Helldivers 2

To their own statements, Arrowhead was not aware of the significant regional restrictions of the PSN and assumed everyone would be able to play the game. As publisher, Sony was responsible for the region-locking (or, in this case, lack thereof).

The PSN requirement was present at the start and stated on the Steam page but was almost immediately given a temporary suspension as part of Arrowhead's efforts to unfuck their servers with the massive wave of people who tried to join at the start. That it was temporary was communicated, but only through out-of-game channels, which Arrowhead's CEO recently issued an apology for the poor communication on.

Edited by 4maskwolf on May 5th 2024 at 10:46:30 AM

This is the one part I don't actually believe.

Like, okay, Arrowhead, you have no choice but to implement it. I get that part. Just say that.

But you're gonna tell me no one involved in a studio of 100 people knew PSN wasnt available everywhere? Like, this isnt 3 guys coding in a basement. Like, if the requirement was there from the start at no point in your communications with Valve and Sony did you realize you were selling the game in regions that didnt have PSN?

Like "Oh the PSN requirement were there but we then lifted them to fix the server issues"

Okay but that means you then had to add the game to regions without PSN, on purpose? Or were you selling it there from day 1 with the requirement?

Edited by Ghilz on May 5th 2024 at 1:57:28 PM

I would much rather believe "Arrowhead overlooked an egregious error and as a result mismanaged this whole situation in large part due to stuff beyond their control" than "Arrowhead maliciously lied by omission in order to steal money from players from those countries and run away scot free", as I have seen a few whack jobs claiming. Hanlon's Razor, and all that.

It's not about the gold; it's about the glory.

Sure, but neither is a great look?

Like, "Arrowhead put the game on sale in several country where it cant be played. And then the game only became playable there due to a change to fix otherwise unrelated issues, and no one at Arrowhead noticed for three months they were selling the game in regions where it wouldn't be playable once things get back to normal" raises a ton of questions about how they run their business. And this is a game filled with transactions coz, well, it's a GAS.

It's almost preferable that they'd be lying coz if it's a genuine "Ooops" it's such a baffling error to make it raises so many questions about how their competence on the business side of things that for three months they sold games in regions where it wouldn't be playable and no one noticed. Either they are dishonest, or comical levels of incompetence.

Like Arrowhead's trying to make it sound like it's a small oops. Ya know, a thing that just happens. Sometimes you just release games in places where it cant be played and you don't notice.

That said the person who said the "We didnt know about regions" is a community manager, so maybe they just didnt know wtf they were talking about. Which I hope.

Edited by Ghilz on May 5th 2024 at 4:57:14 AM

Man kinda weird to think of the three big live service games that debuted this year (ssktjl, palworld and this). Its now palworld which is the least controversial one now.

Also man I heard how they banned it from being used in any non psn country. Wild. This game used to be so big

Edited by miraculous on May 5th 2024 at 1:58:13 AM

"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."

There is a really easy option for Sony to mine players was to make PSN optional, but you’d get rewarded by logging in consecutively. That sounds way more okay than whatever this is

Pantheon server for all who click here. Freaking lost $410 and I am hunting down for a nuke to reign down.

I'm trying to get some numbers here so I've got 2 questions to ask:

1. Of the list of countries that can access Steam, how many of them can't access PSN?

2. Of the Steam-accessible countries with access to PSN, which ones have extra requirements for account creation (eg. Owning/having access to a Playstation 4 or 5)?

I'm not sure about Steam but there are IIRC 121 countries total that can't access the PSN, I don't know how many of those can access Steam. The only one I know that needs a PS 4 or PS 5 is Ukraine, there might be more but I'm not aware of them.

Edited by doineedaname on May 5th 2024 at 6:16:41 AM

Insider gaming has a list of the 121 countries without a PSN

Edited by miraculous on May 5th 2024 at 3:20:31 AM

"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."

@miraculous

Is Palworld a Live-Service Game? I don't see how it would be anymore than something like Minecraft. Does it even have lootboxes or anything like that? Nor does it ask you to play it consistently.

A Live-Service game implies that it's a game with a business model around getting people to play it consistently and visit the in-game store a lot. The idea isn't merely to sell the game, the gamer itself is a store front basically.

By contrast, Palworld doesn't have any microtransactions and seems to be just trying to sell the game itself.

Edited by Protagonist506 on May 5th 2024 at 3:29:38 AM

"Any campaign world where an orc samurai can leap off a landcruiser to fight a herd of Bulbasaurs will always have my vote of confidence"

Yeah if Sony has any degree of intelligence, they'll quickly fall back on this.

This is too much of a mess to follow through on it, the only reasonable decision is to cancel the order.

Edited by slimcoder on May 5th 2024 at 3:31:54 AM

"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."

Yeah, I still don't have Palworld, but I didn't hear anything about it being live-service.

Edited by Discar on May 5th 2024 at 3:32:40 AM

Ah okay. Was mistaken. Guess multi player game might be a better term for all three.

"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."

Ghilz you seem to be missing the part where Arrowhead isn't the publisher, Sony is. Which is also why is has a special Japan-only distribution that is the only way to get the Japanese language version of the game. It was Sony's responsibility to delist it on Steam, and they also had full knowledge of the extent of PSN.

It's not really that surprising Sony didn't delist it (until maybe yesterday) though, they've been officially selling PSN-requiring products in non-PSN countries (including the baltic states who are part of the EU) for over a decade on the assumption that people will just select the nearest PSN enabled country.

You do know that that is not a PSN thing right? Blame the UK government... You have to do it to make any kind of online gaming account including iTunes, Microsoft, Steam and so on.

Going to have to get used to it... going to be doing it a lot.

Now mainstream media is picking up on it.

Edited by Memers on May 5th 2024 at 6:22:10 AM

Someone must have really wanted their bonus if PSN numbers increased by the quarter...

Play has no limits? Looks pretty limited now

Pantheon server for all who click here. Freaking lost $410 and I am hunting down for a nuke to reign down.

If mainstream media is reporting on it, you know it's major.

"That we continue to persist at all is a testament to our faith in one another."

It also only increases the likelihood that Sony won't implement the change and that this will all be over soon.

It's not about the gold; it's about the glory.

I remember Sony still keeping 80 buck new psplus price even with the outcry. I have a 60% feeling they wont change it, the belief theyre too high up to be moved by outcry unless they were really forced to. Even then, theyll probably try to find to sneak psn requirements after all this.

Edited by M1gamiTensei on May 5th 2024 at 7:13:25 AM

Pantheon server for all who click here. Freaking lost $410 and I am hunting down for a nuke to reign down.

PSN is calling off their plans to force PSN sign ups. You madlads actually did it!

Looks like that 60% was a Darkest Dungeon 60%.

WE WON! WE WON! WE WON! WE WON!

It's not about the gold; it's about the glory.

Great now people can stop review bombing the game and taking it on Arrowhead.

"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."

Holy shit! That actually worked! And here I was expecting Sony to dig in their heels like most corporations.

Hopefully ppl will stop trying to review bombing Arrowhead's other games now.

Edited by DoubleOG on May 5th 2024 at 9:55:53 AM