Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2024/05/05/helldivers-2-removed-from-steam-across-much-of-the-world-refunds-given.html
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Every new headline and post Isee about this is worse than the last. I hope that Sony compromises and lets folks play without needing to make an account
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I think I’d rather they just make the game a Playstation exclusive than to do this. At least that way, they’re being upfront about what they want.
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I gifted a copy to a friend through Steam a bit ago but he doesn’t have a PSN account and refuses to create one just for this. Steam declined my refund request - I’m pretty ticked at Sony right now.
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Gossip is that this is down to some kind of internal Sony executive pissing match.
Personally, I’m at a loss for any other reason SoE would shoot theselves in the foot like this.
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I don’t play it, but I read the requirement was there at launch but removed due to whatever Sony system/service being overloaded by the games popularity. That said, I ain’t gonna proselytize on account of Sony. May a Sony executive (or several) get the boot at the end of this.
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SoE’s entire MO is shooting themselves in the foot, face, ass, wherever. It’s been two decades and I still don’t forgive them for the “New Gaming Enhancement” they foisted on Star Wars Galaxies.
This is par for their course.
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In the plutocratic oligarchy you vote with your dollars, and the players are doing just that.
I wonder how much money they actually lost in sales in the affected regions (I expect most of the sales will be in regions where PSN is available, because Sony surely made the decision based on economics in the first place*). Whatever the case, I really hope the studio doesn’t get screwed by all the nonsense being imposed on them by Sony, but if anyone is going to get screwed by a bad published decision, it’s always going to be the studio.
*Although looking at the list of places where it’s no longer available, I suspect something weird has happened, because it includes parts of the US and… Japan.
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such a shame. Ah well, another “can I possibly run this on mac” timesink avoided.
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This feels like more late-stage-capitalism weirdness where a target like “customers on PSN” matters more than actual profits from sales.
It might actually work out that way at the corporate level due to some perverse investment incentive, or more likely at an internal level, with metrics dictating that you piss of your userbase.
Financialization of everything has distorted current capitalism/markets away from the core model of selling products to customers, which I’m sure is looked at as charmingly old fashioned by the current executive class. “Deliver good value to consumers without a catch? Oh, sweet summer child…”
It will prob. get worse until customers either vote enough with their wallets enough that investment money cares, or regulators step in in specific markets.
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Sony announced before the publication of this BB post that they’re not going through with the PSN account requirement.
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The earliest statement I can find is this tweet from 10 hours ago, about 15 hours after this post.
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They should have gone with Microsoft. Then everybody could play the game without this Sony nonsense.
So the game would require an XBL account instead of a PSN one? I fail to see the difference.
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No, so they could all be out of work when Microsoft shut their studio down. Duh!
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For example Sea of Thieves while you can buy and play it on Steam it will require XBL account. You don’t have to pay for the XBL service but as far as i know having the account is required and was the only reason i never bought the game.
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