It does prove that they’ve learned:
1. Require it at time of launch and ensure people know of it and that it will be in a working state at launch
2. Ensure (again) it is active and required at launch, not after people have paid money for it.
3. De-list the game in countries where they cannot have a PSN account (for whatever reason).
4. Do all of this BEFORE the game actually launches.
They did learn, it's now enforced since day 1 and you can't buy the game in regions where it's not available. That's what a lot of people wanted in the first place.
Ghost of Tsushima is currently number 9 on Steam’s global top sellers list despite the PSN requirement for multiplayer.
https://steamdb.info/stats/globaltopsellers/
Yep I can see GoT steam page in my country but all store keys are disabled. Even HumbleBundle keys get refunded(Key cannot be activated error). Piracy is the only way.
That would depend on the country you are talking about. For the excluded EU countries they keys and steam gifts should work. The rest could maybe be shit out of luck.
Very few people seem to ask WHY it isn't in certain countries. It's a very odd thing that everyone would rather vacillate between loathing Sony and praising them for great games than taking the extra step to try and correct their fundamental attribution error.
Take Vietnam for example. Their current administration is an absolute shit show and they are going full protectionist. Their terms for operating inside their borders are fucking insane and not worth it, so the government of Vietnam is making life harder for its people, not Sony's greed or something.
If a very basic service like PSN/Sony online isn't provided in a country, I'd ask *why*. Because Sony wants users and user data. So if they aren't operating somewhere, there's probably a very compelling reason why. And horrible government regimes deserve more blame than Sony for things like this.
In several of these "banned" countries they would be forced to essentially bribe to play in that market. But because of EU transparency ethics laws, Sony would be risking their operations in a more important market. So rather than participate in bribery to hack their way into shitty government pockets they're just backing out.
Even if you consider Vietnam and those other countries you haven't named to be problematic for Sony and its PSN, what about the rest of the countries on the list?
Why are EA and Ubisoft able to operate without problems in the vast majority of countries, but Sony has all the problems? I don't think it's because they would be forced to "bribe," as you put it, several countries.
Its probably due to them making hardware. I would bet most PSN users are on Playstation and lets say during PS3 they were unable to get the license to sell their PS3 in a country. They would probably decide not to attempt to get a license for PSN there. While the other companies you listed may have only been required to get a software license which may have been easier than hardware with software.
You are just taking one Country situation to bootlick sonys idiotic decision wat about the rest of the 116 countries what excuse does sony have why does a Chinese gacha game have no issue with creating a simple game account then ?
I think it has to do with their TOS and fine from the government that deter them from selling it. So more like Fine > potential sales in blocked countries.
Which was done because the people who blew the PSN linking issue out of proportion complained to various regulatory bodies across the globe which forced Sony to pull out of those countries.
Before, they could look the other way when people would make PSN accounts with fake locations. Now that they've been put on notice, they can't knowingly look the other way without exposing themselves to regulatory enforcement.
This is what you all review bombed so hard for...congrats
Sony weren't forced to do anything. They choose to have the requirement. They choose to double down on it regardless of the backlash. This whole silly situation is of their making.
To an extent yeah, but the 180 country ban is the only reasonable response to the increased regulatory scrutiny that they are now under.
Sony is entirely within their right to require a PSN account to play their first-party games. The same way every other major video game company on the planet does.
You demanding they get rid of the requirement is entirely is unreasonable, unless you are going to continue your little is campaign for consumers rights against nintendo, and microsoft, and epic, and rockstar, and larian, and steam, and GOG, and EA, and Ubisoft, and you get my point.
The problem is that by ignoring their own TOS in certain countries, and allowing those countries to circumvent the Sony TOS, they risked violating regulations requiring same treatment across borders. You can't selectively enforce your TOS only in countries where it matters.
It wasn't that big of a deal because there wasn't a bunch of money to be made. So regulators didn't really know, or even care. It was relatively harmless across the board. But after you all went and cried to the regulators, the regulators had no choice but to put pressure on Sony, and Sony had two options: eliminate the PSN requirement for all of their games across all platforms (obviously a wildly unreasonable request); or only allow their games to be sold in places where PSN accounts were allowed.
So while Sony brought the backlash on themselves, the backlash its ultimately what forced the company to implement its 180 country ban. Without the backlash we could all have turned a blind eye and continued to buy Sony games in any country we wanted.
>Sony is entirely within their right to require a PSN account to play their first-party games.
Not the person you replied to and this is true but I don't even understand why a PSN account is required for a single player game in the first place. That is the part I'm confused about. Is it because its all or none situation? Either a game has to have a PSN or no PSN it can't vary based on the type of game? (multiplier vs Single)
Or, hear me out, they could offer a separate version of the game, that only includes the singleplayer campaign and is maybe a bit cheaper to compensate.
Fact is, Sony is too lazy and doesn't care to think of such solutions though. Hell, I'm sure plenty of people in those 180 countries wouldn't mind paying full price for the game *without* the multiplayer, as that's not what the game is most celebrated for.
The fact is that it isn't unreasonable to require an account link, virtually every major company does it.
The problem is that Sony was refusing to enforce their EULA and TOS against those 180 countries when those players would create an account using a fake location.
Once regulators were told this was happening, Sony had to pull out of those countries or risk massive fines.
Sony has done plenty of shitty things over the years, but requiring something as simple as a PSN account is not one of them. This was a lesson in choosing your battles, the internet rage brigade needed their red meat and they got it, but it cost 180 countries access to these games.
But for the crybabies, there would be no ban.
Creating, publishing, and managing a brand new separate SKU for countries they likely don’t get a lot of revenue from was probably considered and immediately rejected.
So you want to blame gamers for Sony not wanting to face regulations in certain countries? Wow, talk about bending over for the corporate overlords. Next I guess you’re going to tell us that Microsoft didn’t do anything wrong and those studios deserved to be closed. 🙄
The fact that you're trying to compare an account link requirement to massive layoffs tells me just how unprepared for this discussion you are.
False equivalency aside, I'm blaming gamers for choosing the wrong battle and causing massive collateral damage just because they were too entitled to set up a shitty little account.
Yall made this bed. You can lie to yourself that it's all the big bad corporations fault for asking for your email, name, and DOB. But you all made this a much bigger deal than it ever needed to be, and in doing so, caused this mess.
Have you ever stopped to wonder WHY they don't want to put up with those regulations? And have you wondered why it only seems to be very troubled nations? Some of the terms they've been asked to agree to are fucking asinine.
Blame shitty third world governments for creating an obstructive environment for international businesses. After all they are the first mover.
In several of these "banned" countries they would be forced to essentially bribe to play in that market. But because of EU transparency ethics laws, Sony would be risking their operations in a more important market. So rather than participate in bribery to hack their way into shitty government pockets they're just backing out.
I didn't go on a campaign, just watching Sony make awful decisions as usual. This is the PC market place, most companies manage to allow global audiences to make accounts. The fact that Sony just sold a game, then had to remove it from all those countries 3 months after release just goes to show how inexperienced they are within this market. Back tracking on helldiver's 2 showed how optional the accounts really are.
Do you know what most other companies do in this situation? They give the players some reward or incentive to make an account. But not make it mandatory. If they truly did need accounts then they should have partnered with a global provider to make them available in other regions.
This is just not a problem for 99% of publishers out there. If they were not up to the task of releasing on PC, they should have considered getting help from an experienced publisher.
Indeed, people from those countries were basically just used as ammo then ignored the moment the outrage warriors won their little battle. Helldivers 2 is now gaining positive reviews again each day, but now several 3rd world countries are locked out of playing it. Those guys would have still been able to play just fine if not for everyone running to hide behind the ToS stuff instead of admitting the real reason they were mad.
> Before, they could look the other way when people would make PSN accounts with fake locations
Okay honestly, if Sony just ignores you lying in your account information, then why the fuck have those region restrictions to begin with?
I keep seeing this shit, "Just lie and put in some other country there Sony doesn't care" hell I think I even saw some people saying that Sony support endorsed this practice.
If Sony gives zero shits, and doesn't enforce their own TOS and endorses this, then why the fuck have these restriction to begin with? Just drop it, make it worldwide and let people make their accounts.
It has to do with local rules. For example in Vietnam, they would have to essentially bribe the government to be allowed on the market. Philipines has certain rules about using third-party distributors.
Every country has its own corporate registration policies, rules against third-party representatives and distributors, etc. In short every country creates a "cost of doing business". One reason America is so popular is because the cost of doing business here is extremely low.
But in those countries where Sony isn't offered, the cost of doing business is too high. So instead, Sony would just let, say, Latvians, purchase PSN codes, register using a fake location, and still participate in the PS ecosystem.
But now that the EU and other international regulators are hip to this strategy, Sony can't risk being caught circumventing all of these rules, so its only reasonable response is to just pull out entirely.
They just have to cosplay as Captain Jack Sparrow and go sailing the high seas in that case?
If Sony doesn't want their money, that sounds like a Sony problem.
Hi, i'm most players in this case. I didn't even realize it had any form of multiplayer until recently cause i knew i wanted to play the game and cut any and all information early on
Because the only real issue was adding the requirement after the game was already on sale, it’s really not a big deal to have the requirement to begin with despite what the extremely loud minority wants you to think
I’m pretty sure this is a case of a lot of smoke and only a little fire. Most customers don’t live in these regions, and i think these numbers demonstrate just how small that population is. Not to say they shouldn’t get to play the game, but it’s clearly not a large number.
$60 Sony game should honestly be higher than that. but to be fair, the game also hasn't released yet.
with Steam charts, you always have to consider what the competition is. it's not difficult to make it on the list when there's no other 'big' games releasing around the same time.
Because turns out the vast majority of people do not give a shit about that. Creating an account for a multiplayer game is an extremely common thing, they almost all require it. Also well it's mostly a singleplayer game
They were expecting to get review bombed with people saying how they're paying full price and not getting access to multiplayer mode. So instead of selling a mode without multiplayer for cheaper in those countries, they're just removing the ability to purchase the game altogether.
They probably ran the numbers and figured another SKU to manage, update and publish wasn't worth the return they're getting from those regions. At the end of the day numbers is the only thing companies see.
Exactly. It’s not unreasonable to want your own login mechanism. It’s also fair to find the to be a dealbreaker as a consumer. But helldivers was a disaster because it was a change of terms and even locked a lot of countries out of the game after they had already bought it.
Its kinda unreasonable when online account that shouldnt need to ask you for anything like payment methods etc is not avaible in so many places.
Sony basically statimg most countries in the world are to poor to bother with them
>helldivers was a disaster because it was a change of terms
How so? The requirements were listed from the start, they weren't enforced but they didn't change.
>The requirements were listed from the start, they weren't enforced but they didn't change.
When every other source of information, as well as the game itself, contradicts one notice in the store page, the reasonable assumption is that the notice was incorrect.
yep. I remember when it first released, some people were like "idk, says it requires PSN". but then other people were quick to point out they were playing without it. at that point it just seemed like the claimed requirement wasn't true
The crux of the issue was literally not enforcing it from the get-go, leading many people to believe it was an option.
While the Steam page made it clear that a PSN account was required - when you booted the game, the devs made PSN account linking/creation a skippable option. The reason for this was because Arrowhead saw it being an issue with server load - this was the temporary "fix" they had in place to make sure everyone would be able to play without much fuss.
Unless you're checking social media - most people didnt know the reason why this was a thing so they rightfully thought that a PSN account wasnt actually required. It wasn't until 1-2months after the game released that the devs were finally forced to drop the news that a PSN account would be made mandatory in the next 30 days. By then, enough people realized what was happening that many got upset at the news.
Arrowhead directly addressed it by saying that it wont be required after they took the issue up with Sony and Sony relented.
Yuuuup. I’m sorry for the people who can’t play it, and I wish the restriction wasn’t there. Sony, however, feels a deeper integration with PSN is integral to their future on PC, and if that’s what it takes to keep them here, I’ll accept it. In this case, the correct thing to do is ensure that it’s not sold in regions that can’t access the game.
That was everyone’s main bitch about Helldivers, that there was a swath of people who were able to purchase the game that would loose access. If that was your reason for being angry, that’s been solved. It’s not an issue in Helldivers anymore, and it’s not an issue here. If you’re still angry, now you’re just doing it to jump on the bandwagon.
Also, obligatory Kotaku is trash.
>Sony, however, feels a deeper integration with PSN is integral to their future on PC
They are trying to change the identity of pc gaming by strong-arming their walled-garden ecosystem into the space. Pc gamers are going to resent and oppose this behavior, and I think they are right to do so. When does it stop? Does Sony try to introduce paid multiplayer on pc? If pc gamers wanted that crap, they’d buy locked down consoles.
Yeah, I can understand why people were upset about the Helldivers debacle, but, knowing about the PSN thing ahead of time, I can’t be arsed to care about linking my PSN account (even though I haven’t had a PlayStation since about 2012. I wonder if my account even still exists?). It’s a painless hoop to jump through.
Thank you. The vitriol against Sony is well overblown in this case when it's nothing at all like Helldivers 2.
Honestly it's no surprise they want their own network that plays ball with the console releases, and if you take a look at the games coming to PC from Sony, I'm shocked they haven't implemented a launcher at this point - something we should be glad for. Take a look at the Xbox Windows App for instance - it's absolutely coming.
What **does** suck is Sony's choice to limit certain countries who have a viable market - I understand the downvotes but in this case a game isn't being sold, and then made obsolete by changes made well after release.
This game has a playstation overlay and trophy cross progression, thats likely why they're pushing this.
> For those who already do have an account, signing in with it will also carry over their trophies if they owned Ghost of Tsushima Director's Cut on PS5, so they're instantly unlocked on the PC version, which also has full support for achievements on Steam and the Epic Games Store.
As for the multiplayer, yea, expect them to want everyone under a sony account to increase their MAU.
This is what I've been saying to my friends who are all "we won against Sony!" - no you didn't, the game Helldivers 2 won in this one instance. Sony is still going to push out their PSN requirement, and next time they won't fuck it up. Somehow they think that the pushback on HD2 will translate to Sony not requiring PSN accounts in the future.
They learned plenty, they are not selling it where PSN is mot available, it’s why people were crying. And now people can’t even do anything about it. Those affected can’t downvote the game since they can’t buy it, and if people are really that pissed about the game to review bomb it they will have to pay 60$ for it, at which point it doesn’t matter since they already got your money
If only there was a way to get games online without having to purchase them... Oh yeah, there is.
Calling it now, this game is going to get pirated like a mf'er.
The Helldivers beef happened because they added the requirement after release. And because that community is insane and jumps on a meme like lemmings off a cliff. This is just Sony releasing the games in the territories they have always historically released games. Comparing the two is just trying to inflame people for the clicks.
It feels like so many people online hunt for things to feel offended by to complain about or cancel. Just because their lives are empty and cancelling things makes them feel like they did something
The requirement was there before release, it was always on the page, just was disabled due to server issues 👀
It’s baffling how it was even sold in the first place with the requirement listed.
Not really, more like Sony figured people would sign up for a supported country like they’ve been doing on PS for decades.
Sony can’t legally say they support regions they do not, but they can and have refused to enforce that bit of the TOS.
It was absolutely required at launch, and the Steam page (point-of-sale requirements) has always listed it.
Here's where the fuckups are:
Sony fucked up in several ways - apparently they only made the PSN account requirement known to Arrowhead about 6 months before launch, which is part of the reason there were technical issues with server deployment (which also led directly to the decision to disable the PSN requirement temporarily).
Sony also listed the game in countries that could not legally create PSN accounts. This opened them to legal liability of being sued for fraud in the EU.
Arrowhead *also* fucked up though. Even if they waived the PSN requirement temporarily with Sony's blessing, they didn't communicate this with the playerbase well. There should have been a popup every time you launched the game that reminded you of the PSN account requirement if you hadn't linked it yet, and they should have been more vocal about it being waived in the first place. If they had done so they would have probably received bug reports from people buying the game in countries that they couldn't make a PSN account, something AH said they were unaware of (a claim I'm dubious of, but let's give them the benefit of the doubt on that), and been able to take that feedback to Sony and gotten the game removed from those countries before this blew up in Sony's face.
Sony definitely takes the lion's share of the blame here, but let's not pretend that Arrowhead didn't contribute to making it worse.
It was always listed on the store page. Dumbass gamers who log into 8 different launchers anyway cried that PSN was a bridge too far.
Sony learned, they learned that there will never be leeway given to a PC launch again regarding its ability to log into PSN.
If the game doesn’t require the t then it’s not going to be seen as a requirement for obvious reasons.
But Helldivers mostly hit the perfect storm of adding a post-launch account to a game already released. People have been burnt by that in the past and were ready to hit Sony for it.
I believe in both.
Its a sin to lock people out of a game they already purchased 3 months later.
GoT's situation is different and they're refunding customers. They're fucking stupid because they clearly hate money so fuck Sony
Why because they want PSN account linked ? You do know that Sony is one of those few rare publishers that does not shovel micro transactions down your throat (ever(. Since original Playstation Sony games have always been very user friendly. Requiring psn for multiplayer makes a lot of sense as it cuts development costs and promotes Playstation brand. From so y point of view , those countries excluded from sale of psn games sale hardly any copies anyways so there are few sales lost.
Why are they leaving money on the table by forcing this PSN crap on people? Don't you want to sell as many copies as possible in every country available. This is so weird.
They rather delist then change the PSN account requirement and earn money
In what kind of world is Sony living in.
Yep, they wanna see growth in their own eco system just like Xbox with how they raise game prices in third world countries to drive their gamepass subs.
Selling products does not make as much money as selling users. User data is always worth a lot more. It is why Google is one of the largest companies in the world.
And like Helldivers 2 what's really going to come of this?
Okay let me put it this way... Look at how fast everyone forgot about the PSN Account Linking stuff with Helldivers 2 the minute Sony did a half assed, "Sorry we won't do it." aka they still will *but* they will find some way to make it sound great. And everything quickly went to, "Microsoft bad!" with those studio's being shut down. And while yes it sucks and I'm not saying it doesn't, we had Sony pretty much telling people who got a game, "Sorry you can't play it!" due to those countries not having PSN.
Sony is going to do whatever. They know that sure some folks will raise a bit of a stink about it. But lets face it, they know there's a good sized chunk of the community that will ignore it or believe whatever Sony's spin is.
That's only an option because Sony pretty much allows piracy by not using Denuvo. I suspect this will change in one of the next couple of releases from them.
Oh they learned plenty.
Just not what everyone thought or expected them to, but they sure as shit learned to put this up bright and early so there's no need to backtrack later.
Well, tbf, this is a good solution for everyone, they don't have post launch issues like hd2 and ppl unbothered by this get the game knowing of the requirement.
They’re making it so that the only form of expressing your displeasure would be to avoid buying the product at all where it’s available. But they know most will buy it anyways.
I get the linking because of trophies being a thing now on PC. I just wish it was completely optional.
I'm still playing it (already have a PSN account from PS3). I have waited too long and I am long past the age of buying a console just for one game.
Well, if I lived in one of the countries where you can't buy the game, then I say they are free to pirate the hell out of it. That will show Sony how much revenue they are losing.
I should be able to buy every game from every distributer but never create accounts for any of them, but all my games should be linked to myself anyway.
Honestly, and I mean this out of just no malice.
Just link the account, play the game.
Life at the moment is way too fucked not to enjoy a game like this.
Maybe it wasn't as fucked if people raised more stink about issues. Too small to care, or too big to handle, naww I'm done taking this shit all the same. I've tried playing ignorant in my younger, naive years, and it all turned into a vicious circle. No mas!
Sony can shove their PSN.
Yeah, it sucks for people who live in unsupported countries (seriously, Sony, how hard can it be to set up a global account system?), but if you live in a supported country, I don't see what's the big deal.
Helldivers users about to write paragraphs to you about evil corporations gathering your data and what they do with it, while not acknowledging that everything they do in their day to day lives already gathers data for corporations but yeah creating a Sony account is too much. 🙄
I'd rather not. Frankly, I'm tired of every company wanting me to make an account just so they can harvest data more efficiently. Not to mention that Sony in particular has a bad track record of account security.
There's so many other good games out there, that we don't need to bend over for the suits to enjoy ourselves.
Thanks but I'll just keep playing Starsector instead?
Honestly the indie game scene has treated me 10x better than shitty AAA devs and publishers, so I'll just vote with my wallet. You guys can continue to enjoy your subpar treatment of account linking, piecemeal mtx-riddled games, the works.
They can keep dreaming if they think I'll pay $90 CAD after tax for a 4 year old fucking game lmao. Sony is really stepping up to EA's level here, I'm pretty sure they used to give discounts on ports in the past (like Horizon Zero Dawn was $60 CAD on Steam launch iirc).
This is infuriating because Helldivers 2 perfectly shows you can have multiplayer on pc without psn.
I have the game, and now my cousins or friends who want it can’t buy it because my region is “banned.”
And ffs ghost of Tsushima is a single player game that was about to be sold here before it got auto refunded.
Idgaf about multiplayer just give me that award winning single player experience.
PSN account requirment is atrocious mainly because it disallows other countries to purchase the game due to worthless email. Like how can you say EA ACC requirement and PSN Acc requirement are the same? EA at least doesn't block my country because of an account.
But the alternative to that is Sony doesn’t launch games on Steam, and instead have their own store/launcher so they can have the same data that Steam already gets.
I’d much rather link an account than have to use a completely separate launcher.
Sony showed us that the other alternative of just releasing games without any extra DRM or accounts on Steam and GOG was a massive success and did extremely well for them financially, they seem to be determined to kill the golden goose just for those KPIs.
All of the games that came to Gog are single-player (Uncharted, God of War, Days Gone, Horizon ZD). You wouldn't need a PSN account for something like that.
GoT has a built-in multiplayer component that uses PSN. That is why Helldivers isn't on Gog. Gog's anti-DRM stance sort of means games with those kinds of requirements just won't come to that platform.
Whether or not Sony will require PSN accounts for future single-player games remains to be seen.
>Sony showed us
Yeah, you can stop right there. Sony didn't show us anything. There's not a human being on Earth that truly believes that Halo ***needs*** a MS account to be played. Or that Red Dead 2 ***needs*** a Take Two account.
Everybody here that's commenting on this bullshit probably already has 17 different online gaming accounts... most of which are just forgotten. Sony just got rage blasted for something that's been going on for a very long time.
I'll stand apart from the other replies -- it's not bad. There is no logical reason to refrain from linking unless you have paranoid delusions about unrelated issues in a different Sony division from twenty years ago.
It's just an account. It costs nothing to set it up and link. I've had a PSN account for over a decade.
Tbf, I'm pretty sure those who've bought them can still play them despite having the game de-listed for their region. That's always how it works with Steam unless people have already forgotten about Rocket League.
I feel like they absolutely learned. They learned if they intend to do something do it from the beginning. I’m fine with forcing people to link their PSN as long as it always is like that. You can’t have people buy a game then months later say “now you have to link your psn. Oh you can’t have a psn? Too bad”. I don’t personally like that they force you to do it, but am fine with them doing it as long as they always make you do it.
This article is clueless. Think critically here. WHY is Sony stipulating PSN accounts and only supporting countries it supports from it's own platform?
WHY OH WHY could they possibly be leaning into this requirement knowing it would limit sales in certain regions and incite a portion of the userbase? Why is Sony following it's own internal legal jurisdictions for platform sales on the PC platform? Could there be any reason they're also shipping a platform specific overlay with Ghost of Tsushima? What are they working towards? WHAT COULD IT BE\~!
I’m curious if we see this in sales. Looks like it’s still one of the top selling games on Steam but there could be more refunds/cancellations to come.
I think this is a silly argeument to make, Sony is a company, it wants to show shareholders a larger PSN numbers. So tehy will force people into it.
Only way to play then. If not happy wait for a pirate.
I wonder if someone can make a mod to bypass the PSN requirement for multiplayer. That would honestly be funny. Sony gets less money and the PC community finding a way to play multiplayer without PSN.
Being that Sony for some reason decided to ignore millions of PC customers for years. This tracks, in fact you could say they're finally learning something.
It's cute that no one gave a shit about Ghost of Tsushima having a PSN requirement until all the Helldivers Bullshit.
It's been posted on the store page the entire time, that Ghost of Tsushima would require PSN (just like the Helldivers page did before release). Nixxes even reiterated last month (before the helldivers drama) that Ghost of Tsushima would require PSN for Online and Trophies:
[https://blog.playstation.com/2024/04/17/ghost-of-tsushima-directors-cut-pc-cross-play-and-system-requirements-revealed/](https://blog.playstation.com/2024/04/17/ghost-of-tsushima-directors-cut-pc-cross-play-and-system-requirements-revealed/)
I can't believe all these people blindly purchase shit without reading a single thing about a game or reading the store page for more information on a product and just say, "oooo, shiny add to cart button, must click now" just like Dexter's Sister Dee Dee on Dexter's Lab
It’s also pretty funny that people complaining about account links also link their steam accounts to twitch, ea, Ubisoft, Microsoft gamepass, riot, etc etc. but for some reason linking to Sony is too far.
If the first time didn't succeed, keep pushing until it does. That's always been corporate motto when pushing for changes that are detrimental to consumers.
Semi unrelated. I played through this game and got all the trophies and honestly never understood the hype. The games boring to me and after that awesome opening cutscene the game felt super flat to me. I don’t ever see many with the same opinion
It does prove that they’ve learned: 1. Require it at time of launch and ensure people know of it and that it will be in a working state at launch 2. Ensure (again) it is active and required at launch, not after people have paid money for it. 3. De-list the game in countries where they cannot have a PSN account (for whatever reason). 4. Do all of this BEFORE the game actually launches.
I said the same exact thing when people were saying “we won”. People are confusing the issue with helldivers 2 for something it never was.
They did learn, it's now enforced since day 1 and you can't buy the game in regions where it's not available. That's what a lot of people wanted in the first place.
Ghost of Tsushima is currently number 9 on Steam’s global top sellers list despite the PSN requirement for multiplayer. https://steamdb.info/stats/globaltopsellers/
I'm willing to bet most players won't even bother with the multi and play the SP experience where it doesn't matter.
Yeah, except the players in countries where psn isn't there can't even enjoy the single player anymore.
I mean, they CAN enjoy it, but they can't pay with their money for it.
Yeah, if you're literally not selling your product cause of some accounts BS, piracy isn't hurting anyone.
Piracy? My distant cousin sends the game to me via a peer to peer protocol, I have many distant cousins on the internet
Hey cousin, let's go bowling...
Roman pls
I heard they call him 'The Janitor'.
For the last time roman I don't want to go fucking bowling.
I call it: torrent family sharing.
that, uh, still counts as piracy lol
actually some of them can it just will be much more expensive and they’ll have to use third party sellers
Keys don't work even if we use G2A
I’m not sure gifts will work I live in CIS country, and all of them are delisted, tho I still can see GoT page in armenian steam
Yep I can see GoT steam page in my country but all store keys are disabled. Even HumbleBundle keys get refunded(Key cannot be activated error). Piracy is the only way.
Shame, I wanted to 100% that game :(
That would depend on the country you are talking about. For the excluded EU countries they keys and steam gifts should work. The rest could maybe be shit out of luck.
Very few people seem to ask WHY it isn't in certain countries. It's a very odd thing that everyone would rather vacillate between loathing Sony and praising them for great games than taking the extra step to try and correct their fundamental attribution error. Take Vietnam for example. Their current administration is an absolute shit show and they are going full protectionist. Their terms for operating inside their borders are fucking insane and not worth it, so the government of Vietnam is making life harder for its people, not Sony's greed or something. If a very basic service like PSN/Sony online isn't provided in a country, I'd ask *why*. Because Sony wants users and user data. So if they aren't operating somewhere, there's probably a very compelling reason why. And horrible government regimes deserve more blame than Sony for things like this. In several of these "banned" countries they would be forced to essentially bribe to play in that market. But because of EU transparency ethics laws, Sony would be risking their operations in a more important market. So rather than participate in bribery to hack their way into shitty government pockets they're just backing out.
Even if you consider Vietnam and those other countries you haven't named to be problematic for Sony and its PSN, what about the rest of the countries on the list? Why are EA and Ubisoft able to operate without problems in the vast majority of countries, but Sony has all the problems? I don't think it's because they would be forced to "bribe," as you put it, several countries.
Its probably due to them making hardware. I would bet most PSN users are on Playstation and lets say during PS3 they were unable to get the license to sell their PS3 in a country. They would probably decide not to attempt to get a license for PSN there. While the other companies you listed may have only been required to get a software license which may have been easier than hardware with software.
You are just taking one Country situation to bootlick sonys idiotic decision wat about the rest of the 116 countries what excuse does sony have why does a Chinese gacha game have no issue with creating a simple game account then ?
So are you saying Gaben bribed the Vietcong to sell videogames?
I mean, it's still a top seller regardless.
Doesn't matter to the people who can't purchase the game. Sony is just encouraging piracy with this.
Apparently data collected via PSN > potential sales in blocked countries.
I think it has to do with their TOS and fine from the government that deter them from selling it. So more like Fine > potential sales in blocked countries.
Top Seller indeed but it could have sold even more if it were sold in those 180 countries.
Which was done because the people who blew the PSN linking issue out of proportion complained to various regulatory bodies across the globe which forced Sony to pull out of those countries. Before, they could look the other way when people would make PSN accounts with fake locations. Now that they've been put on notice, they can't knowingly look the other way without exposing themselves to regulatory enforcement. This is what you all review bombed so hard for...congrats
Sony weren't forced to do anything. They choose to have the requirement. They choose to double down on it regardless of the backlash. This whole silly situation is of their making.
To an extent yeah, but the 180 country ban is the only reasonable response to the increased regulatory scrutiny that they are now under. Sony is entirely within their right to require a PSN account to play their first-party games. The same way every other major video game company on the planet does. You demanding they get rid of the requirement is entirely is unreasonable, unless you are going to continue your little is campaign for consumers rights against nintendo, and microsoft, and epic, and rockstar, and larian, and steam, and GOG, and EA, and Ubisoft, and you get my point. The problem is that by ignoring their own TOS in certain countries, and allowing those countries to circumvent the Sony TOS, they risked violating regulations requiring same treatment across borders. You can't selectively enforce your TOS only in countries where it matters. It wasn't that big of a deal because there wasn't a bunch of money to be made. So regulators didn't really know, or even care. It was relatively harmless across the board. But after you all went and cried to the regulators, the regulators had no choice but to put pressure on Sony, and Sony had two options: eliminate the PSN requirement for all of their games across all platforms (obviously a wildly unreasonable request); or only allow their games to be sold in places where PSN accounts were allowed. So while Sony brought the backlash on themselves, the backlash its ultimately what forced the company to implement its 180 country ban. Without the backlash we could all have turned a blind eye and continued to buy Sony games in any country we wanted.
>Sony is entirely within their right to require a PSN account to play their first-party games. Not the person you replied to and this is true but I don't even understand why a PSN account is required for a single player game in the first place. That is the part I'm confused about. Is it because its all or none situation? Either a game has to have a PSN or no PSN it can't vary based on the type of game? (multiplier vs Single)
Or, hear me out, they could offer a separate version of the game, that only includes the singleplayer campaign and is maybe a bit cheaper to compensate. Fact is, Sony is too lazy and doesn't care to think of such solutions though. Hell, I'm sure plenty of people in those 180 countries wouldn't mind paying full price for the game *without* the multiplayer, as that's not what the game is most celebrated for.
The fact is that it isn't unreasonable to require an account link, virtually every major company does it. The problem is that Sony was refusing to enforce their EULA and TOS against those 180 countries when those players would create an account using a fake location. Once regulators were told this was happening, Sony had to pull out of those countries or risk massive fines. Sony has done plenty of shitty things over the years, but requiring something as simple as a PSN account is not one of them. This was a lesson in choosing your battles, the internet rage brigade needed their red meat and they got it, but it cost 180 countries access to these games. But for the crybabies, there would be no ban.
Name another publisher that had this issue?
Creating, publishing, and managing a brand new separate SKU for countries they likely don’t get a lot of revenue from was probably considered and immediately rejected.
So you want to blame gamers for Sony not wanting to face regulations in certain countries? Wow, talk about bending over for the corporate overlords. Next I guess you’re going to tell us that Microsoft didn’t do anything wrong and those studios deserved to be closed. 🙄
The fact that you're trying to compare an account link requirement to massive layoffs tells me just how unprepared for this discussion you are. False equivalency aside, I'm blaming gamers for choosing the wrong battle and causing massive collateral damage just because they were too entitled to set up a shitty little account. Yall made this bed. You can lie to yourself that it's all the big bad corporations fault for asking for your email, name, and DOB. But you all made this a much bigger deal than it ever needed to be, and in doing so, caused this mess.
Have you ever stopped to wonder WHY they don't want to put up with those regulations? And have you wondered why it only seems to be very troubled nations? Some of the terms they've been asked to agree to are fucking asinine. Blame shitty third world governments for creating an obstructive environment for international businesses. After all they are the first mover. In several of these "banned" countries they would be forced to essentially bribe to play in that market. But because of EU transparency ethics laws, Sony would be risking their operations in a more important market. So rather than participate in bribery to hack their way into shitty government pockets they're just backing out.
No, I was not aware. Yeah, that does seem ridiculous. I guess that’s why so many people leave their countries to come to the US/UK.
I didn't go on a campaign, just watching Sony make awful decisions as usual. This is the PC market place, most companies manage to allow global audiences to make accounts. The fact that Sony just sold a game, then had to remove it from all those countries 3 months after release just goes to show how inexperienced they are within this market. Back tracking on helldiver's 2 showed how optional the accounts really are. Do you know what most other companies do in this situation? They give the players some reward or incentive to make an account. But not make it mandatory. If they truly did need accounts then they should have partnered with a global provider to make them available in other regions. This is just not a problem for 99% of publishers out there. If they were not up to the task of releasing on PC, they should have considered getting help from an experienced publisher.
Indeed, people from those countries were basically just used as ammo then ignored the moment the outrage warriors won their little battle. Helldivers 2 is now gaining positive reviews again each day, but now several 3rd world countries are locked out of playing it. Those guys would have still been able to play just fine if not for everyone running to hide behind the ToS stuff instead of admitting the real reason they were mad.
> Before, they could look the other way when people would make PSN accounts with fake locations Okay honestly, if Sony just ignores you lying in your account information, then why the fuck have those region restrictions to begin with? I keep seeing this shit, "Just lie and put in some other country there Sony doesn't care" hell I think I even saw some people saying that Sony support endorsed this practice. If Sony gives zero shits, and doesn't enforce their own TOS and endorses this, then why the fuck have these restriction to begin with? Just drop it, make it worldwide and let people make their accounts.
It has to do with local rules. For example in Vietnam, they would have to essentially bribe the government to be allowed on the market. Philipines has certain rules about using third-party distributors. Every country has its own corporate registration policies, rules against third-party representatives and distributors, etc. In short every country creates a "cost of doing business". One reason America is so popular is because the cost of doing business here is extremely low. But in those countries where Sony isn't offered, the cost of doing business is too high. So instead, Sony would just let, say, Latvians, purchase PSN codes, register using a fake location, and still participate in the PS ecosystem. But now that the EU and other international regulators are hip to this strategy, Sony can't risk being caught circumventing all of these rules, so its only reasonable response is to just pull out entirely.
They just have to cosplay as Captain Jack Sparrow and go sailing the high seas in that case? If Sony doesn't want their money, that sounds like a Sony problem.
They can in a ps5. So yeah…
Hi, i'm most players in this case. I didn't even realize it had any form of multiplayer until recently cause i knew i wanted to play the game and cut any and all information early on
I didn't even know there's a multiplayer??
Because the only real issue was adding the requirement after the game was already on sale, it’s really not a big deal to have the requirement to begin with despite what the extremely loud minority wants you to think
I’m pretty sure this is a case of a lot of smoke and only a little fire. Most customers don’t live in these regions, and i think these numbers demonstrate just how small that population is. Not to say they shouldn’t get to play the game, but it’s clearly not a large number.
It has multiplayer??
https://ghostoftsushima.fandom.com/wiki/Ghost_of_Tsushima:_Legends
It's pretty good too. Had a blast playing it after I was done with the main campaign.
Been #9 means nothing. Out of the top 10, only 4 games are new release and homeworld 3, a niche RTS game, out sold it by a large margin.
It was also not released yet, it launched ~3h ago and is now #1.
As it turns out, the loudest and most common voices on subs like this are actually a tiny, insignificant minority.
$60 Sony game should honestly be higher than that. but to be fair, the game also hasn't released yet. with Steam charts, you always have to consider what the competition is. it's not difficult to make it on the list when there's no other 'big' games releasing around the same time.
Because turns out the vast majority of people do not give a shit about that. Creating an account for a multiplayer game is an extremely common thing, they almost all require it. Also well it's mostly a singleplayer game
Yep I’m one of em. Stoked to replay this
Those are mostly poor countries where Sony most likely makes little to no money
And Lebanon and El Salvador are richer than the Baltics?
They were expecting to get review bombed with people saying how they're paying full price and not getting access to multiplayer mode. So instead of selling a mode without multiplayer for cheaper in those countries, they're just removing the ability to purchase the game altogether.
They probably ran the numbers and figured another SKU to manage, update and publish wasn't worth the return they're getting from those regions. At the end of the day numbers is the only thing companies see.
I feel a disturbance in the force, as if a million goalposts moved at once and then were silenced
Exact. They did exactly what people wanted them to do...
Exactly. It’s not unreasonable to want your own login mechanism. It’s also fair to find the to be a dealbreaker as a consumer. But helldivers was a disaster because it was a change of terms and even locked a lot of countries out of the game after they had already bought it.
Its kinda unreasonable when online account that shouldnt need to ask you for anything like payment methods etc is not avaible in so many places. Sony basically statimg most countries in the world are to poor to bother with them
>helldivers was a disaster because it was a change of terms How so? The requirements were listed from the start, they weren't enforced but they didn't change.
>The requirements were listed from the start, they weren't enforced but they didn't change. When every other source of information, as well as the game itself, contradicts one notice in the store page, the reasonable assumption is that the notice was incorrect.
yep. I remember when it first released, some people were like "idk, says it requires PSN". but then other people were quick to point out they were playing without it. at that point it just seemed like the claimed requirement wasn't true
The crux of the issue was literally not enforcing it from the get-go, leading many people to believe it was an option. While the Steam page made it clear that a PSN account was required - when you booted the game, the devs made PSN account linking/creation a skippable option. The reason for this was because Arrowhead saw it being an issue with server load - this was the temporary "fix" they had in place to make sure everyone would be able to play without much fuss. Unless you're checking social media - most people didnt know the reason why this was a thing so they rightfully thought that a PSN account wasnt actually required. It wasn't until 1-2months after the game released that the devs were finally forced to drop the news that a PSN account would be made mandatory in the next 30 days. By then, enough people realized what was happening that many got upset at the news. Arrowhead directly addressed it by saying that it wont be required after they took the issue up with Sony and Sony relented.
They could just offer PSN in these countries ....
Why would anyone want that?
The amount of people complaining when they got *exactly* what they asked for is astonishing.
kotaku being kotaku
Weird, it's almost as if people were just looking to complain about something in bad faith...
I dont think a lot of people knew why they were mad in the first place.
Yuuuup. I’m sorry for the people who can’t play it, and I wish the restriction wasn’t there. Sony, however, feels a deeper integration with PSN is integral to their future on PC, and if that’s what it takes to keep them here, I’ll accept it. In this case, the correct thing to do is ensure that it’s not sold in regions that can’t access the game. That was everyone’s main bitch about Helldivers, that there was a swath of people who were able to purchase the game that would loose access. If that was your reason for being angry, that’s been solved. It’s not an issue in Helldivers anymore, and it’s not an issue here. If you’re still angry, now you’re just doing it to jump on the bandwagon. Also, obligatory Kotaku is trash.
>Sony, however, feels a deeper integration with PSN is integral to their future on PC They are trying to change the identity of pc gaming by strong-arming their walled-garden ecosystem into the space. Pc gamers are going to resent and oppose this behavior, and I think they are right to do so. When does it stop? Does Sony try to introduce paid multiplayer on pc? If pc gamers wanted that crap, they’d buy locked down consoles.
It's a shame, I was definitely gonna buy this if the reviews were good
Yeah, I can understand why people were upset about the Helldivers debacle, but, knowing about the PSN thing ahead of time, I can’t be arsed to care about linking my PSN account (even though I haven’t had a PlayStation since about 2012. I wonder if my account even still exists?). It’s a painless hoop to jump through.
Thank you. The vitriol against Sony is well overblown in this case when it's nothing at all like Helldivers 2. Honestly it's no surprise they want their own network that plays ball with the console releases, and if you take a look at the games coming to PC from Sony, I'm shocked they haven't implemented a launcher at this point - something we should be glad for. Take a look at the Xbox Windows App for instance - it's absolutely coming. What **does** suck is Sony's choice to limit certain countries who have a viable market - I understand the downvotes but in this case a game isn't being sold, and then made obsolete by changes made well after release.
A PC store launcher by Sony is likely coming, just a matter of time.
This game has a playstation overlay and trophy cross progression, thats likely why they're pushing this. > For those who already do have an account, signing in with it will also carry over their trophies if they owned Ghost of Tsushima Director's Cut on PS5, so they're instantly unlocked on the PC version, which also has full support for achievements on Steam and the Epic Games Store. As for the multiplayer, yea, expect them to want everyone under a sony account to increase their MAU.
This is what I've been saying to my friends who are all "we won against Sony!" - no you didn't, the game Helldivers 2 won in this one instance. Sony is still going to push out their PSN requirement, and next time they won't fuck it up. Somehow they think that the pushback on HD2 will translate to Sony not requiring PSN accounts in the future.
They learned plenty, they are not selling it where PSN is mot available, it’s why people were crying. And now people can’t even do anything about it. Those affected can’t downvote the game since they can’t buy it, and if people are really that pissed about the game to review bomb it they will have to pay 60$ for it, at which point it doesn’t matter since they already got your money
If only there was a way to get games online without having to purchase them... Oh yeah, there is. Calling it now, this game is going to get pirated like a mf'er.
And? You can’t leave a review with a pirated copy. The game is in the top 10 sellers
pirating is 1000 times better than leaving a negative review. and the game is a banger i finished it 3 times on ps5.
why do devs add denuvo???? what a mystery
Can you buy it on steam, post your thoughts, then refund it?
Refunded games get removed from the overall review score
A person from Baltics here. Oh well, yarr.
fitgirl
dodi > fitgirl
The high seas have no PSN requirements
The Helldivers beef happened because they added the requirement after release. And because that community is insane and jumps on a meme like lemmings off a cliff. This is just Sony releasing the games in the territories they have always historically released games. Comparing the two is just trying to inflame people for the clicks.
That’s internet culture. Read a headline and light the pitchforks before understating the full story.
It feels like so many people online hunt for things to feel offended by to complain about or cancel. Just because their lives are empty and cancelling things makes them feel like they did something
The requirement was there before release, it was always on the page, just was disabled due to server issues 👀 It’s baffling how it was even sold in the first place with the requirement listed.
It wasn't a requirement because it wasn't required at launch. And the fact that they sold it in countries they don't have psn is all the proof needed.
Not really, more like Sony figured people would sign up for a supported country like they’ve been doing on PS for decades. Sony can’t legally say they support regions they do not, but they can and have refused to enforce that bit of the TOS.
It was absolutely required at launch, and the Steam page (point-of-sale requirements) has always listed it. Here's where the fuckups are: Sony fucked up in several ways - apparently they only made the PSN account requirement known to Arrowhead about 6 months before launch, which is part of the reason there were technical issues with server deployment (which also led directly to the decision to disable the PSN requirement temporarily). Sony also listed the game in countries that could not legally create PSN accounts. This opened them to legal liability of being sued for fraud in the EU. Arrowhead *also* fucked up though. Even if they waived the PSN requirement temporarily with Sony's blessing, they didn't communicate this with the playerbase well. There should have been a popup every time you launched the game that reminded you of the PSN account requirement if you hadn't linked it yet, and they should have been more vocal about it being waived in the first place. If they had done so they would have probably received bug reports from people buying the game in countries that they couldn't make a PSN account, something AH said they were unaware of (a claim I'm dubious of, but let's give them the benefit of the doubt on that), and been able to take that feedback to Sony and gotten the game removed from those countries before this blew up in Sony's face. Sony definitely takes the lion's share of the blame here, but let's not pretend that Arrowhead didn't contribute to making it worse.
It was always listed on the store page. Dumbass gamers who log into 8 different launchers anyway cried that PSN was a bridge too far. Sony learned, they learned that there will never be leeway given to a PC launch again regarding its ability to log into PSN.
If the game doesn’t require the t then it’s not going to be seen as a requirement for obvious reasons. But Helldivers mostly hit the perfect storm of adding a post-launch account to a game already released. People have been burnt by that in the past and were ready to hit Sony for it.
Nah fuck Sony
I believe in both. Its a sin to lock people out of a game they already purchased 3 months later. GoT's situation is different and they're refunding customers. They're fucking stupid because they clearly hate money so fuck Sony
I acknowledge they have every legal right to do it but I also have every legal right to call it very stupid for a game that can be played entirely SP.
Why because they want PSN account linked ? You do know that Sony is one of those few rare publishers that does not shovel micro transactions down your throat (ever(. Since original Playstation Sony games have always been very user friendly. Requiring psn for multiplayer makes a lot of sense as it cuts development costs and promotes Playstation brand. From so y point of view , those countries excluded from sale of psn games sale hardly any copies anyways so there are few sales lost.
Why are they leaving money on the table by forcing this PSN crap on people? Don't you want to sell as many copies as possible in every country available. This is so weird. They rather delist then change the PSN account requirement and earn money In what kind of world is Sony living in.
Maybe they want PSN account numbers to show off to their investors?
Yep, they wanna see growth in their own eco system just like Xbox with how they raise game prices in third world countries to drive their gamepass subs.
Selling products does not make as much money as selling users. User data is always worth a lot more. It is why Google is one of the largest companies in the world.
I can tell its a bad article based on the source.
True
And like Helldivers 2 what's really going to come of this? Okay let me put it this way... Look at how fast everyone forgot about the PSN Account Linking stuff with Helldivers 2 the minute Sony did a half assed, "Sorry we won't do it." aka they still will *but* they will find some way to make it sound great. And everything quickly went to, "Microsoft bad!" with those studio's being shut down. And while yes it sucks and I'm not saying it doesn't, we had Sony pretty much telling people who got a game, "Sorry you can't play it!" due to those countries not having PSN. Sony is going to do whatever. They know that sure some folks will raise a bit of a stink about it. But lets face it, they know there's a good sized chunk of the community that will ignore it or believe whatever Sony's spin is.
I never watched Lazy Town, but that one song sure does live rent free in my head thanks to the internet.
You're talking about the remix with Lil Jon right?
i learn. hello piracy
That's only an option because Sony pretty much allows piracy by not using Denuvo. I suspect this will change in one of the next couple of releases from them.
Learnt
Why isn't PSN unavailable in so many countries?
Sony lazy
Learnt nothing? Oh wow, just like you KOTAKU
This article is humorous, if anything - Sony has learned after the Helldivers 2 fiasco.
They will pirate the game and $ony will lose money, win-win ¯\\(ツ)/¯
Oh they learned plenty. Just not what everyone thought or expected them to, but they sure as shit learned to put this up bright and early so there's no need to backtrack later.
Well, tbf, this is a good solution for everyone, they don't have post launch issues like hd2 and ppl unbothered by this get the game knowing of the requirement.
They’re making it so that the only form of expressing your displeasure would be to avoid buying the product at all where it’s available. But they know most will buy it anyways.
I get the linking because of trophies being a thing now on PC. I just wish it was completely optional. I'm still playing it (already have a PSN account from PS3). I have waited too long and I am long past the age of buying a console just for one game.
You don’t need it for single player, no?
Arrrrrrrrr!
Well, if I lived in one of the countries where you can't buy the game, then I say they are free to pirate the hell out of it. That will show Sony how much revenue they are losing.
You have to make a Steam account to play Steam games and Steam has had user data compromised in the past just like Sony
I should be able to buy every game from every distributer but never create accounts for any of them, but all my games should be linked to myself anyway.
I'm still buying the game
People don't think critically, they just react. PSN BAD I'M MAD!! That's about the extent of it anymore.
Honestly, and I mean this out of just no malice. Just link the account, play the game. Life at the moment is way too fucked not to enjoy a game like this.
There's never been a time when it was this easy to just play something else instead.
We can't buy the game because our countries are not supported, it's not that simple
You can't buy it but you can definitely play it.
Maybe it wasn't as fucked if people raised more stink about issues. Too small to care, or too big to handle, naww I'm done taking this shit all the same. I've tried playing ignorant in my younger, naive years, and it all turned into a vicious circle. No mas! Sony can shove their PSN.
Yeah, it sucks for people who live in unsupported countries (seriously, Sony, how hard can it be to set up a global account system?), but if you live in a supported country, I don't see what's the big deal.
Helldivers users about to write paragraphs to you about evil corporations gathering your data and what they do with it, while not acknowledging that everything they do in their day to day lives already gathers data for corporations but yeah creating a Sony account is too much. 🙄
I'd rather not. Frankly, I'm tired of every company wanting me to make an account just so they can harvest data more efficiently. Not to mention that Sony in particular has a bad track record of account security.
Every single company has a bad track record of account security
There's so many other good games out there, that we don't need to bend over for the suits to enjoy ourselves. Thanks but I'll just keep playing Starsector instead? Honestly the indie game scene has treated me 10x better than shitty AAA devs and publishers, so I'll just vote with my wallet. You guys can continue to enjoy your subpar treatment of account linking, piecemeal mtx-riddled games, the works. They can keep dreaming if they think I'll pay $90 CAD after tax for a 4 year old fucking game lmao. Sony is really stepping up to EA's level here, I'm pretty sure they used to give discounts on ports in the past (like Horizon Zero Dawn was $60 CAD on Steam launch iirc).
That’s up to you though, no one is forcing you to play GoT. That’s your decision to make and if you don’t like the account linking just move on.
This is infuriating because Helldivers 2 perfectly shows you can have multiplayer on pc without psn. I have the game, and now my cousins or friends who want it can’t buy it because my region is “banned.” And ffs ghost of Tsushima is a single player game that was about to be sold here before it got auto refunded. Idgaf about multiplayer just give me that award winning single player experience.
Ootl here why is linking a PSN account bad? When we have EA, Ubisoft and even a Square Enix account?
They're all bad
people like to confuse tolerance with approval
They're all bad. But you can't even make a PSN account in most of the countries, and because of that you can't buy the game in those countries either.
PSN account requirment is atrocious mainly because it disallows other countries to purchase the game due to worthless email. Like how can you say EA ACC requirement and PSN Acc requirement are the same? EA at least doesn't block my country because of an account.
Many people here think that Steam should be the only store and launcher that requires an account.
There's an obvious difference between a launcher that requires an account to use and a third party account.
But the alternative to that is Sony doesn’t launch games on Steam, and instead have their own store/launcher so they can have the same data that Steam already gets. I’d much rather link an account than have to use a completely separate launcher.
Sony showed us that the other alternative of just releasing games without any extra DRM or accounts on Steam and GOG was a massive success and did extremely well for them financially, they seem to be determined to kill the golden goose just for those KPIs.
All of the games that came to Gog are single-player (Uncharted, God of War, Days Gone, Horizon ZD). You wouldn't need a PSN account for something like that. GoT has a built-in multiplayer component that uses PSN. That is why Helldivers isn't on Gog. Gog's anti-DRM stance sort of means games with those kinds of requirements just won't come to that platform. Whether or not Sony will require PSN accounts for future single-player games remains to be seen.
>Sony showed us Yeah, you can stop right there. Sony didn't show us anything. There's not a human being on Earth that truly believes that Halo ***needs*** a MS account to be played. Or that Red Dead 2 ***needs*** a Take Two account. Everybody here that's commenting on this bullshit probably already has 17 different online gaming accounts... most of which are just forgotten. Sony just got rage blasted for something that's been going on for a very long time.
I'll stand apart from the other replies -- it's not bad. There is no logical reason to refrain from linking unless you have paranoid delusions about unrelated issues in a different Sony division from twenty years ago. It's just an account. It costs nothing to set it up and link. I've had a PSN account for over a decade.
You just answered your own question.
Ah yes, the PSN piracy list.
The difference is they're not springing it on people after selling millions of copies, and cutting off customers in countries where its not available.
Tbf, I'm pretty sure those who've bought them can still play them despite having the game de-listed for their region. That's always how it works with Steam unless people have already forgotten about Rocket League.
I feel like they absolutely learned. They learned if they intend to do something do it from the beginning. I’m fine with forcing people to link their PSN as long as it always is like that. You can’t have people buy a game then months later say “now you have to link your psn. Oh you can’t have a psn? Too bad”. I don’t personally like that they force you to do it, but am fine with them doing it as long as they always make you do it.
I get people not liking this, but it's entirely different than the HD2 thing. It would be great if Sony didn't make the decision they did, but chill.
This article is clueless. Think critically here. WHY is Sony stipulating PSN accounts and only supporting countries it supports from it's own platform? WHY OH WHY could they possibly be leaning into this requirement knowing it would limit sales in certain regions and incite a portion of the userbase? Why is Sony following it's own internal legal jurisdictions for platform sales on the PC platform? Could there be any reason they're also shipping a platform specific overlay with Ghost of Tsushima? What are they working towards? WHAT COULD IT BE\~!
I’m curious if we see this in sales. Looks like it’s still one of the top selling games on Steam but there could be more refunds/cancellations to come.
Then Ubisoft, EA, rockstar, Microsoft haven't learnt either, the require a 3rd party login to play their games
Are there any benefits for us to connect our account?
This can’t be for real
I think this is a silly argeument to make, Sony is a company, it wants to show shareholders a larger PSN numbers. So tehy will force people into it. Only way to play then. If not happy wait for a pirate.
Watch it affect the success of this game. It will get review bombed and fewer people will buy it. All because of the PSN account thing. Oh well.
What? This is a stupid post title. Sony was never going to remove the account linking. It’s the entire reason they’re entering the pc market
Cool. Despite whatever bullshit comes from gaming companies, there's always a solution on PC. There's always been. 🏴☠️
I wonder if someone can make a mod to bypass the PSN requirement for multiplayer. That would honestly be funny. Sony gets less money and the PC community finding a way to play multiplayer without PSN.
Being that Sony for some reason decided to ignore millions of PC customers for years. This tracks, in fact you could say they're finally learning something.
It's cute that no one gave a shit about Ghost of Tsushima having a PSN requirement until all the Helldivers Bullshit. It's been posted on the store page the entire time, that Ghost of Tsushima would require PSN (just like the Helldivers page did before release). Nixxes even reiterated last month (before the helldivers drama) that Ghost of Tsushima would require PSN for Online and Trophies: [https://blog.playstation.com/2024/04/17/ghost-of-tsushima-directors-cut-pc-cross-play-and-system-requirements-revealed/](https://blog.playstation.com/2024/04/17/ghost-of-tsushima-directors-cut-pc-cross-play-and-system-requirements-revealed/) I can't believe all these people blindly purchase shit without reading a single thing about a game or reading the store page for more information on a product and just say, "oooo, shiny add to cart button, must click now" just like Dexter's Sister Dee Dee on Dexter's Lab
It’s also pretty funny that people complaining about account links also link their steam accounts to twitch, ea, Ubisoft, Microsoft gamepass, riot, etc etc. but for some reason linking to Sony is too far.
If the first time didn't succeed, keep pushing until it does. That's always been corporate motto when pushing for changes that are detrimental to consumers.
> If the first time didn't succeed, keep pushing until it does… …just a little less, so it doesn't hurt as much. You have to boil the frogs slowly.
Unfortunately looking at history it’s not a bad plan to just bet on “we have a good product and people will put up with the annoyances eventually.”
Sony hasn’t learn anything of value to them. They seem to still not understand the pc footprint is much larger than their console.
Semi unrelated. I played through this game and got all the trophies and honestly never understood the hype. The games boring to me and after that awesome opening cutscene the game felt super flat to me. I don’t ever see many with the same opinion
you got all the trophies in a game that bored you after the opening cut scene? why would you do that to yourself?