Helldivers 2 Blasted with Over 200,000 Positive User Reviews Following Sony's PSN Backtrack

Some of the more conspiratorial takes on Sony's/AH's motivations over the weekend were ridiculous and mean-spirited - IMO this was far more cock-up than conspiracy - but fair play to the PC crowd for getting what they wanted.
Going forward, I think it would be a good middle-ground for Sony to say that you need a PSN account for cross-play with PS players: Giving Sony the benefit of the doubt and that this was about 'player safety'; taking the PC players' point that they can see other users' Steam IDs even if their in-game name is generic; and noting that (AFAIK) PSN players cannot see Steam IDs, then this would seem to be a reasonable compromise.

I'm glad they acquiesced as quickly as they did. If they hadn't they would have done serious damage toward their PC business going forward.

The only question now is what they do going forward. Sucker Punch already daid GoT will require PSN to play Legends. That needs to be active at launch if Sony actually wants to make that happen.

Demmmocracy prevails once more 💪🏻

@RudeAnimat0r I think every live service will require a PSN moving forward, really no different than what other companies require.

Imagine if people out this much energy into real issues.

We've previously seen Sony simply dictate what they want with things like console price increases, and raising the prices of their subscription service without actually giving any further bonus to its subscribers. In this instance, I think that Sony will have learned a valuable lesson in that whilst they have a captive audience with their console, with whom they can wait out any storm they create knowing that there is little their console base can do about it. However, with the PC community, they can take collective action that can considerably hurt Sony, and so I doubt they will make that same mistake again.

I do have to wonder though, whether the reason behind the requirement to have a PlayStation account on the PC does not have something to do with some internal target to increase the number of people listed as part of the PlayStation userbase. Was this something to wave at the shareholders to say how they have been growing PlayStation? Maybe I'm just being cynical, or perhaps jaded, I don't know...

They are a bunch of entitled high horse nerds, but when it matters, at least they have the dignity to take the time and do the right thing as well in the end.

Though you can never win from corpos. Next time Sony will require PSN from day 1 lol

Good, the majority of negative reviews bringing the game down we're just pathetic drivel anyway.

@themightyant and you do, on consoles? I don't get why you blame PC users for that? Not all helldivers 2 players are playing games with predatory MTX. I dont get this hostile approach to PC users who are calling BS out.

@EchoRange what real issues? What is real issues to you? People has different needs and different problems.

Now people are writing positive reviews!? Will these monsters never stop?

@LieutenantFatman Helldivers 2 discords mods even told that best way to deal with this situation is to leave steam reviews to give Arrowhead upperhand in talks with Sony.
Now fight is over, they can ammend it.

I dont get where is your pleasure to block this game around 190 countries in world if PSN requirement would go ahead.

People made their voices heard, people are going back to revert.

Dont blame players, blame the Game. It is Sony fault for not implementing PSN in the World for everyone.

I am embarresed for this all situation and most people stance in Pushsquare. You are entitled ones, living in major countries and don't even try to understand bigger picture.

You would rather see around 180-190 countries delisted from PSN required games than blame Sony for their lack to unite all gamers in the World. Sony should be ditching their archaistic PSN style and open it up for everyone no matter where they live and play.

Amd then there would be less outcry for that PSN account requirement. Make it to make sense rather just pat PSN active numbers and keep people hostage for playing game.

"All according to plan" - Sony probably

@REALAIS

I think you may have misunderstood my comment, I was making joke.

All the best, hope you have a nice day!

@themightyant - Early access in particular is a really tricky aspect. One one hand it's great as it helps fund the cost of ongoing production and planning of dev time, and I've supported a few games I've really enjoyed from pretty early in their 'Early Access' period, which I don't know if they would have been viable without it (for example, Teardown and Satisfactory).

However, most of us do see the big elephant in the room is how much of a bait and switch exercise it facilitates, especially when it comes to releases that are very much unfulfilled and incomplete (and which devs may not even intend on seeing through). I'm not sure how that can really be tackled or addressed short of just not buying early access, but it also does potentially ruin the opportunity for something really great to succeed against the odds and without massive publishers to fund them.

@Fiendish-Beaver "I do have to wonder though, whether the reason behind the requirement to have a PlayStation account on the PC does not have something to do with some internal target to increase the number of people listed as part of the PlayStation userbase. Was this something to wave at the shareholders to say how they have been growing PlayStation? Maybe I'm just being cynical, or perhaps jaded, I don't know..."

I don't think you're being cynical at all. That is the reality in a world where player engagement is a huge metric for success.

Clearly the login wasn't a necessary step to connect to game servers run by Sony as the game worked just fine without it, so one can deduce that it's for no other reason than telemetric data used by bean counters to report to decision makers.

While I certainly don't agree with some of the reactions people had, I do think, to a certain degree, Sony over-played its hand and misunderstood its dominance in gaming.

Getting PlayStation games on PC was a cool novelty when Sony first started it, but the decline in sales since then show that its first-party output is extremely niche in the PC market.

PC Gamers aren't buying Helldivers 2 because it's a great Sony-published game, they are buying it because it's a type of game that is popular in PC circles.

Clearly, they were willing to abandon due to Sony screwing over countries that couldn't play the game anymore (without breaking ToS), despite taking their money at first (or was that Valves fault for not blocking those countries from sale? Did the two companies even talk about it?!).

I think, had the PSN requirement been in place on Day 1, this wouldn't have been such an issue. One could say, "well it's on the people buying the game not paying attention", but the reality is, there was a breakdown in communication somewhere as clearly a bunch of people didn't get the memo and a bunch of people were sold something they couldn't play after a couple months.

We can point fingers all day, but the reality is, all this could have been avoided had all considerations been made before release.

Dumb decisions give negative reviews while good decisions give positive reviews.
I feel like there is a lesson to be learned here somewhere.

Sony should offer a super rare awesome looking skin and 1000 Super Credits for linking your PSN ID. You can guarantee the PC mob would be tripping over themselves to make an account and hand their details over to Sony.

@EchoRange It happens every day. Just look at the litany of Gaza/Israel-related protests, encampments, etc. If you want to be an activist there's no shortage of options. The idea people don't care about more important issues just because HD2 had a protest campaign is silly.

Why exactly does Arrowhead not deserve to bear the brunt of this? Wasn't it their failure to notify the player base from the jump about the PSN requirement that caused this whole mess in the first place?

@REALAIS I'm not going to dispute that it's a problem, but I doubt the solution is as simple as Sony just making PSN open to everyone worldwide. It would be interesting to know exactly why it's not supported in certain regions, and just for reference, to know how Xbox and Nintendo account support compares.

It might be related to local regulations, which could be a fairly complex situation. On the other hand, you wouldn't expect that to be an issue in EU countries. Is it simply a case of Sony not bothering to support these countries? Difficult to judge without knowing the specifics.

@Ainu20 In the case of non-supported EU regions it's mostly because the Baltics combined population is so small and they each have their own unique languages. It's a major translation headache, with little reward, to localize things to Estonian for example.

It sucks for the smaller nations, but that's the reason.

@Smash41 We're not all tempted by shinies. This whole thing was down to poor communication between Sony, Arrowhead and the Steam user base.

@REALAIS oh, people dying and starving, not making accounts for games.

@glennthefrog and then those players are using Finland, Uk, US or other regions to play. Which in general is breaking ToS. But if for all is only in mind how to earn a lot from every country then yeah, nothing will change. And people will strugfle with PSN linking in future, especially on PC. Ehere for example "special" regions can only create PSN Account through consoles PS4/PS5 itself. Don't have console, but want to play PC game? "Sucks for you"

@EchoRange yeah, PC gamers should solve that issue with starving and dying. Such great idea.

@glennthefrog I wonder if Sony could just make it officially available there in, say, English (or any other already supported language), rather than translating everything. Not ideal but at least it's something.

Or I guess it's possible that local laws demand everything be available in the official language(s) of the country in question.

@Specky you're describing playstation and nintendo fans not pc players.

@REALAIS Oh, I'm with you dude. Sony gave those smaller nations the shaft and the boot licking by some of the fans is embarrassing to witness. I thought Nintendo fanboys were the kings of being blinded by brand loyalty, but their crown has been snatched after the one-two punch of apologists for puritanical Stellar Blade censorship and unnecessary PSN sign ups on PC games.

@Ainu20 I think it is the latter case in this instance.

I worked for a major fashion company in Europe in the past and they did the first thing you suggested whenever possible. But certain nations were insistent that was not okay for the online shop.

A corporation is an entity conceived and designed for the sole purpose of generating as much profit as possible - and here’s the caveat- within a given market. To do this effectively, a human touch is required and folks are paid big bucks to make what works on paper actually work in practice. This is not a market that Sony can waltz into and dictate their status quo, that much is clear. You can’t take your golden calf into the lions den and expect to make it out alive without respecting the lions’ nature. This whole thing’s been mildly fascinating to watch unfold.

@Smash41

Exactly what I was thinking, Sony tried the stick, now to try the carrot...

I love democracy!

Good that the positive reviews are back. I love this game and the general ethos and support from the developer they put the AAAs to shame.

Next week. Free war bond for every player that links their PSN account. Test their principles I say 😂😂

@Deityjester
They can be bad, but holy crap the entitlement of the developed nerd neck from years behind their desks is absolutely insane. It's unmatched

The people have spoken. F your fake democracy (corporatocracy)

I have no idea as to the answer for this, @GamingFan4Lyf, but just how many games were sold in those Countries that do not have PlayStation? How different would the sales figures look if those sales had not taken place? Also, how many fewer copies of the game would have been sold had the requirement been in place from the outset, even in those Countries that do have the PlayStation? Undoubtedly there would have been some that wouldn't have bought the game for that reason. You have to wonder whether the numbers would have been celebrated quite so vociferously without those other Countries etc. I don't suppose we'll ever know, but I have to admit to being curious...

The crying about the psn account was Kind of ridiculous. But the locking the player out from Other countries that have paid.Is completely justified Protest. Sony is just the hotness to hate atm.

@Fiendish-Beaver The problem is, if sales numbers came before doing the right thing at "Go", then Sony can plop itself right next to Microsoft on the "greed train" today.

Perhaps if the PSN requirement was there day 1 and banned from sale in countries where PSN isn't available, and it did sway results to significantly lesser sales, at least the PC metrics would have been accurate on Week 1 rather than reports that the game is so popular, it's blowing up the PC scene and riding that hype train for more sales.

And, if the PSN requirement on Day 1 didn't change sale metrics and it was still a smashing success, then great for Arrowhead and Sony - plus, no controversy.

The thing is, public perception will assume Sony was just going to take people's money regardless. So having the requirement - even if it meant having to overcome technical issues - would have been the better option for accurate purchase decisions and public opinion.

But, you're right, we'll never know the "what if".

Clearly something went wrong in the communication/expectations pipeline to have caused this in the first place. I am glad it was resolved for those who still want to enjoy the game "PSN free", but it shouldn't have ever happened to begin with.

Interesting. Sony decided to be spineless like so many in the world today. They've lost some respect from me.

At least it doesn't impact anything important.

Absolutely right on all fronts, @GamingFan4Lyf. This should never have happened in the first place. One can only assume that Sony will have learned its lesson. Then again...

@Fiendish-Beaver Time will tell. Gaming has become such a mess.

@themightyant - Fair enough & 100% with you on that one (sorry about confusion!).

The whole review bombing and spread of misinformation was just nonsensical. There were issues, but the way the PC community handled it was just foul.

On the bright side, if you were ever unsure of it before, this campaign they ran is proof communism works.

@Fiendish-Beaver I'll explain like you are 5:

• Imagine in your neighborhood you sell walkie talkies to the kids, let's call it Walkie Network (WN) and it uses radio signals for every kid to use and communicate with each other. Each walkie has 2 signal knobs (one FM and the other for AM).
• You have a central FM console so you can monitor the chatter and ensure no one is being naughty. Everyone uses FM, but some kids decided to turn off FM and enable AM only. Now you have a problem, your FM console has no idea what AM is and you cannot monitor through that console. You remember that your grandparents have an AM console, but you can't bring it over so every time you want to monitor the AM channel, you have to drive to your grandparents house (26 miles away from your FM console).

Do you see how much of a nuisance this is?

@themightyant that's not what early access is as you meant it.
You're talking about a beta test. You're right a game in beta is usually discounted or free to allow the user base to find bugs. And I agree having no problem supporting this.
As for the early access of supposedly finished games. I would have agreed at some point not to keep rewarding devs for broken games at release.
However even games on disc nowadays require a day 1 patch and multiple updates. I'd argue that these are also unfinished games.
So where to end? Do we never buy another game again until it's guaranteed complete? Or just all move over to Nintendo?

@Fiendish-Beaver I wonder if PS knew they were going to do this all along but waited until the PC player base pushed the game up the charts. Sneaky sneak.

It's entirely possible, @jedinite, though I think the bad publicity it probably something that Sony would rather avoid. Knowing that some would not have bought the game if they knew that had to sign up to PSN though is perhaps something that Sony realised, and thought they would sell more copies without the PSN requirement, so they may have gone for that. What I don't think they accounted for was sales in Countries without PSN, and the PC community coming together to fight for those people...

You'll have to forgive me, @Callmegil, but I have absolutely no idea what you are going on about. What have I said that you are trying to explain?

@Fiendish-Beaver you were questioning why they needed PSN. I explained using a simpler example that has no technicalities to it.

Got you, @Callmegil. Though it was actually a rhetorical question! I was musing as to whether such a requirement had more to do with artificially growing the number of subscribers, more than anything. The fact that they have now backtracked on the decision does tend to suggest that they did not really need it in the first place...

Imagine moaning and being so utterly petty and spending time to bombard with bad reviews because they have to spend two minutes making a PlayStation account for a Sony PlayStation owned studio game on PC. Honestly might be in the minority but don't honestly see the fuss, you need one for most games now. Sounds like people aren't happy they've even got a PlayStation studio game on PC! Be grateful you've got the game man!

@Fiendish-Beaver They do need it, every online game needs to be signed in to an account so the developers can monitor with ease. This campaign will make things harder for the Devs, but their hardship ahead are no concern of mine.

Understood, @Callmegil, but then they should have been upfront about this from the outset, or better still, delayed the release of the game until the 'technical issues' had been sorted. If most certainly should not have been sold in Countries that did not support PSN if the intention all along was to have that as a requirement (for whatever reason they might have had).