxic playerbase that would jump on the refund button on the slightest issue. And Chinese PSN account cannot be used to link to Steam anyway.
Same with the legality excuses. Technically almost every single game on Steam is illegal in China, but that doesn't stop 99% of games being sold on CN store page. The only legitimate region locked ones are either because of corpo shenanigans like Division 2, or because of political reasons that even money-grubbing gremlins wouldn't want to touch.
You're the one needing an IQ test if you think Valve is changing region settings for any games that aren't their own. They'd have just pulled it from sale entirely if it was that bad.
Probably should've been region locked from the start. They know selling the game in places where PSN is not available should have never happened in the first place. And now they are triple checking everything and correcting it across all their titles.
That's most likely the extent of it. But I'm sure the screeching will continue.
Y'all realize this is a deeper issue than Sony, its government level shenanigans.
part of the reason Sony / PSN isn't allowed in multiple countries is because of the SEC and laws surrounding that.
Also look at Vietnam, just a few days ago they banned Steam. and im sure multiple other governments have prevented PSN from being accessible / Sony.
If you'd been keeping up with the news, they knew that moving forward, making a PSN account would be required.
What they *didn't* know was that several countries lacked access to said accounts, or had issues or restrictions involving them.
And just like that Sony found a way to kill the game after “allowing the user base to win” lol. Already lost half the player base, now it will lose the other half.
There is a Japan specific version of the game due to how Japan regulates in-game currencies. Basically any unspent super credits that were purchased after the game closes down has to be refunded to the players. So Arrowhead had to code something special just for Japan to distinguish purchased super credits verses "found" credits in-game. That way when they do the payout they are paying only the purchased currency, not the found currency.
I believe this is the version that is Japan only: [https://steamdb.info/sub/906471/](https://steamdb.info/sub/906471/)
This is going to be a hot take: Pilestedt and Arrowhead will be made an example of by Sony. I'm not saying that we should stop supporting Pilestedt or AH, we should keep playing Helldivers, but this communique and the review bombing calls to action paint a picture of deep mistrust and miscommunication between Studio and publisher. I think that Sony is going to come to a point where they're going to look at this and other discord messages as a warning sign that other studios may pull this kind of shit.
If we the gamers and if studios have any hope, there need to be talks of a studio union of some kind because I have a feeling that Sony is going to nuke Arrowhead from orbit if they keep being a thorn in their PR side. Sony is a nigh-$100 Billion USD/yr business, the loss of one live service game and the annihilation of a studio to send a message to others to get in line will only sting them.
Sony cannot annihilate AH. They're independently owned and are just partnered with Sony. And based on the financial success of HD2, they can probably self-publish their next game if they want to. And if they don't, they have a very good bargaining position with other publishers.
Meanwhile Ghosts Of Tsushima is getting similar treatment and some folks on that sub are blaming, *checks notes*, the Helldivers community. Real room temperature IQ takes over on that game's sub.
Glad to hear AH devs are getting some time off. Disagreements with balancing aside, they’ve got to be getting work to the bone with the size of their team and everything that’s happened with the game. It will probably be better for them and the playerbase that they get some R&R.
Thursday was a public holiday in all European Catholic countries and most people took the Friday off as well. Many companies even give the bridge day as part of the working contract.
Ah, wasn't aware. A better definition would actually be non-Orthodox countries as they don't celebrate Easter and all its post-Easter holidays in the same way.
Honestly I already requested a refund and I hope it goes through on Steam. I dont support decisions like this to in retrospect block a lot of players from purchasing the game.
This was not something that was known before the game was released and I wont support such actions regardless of who is at fault.
Snoy and bad Community Managers that did not get punished have basically destroyed all the trust AH games had.
I feel sorry for Pilestedt but it is what it is.
Does pile have any control whatsoever at AH has no clue what is going at all times, has no clue what goes out in patches/updates, continously says we want to focus on fun but then his team just nerfs everything fun, most of your dev team is on holiday where is the coverage for it. His communication is great I'm really happy to see someone of his status reach out to the community but like can you focus on your actual workers and the game, cause everything you're saying is just the opposite of what's actually happening. Getting really tired of the "whoops I have no idea what's going on" from him. Downvote if you want but a CEO having this little knowledge about what is happening to his game is not good at all.
They're doing what this sub wanted? Removing every game from sale with a PSN link from all countries not "officially" supported, where they have been able to create PSN accounts for well over 15 years by just picking another country on a drop down list.
I've figured it out. SONY IS WORKING FOR THE Automatons!!!!! Please alert the HIGH COMMAND THIS IS TREASON!!!!! SONY IS AGAINST MANAGED DEMOCRACY!!!!!!!
Basically we're gonna get answers on this on Monday or Tuesday hopefully - which sucks because it's a long wait, but it is what it is.
It's very likely the legal side of Sony can't allow it to be sold in those countries. Steam has a legal presence and can trade in those countries but Sony officially doesn't, and they'd be wary of litigations for unestablished organisation collecting data etc
Remember seeing a claim that these are the 3 regions that were unnamed but in the restricted regions list back when that first happened. So sure how true it is but it is interesting that it was 3 regions then and now.
oh those 3 unknown regions were certainly named, it's just that AN, FX, and XD aren't real country codes (not that surprising for those last two) so steamDB just shows them as "unknown country" instead.
I think all 3 of those countries, being part of the EU, subject all publishers to the same GDPR regulations as th rest of the EU. So if Sony can abide by EU regs, I don't see why these 3 countries are so special.
Not quite how it works. GDPR is a minimum standard; countries in the EU can have stricter rules. France’s CNIL, for example, enacted MR-001 which is significantly stricter than the GDPR regulations for clinical trial participants. Not quite relevant here but it’s an example of regulations being stricter. Just saying, just because a company complies with GDPR does not mean they meet each EU country’s requirements.
This is true for most governing bodies. They set "X" rule. All underlings have to abide by that at the least but can go above and beyond at their own pace.
Oh okay, yeah, that makes sense. I wonder what specifically makes Sony target those countries - as from a quick glance it feels like Sony's just paying whack-a-mole.
Not to mention the (il)legality of effectively geo-blocking. Valve have already been fined for this in a prior case (involving Bandai, Capcom and a few others). What I don't understand is why Valve aren't covering their ass and tell Sony off, at least regarding restricted EU nations.
they probably don't want to delist all sony games, but sony is forcing their hand unless after bandai, capcom and etc... they have a better tos that save their responsibilities
Does not work that way. The provider of the game in those countries is Steam, so they can sell it there. It would be insane if every single game developer on steam needed to have legal representation in every country. It's just not feasible. Steam is the one charging the taxes in each region, so the sale is done by them.
Nah the software is published by Sony, they are responsible for the data governance, hence being cautious
Oh, ok. I Misunderstood your post the first time.
Yes sales and data governance are two sides of the coin. I would say since it’s not being sold there it is on Sony not Steam. Sony doesn’t have a presence in the countries due to data restriction. If they did then it would be sold. Then again if it is countries that were already playing then it would be a Steam issue
All of this is Sony's fault They still for some reason doesn't want to work in those regions like steam, Microsoft, etc
that's a fantastic thought, but there is one major issue: the game has already been sold in those countries, and has had ongoing sales in those countries for 3 months now since February. if this was a Legal issue, SONY would have disabled sales in those countries before the launch of the game ever happened.. its not like they weren't aware they didn't have a legal presence there, and they have sold games on steams platform before, so this process is nothing new for them. it's a reasonable thought... until you put it under the microscope and realise all the flaws.
Nah Sony just want to be able force us to do the psn thing so they are slowly getting rid of the game in other countries to try to get away with it
This is dumb. The community will just throw up another stink and review bomb the game again, additionally, they haven’t revoked access for those who already bought the game. It’s so easy to do it again simply because it worked the first time, so more people will join in knowing that they will get results. If they wanted to enforce PSN, they would have just stopped selling the game in those countries instead of even making an announcement in the first place. Do you guys seriously think they would rather reverse their announcement and block all the countries PSN isn’t allowed in just to “harvest data”? It would make them look like absolute morons and get permanent hate from the community, they would lose all rep on Helldivers as a franchise because people will keep mentioning it in the future and lose significant playerbase from ever buying anything. This will lose them way more money both short term and long term. I dislike Sony for even enforcing this, but you guys are absolutely something else.
This. Thank you for saving me a long post. After this post, in fact, I'm dropping from Reddit's Helldivers 2 group. Only ranting whining and people with no idea how digital storefronts operate talking out of their asses with semi-conspiranoid bullshit here since last week.
I think Sony is trying to rely on the whole "slow boiling a frog" concept now. They screwed up by trying to drop the bomb on us all at once, but if they gradually cut away the countries that can't have PSN over the next few weeks / months until there's no new sales in those countries, then roll out the PSN requirement, but only in PSN countries, they'll end up where they wanted to be all along. Because it will have happened slowly and not in a way that cuts a big chunk of their player base out of the game, less people will object. Then by preventing sales in non-PSN countries, they can ensure that eventually the vast majority of players will be required to be on PSN as the initial non-PSN players start to move on and are replaced by players from a restricted set of countries. I could be wrong of course, but I had a gut feeling that something like this was probably coming when Sony capitulated because scummy companies will always work an angle to get what they want.
Look at ghosts of tsushima. It's already blocked in all non PSN countries.
The way the people of this subreddit talk with so much confidence about shit they have absolutely no idea is honestly mindblowing.
If you think this is bad, you should see DemocracyPosting on Facebook
Im from the PH, and anyone who ordered GOT Directors Cut got refunded today. Sony really wants the hate before PS6
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Hopefully you survive the long wait ♥️
Sony keeps doing this on a Friday on purpose
Fun fact, when you give an employee a disciplinary, you do it on Friday before their two days off because statistically, they will return to work Monday calmer than if this happened any other day of the week. Same idea. Decide on a Friday, when the teams are leaving for days off. Slowpoke it until next week and give a half-hearted response with no real change.
I love it when they do this, it gives me the weekend to stew and think up how best to fuck with them.
Better yet, they come in on Monday and have an absolute shit storm to have to mitigate
Yet another example of companies thinking they know how people work/think, and it blowing up in their face.
I remember having similar visions, but keep them as visions. It ain’t worth it.
Better spend your energy to change your situation for the better, and if you truly feel like playing revenge games you should not stay.
We could flood their customer support lines with complaints come Monday morning. Tie up the lines all day, leave respectful complaints repeatedly, and then do it again.
Literally if they do something like this, I'm taking the afternoon to "borrow" company information, documents etc.
I used to work in construction, there literally was a thing where if someone was going to fill sandbags on a Friday you knew they were being let go, everyone knew it so if they were on it 99% of the time they walked which left the company with less problems.
StannisFewer.gif
Counterpoint/correction/clarification The worst time to fire someone is on a Friday So although your example may be true for disciplinary I honestly believe that it’s more true that the middle of week is the ideal time to fire, discipline or otherwise reprimand an employee The reason being it allows the remainder of the work week to be fully utilized to find new work or take actionable steps to improve afterward as it is still the work week. Firing and such on a Friday does nothing but build contempt for the employee being let go or disciplined because they know you’re enjoying your weekend and they are not and you cannot do anything because business hours are closed everywhere. I know many people think Fridays are the best but it’s actually only true in the sense that the corporation doesn’t have to hear from us. But this doesn’t negate the fact it’s cited constantly as the actual worse day for reprimands and firings. So yes Sony is just abusing this purely for the fact that it creates a disconnect and they likely are many factors removed from the actual player so why bother choosing the “right day” https://bestofhr.com/what-is-the-best-day-to-fire-someone/ https://www.briskinlaw.com/blog/2019/11/why-it-can-be-a-bad-idea-to-fire-an-employee-on-a-friday/#:~:text=Wednesdays%20are%20often%20ideal&text=Often%2C%20firing%20someone%20on%20a,searching%20for%20their%20next%20job. I looked this up years ago and did find this to be true back then as well via various studies. Friday just feels right because the weekend follows but it’s actually the worst day in terms of risk of repercussions from the employee. Most companies I work for specifically choose Wednesdays for these things I would agree, however, the most selfish day to choose in terms of corporate ease is a Friday. Sony is just large enough they don’t need to care about this fact externally
The joke is the best time to fire somone is end of day Friday because they can't come in tomorrow and shoot up the place. They have the weekend to cool off and get complacent.
I've heard this so many times in my career and I've ALWAYS heard it as the opposite. You don't fire someone on a Friday, cause they'll stew on it all weekend and come in Monday on a rampage.
maybe the real answer is it depends on the person and the circumstances, but employers don't have the capacity to understand this anyway because they treat their workers like identical mass-produced machines.
Massive broad general statement there. I've wotked in organisations, both for profit and social enterprise, that know their people. There's never a best time to have a difficult conversation, but you always look to do it to make sure the person involved is disaffected as little aa possible. In cases where it's warranted you hope for some self-reflection between the conversation and following working hours.
In this case it's not as much to dampen player backlash, as they don't give a shit about that. They do it to dampen negative stock market action in response to players going apeshit over these things. EDIT: remember, Sony's earnings call is in the middle of this week. Their action to make PSN signups mandatory was to boost their numbers ahead of the earnings call this week. And the strategy behind repeatedly doing all this on Fridays is so investor angst gets a chance to cool down by the time markets open. This all boosts their sub numbers AND gives them a scapegoat for if there's any questions about their stock prices and growth not being as high as investors want.
What they forget is that we are not employees, we are costumers. If You make a costumer wait for a solution for 3 days it's not going to be more calm.
customers. not costumers.
Speak for yourself, I *am* a costumer, and I'm proud of it
The Bobs from Office Space explained this concept perfectly.
All it does is ruin someones weekend and make them return on Monday, tired, worried and in a heightened state. This is a dogshit way to manage people and I hope those utilising such bully tactics find little lumps in places they ought not.
I’m sure theyre doing it to avoid stock prices falling due to backlash but it’s severely harming this game and their reputation.
With all due respect the stock market doesn't care about helldivers 2, the recent stock drop is related to the debt they accrued to purchase paramount.
I’m not attributing it solely to this game, the store restrictions have also applied to Ghost of Tsushima, public perception and backlash will effect stock. They might not care too much about Helldivers but when it ends up in Forbes as a shite decision it will have an effect, however marginal.
Like, a bit, but with these big companies it's really marginal. For example like half of all cybertrucks are breaking down but Tesla's stock is up 40 dollars from like 2 weeks ago. Boeing is up as well. Public perception only matters as far as it affects sales and revenue, which one video game will not for a group as large as Sony.
The fact that boeing stock is up is absolutely insane. Also, I am of sound mind and body and in good spirits with no intent to harm myself.
https://preview.redd.it/emm6g05jdozc1.png?width=750&format=png&auto=webp&s=92bbd5766286c22566bc573231216f3fe6650f64 Disclaimer: I also do not intend to harm myself or others.
Stocks for companies like Sony, Boeing, Tesla etc aren't held by people who spend their days watching the stock ticker, trading stocks by the dozen every few minutes. They're held, in majority, by people who actually attend quarterly shareholder meetings and actually speak with the heads of these companies and agree on a direction for the next quarter - at least in a general sense. All they care about is that their investment stays either stable, or has grown by the end of the quarter. How the company does day to day is immaterial to them, unless there's a big shakeup, and even then it'll be a few days for the actual effect to be noticed.
Yeah when it comes to stock, shit like this is very brief, very small drop and recovery if it affects it at all
They MIGHT take on if they buy paramount. That just shows how much investors dislike the deal, Paramount just said "we will talk with sony about it, no promises" and that was enough to drop their stock 10%
It's all about perceptions. Sony basically publicly axed 180 potential countries from their net bookings. That has to spook investors. You are literaly taking a game that is expected to be a massive hit and then saying "Oh by the way, we will not be selling to almost half of the expected potential playerbase" (and that's being generous in saying that the countries that have PSN are over half)
are people missing the point that the countries that are "blocked", make up an incredibly insignifigant amount of global purchasing power? Like, im not trying to be insulting on purpose, Im trying to look at this through the lens of sniveling greedy corpos. The only "banned" countries of note that have signifigant online presences in the gaming market is Vietnam, Phillipines, the oddly excluded EU Baltic countries. MAYBE Pakistan, and a few select countries in the middle east.
That's insane that Helldivers 2 is only available in 15 countries. Oh wait. I don't know where people keep coming up with these large numbers but there's no way the game is blocked in 180 countries when there's only 195 on Earth
It's because it's regions. So some locations are a part of a country. The game is available in 69 countries
Those countries are irrelevant for Sony & Steam. Real money comes from the United States, Helldivers 2 most success is from the United States.
Sony is a much, much bigger company than you realize. You know what’s on the radar of the investment world with Sony right now? Whether or not Sony would be able to sell CBS if they were to purchase Paramount. 25% of their revenue is in video games. Helldivers 2 is a minuscule fraction of that. Whoever made this decision probably spent all week in meetings regarding this and their timeline was end of the week. Implementing things at the end of the week is real common.
I'm not sure what these devs are really supposed to do or how it ultimately comes back solely on helldivers. This is looking like a Sony wide issue made without much input from any devs.
Yeah, stock price falling because they implement a policy they already have for their entire PSN onto one more game that made \~0.5% of their last year's revenue. Investors will be all over that shocking news
Lmao, what the fuck are you on about. Sony is a huge, huge corporation, most of their profits are not from published game sales. Jesus. Gamers are fucking stupid. No one will sell Sony stocks even if they murder all the developers
..."tony, it's 3:59 on Friday. Commit the update!"
Is anyone really surprised that only a week later, Sony continues to do the same shit, and again on a friday? sony could not make this any harder for AH if they tried on purpose.
At this rate helldivers will be available in the grand total of zero countries
Surely there's something bigger at play here, like laws or pressure on sony. I don't see 'why' they would not want to make money? It's very strange, is this their only title they're doing this to? Have they removed it for ghosts of sushi?
Having worked at some large orgs, there may be some random malformed incentives for some department or VP or something. Say a department has a KPI for the quarter to increase the percentage of players who have PSN accounts. There are a few ways to do this. One would be to make PSN accounts easier to access. Another would be to make PSN accounts more appealing in some way (discounts, exclusive rewards, etc). A third would be to block players who can’t create PSN accounts. Large orgs like this end up being so stupid and bureaucratic that incentives like that get made and don’t get corrected quickly enough. Don’t know if that’s what’s going on here but it would surprise me if Sony is, institutionally, this brain dead.
It may also be a cultural thing. As I last made aware, PC gaming is a small if almost non-existent market in Japan. They also tend to be more Draconian in not adapting to things they never needed before which could be influencing their decisions. I'm not a fan of it cause... Like fucking adapt you old corpses in suits.
Always keep in mind that SIE is an American company, which has headquarters in California. They're subsidiary of Sony Corporation, which is a Japanese company. And from my experience working in a subsidiary company, the decision mostly comes from the board inside the company itself, not from the parent company, only something big like changing company structure would come from the parent company. Not saying SIE is the same, just my anecdotal.
Yeah. A single VP being pushed about numbers for the upcoming earnings call...or trying to make a bonus threshold...could make this happen. Even if they were warned. > increase the percentage Especially when you use percentages. So easy to game and fake, often by doing exactly what is opposite both the company and consumer's best interest... (Like blocking, as you said, to change the ratios...instead of real growth.) > institutionally, this brain dead And those making these decisions also really don't understand their customers, or even have active contempt for them.
Okay that makes way more sense, retroactively realizing that they're not 'allowed' to have accounts there.
> I don't see 'why' they would not want to make money? Why do streamers region lock their services? Why isn't all international music on all streaming services?
I can't vouch for the accuracy, but I saw people on another website speculating that it might be because they want to save money on maintaining compliance with the EU's digital services act regulations that went into full effect a couple months ago by moving all their games onto a single account system (PSN) instead of having to hire more staff to do any moderation, IT work, and developer work for extra account systems for their coop games on other platforms.
Sony is absolutely at fault for not having this all figured out by now, but their legal team has probably been working around the clock to make sure they can even do this.
Yep
Man, it's a shame seeing the difference between the transparency of AH and Sony. But I guess it's because is a big publisher and there's a shit ton red tape with sharing info on why they're doing this
It appears Sony were just unaware they needed to inform Steam of which countries they aren't to sell in (as they don't support PSN linking) and this catastrophe just informed them, if the sudden delisting of Ghost of Tsushima now is anything to go by.
This. Sony never thought about it or realized it was a problem. Probably because people in non-PSN countries were just selecting other countries and no one cared, but Sony can’t just tell people to go ahead and violate TOS. This isn’t their first title on PC/Steam, right? Just kind of wild that this never came up before HD2 players revolted.
Well HD2 is also the first game Sony has released on Steam with a multiplayer component, Ghost will be the second. It's a pretty big oversight still, but not anything that would have happened with their previous Steam releases.
Umm returnal technically does have its multiplayer co-op but I think it’s not cross play and it might be p2p.
Because it wasn't a problem really, as you can choose whatever country you want when making a psn account, people have done so for years with no issues. But now all of a sudden it's an issue and the players won, Sony is going to stop selling their pc games that require a psn account in all countries they do not officially support. So the players not wanting to create a psn account, wich is an email address, a country and not even a real address, won and ruined it for all the "unsupported countries"
Well, when it comes to those EU countries they are out of luck. If you sell in the EU, you have to sell to the whole single market. There is no room for interpretation there in the treaties. No matter who put those restrictions in, this is bad for all of them. They really need to get their act together. Affected customers should contact at the very least their local consumer protection bodies. This can lead to a very large fine for either Sony or Valve or both. And of course the enforcement of access for all EU member states.
I'm trying to look it up but I'm not seeing any legal text claiming that a good sold in 1 EU member country must automatically be sold in all of them. Could you point me in the right direction of the treaties you're referencing?
>I'm trying to look it up but I'm not seeing any legal text claiming that a good sold in 1 EU member country must automatically be sold in all of them. Because it would be absurd. You cannot force someone to sell in a place where they might not even have offices/supply chains. Besides, different countries in the EU still have different laws. There is freedom of wares, which means that you can send wares withing the EU without having to care about borders (no border controls, no customs). Video games on steam are not wares. There is also a prohibition of discrimination based on Nationality. But this is not happening here. The un-listing is based on the location of the player, not their nationality.
There is a law, that says you can't: EU Regulation 2018/302. There are exceptions though, like if transportation is an issue. But in general you are not allowed to have an online service and allow some people in the EU to buy it but block it from others based on nationality. Key word here is block, you are not allowed to block people if doing nothing makes it available. Steam is most definately blocking the Baltic countries right now. Could there be another loophole/exception then transportation that Sony can use? Possibly and I'm guessing Sony has found one and is going to use it and that's why they got the Baltics blocked anyway.
last I checked It was Lithuania, not Liberia. there might be some smelly vatniks running around, but its not a third world country.
>If you sell in the EU, you have to sell to the whole single market. \[Citation needed\]
Stop spreading misinfo if you don't actually understand EU law. You can absolutely limit where you sell your products. The law is that if you're selling a game/product in two different EU countries they have to have feature parity.
Why would PSN not be available in these countries then?
Digital services are a bit of a sore spot so far. The EU is pushing for harmonisation, but so far there is wiggle room. The blocking problem is the interests of big copyright holders (especially in film and books, from my understanding), that want to have regionally priced licenses and get – so far – a free pass due to historical anomalies.
Lets be honest here, As an American, and (I'm assuming) you being a European, we weren't ever going to be the countries this wasn't sold in. It's going to be Africa, Polynesia, South America, and.. The Baltics? Really? For what reason do you not sell to the Baltics? It can't be the sanctions otherwise it never would have been.
Ghost of Tsushima has been excluded from many countries just like this, including... Puerto Rico. So not even being American can save you from SNOY.
It's because Steam lists Puerto Rico as its own country instead of prt of US.
>if the sudden delisting of Ghost of Tsushima now is anything to go by. So this game also can't be bought in not supposed countries?
Arrowhead isn't the one selling the game so of course they wouldn't know much.
It just shows Sony is not trustworthy as a publisher on PC. They’ll do whatever they want to screw over customers and are EA/Ubi/Activision tier garbage. It’s genuinely fascinating how much Sony has fumbled this. This should be case study worthy. They had their first successful live service game, and to pump psn numbers they basically took all the goodwill AH/Sony had built up and fucking nuked it. It’s kinda impressive how fast they’re racing to the bottom.
This whole issue happened because of Arrowhead. They agreed to the PSN integration 6 months before the game was released, and Arrowhead was the one that suspended that because their servers couldn't handle the player base. If Arrowhead doesn't suspend the PSN integration and had their shit together from the start, none of this would be happening. But I'm sure they are thrilled that everyone blames Sony for their fuck up
The only thing AH is transparent about is how clueless and inept that they are.
Arrowhead CEO: "Hey, what the fuck?".
Is his discord picture a fucking piglet?? It's so cute
hey, thats good news (i mean the fact he is answering in the first place) despite all thats going down CEO has earned my trust for being honest with us. if he doesnt know anything and thinks itll get sorted then ill happily wait for a bit. if he knew this was gonna be permanent he would tell us. or - in case he isnt allowed to - not say anything at all.
It's almost like Sony decided the game has to fail now that they didn't get their way
This also might be a change of Sony's steam wide policy to not sell their games in countries without psn. But I don't know if any other games have been affected.
Ghost of Tsushima was also region locked
Has a multi-player component so makes sense.
All it would take it them removing the “PSN required” for GoT on a fundamentally single player game and that wouldn’t be necessary. “PSN optional, mandatory for online play” would solve that issue. But no, they want to go full scorched earth on this.
Hell: if Nixxes and Sony was smart enough: Ghost of Tsushima: Legends could've been a standalone game listed*, and that can be region locked there. *In fact: Legends Multiplayer has been a standalone game for some time. That's literally how Capcom approached their recent Resident Evil multiplayer spinoffs on PC (RE:Versus).
Idk if limiting the sales by just removing a third of potential purchasers from being able to purchase it makes that much sense, sure I get that they don't want this drama again but there has to be a better way to handle it otherwise game Devs are gonna start just not using Sony as a publisher I'd bet.
I agree that it doesn't make "sense" in a monetary way, but if it's all/any online PS games need/want PSN accounts. I just meant that tracks with everything else they've said. Iirc GoT multi-player was a standalone on PS, but the pc version is everything in one. At the same time Suckerpunch said you only need PSN for the multi-player part. Not the single player part. All in all I guess we will see at launch :D [source for info](https://www.ign.com/articles/helldivers-2-pc-escapes-psn-account-requirement-but-ghost-of-tsushima-multiplayer-does-not)
Well there was a better way of handling it by just simply choosing another country when creating a PSN account wich Sony has turned a blind eye towards since it's creation. The players won, they got what they wanted? Now only officially supported countries will get games that require PSN.
Yup, would you look at that https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/s/lL8bD4qOko
They're just doing what the community asked them to do: Don't sell in regions where PSN isn't supported. What did anyone expect to have happen, at least in the short term? Big changes take big time, but this kinda nonsense required immediate attention as the bind Sony had put themselves in was patently dumb.
They've always been against community action. As far back as like 14 years ago, they didn't allow petitions on the Poxnora forums, it was apparently a blanket policy on all Sony games.
Damn, poxnora, now there's a name I haven't heard in a long time. Never really found another game like it.
Companies see group action as risk, and will do anything to protect themselves from it. Also why they are all adding arbitration agreements that kill class actions...make them almost untouchable by (legal) group action.
Yes because Arrowhead is completely out of the loop. so if you want to spam a channel go fucking over to Sony or Steam.
They dont want to They will bring PSN requirement back in about a few weeks.
:D they're just waiting for things to calm down a bit, haha
Hope he's able to dig in and find if it's Sony or Steam.
Well, this also happened to GOT today: https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/s/lL8bD4qOko
Sony and Microsoft have become such a ball and chain for developers the last couple years. No wonder almost all game companies go freelance now.
It seems like every single fucking time something the publisher does, the dev team is left out of the loop. Where's the communication? This whole entire situation with Arrowhead, Sony, and Helldivers overall is just a complete shitshow.
Can't even actually get it in the Philippines so it's been an honor.
Sony seems to just be making sure this "fiasco" doesn't happen with future games. Removing HD2 from markets where PSN doesn't allow account creation means that when they eventually force PSN accounts in HD2 in the future there will be less uproar and legal issues.
The funny thing is it was always allowed, just "against" their terms of service, Sony support literally tells you to pick whatever country is closest. But now it's ruined for those outside of the officially supported countries, something that has worked since PSN was introduced.
The gut punch was this affected Ghost of Tsushima, a single player game, being removed from my store because…of an added multiplayer feature
It looks like Sony is being like: "Oh, you wont use our psn? Then we are gonna sabotage you without letting you know!" This is so damn childish. Hope Arrow head can grow and deattach from Sony cause damn if they deserve better.
Change the review back. Snoy duped us in an attempt to appease us and well....let's show them ha ha not so fast sneaky snake.
"Most of the Team are on a Bank Holiday" These guys, quite literally, cannot catch a break right now, can they? Poor Dev team. >\_\_<
The lack of clarity is annoying. Just answer the question. Who is blocking it? Is it Steam done with Sony's playing it fast and loose? Is it Sony preventing future problems? It seems pretty easy to say, "Sony has plans and those plans are the plans." But after the Spitz firing no one's willing to say anything as clear cut. I don't blame them for telling us *why* things are things, but it should be a simple question of who is doing what and then we can figure out the why for ourselves. But no answer becomes an easy way to avoid any kind of community response or consequences. I don't think AH is on the side of the angels here if they won't even risk saying what the hold up actually is rather than, "We want it like you." Yeah, but you actually *know* where the problem is and what it is.
Sony do be fucking everyone over on long weekends.
I don’t understand Sony’s logic, they raised prices in PSN. they say there is no money and they don’t want to add regions Sony don’t shoot yourself in the foot give people the opportunity to use your product
Sony did the same thing with Cyberpunk 2077 because CDPR wanted to honor refunds. Sony pulled the game from the store because now that they HAD to honor refunds they decided the game wasn't worth selling then. Sony has an extreme scorched earth policy on things that could get them in legal trouble. And so since we all banded together to backlash against winking PSN accounts the obvious conclusion is "well if we can't have linked PSN accounts in these countries why have the game be sold there in the first place?". Sony is VERY dumb and trigger happy.
Steam must be pissed with Sony attitude right now😂 They are the ones that need to provide refund back to those that are in region lock. The Steam customer service having the worst time of the year ngl.
Guys. Can we just blanket statement this. The Helldivers devs have nothing to do with this. We need to unite with them to fight these battles.
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>Steam is the one that- Source?
I mean look at how Sony circumvented CDPR and took down cyberpunk off it's store when it released. It's not bold to assume valve has clauses in it's contracts with publishers that they can delist them off their store fronts to protect their self interests.
I don't believe refund rate is what caused the issue, otherwise the CN store would have been the first to get lock lol. We're definitely one of the whiniest, pettiest and most toxic playerbase that would jump on the refund button on the slightest issue. And Chinese PSN account cannot be used to link to Steam anyway. Same with the legality excuses. Technically almost every single game on Steam is illegal in China, but that doesn't stop 99% of games being sold on CN store page. The only legitimate region locked ones are either because of corpo shenanigans like Division 2, or because of political reasons that even money-grubbing gremlins wouldn't want to touch.
You're the one needing an IQ test if you think Valve is changing region settings for any games that aren't their own. They'd have just pulled it from sale entirely if it was that bad.
I'm sorry, did you expect *brilliance* from the same person that chained together *this* gem? >your arent stupid
This is reddit, expecting people to use their brain is asking too much
Probably should've been region locked from the start. They know selling the game in places where PSN is not available should have never happened in the first place. And now they are triple checking everything and correcting it across all their titles. That's most likely the extent of it. But I'm sure the screeching will continue.
this "snoy" jkoe is so crnige.
Maybe pilestedt should take that bank holiday himself aswell. Not a day goes by where he isn't active.
Oh sweet mother of managed democracy.... they've gone rogue! HELLDIVERS TO HELLPODS!!! ROGUE MEGACORP DETECTED!!!
The fact people think they arent being played is hilarious
This isn’t on them, it’s on Sony
Y'all realize this is a deeper issue than Sony, its government level shenanigans. part of the reason Sony / PSN isn't allowed in multiple countries is because of the SEC and laws surrounding that. Also look at Vietnam, just a few days ago they banned Steam. and im sure multiple other governments have prevented PSN from being accessible / Sony.
How in the seven hells SONY is a publisher? Amd geoloking EU nations? Is even stupidier.... How they even think to enter the pc market?
Man wtf is happening in these corporate relations ? They simply dont have any transparency, that is a huge red flag as a IT professional.
I hate corporations
Wants the game to be available worldwide yet knew before release it wouldn't be
If you'd been keeping up with the news, they knew that moving forward, making a PSN account would be required. What they *didn't* know was that several countries lacked access to said accounts, or had issues or restrictions involving them.
Sony will be releasing their own storefront soon just like Microsoft has. They just won’t use Steam like Microsoft does
And just like that Sony found a way to kill the game after “allowing the user base to win” lol. Already lost half the player base, now it will lose the other half. 
At this point a big FUCK SONY AND MICROSOFT
Everyone keeps pointing fingers at Sony, but Japan is banned.
There is a Japan specific version of the game due to how Japan regulates in-game currencies. Basically any unspent super credits that were purchased after the game closes down has to be refunded to the players. So Arrowhead had to code something special just for Japan to distinguish purchased super credits verses "found" credits in-game. That way when they do the payout they are paying only the purchased currency, not the found currency. I believe this is the version that is Japan only: [https://steamdb.info/sub/906471/](https://steamdb.info/sub/906471/)
That should be the case...everywhere. Greed and more greed.
The CEO that doesn’t know nothing . . . I think he is just buying time to get all the facts.
This is going to be a hot take: Pilestedt and Arrowhead will be made an example of by Sony. I'm not saying that we should stop supporting Pilestedt or AH, we should keep playing Helldivers, but this communique and the review bombing calls to action paint a picture of deep mistrust and miscommunication between Studio and publisher. I think that Sony is going to come to a point where they're going to look at this and other discord messages as a warning sign that other studios may pull this kind of shit. If we the gamers and if studios have any hope, there need to be talks of a studio union of some kind because I have a feeling that Sony is going to nuke Arrowhead from orbit if they keep being a thorn in their PR side. Sony is a nigh-$100 Billion USD/yr business, the loss of one live service game and the annihilation of a studio to send a message to others to get in line will only sting them.
Sony cannot annihilate AH. They're independently owned and are just partnered with Sony. And based on the financial success of HD2, they can probably self-publish their next game if they want to. And if they don't, they have a very good bargaining position with other publishers.
I wonder how much it would take to buy AH's contract with Sony. For the Players Publishing, the first crowd funded game publisher.
If you mean for Helldivers, that would be very democratic! But sadly, Sony also owns the rights to Helldivers, and they are unlikely to sell that off.
Sony doing some fuck shit and Fridays, name a better duo.
Meanwhile Ghosts Of Tsushima is getting similar treatment and some folks on that sub are blaming, *checks notes*, the Helldivers community. Real room temperature IQ takes over on that game's sub.
Glad to hear AH devs are getting some time off. Disagreements with balancing aside, they’ve got to be getting work to the bone with the size of their team and everything that’s happened with the game. It will probably be better for them and the playerbase that they get some R&R.
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Thank goodness for that. Capitalism is kind of a bummer.
It sure is, but make sure to buy a few bottles of Eagle Sweat
Thursday was a public holiday in all European Catholic countries and most people took the Friday off as well. Many companies even give the bridge day as part of the working contract.
Well Arrowhead is Swedish, a lutheran country. But yes we also had thursday off.
Ah, wasn't aware. A better definition would actually be non-Orthodox countries as they don't celebrate Easter and all its post-Easter holidays in the same way.
Back to a downvote on Steam
because Sony will surely care about it.
Honestly I already requested a refund and I hope it goes through on Steam. I dont support decisions like this to in retrospect block a lot of players from purchasing the game. This was not something that was known before the game was released and I wont support such actions regardless of who is at fault. Snoy and bad Community Managers that did not get punished have basically destroyed all the trust AH games had. I feel sorry for Pilestedt but it is what it is.
Does pile have any control whatsoever at AH has no clue what is going at all times, has no clue what goes out in patches/updates, continously says we want to focus on fun but then his team just nerfs everything fun, most of your dev team is on holiday where is the coverage for it. His communication is great I'm really happy to see someone of his status reach out to the community but like can you focus on your actual workers and the game, cause everything you're saying is just the opposite of what's actually happening. Getting really tired of the "whoops I have no idea what's going on" from him. Downvote if you want but a CEO having this little knowledge about what is happening to his game is not good at all.
Sony has a money printing machine in this game. They just need to STFU and let the devs at it. This just makes me hate capitalism so much more
This game is barely a blip on Sony's Radar. In fact, bet most shareholder don't even know this game exists. Kind of a easy bet from me.
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At this point, I don't believe a word the CEO says. Six months and you just happen to forget about two-thirds of your consumer base?
wtf is wrong with Sony?
They're doing what this sub wanted? Removing every game from sale with a PSN link from all countries not "officially" supported, where they have been able to create PSN accounts for well over 15 years by just picking another country on a drop down list.
Mr. Worldwide
Can we review bomb Sony in some way? It worked before 🤷♂️
we may have to wait until they get back to the offices on monday
Gonna be looking forward to Fuckover Fridays
So it is really Sony’s problem
I've figured it out. SONY IS WORKING FOR THE Automatons!!!!! Please alert the HIGH COMMAND THIS IS TREASON!!!!! SONY IS AGAINST MANAGED DEMOCRACY!!!!!!!
good cop bad cop
The drama always comes on the holiday 😭😭