this post was submitted on 03 May 2024

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Helldivers 2 Players Express Frustration On Steam As It Will Soon Require A PSN Account (www.gameinformer.com)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Also their FAQ page on steam is locked down (except for moderators and their disciples) so I can't post about not being able to use native voice chat. Literally KILLS any teamcentric gameplay.

"Let me pause and type out that I just launched an airstrike so my team doesn..."

"Let me delete the warning and retype an apology for nuking my entire squad."

[+] [email protected] 28 points 1 year ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (4 children)

[deleted]

[–] [email protected] 56 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The reason is that Sony wants more data. There's no technical reason for it, as the game has already worked fine without it for months. This is just Sony clamping down on a promise they quietly made and that most people forgot about.

As for the extra hoops, if you're still wanting to play the game and don't already have a PSN account, you'll need to make a free one and link it. It shouldn't require any additional logins after the initial link, so after the initial account setup there shouldn't be any additional change to the process of logging in and playing.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago

There’s no technical reason for it, as the game has already worked fine without it for months

Well, sort of. Friend requests between PC and PS5 have been borked for a long time now, recently they changed how account ID's are generated randomly to now looking like it's a specific ID. I wouldn't be surprised if linking accounts was part of this in a skeezy way.

The worst part is I have a PSN account but I haven't had a console since the PS2 lol.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The reason is that sony is the publisher for the game

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Sony has published other games that made it to pc, like horizon zero dawn, that don't require a Sony account so that isn't really the reason

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

They've published single-player games. For single-player games, the only metric that matters is sales. If the game sold well, they can make a sequel, and if it sold poorly, they won't make another. For live-service games, the metric that matters is Monthly Active Users, because the more users you have the more likely some of them will buy something in your live-service cash shop.

Hey has anyone checked on Destiny recently? They're also published by Sony, do they require a PSN account? or do they get away with it because Destiny 2 was originally more of a partnership?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Sony published the game. You already need a PSN account for cross play, but it wasn't required, you just didn't get crossplay. Now you need it to play. A PSN account is free. I've had one for a decade+ and have never even owned a Playstation. Not that big of a deal in my opinion. You will just have to sign in. It is less invasive than a CDPR account for Cyberpunk and Witcher or ubisoft for farcry, or EA for all the others. PSN doesn't even require an additional piece of software launcher like the rest. You literally sign in, in game, and never think about it again. Not that big of a deal.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Cyberpunk and Witcher don’t require a CDPR account, it’s optional for some cosmetic rewards in the respective games.

So really the only companies doing this are Ubisoft and EA. Sony’s in great company…

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

it's optional for some cosmetic rewards

And also CrossPlay...

Don't get me wrong, it's better than requiring the account to play the game, but it's still kind of a disappointing move.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Am I missing something? The link only talks about account migration and the rewards that I mentioned in my previous comment. There’s no mention of crossplay.

And yeah, obviously you would need to link your PS or Xbox account to use account migration. That’s how that feature works. Cyberpunk and Witcher are singleplayer games, crossplay wouldn’t apply anyway.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

At the bottom of the article, under "Can I opt out?":

If you choose to opt out, please note that on March 5th, 2024 you will lose access to Cross Progression, My Rewards, and RED Forums, and all connected data will be permanently deleted.

Again, it's not a deal breaker for me, and not nearly as bad as needing an account to even play, but I felt it was at least worth bringing up.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Cross progression isn’t cross play. Cross progression is when you can take a save on one device and continue it on another one, like from PlayStation to Xbox or PC.

And, obviously, that could only work by linking accounts. There’s literally no other way that could work.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You already need a PSN account for cross play

Factually incorrect. I never linked up and have played with at least one person I knew was on PlayStation.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Crazy, I couldn't play with any of my PS friends until I linked. Hmmm I guess I am wrong, internet man says so 🤷‍♂️ It is crazy watching the hivemind turn on shit. OH NO! MY DATA MIGHT GET STOLEN! As they type their response on an android phone, or a windows computer. MY PRECIOUS DATA! I couldn't possibly be competent enough to take even the simplist of measures to seperate it if I am worried, like a ghost email and a one off password. How dare they mildly inconvenience me!. I am going to turn on the ONE game that hasn't tried to fuck me in the ass like every other game because the internet told me to be mad!

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It’s just a shitty thing to do though. The game was working 100% fine without an extra account and now you can’t play without it. It’s annoying for some and, for countries without PSN, potentially the end of the game being playable.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Annoying maybe, but not on par with the $70 games with micro transactions that make the game pay to win when the games are just rehashed battle Royale games. It's the same game OVER AND OVER AND OVER. Signing in to a PSN account might be annoying, but my God it is small potatoes with everything else going on these days and it is something beyond the DEVs control. I feel like that perspective is lost. This game is a diamond in a giant pile of turds. The devs have done everything in their control to keep it clean, but some things are beyond their control.

As far as the people in countries without PSN, if they don't make it right (either by removing the requirement for them or refunding), then that is bullshit. But I don't think Arrowhead is out to screw anyone.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I read that Sony is doing it for security reasons for safety/grieving and that the game did originally require a PSN login at launch, but stopped it at launch. But I am guessing this is just them saying hey we have this many people using PSN accounts. No other reason to have Steam prompt for login for anything besides the Steam account

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

If you're banned on steam for shitting up the game, they don't want you making a new account to shit it up on PSN. And vice versa. Currently you can get banned in game on steam and just pack up and move to PSN.

It means to be an incessant troll you would have to limit your account spam to the PSN side, which requires 2 factor, or make more steam accounts as well.

So halving the troll problem for Arrowhead by not having them chase two separate account systems.

It is likely also so that matchmaking and player counts on the PSN side can be accurate. If there are 300k people playing, but the PSN only reports half of that, it makes the game population seem much smaller for new users.

Honestly i treat it like Origin or EPIC. I don't love having to have it, but the benefits out weight the demerits, and I have the account anyways.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago

Well that sucks. It was fun while it lasted. I'll have to change my review now.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

That sucks and they will probably do that for all of their titles 🙄.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

I guess back to good ol' DRG then

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Okay so I must be missing something. Could someone explain to me why exactly this, of all things, is getting the nuclear backlash? It's not like they're adding a subscription charge or new microtransactions, you just need to have an account.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The account link was optional, but somewhere they have written that the PSN account will be required at a later stage, seemingly due to issues at launch. Now, people who are living in a country where PSN is not available (which are quite a lot actually) will no longer be able to play, neither to refund, since the launch is months ago.

So it's way more than just having yet another account, which is especially ridiculous in the case of PSN for Steam PC games.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Okay so THAT makes sense, people for whom a PSN account is simply impossible will not be able to play, THAT is worth being mad about. But we are absolutely not just seeing outrage from players in countries where they CAN'T have a PSN account, we're seeing outrage from people who could and just don't want to.

What I'm trying to understand is why. I get that it's a greedy data-grab from Sony that is fully not necessary, but also... it's just not a big ask. They're not asking for your credit card, they don't want your social security number, I don't even think there's anything keeping you from telling them that your name is "Bofa Deeznutz." I get wanting to control your data, and I would absolutely suggest a randomly generated super-strong password, but it just seems to me like everyone so angry that they're quitting just... has a pretty easy fix for that.

So for MOST of us, it really, really is just having yet another account. The few who genuinely don't have that option are right to be angry, but for most of us it really just seems like an overreaction.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

Yeah, and yet I'm on PC using Steam. If I'd wanted PSN, I'd bought a Playstation. The same secondary account bullshit applies to Ubisoft, Origin, and all of their buddies. Honestly, Steam should simply refuse to list games that require that, since they could simply use your account, but yeah, money.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago

It works just fine without it, so the reason playstation are enforcing has nothing to do with making the game better and something to do with data collection and them profiting from it.

It's a fucking idiot move, burning goodwill for probably very little actual gain

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

It's a case of the straw that broke the camel's back I think. People are getting sick and tired of needing an account for everything. And this is getting more attention than it otherwise would have both because of how popular the game is and the fact that the requirement is coming after launch. I'm tired of making an account for epic games, for battlenet, for microsoft, for gog, for capcom, for PlayStation Network. Especially when the game has clearly been functioning perfectly fine without it this entire time

I think that people are finally just reaching the breaking point on this and helldivers was just in the unfortunate position of being the one that finally broke that back

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

M not really bothered by this. If a game dev wants control of their account system, then that’s fine with me.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

but it's not a game dev. It's the publisher wanting to boost active user numbers for shareholder purposes, Arrowhead doesn't gain anything from this happening.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Like I think that's the thing that pisses me off the most about this - Sony clearly didn't give two shits about this game on launch with servers underprepared and overwhelmed for weeks after, but as soon as they smelled money they were more than ready to shit where Arrowhead eats with this godawful requirement.