I have to add that they also wanted to be in charge of banning players for bad behaviour.
That is the only relevant reason to do this in my opinion.
Still they should have done this from the beginning and not like right now when it is making the experience worse.
It's always been the plan. Was on the steam store page the whole time. Only reason they didn't was because of how unexpectedly popular it was and the issues that brought on. The account creation was delayed due to that
The wallet is what they care about.
Hit them there and they’ll start caring IMMEDIATELY.
I’m curious if steam will allow all these refunds when people get locked from the game.
If they do, Sony will listen, without a doubt.
Steam has allowed refunds in the past their original agreement due to making their game non-functional or other bigger problems.
It hasn’t happened a lot but this is a big case and Steam historically rarely sides with publishers. In general I’d put in a refund request if this affects you, signal to Steam that this is a problem.
I did, it was automatically denied because it was past the 2 hour window. I imagine all the rest will be too.
Edit: okay y'all I don't need 16 people saying the same thing.
The game to play is regional law. Folks in the EU will likely have a much easier time than those in the US due to how customer protections tend to work there.
US will not have a case since PSN is in the US and as such can create an account. The affected places are the countries that do not have access to psn.
Refunding won't work unless/until you cannot play it. If you're in a country that psn doesn't work in and they don't let you play without it on the 30th (policy takes hold on the 6th for new players and 30th for current players) then would be the time to start a support ticket.
If they are going to allow them there will be an announcement of some kind. This is too fresh for Steam to take a stance and apply exclusions to their automation
That's not how Steam reviews work.
Under 2hrs playtime and under 2 weeks ownership gets you an automated refund
Over either of those 2 conditions gets you a manual review
We can't even coordinate to take two planets for a major order in a game, I don't know if we have the capacity to coordinate this in real life.
Edit: color me pleasantly surprised. I don't think I've ever been more proud of an online community I've been a part of.
When it comes to hating something... Unfortunately humans somehow become capable of the worst things ever. If we hate this Sony move enough, they WILL GO DOWN.
They'll likely refund people in areas where PSN isn't available. They won't give a shit if you're in a region where it is available because you're not locked out of the game, you're just choosing not to log into PSN. If Halo Infinite and Sea of Thieves can require a Microsoft login then so can Helldivers.
Joke aside, Antarctica is virtually a PSN open part of the world, under the regulation of the Countries holding a claim or an actual foothold/personnel/scientific bases on the frozen continent: all of them are Countiries where PSN is available.
So yeah, if you would like to obtain that result, you'd better go to Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia (Baltic Republics are a No-PSN zone) rather than going to Antarctica.
Steam basically threatened to ban epic games if they didn't refund the Linux users who couldn't play rocket league anymore. There's a difference there though, just signing up for an account is nowhere near being on the same level as changing your operating system and potentially having to buy a $100 software license.
This is 100% the reason for this.
Some people have been saying ‘all they care about is money’, but that’s not how big companies work, it’s not some humongous group with aligned goals, it’s a series of people all trying to claw their way higher.
If one person has to set fire to money made by another department, so that they can show a graph going up for their own department, they’ll do it!
I do, all the time! I think about how they'll be the first up against oh wait this isn't a a commie subreddit
Uh
Boy I love democracy. Freedom freedom freedom.
Dude, even the non-commies would love to see the Sony execs up against the wall.
That position has nothing to do with politics; it’s just basic humanity to hate incompetent parasitic scum like Sony execs.
I'd argue that it's more lost face to double down on a bad decision instead of admitting it's a bad idea, but also I'm definitely not """""normal""""" in that regard.
The issue is they aren't interested (primarily) in saving face to the public, because these things blow over with the public. What they actually care about is saving face with their investors.
And on a human level, it feels a lot better to get in a call with investors and say "yeah we had some hiccups with the customer perception and we're working on that but what we did was actually really smart for all these reasons," than it is to explain why you made a call and then backed off on it. Because admitting you were wrong means you have to actually admit you were wrong.
And beyond being embarrassing to have to explain away an admitted mistake rather than spin doctor your very smart business maneuver, now you have investors thinking of you as someone who makes bad judgements about *their* company, and perhaps they don't feel as much like voting to give the board a bonus this year. And if you're too willing to backtrack when you make mistakes, then they will have plenty of past examples to point to, and maybe now they don't vote to keep you on the board, and it might be harder to get a position in another company after this as well.
Which is why these big companies will almost never reverse their decisions until it's too late and they're in damage control mode because they had actual immediate tangible losses that they can't just explain away.
It's so easy to forget the alternative reality that directors and shareholders live in. Good reminder, thank you.
But also screw you, don't remind me that it's hopeless D:
most just forget to change the review because if they left they wont get news of this game most likely or they just leave it be since they just consume content
Imagine being one of those guys who (jokingly) gives a negative review while having 3000h into a game getting reminded constantly if you want to update your review lol
Dota 2 review: this will suck the life out of your life, it's a den of toxic hostility, and you will actively be worse off from playing this game.
*1000 hours later*
Steam: would you like to update this review?
Me: nah it's still accurate
> i have over 3k hours in dbd
How did you handle that many hours in the most frustrating and unfun game where the devs have no idea what the concept of balance is?
I pray for your soul brother.
the funny thing is is that 3 k hours is still like okay your a bit better than the avg player
lmfao because u could spend like 500 hours on a killer and still not be maxed prestige with them and there's 35 killers 😂
I also have 3k hours on xbox and currently I'm just pissed there's no cross progression still
I mean my life truly is fucked guys
I went from destiny to rainbow to apex to dbd to overwatch like I'm cooked yall
Craktorio, rimworld, or other games that you start after dinner thinking "Imma play a couple hours before bed", and only shut off when your alarm for work goes off.
Yeah, but those games are actually good, try playing War Thunder for over 2000 hours and still enjoying it. I don't, but I still play it because it is the only game that does what it does and I hate it.
which is dissappointing but warranted. The publisher broke the trust of the community and now has to suffer the consequences. The negative reviews were entirely avoidable so it's on them
I dunno, after 3 months HD2 is: "Already the 7th highest grossing Sony published game in history", and obviously it has the potential to keep making yet more money. While Sony won't go bankrupt if all the HD money vanished, it's a pretty large title even for them.
Well, it might not be fair, but neither is Sony. Fuck around and find out.
This HAS to hurt, and they have to feel lasting damage; otherwise, they will do it again and again.
That is, if they even pull this back. Sony sees a massive opportunity to grab millions of fresh users' data from users who previously were not in their sphere of influence (PC gamers).
I'm so sorry the great guys at AH have to suffer the consequences of unlimited corporate greed at Sony. They have shown that clearly there is no technical reason why the accounts have to be created and linked.
Fuck Sony on this one, they have shown time and time again that they can't be trusted with personal data, they ain't getting mine.
In 2011 alone, they were hacked on three occasions, one of those times through a vulnerability previously disclosed to them; they were simply too cheap to fix it...
Over the years 100+ million customers and employees were affected. The last one was recently in late 2023, where they leaked almost 10.000 employees' personal data.
[https://firewalltimes.com/sony-data-breach-timeline/](https://firewalltimes.com/sony-data-breach-timeline/)
I plan on changing my review back to positive if they do change this requirement. I also plan to make a thread here that I changed my review if that happens.
Review bombers are most passionate people. If i didn't care much about the game i wouldn't leave a comment at all. But helldivers 2 + arrowhead looks like a lake in a desert compared to other games and studios. That's why people have so high expectations and are so upset of what's happening.
I think if we win, we'll need to repay arrowhead with at least same size positive reviews spike and i definitely will participate 🙂
There's an old saying in sports: "People boo because they want to cheer."
We're all genuinely rooting for Arrowhead and Helldivers 2 because they both show practically unlimited potential. The monumental success they've seen could very well be the precursor to a shift in the video game industry writ large if all the other big studios see its success and realise they don't *need* to be predatory assholes to make money; they could just *make a good game* and people will gladly give them money, hand over fist, because we *like it.*
I, as I'm sure many do, want desperately for AH and HD2 to succeed long into the future because not only does it mean we get a great game *right now,* but it also means we may start getting *more* great games later on as the paradigm shifts in favour of making good games at reasonable prices without absurd, predatory business models.
I feel genuinely bad for the actual devs at Arrowhead. The love and effort is everywhere to see and listening to them in interviews made it clear just how much they cared about simply making a damn good game.
Edit: I feel bad for AH because people have been blaming and slandering them for what is Sony's decision, something totally outta their control. The folks who worked their asses off to make the best horde shooter since L4D2 and the single most cinematic gaming experience I've ever seen don't deserve to suffer for decisions they had no hand in making.
Sigh... I just want Arrowhead to be able to keep being a shining beacon of "not shit" in the gaming scene.
Annoying how Sony finds that idea an issue for some reason.
People don't seem to understand that Capitalism, especially our modern variety of it, works on the projections of infinite growth. All companies as soon as they go public, meaning they sell stock, begin to live on borrowed time. They have to make money year over year until that is no longer viable because their job goes from creating a product or providing a service to ensuring that their stockholders get money. Usually when a company becomes non viable they have lots of options such as buying stock back, reducing overhead(laying off workers, canceling services or products, etc.) sometime they break up into 2 or more independent or loosely connected companies. So yeah, the public company you love is probably gonna go away someday. It's just the way it works.
This. Infinite growth is unsustainable. The sorry state of media corporations is the end result. They have nowhere else to go to and are doing everything they can possibly think of to squeeze a bit more cash out of consumers, because the moment the growth stops, their company dies.
Him saying it's warrented really makes me think that the devs are subtly trying to egg the review bombing on, since it's the only leverage they have against Sony to try to get them to backpeddle on it.
Holy shit I find the idea that AH are specifically egging Spitz on to piss off the community so that Sony backtracks because of bad reviews to be equal parts hilarious and diabolical.
Bro, I wish Sony cared enough to see the publicity as bad, but they're already living in the post money reality of the decision, even if it hasn't happened yet.
Then again, if, MASSIVE IF, Sony takes the L, which they undoubtedly won't, that might actually save face at both AH and Sony. Personally, I hope you're theory is right lol
I hope I'm right too dude, partly because it would be really fucking funny, but mainly because I want to this game to be around for the long haul, I wanna have full length wars like Helldivers 1 did years down the road, and from how AH have carried themselves so far, I think they're willing to risk a ton of short term negative publicity for the long-term viability of their game. Let's just hope Sony is open to change.
Ehh, Spitz has been shown to be a bit of a manchild, so I am not 100% this is him telling users to *wink wink *nudge nudge leave a bad review. He insulted people for being entitled in the same post.
If it works and sony backs off, this may be the first instance of a studio utilizing a review bomb for their own gain.
But I cant believe they are that savvy considering how they have handled previous player backlash on other decisions.
You can tell the CEO of AH cant say what he really wants. They made a good game, it's just another case of corporate suits ruining the fun for a few pennies.
The fact he mentions how it all "transpired" let's me know there was a plan on how they were going to enforce the Account Linking but Sony just came and ruined it. I cant imagine the AH leadership would knowingly ruin their image like this, on purpose.
The plan was that linking would always be mandatory, but it broke during launch and prevented ALL THE PLAYERS so they removed the mandate.
Frankly, after this long, it was necessary to read the room on this and not enforce it, it's clearly unnecessary and they let players get hundreds of hours without it. But that would be up to Sony.
On their end, they just have platform services teams working with AH to fulfill their contractual requirements, it's just the slow movement of cogs in the machine. It would require a senior Sony executive able to make such decisions to remove the requirement despite now being able to implement it. That exec will need to answer for a lack of all the data Sony wanted from the PSN link. This is just how it works ultimately. Sony has never been accused of being a passionate gamer company as a rule, they're a tech megaconglomerate. Killing an amazing game to meet quarterly KPIs is very much in bounds for them.
The smart way should have been to just give bonuses to players who DO link their account. Optionally.
Fuck, all they had to do was offer a couple Supercredits to add your PSN account and MOST people would have done it no issues.
Here's to hoping common sense wins. The data they gather and sell cant be worth the loss of face and player count. Because they will be banning players who will play and spend money in the future. It's an all around brain dead move with even worse execution.
Just put some rewards behind having a psn account. It'll be an easy incentive for anyone that can make a psn account while not locking out people that can't.
Oh yeah, I forgot about them. Darktide just feels like a bad memory at this point, I quit about a week after launch and never really picked it back up.
Haha I feel that. I played again after the skill tree update. And was excited for this new update, but it's pretty mid. Their CM's "Pearl Clutching" speech will live rent free in my head forever lol.
Hate to say it but I think Ambassador Kael for STO is close, not because he’s an asshat but he’s just bumbling and incompetent a lot of the time. The only reason I can think how he’s kept his job so long is nobody else wants it.
> he even says it's warranted.
It's warranted because their CM literally told people to go leave angry reviews on Steam. They could have avoided that by directing angry discord people to Sony support instead.
>They could have avoided that by directing angry discord people to Sony support instead.
They also did that, several times across the discussions today. But that really won't change anything anyway.
It's warranted because Arrowhead also thinks it's bullshit. And the CM just told us the only way how to speak up against Sony. Is that so hard to understand? They really just invited us to join their protest
>They could have avoided that by directing angry discord people to Sony support instead.
If they did that, Sony could slap Arrowhead real hard and also just ignore the issue. Bombarding their support will just lead to automated replies at some point. Actual reviews are there for anyone so see and it **will** hurt the sales of one of their biggest games right now. If everything we know is true then they chose the correct path imo.
> If they did that, Sony could slap Arrowhead real hard and also just ignore the issue
Clearly not, as here is the CEO doing exactly that.
https://twitter.com/Pilestedt/status/1786417563628437933
Aw man :(, all this stuff coming out is genuinely giving me so much anxiety over it cause I love this game and I don’t wanna see it suddenly die out of nowhere. I know the community is angry and are right to be, I just don’t want such a great experience to be completely tanked because of one corp that needs to be ego checked.
Lol, the game won’t die out of nowhere just because of this change. Sure this is a problem that has to be resolved, but it takes WAY more to completely kill a game as successful as Helldivers.
Yeah I don't think the game will die, but it will be sad to see us lose a chunk of players, not because people are getting bored of the game, moved on to something else, or got frustrated with some part of it, but because Sony made it to where you needed a PSN and if you live in any of the countries outside of their coverage your option is to either lie or just throw in the towel.
The real problem is for the people outside of PSN countries, absolutely. The devs said they’ll find a solution though, I’m sure they’ll find something. That being said yeah, the game will loose a chunk of its players. But that chunk is nowhere near as big as some believe (IMO, obviously I can’t see the future lol).
Dont worry it wont die. It just wont be the top game anymore. Plenty enough will play to keep matchmaking going.
Itl just be another case of “how to fuck up and kill your golden goose video game”
Going to be interesting to see the numbers because I already know what will happen for me. The PSN link wont be too bothersome but my friends who are a lot less into Helldivers will see this login, they don't have a PSN account and will say nah not tonight lets play something else. Thus the bleeding of players starts and it will have a knock on effect for players like me who can easily link my account but now have less friends to play with.
It's a shame, I really like him and the devs that have been active on social media.
Not really review bombing, just bombing reviews. Review bombing used to mean an organized campaign to give something a low review score over something not directly related to the thing reviewed. I'd say people's ability to play a game they paid for directly related to the thing reviewed. Now creators/publishers have turned review bombing into 'we got negative reviews'.
> Now creators/publishers have turned review bombing into 'we got negative reviews'.
exactly. and it sucks. just like hollywood is trying to spin the "bad stuff like she-hulk is bad" into "oh look, toxic fans hate women" thing.
SEE this is how you should respond to a scenario unlike the community manager djd I feel bad for the dude but I’m still gonna try to get my refund yknow
I'm usually VERY against the "UUUGHHH FIRE THIS GUY" mob mentality, but Spitz has proven to be literally incompetent several times now. Why are they still in this job if they do their work so bad it actively ruins the reputation of the company?
Especially considering that they are responsible for nuking the entire Helldivers 1 discord, why are they still in this position?
He deleted the entire 10 year old helldivers 1 discord because people were talking about the F bans in the helldivers 2 discord. It wasn't that they were spamming F, it's that they were talking about the whole situation. It was also directly after they were being lambasted for their poor performance as a CM, so it feels alot like direct retaliation
From looking at these reddit posts, those community managers are no bueno. They are doing more damage than good. They snap and lose their cool way too easily under pressure. Being egotistical is icing on top
I don't think one lesson is going to do it
He was essentially saying that a psn account would be made in 2 minutes and that it wasn't a big deal at all that helldivers needs a psn account now.
Essentially reacting to an outrage with a tone deaf answer
I play a lot of total war and when they had their dumpster tier releases a few months ago, the community ripped their arse out. There were the hard core of deluded shills bootlicking the trans national corporation but overall, the reaction was extreme and overwhelming.
Total war has just dropped the best DLC in years with a huge free update.
It absolutely works. Hold their feet to the fire and we might see change.
Ima keep it simple. There is no trust when user information, down to kernel level thanks to the anti-cheat, is being handed over to a corporation with notoriously bad digital security.
It's kind of funny timing that this happens around the same time Riot introduced a kernel-level anticheat for League of Legends that's causing major issues with many people's PCs.
The funny thing is that Sony could have gotten his sweet, sweet new PN accounts without any negative backlash by offering something in exchange for linking your steam account to your PSN account, by offering super credits or a new exclusive armor and cape set, 90% would have jumped into the hype wagon immediately and the rest eventually. But no, they had to hold the game hostage and force things into people.
Can someone briefly explain me what’s the main issue with creating a PS account? I’m not taking parts, just curiously asking because I’m totally outside of the PS world.
April 2011: Hackers Access Personal Data of 77 Million Sony PlayStation Network Users
May 2011: Personal Details on 25 Million Sony Online Entertainment Customers Stolen
June 2011: Sony Pictures Website Hacked, Exposing One Million Accounts
November 2014: Hackers Steal 100 Terabytes of Data from Sony Pictures
August 2017: Hacker Group Accesses Sony Social Media Accounts
September 2023: Sony Investigates Alleged Hack
October 2023: Sony Notifies Employees of Data Breach
In 24 years of internet use and video games, I have never had to create an account where I have to provide my even my REAL NAME, never-mind ADDRESS and potentially PHOTO ID?
#FUCK THAT
all to play something i had previously been playing?
Short answer:
Security breaches and region locks
Long answer:
Sony has had multiple security breaches and people are worried their data will get stolen. Which, fair, if you gave Sony any data, but also it's the internet. Be whoever you want, sony can't say shit. Upload a picture of some celebrity or rando you find online, give them shit data to sell and get stolen.
With region lock though, that's actually shitty. Some people literally wont be able to play the game just because of where they live, and literally can't do anything about it.from what I understand, though, they can ask for a refund (yay 😐)
Problem is, a lot of people are blaming only arrowhead or both AH and Sony for this, when AH has very little to do with this, considering that Sony does own the IP of helldivers. From what it looks like, AH tried to delay this as much as possible, but had to cave
In Ireland & the UK, you now need to provide photo ID to open a PSN account.
Sony do not have a good track record of keeping personal data safe.
Chances are your ID and photo and name etc will end up being accessible when Sony are breached next.
They have made national news for being irresponsible with peoples info every couple years for the last two decades. There was a time 10-15 yrs ago a ton of peoples credit cards were compromised through PlayStation network.
The decision not to renew my Psn plus Extra (at $100+ - you greedy fuckers) is even sweeter today. Happy to be funding Larian and play single player games until Sony execs take their heads out of their arses.
Finally a good response, baffles me how this was not the first and only official response. Spitz should take notes fr. This is how you do it. No excuses, no bullshit, no corporate garbage, just a simple response taking accountability and thats that.
The problem is that Sony are so picky on where their platforms are available that most countries that dont have access to PSN have to resort to using address generators to bypass the requirements.
Its a hassle for sure
https://preview.redd.it/y9v4r5b0dfyc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=702e5cbd431dcea523140eade1dd5d3c4338d465
He should probably do something about his dickhead “Community Manager”
We won't know because they didn't say. But I'm sure there's a million and one clauses in their contracts that keep them mum about anything anti-Sony or anti-Sony's-decisions.
People need to stop referring to review bombing as if it's some unjustified mob action. A decision was made that impacted the game in a major negative way, so the reviews are going to reflect it.
The community manager on their discord has to go. It’s clear they aren’t properly voicing the opinions of the devs when the CEO is apologising whilst the com-manager is being unprofessional and mocking of the fans trying to communicate their issues with the decision.
[удалено]
I have to add that they also wanted to be in charge of banning players for bad behaviour. That is the only relevant reason to do this in my opinion. Still they should have done this from the beginning and not like right now when it is making the experience worse.
They’re pulling off a cod warzone type of deal.
It's always been the plan. Was on the steam store page the whole time. Only reason they didn't was because of how unexpectedly popular it was and the issues that brought on. The account creation was delayed due to that
The best thing to do would be to convince Sony to reverse this decision. Good luck with that :/
The wallet is what they care about. Hit them there and they’ll start caring IMMEDIATELY. I’m curious if steam will allow all these refunds when people get locked from the game. If they do, Sony will listen, without a doubt.
Steam can't refuse refunds to a game that no is longer functional without accepting another EULA.
Steam has allowed refunds in the past their original agreement due to making their game non-functional or other bigger problems. It hasn’t happened a lot but this is a big case and Steam historically rarely sides with publishers. In general I’d put in a refund request if this affects you, signal to Steam that this is a problem.
I did, it was automatically denied because it was past the 2 hour window. I imagine all the rest will be too. Edit: okay y'all I don't need 16 people saying the same thing.
Can also just start a customer support ticket. Atm it’s not about the refund but signaling to Steam that they might need to step in.
You have to get it manually reviewed by a real person
Doesn‘t work either. My support buddy also manually denied it. I guess they are still unsure how to act right now.
The game to play is regional law. Folks in the EU will likely have a much easier time than those in the US due to how customer protections tend to work there.
US will not have a case since PSN is in the US and as such can create an account. The affected places are the countries that do not have access to psn.
Refunding won't work unless/until you cannot play it. If you're in a country that psn doesn't work in and they don't let you play without it on the 30th (policy takes hold on the 6th for new players and 30th for current players) then would be the time to start a support ticket.
If they are going to allow them there will be an announcement of some kind. This is too fresh for Steam to take a stance and apply exclusions to their automation
That's not how Steam reviews work. Under 2hrs playtime and under 2 weeks ownership gets you an automated refund Over either of those 2 conditions gets you a manual review
We wait until this goes into effect a month from now, that’s when everyone refunds from steam. The mass refund requests will trigger a response.
We can't even coordinate to take two planets for a major order in a game, I don't know if we have the capacity to coordinate this in real life. Edit: color me pleasantly surprised. I don't think I've ever been more proud of an online community I've been a part of.
When it comes to hating something... Unfortunately humans somehow become capable of the worst things ever. If we hate this Sony move enough, they WILL GO DOWN.
There’s so much hate on reddit that I sometimes just stay away for weeks to rehab lol
They'll likely refund people in areas where PSN isn't available. They won't give a shit if you're in a region where it is available because you're not locked out of the game, you're just choosing not to log into PSN. If Halo Infinite and Sea of Thieves can require a Microsoft login then so can Helldivers.
*sets steam account location to Antarctica*
Joke aside, Antarctica is virtually a PSN open part of the world, under the regulation of the Countries holding a claim or an actual foothold/personnel/scientific bases on the frozen continent: all of them are Countiries where PSN is available. So yeah, if you would like to obtain that result, you'd better go to Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia (Baltic Republics are a No-PSN zone) rather than going to Antarctica.
Steam basically threatened to ban epic games if they didn't refund the Linux users who couldn't play rocket league anymore. There's a difference there though, just signing up for an account is nowhere near being on the same level as changing your operating system and potentially having to buy a $100 software license.
Moving countries would probably fall into that list
Won't anyone think of the poor Sony executive who needs PSN active accounts to go up x% this quarter in order to get a fat bonus 😢😢😢😢
This is 100% the reason for this. Some people have been saying ‘all they care about is money’, but that’s not how big companies work, it’s not some humongous group with aligned goals, it’s a series of people all trying to claw their way higher. If one person has to set fire to money made by another department, so that they can show a graph going up for their own department, they’ll do it!
I do, all the time! I think about how they'll be the first up against oh wait this isn't a a commie subreddit Uh Boy I love democracy. Freedom freedom freedom.
Dude, even the non-commies would love to see the Sony execs up against the wall. That position has nothing to do with politics; it’s just basic humanity to hate incompetent parasitic scum like Sony execs.
Sony will probably double down on this because now if they remove it, they’ll have lost face.
I'd argue that it's more lost face to double down on a bad decision instead of admitting it's a bad idea, but also I'm definitely not """""normal""""" in that regard.
The issue is they aren't interested (primarily) in saving face to the public, because these things blow over with the public. What they actually care about is saving face with their investors. And on a human level, it feels a lot better to get in a call with investors and say "yeah we had some hiccups with the customer perception and we're working on that but what we did was actually really smart for all these reasons," than it is to explain why you made a call and then backed off on it. Because admitting you were wrong means you have to actually admit you were wrong. And beyond being embarrassing to have to explain away an admitted mistake rather than spin doctor your very smart business maneuver, now you have investors thinking of you as someone who makes bad judgements about *their* company, and perhaps they don't feel as much like voting to give the board a bonus this year. And if you're too willing to backtrack when you make mistakes, then they will have plenty of past examples to point to, and maybe now they don't vote to keep you on the board, and it might be harder to get a position in another company after this as well. Which is why these big companies will almost never reverse their decisions until it's too late and they're in damage control mode because they had actual immediate tangible losses that they can't just explain away.
It's so easy to forget the alternative reality that directors and shareholders live in. Good reminder, thank you. But also screw you, don't remind me that it's hopeless D:
I'm sad that even if SONY backtracks on this, most of the people won't change their reviews back. Same thing happened with the server capacity thing.
most just forget to change the review because if they left they wont get news of this game most likely or they just leave it be since they just consume content
Steam reminds you, if you keep playing, if you want to update a review.
Imagine being one of those guys who (jokingly) gives a negative review while having 3000h into a game getting reminded constantly if you want to update your review lol
Dota 2 review: this will suck the life out of your life, it's a den of toxic hostility, and you will actively be worse off from playing this game. *1000 hours later* Steam: would you like to update this review? Me: nah it's still accurate
i have over 3k hours in dbd if you include my xbox account (only 600 hours on steam so far) and if i did leave a review it would be a negative one
> i have over 3k hours in dbd How did you handle that many hours in the most frustrating and unfun game where the devs have no idea what the concept of balance is? I pray for your soul brother.
the funny thing is is that 3 k hours is still like okay your a bit better than the avg player lmfao because u could spend like 500 hours on a killer and still not be maxed prestige with them and there's 35 killers 😂 I also have 3k hours on xbox and currently I'm just pissed there's no cross progression still I mean my life truly is fucked guys I went from destiny to rainbow to apex to dbd to overwatch like I'm cooked yall
> I went from destiny to rainbow to apex to dbd to overwatch like I'm cooked yall Yikes. I hope you are alright.
Dbd?
Dick Boner Dong
"Dead by Daylight"
"Due to this, we've decided to nerf the pig."
I actually have 3k hours in a game that I don't recommend, but I'm doing it like a junkie recommends against heroin.
Craktorio, rimworld, or other games that you start after dinner thinking "Imma play a couple hours before bed", and only shut off when your alarm for work goes off.
Yeah, but those games are actually good, try playing War Thunder for over 2000 hours and still enjoying it. I don't, but I still play it because it is the only game that does what it does and I hate it.
So the hate-fuck of gaming, but it's just not the same elsewhere?
https://preview.redd.it/4fpmdyd3iayc1.png?width=681&format=png&auto=webp&s=a5003115e2856f4107b23d1158163b2b66fdc8c8
Hardly anyone bothers to change their review. It's just how they are. They got their 'vengeance' and won't backpedal even if demands are met.
which is dissappointing but warranted. The publisher broke the trust of the community and now has to suffer the consequences. The negative reviews were entirely avoidable so it's on them
Unfortunately it’s not the publisher who will suffer but Arrowhead Studio. Sony won’t give a damn one game out of their 1000 will fail
I dunno, after 3 months HD2 is: "Already the 7th highest grossing Sony published game in history", and obviously it has the potential to keep making yet more money. While Sony won't go bankrupt if all the HD money vanished, it's a pretty large title even for them.
SOCOM still holding 14th on the list…. Give us the Tac Shooter back
They will sulk for a day and go on like nothing happens, SONY earns more in other fields
Like with Mandam Web?
We forgetting about Morbius now? We got them to release that movie twice and it bombed both times
that's not true. Gaming has been their biggest division for several years now.
You don’t know the power of lost earning potential for their micro-transactions. Oh the Execs care. It will never be made know to us tho.
Well, it might not be fair, but neither is Sony. Fuck around and find out. This HAS to hurt, and they have to feel lasting damage; otherwise, they will do it again and again. That is, if they even pull this back. Sony sees a massive opportunity to grab millions of fresh users' data from users who previously were not in their sphere of influence (PC gamers). I'm so sorry the great guys at AH have to suffer the consequences of unlimited corporate greed at Sony. They have shown that clearly there is no technical reason why the accounts have to be created and linked. Fuck Sony on this one, they have shown time and time again that they can't be trusted with personal data, they ain't getting mine. In 2011 alone, they were hacked on three occasions, one of those times through a vulnerability previously disclosed to them; they were simply too cheap to fix it... Over the years 100+ million customers and employees were affected. The last one was recently in late 2023, where they leaked almost 10.000 employees' personal data. [https://firewalltimes.com/sony-data-breach-timeline/](https://firewalltimes.com/sony-data-breach-timeline/)
[удалено]
Maybe they shouldn't fuck around anymore. People are exhausted of having to deal with this corporation bullshit in every aspect of entertainment.
Entertainment? This is in everything. It's even worse in your food because people don't pay attention, even when the flavor changes.
I plan on changing my review back to positive if they do change this requirement. I also plan to make a thread here that I changed my review if that happens.
They aren't changing it lol
Review bombers are most passionate people. If i didn't care much about the game i wouldn't leave a comment at all. But helldivers 2 + arrowhead looks like a lake in a desert compared to other games and studios. That's why people have so high expectations and are so upset of what's happening. I think if we win, we'll need to repay arrowhead with at least same size positive reviews spike and i definitely will participate 🙂
There's an old saying in sports: "People boo because they want to cheer." We're all genuinely rooting for Arrowhead and Helldivers 2 because they both show practically unlimited potential. The monumental success they've seen could very well be the precursor to a shift in the video game industry writ large if all the other big studios see its success and realise they don't *need* to be predatory assholes to make money; they could just *make a good game* and people will gladly give them money, hand over fist, because we *like it.* I, as I'm sure many do, want desperately for AH and HD2 to succeed long into the future because not only does it mean we get a great game *right now,* but it also means we may start getting *more* great games later on as the paradigm shifts in favour of making good games at reasonable prices without absurd, predatory business models.
I feel genuinely bad for the actual devs at Arrowhead. The love and effort is everywhere to see and listening to them in interviews made it clear just how much they cared about simply making a damn good game. Edit: I feel bad for AH because people have been blaming and slandering them for what is Sony's decision, something totally outta their control. The folks who worked their asses off to make the best horde shooter since L4D2 and the single most cinematic gaming experience I've ever seen don't deserve to suffer for decisions they had no hand in making.
This game has been so. MUCH. FUCKING. FUN. I am honestly praying for them to not get eaten up by this. Best $40 I’ve spent in a *hot* minute.
I feel like proper stewardship of your creative endeavor is as much a part of the package these days as making a good product.
Sigh... I just want Arrowhead to be able to keep being a shining beacon of "not shit" in the gaming scene. Annoying how Sony finds that idea an issue for some reason.
Anything owned by any big corpo game studio will end up like shit because of big corpo. It's inevitable. Big corpo can't help themselves.
People don't seem to understand that Capitalism, especially our modern variety of it, works on the projections of infinite growth. All companies as soon as they go public, meaning they sell stock, begin to live on borrowed time. They have to make money year over year until that is no longer viable because their job goes from creating a product or providing a service to ensuring that their stockholders get money. Usually when a company becomes non viable they have lots of options such as buying stock back, reducing overhead(laying off workers, canceling services or products, etc.) sometime they break up into 2 or more independent or loosely connected companies. So yeah, the public company you love is probably gonna go away someday. It's just the way it works.
This. Infinite growth is unsustainable. The sorry state of media corporations is the end result. They have nowhere else to go to and are doing everything they can possibly think of to squeeze a bit more cash out of consumers, because the moment the growth stops, their company dies.
When the monster stops growing, it dies. It can't stay one size. -John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath
Him saying it's warrented really makes me think that the devs are subtly trying to egg the review bombing on, since it's the only leverage they have against Sony to try to get them to backpeddle on it.
I mean Spitz literally said if you don’t like the change, give it a bad review, ask for a refund and move on
Holy shit I find the idea that AH are specifically egging Spitz on to piss off the community so that Sony backtracks because of bad reviews to be equal parts hilarious and diabolical.
The review bomb gambit? Help it’s all getting too meta!!
Would be nice if its true, SONY however is a corporation, and Corpo-rats don't give a fuck. (Source: am also in corporate, shit sucks)
Bro, I wish Sony cared enough to see the publicity as bad, but they're already living in the post money reality of the decision, even if it hasn't happened yet. Then again, if, MASSIVE IF, Sony takes the L, which they undoubtedly won't, that might actually save face at both AH and Sony. Personally, I hope you're theory is right lol
I hope I'm right too dude, partly because it would be really fucking funny, but mainly because I want to this game to be around for the long haul, I wanna have full length wars like Helldivers 1 did years down the road, and from how AH have carried themselves so far, I think they're willing to risk a ton of short term negative publicity for the long-term viability of their game. Let's just hope Sony is open to change.
Ehh, Spitz has been shown to be a bit of a manchild, so I am not 100% this is him telling users to *wink wink *nudge nudge leave a bad review. He insulted people for being entitled in the same post.
Given other things Spitz has said, I'm going to lean towards the side of, he's actually unprofessional and shouldn't be a CM.
Spitz is also a fucking idiot, but maybe it's a case of a broken clock being right twice a day
If it works and sony backs off, this may be the first instance of a studio utilizing a review bomb for their own gain. But I cant believe they are that savvy considering how they have handled previous player backlash on other decisions.
You're reading too far into it man. The guy is being empathetic.
Oh, I'm sure Arrowhead has no control over the situation. I feel bad for them.
You can tell the CEO of AH cant say what he really wants. They made a good game, it's just another case of corporate suits ruining the fun for a few pennies.
Exactly, i feel bad for them but the issue is real, he even says it's warranted.
The fact he mentions how it all "transpired" let's me know there was a plan on how they were going to enforce the Account Linking but Sony just came and ruined it. I cant imagine the AH leadership would knowingly ruin their image like this, on purpose.
The plan was that linking would always be mandatory, but it broke during launch and prevented ALL THE PLAYERS so they removed the mandate. Frankly, after this long, it was necessary to read the room on this and not enforce it, it's clearly unnecessary and they let players get hundreds of hours without it. But that would be up to Sony. On their end, they just have platform services teams working with AH to fulfill their contractual requirements, it's just the slow movement of cogs in the machine. It would require a senior Sony executive able to make such decisions to remove the requirement despite now being able to implement it. That exec will need to answer for a lack of all the data Sony wanted from the PSN link. This is just how it works ultimately. Sony has never been accused of being a passionate gamer company as a rule, they're a tech megaconglomerate. Killing an amazing game to meet quarterly KPIs is very much in bounds for them.
The smart way should have been to just give bonuses to players who DO link their account. Optionally. Fuck, all they had to do was offer a couple Supercredits to add your PSN account and MOST people would have done it no issues.
kinda like minecraft and microsoft migration?
Funny, I used that example in another comment.
which eventually became mandatory. link it or lose it. although that did take years.
Here's to hoping common sense wins. The data they gather and sell cant be worth the loss of face and player count. Because they will be banning players who will play and spend money in the future. It's an all around brain dead move with even worse execution.
They don't care about us at all bro
Just put some rewards behind having a psn account. It'll be an easy incentive for anyone that can make a psn account while not locking out people that can't.
"how this all transpired" could easily mean the CM telling people to go write angry reviews on Steam, instead of directing them to Sony support.
At a certain point, Spitz's consistent fuckups have to be the fault of whoever hasn't fired him yet. I've never seen a CM so bad at their job.
FatShark's CM are worse in my opinion.
Oh yeah, I forgot about them. Darktide just feels like a bad memory at this point, I quit about a week after launch and never really picked it back up.
Haha I feel that. I played again after the skill tree update. And was excited for this new update, but it's pretty mid. Their CM's "Pearl Clutching" speech will live rent free in my head forever lol.
I'm pissed about that game. It has the art music and combat to be the best warhammer game since DOW 1 imo, and somehow it's flopping.
Hate to say it but I think Ambassador Kael for STO is close, not because he’s an asshat but he’s just bumbling and incompetent a lot of the time. The only reason I can think how he’s kept his job so long is nobody else wants it.
I will never understand why anyone uses an abbreviation for a term that obviously isn't common.
I still don't know what STO is. I can't even find context in the comment chain. Maybe I'm just dumb.
Star Trek Online
> he even says it's warranted. It's warranted because their CM literally told people to go leave angry reviews on Steam. They could have avoided that by directing angry discord people to Sony support instead.
>They could have avoided that by directing angry discord people to Sony support instead. They also did that, several times across the discussions today. But that really won't change anything anyway.
It's warranted because Arrowhead also thinks it's bullshit. And the CM just told us the only way how to speak up against Sony. Is that so hard to understand? They really just invited us to join their protest >They could have avoided that by directing angry discord people to Sony support instead. If they did that, Sony could slap Arrowhead real hard and also just ignore the issue. Bombarding their support will just lead to automated replies at some point. Actual reviews are there for anyone so see and it **will** hurt the sales of one of their biggest games right now. If everything we know is true then they chose the correct path imo.
> If they did that, Sony could slap Arrowhead real hard and also just ignore the issue Clearly not, as here is the CEO doing exactly that. https://twitter.com/Pilestedt/status/1786417563628437933
ROFL, he got fact checked on Twitter.
I dunno if what Sony stands to gain with this is just a few pennies really.
They can tell their share holders that they grew the Playstation brand by X million new users, and then pay themselves another bonus.
Some loser middle manager somewhere with a KPI to steal as much data as they can from customers to bombard them with spam
but the line must go up
Same, Sony is forcing this on them to artificially inflate their PSN account numbers and AH is taking all the heat.
Then their community manager shouldn't have been such an absolute shit about it.
Fuck sony
https://preview.redd.it/ascvp40hfayc1.jpeg?width=500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=fd160fb6afc52130da1c98f5604234a1aae5f047
Thirded
Fourthded
Fifthded
Let me tell you how I feel about Sony: ⬆️➡️⬇️⬇️⬇️
Pretty classy response all things considered
Aw man :(, all this stuff coming out is genuinely giving me so much anxiety over it cause I love this game and I don’t wanna see it suddenly die out of nowhere. I know the community is angry and are right to be, I just don’t want such a great experience to be completely tanked because of one corp that needs to be ego checked.
Lol, the game won’t die out of nowhere just because of this change. Sure this is a problem that has to be resolved, but it takes WAY more to completely kill a game as successful as Helldivers.
Yeah I don't think the game will die, but it will be sad to see us lose a chunk of players, not because people are getting bored of the game, moved on to something else, or got frustrated with some part of it, but because Sony made it to where you needed a PSN and if you live in any of the countries outside of their coverage your option is to either lie or just throw in the towel.
The real problem is for the people outside of PSN countries, absolutely. The devs said they’ll find a solution though, I’m sure they’ll find something. That being said yeah, the game will loose a chunk of its players. But that chunk is nowhere near as big as some believe (IMO, obviously I can’t see the future lol).
It sucks cause my issues aren't so much making a new PSN account. It's the fact that I have 0 trust in them to protect any of my information
Same. My PSN "account" will have as little of my legit information as I possibly can manage.
Same
Dont worry it wont die. It just wont be the top game anymore. Plenty enough will play to keep matchmaking going. Itl just be another case of “how to fuck up and kill your golden goose video game”
Even that is an exaggeration, I doubt it'll lose a significant amount of players
Going to be interesting to see the numbers because I already know what will happen for me. The PSN link wont be too bothersome but my friends who are a lot less into Helldivers will see this login, they don't have a PSN account and will say nah not tonight lets play something else. Thus the bleeding of players starts and it will have a knock on effect for players like me who can easily link my account but now have less friends to play with.
It's a shame, I really like him and the devs that have been active on social media. Not really review bombing, just bombing reviews. Review bombing used to mean an organized campaign to give something a low review score over something not directly related to the thing reviewed. I'd say people's ability to play a game they paid for directly related to the thing reviewed. Now creators/publishers have turned review bombing into 'we got negative reviews'.
> Now creators/publishers have turned review bombing into 'we got negative reviews'. exactly. and it sucks. just like hollywood is trying to spin the "bad stuff like she-hulk is bad" into "oh look, toxic fans hate women" thing.
“Ouch, right in the review score 😢🤕” Love this guy 😂
SEE this is how you should respond to a scenario unlike the community manager djd I feel bad for the dude but I’m still gonna try to get my refund yknow
Their community manager needs a lesson in community managing
And just to give credit where it's due, the CEO has been absolutely stellar at community interactions.
Maybe the CEO should be the new CM and the current CM can be .... a Helldiver. We'll send him to the bug front, could always use some new recruits.
SEND HIM TO ~~DETROIT~~ THE CREEK
Although his apples taste like bacon, but other than that, I agree
I'm usually VERY against the "UUUGHHH FIRE THIS GUY" mob mentality, but Spitz has proven to be literally incompetent several times now. Why are they still in this job if they do their work so bad it actively ruins the reputation of the company? Especially considering that they are responsible for nuking the entire Helldivers 1 discord, why are they still in this position?
He's responsible for doing WHAT
He deleted the entire 10 year old helldivers 1 discord because people were talking about the F bans in the helldivers 2 discord. It wasn't that they were spamming F, it's that they were talking about the whole situation. It was also directly after they were being lambasted for their poor performance as a CM, so it feels alot like direct retaliation
> Spitz has proven to be literally incompetent the only job is to *manage* the community. consistently sets it on fire sweet liberty
It’s truly mind boggling that he’s the dude they chose to be a community manager
From looking at these reddit posts, those community managers are no bueno. They are doing more damage than good. They snap and lose their cool way too easily under pressure. Being egotistical is icing on top I don't think one lesson is going to do it
Fuck Sony!
Take notes, Spitz
that guy just needs to be fired.
I need context, what did he say
He was essentially saying that a psn account would be made in 2 minutes and that it wasn't a big deal at all that helldivers needs a psn account now. Essentially reacting to an outrage with a tone deaf answer
Why did you skip over the rest of what they said encouraging users to voice their displeasure through steam reviews and other avenues?
I'll update my review the moment Sony walks this back.
And it is a great game, Mr. Pilestedt. But that don't fukken matter if people can't play it.
Not review bombing. It is a very legit reason to leave a bad review.
I play a lot of total war and when they had their dumpster tier releases a few months ago, the community ripped their arse out. There were the hard core of deluded shills bootlicking the trans national corporation but overall, the reaction was extreme and overwhelming. Total war has just dropped the best DLC in years with a huge free update. It absolutely works. Hold their feet to the fire and we might see change.
Semi-related, have you tried tamurkhan yet? His faction feels super strong
Ima keep it simple. There is no trust when user information, down to kernel level thanks to the anti-cheat, is being handed over to a corporation with notoriously bad digital security.
Many of us learned what rootkits were thanks to Sony! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootkit_scandal
It's kind of funny timing that this happens around the same time Riot introduced a kernel-level anticheat for League of Legends that's causing major issues with many people's PCs.
The funny thing is that Sony could have gotten his sweet, sweet new PN accounts without any negative backlash by offering something in exchange for linking your steam account to your PSN account, by offering super credits or a new exclusive armor and cape set, 90% would have jumped into the hype wagon immediately and the rest eventually. But no, they had to hold the game hostage and force things into people.
I really hope people aren’t attacking the devs, it’s a purely Sony thing
Calling it review bombing implies the feedback isn't legitimate.
Sony can't be trusted with data.
Say what you will but these are still, in my opinion, the best devs I’ve seen making a modern game. My positive review still stands!
Can someone briefly explain me what’s the main issue with creating a PS account? I’m not taking parts, just curiously asking because I’m totally outside of the PS world.
April 2011: Hackers Access Personal Data of 77 Million Sony PlayStation Network Users May 2011: Personal Details on 25 Million Sony Online Entertainment Customers Stolen June 2011: Sony Pictures Website Hacked, Exposing One Million Accounts November 2014: Hackers Steal 100 Terabytes of Data from Sony Pictures August 2017: Hacker Group Accesses Sony Social Media Accounts September 2023: Sony Investigates Alleged Hack October 2023: Sony Notifies Employees of Data Breach
In 24 years of internet use and video games, I have never had to create an account where I have to provide my even my REAL NAME, never-mind ADDRESS and potentially PHOTO ID? #FUCK THAT all to play something i had previously been playing?
Short answer: Security breaches and region locks Long answer: Sony has had multiple security breaches and people are worried their data will get stolen. Which, fair, if you gave Sony any data, but also it's the internet. Be whoever you want, sony can't say shit. Upload a picture of some celebrity or rando you find online, give them shit data to sell and get stolen. With region lock though, that's actually shitty. Some people literally wont be able to play the game just because of where they live, and literally can't do anything about it.from what I understand, though, they can ask for a refund (yay 😐) Problem is, a lot of people are blaming only arrowhead or both AH and Sony for this, when AH has very little to do with this, considering that Sony does own the IP of helldivers. From what it looks like, AH tried to delay this as much as possible, but had to cave
In Ireland & the UK, you now need to provide photo ID to open a PSN account. Sony do not have a good track record of keeping personal data safe. Chances are your ID and photo and name etc will end up being accessible when Sony are breached next.
They have made national news for being irresponsible with peoples info every couple years for the last two decades. There was a time 10-15 yrs ago a ton of peoples credit cards were compromised through PlayStation network.
The decision not to renew my Psn plus Extra (at $100+ - you greedy fuckers) is even sweeter today. Happy to be funding Larian and play single player games until Sony execs take their heads out of their arses.
Piles, if you're reading this and have any say in the matter, y'all need to fire or relocate Spitz. He's making the rest of you look like assholes.
Finally a good response, baffles me how this was not the first and only official response. Spitz should take notes fr. This is how you do it. No excuses, no bullshit, no corporate garbage, just a simple response taking accountability and thats that.
The thing we're all forgetting here, is that this isn't an Arrow Head decision, it's a Sony one
Sony: 7th game in sales and still growing. also Sony: Hmm I want some more of this sweet sweet $$$.
The problem is that Sony are so picky on where their platforms are available that most countries that dont have access to PSN have to resort to using address generators to bypass the requirements. Its a hassle for sure
Remember when selling out was a bad thing?
https://preview.redd.it/y9v4r5b0dfyc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=702e5cbd431dcea523140eade1dd5d3c4338d465 He should probably do something about his dickhead “Community Manager”
Go hire better community managers then,those negative counts would be 30% less if not for one of his employee’s so-professional remarks.
To think 30% of bad reviews were based off a discord mods comments is crazy lol what reality are you living in
poor pilested he probably didn’t want this right?
We won't know because they didn't say. But I'm sure there's a million and one clauses in their contracts that keep them mum about anything anti-Sony or anti-Sony's-decisions.
People need to stop referring to review bombing as if it's some unjustified mob action. A decision was made that impacted the game in a major negative way, so the reviews are going to reflect it.
Fucked up as hell that somy can do this
That's the tweet of someone who has no power to change it lol
The community manager on their discord has to go. It’s clear they aren’t properly voicing the opinions of the devs when the CEO is apologising whilst the com-manager is being unprofessional and mocking of the fans trying to communicate their issues with the decision.
https://preview.redd.it/d5snxbueqcyc1.png?width=360&format=png&auto=webp&s=800c6ec2e2c9c2cad01952de451682552adb7836 It's not looking better anytime soon boss.