"PSN isn't supported in my country. What do I do?" Arrowhead CEO: "I don't know"

The most depressing thing I’ve seen related to this topic. A small team that worked incredibly hard were lucky enough to achieve the impossible, and now they watch without any control as it is taken from them, for no other reason than greed.
Due to unchecked neoliberal capitalism, big companies like Sony already cover so much of the developed markets, that they have no way to naturally grow more. So they are forced to squeeze more out of what they already have, as stagnation is not accepted in this hellish system.
The line must go up, whatever the cost!
Edit: damn, Sony actually listened
- The line must go up, whatever the cost!
  Including lying, controlling narratives, committing outright fraud, controlling the fate of companies through "consultants", changing the definition of Recession, killing of whistleblowers, killing of journalists who help whistleblowers, to name just a very short few.
  This system blows, how many millenia does it fucking take to figure that out?
  
  "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it."
  -Upton Sinclair
  
  I'm afraid "this system" has existed since humans learned to lie and commit fraud, and it's not called capitalism.
  But there are some laws which these things follow - the more horizontal and decentralized everything is, the less such rot.
  The political ideology is called distributivism and unfortunately associated with Catholicism, but it's the sanest I've encountered.
- The lesson we learn here is that you don't take money from the mob.
  Don't go public with youre company.
  Don't get involved with the devil.
  
  Said this in another thread :
  First off - yes Sony is in the wrong.
  Second - Helldivers ain’t Flappy Bird. Making an online multiplayer game that needs the ability to do reliable matchmaking across multiple platforms with hundreds of thousands of players out there needs MASSIVE network and infrastructure support…
  So you may say “don’t take money from the mob,” but this is more a situation of where if they HADN’T taken Sony’s support, they likely wouldn’t have been able to have the resources to have done all that themselves which could have made the difference between their great success and failure.
  Remember that the first helldivers game was also a Sony published title where everything worked out fine for everyone then… but mostly because it wasn’t near as big a success story and making headlines but was instead a far more niche title lost mostly in the noise of smaller dev Sony titles.
  I’m sure arrowhead has learned its lesson now and it will likely able probably to flex its muscles in the future thanks to its success financially - as I’m sure lots of publishers will be now coming at them with much more lucrative and favorable contract deals going forward, but they probably would not have been able to do what they wanted to do at the scale that they have been able to had Sony not been there to help provide that initial capital and infrastructure support.
  This is Sony’s fault fully. The guys at Arrowhead are just wanting to have the means to make good games. They needed the resources to launch successfully and pretending it would have been feasible otherwise without said resources is sadly… naive.
  
  So many threads about Hello Games (No Man's Sky) and other Sony backed titles being "victims". They knew what they were doing,
  
  If you don't go public with your company, some other company will go public, and buy your company or your customers from under you with the money they got from Wall Street. There are some companies that can try and resist, but the field tilts against them.
- The most depressing thing I’ve seen related to this topic. A small team that worked incredibly hard were lucky enough to achieve the impossible, and now they watch without any control as it is taken from them, for no other reason than greed.
  KSP's original team must feel the same way
- There are a lot of console exclusives that I like. I think an argument can be made that companies like Sony and Microsoft can add funding and support to make games better, sacrificing profits for console value.
  With Xbox failing for another console, putting out half-baked products, and buying IPs instead of creating new ones, I'm worried that Sony will just start maximizing profits.
  
  Sony brought out a console that was almost impossible to buy and has no games. Now they try to inflate their numbers by forcing people to make psn accounts. Fuck them. Not that i ever planned to buy a playstation, but i make sure to stay away from everything sony related
- You were right though. And it’s only because we were all so furious about what they were doing and raised such a fuss about it that they decided to renege on that.
  https://twitter.com/PlayStation/status/1787331667616829929
- The devs that made Helldivers MUST have been aware of Sony's mandatory PSN policy. This is just a sob story and throwing Sony under the bus at this point.
  
  This would have been less of an issue if it remained enforced from the start. Re-enforcing it after demonstrating it clearly works without makes it look scummy and greedy. People could also easily refund if they didn't agree. Now its too late.
  For a lot of people it now looks as: now that the game is a success we want to collect everybody their data as well so we can make even more money.
  Tbh, other games just require a 3rd party account without linking them explicitly. This requires an actual link which ( likely ) gives them access to a lot of your steam information which you'd rather NOT give to a corp that doesn't seem capable at guarding people their data.
  
  Sony bailed them out when their servers went down in February by sending engineers to assist. It makes sense that Sony wants a favor in return.
  
  Why do you care that a company as scummy as Sony is getting thrown under the bus? Outside of this fiasco Helldivers was a pretty great game. If throwing Sony under the bus gets this decision reversed literally EVERYONE wins, and honestly, as the Publisher, thats probably one of the things that comes with the title, taking the heat for shitty ass decisions that could otherwise tank a game
  
  I didn't think that's necessarily true. They were contracted to make the game by Sony and when they started probably had no idea it would even be sold on PC.

Sony just did a Unity here. How the hell can you ruin such a beloved game in a single cheer stupid move, for the purpose of just gathering data. It's beyond me.
- I feel like Sony did a Sony here.
  I'm old enough to remember when Sony shipped 22 million malware infested CDs because they were worried about Napster.
  
  Also earlier this year they stole purchased content from millions of their customers
  
  Not just any old malware, but insecure rootkits that allowed ANYONE to have total control over the system with their own malware above the OS-level with no way to even know the malware was there.
  
  Did that actually break computers? I remember hearing about it at the time but I also don't remember having a problem. I didn't think I took any real precautions either, I just carried on as per and nothing ever happened.

Sony being scumbags? Who saw that coming? They definitely don't have that reputation...
- Saving this comment on my Memory Stick Pro Duo

It's not fair the developers take the heat for this. We should learn to find the right people to complain to.
- That's why Spitz said to be angry in the Steam reviews instead of their Discord. People mistakenly took it as a dismissive whine, but that was actually a very important comment that I feel many people overlooked. Sony ain't gonna do anything differently unless there is actual, tangible damage to their brand. That damage doesn't come from chat rooms, that comes from storefront reviews.
  Keep the bad reviews coming if you want any hope of Sony relenting.
  
  Doing a pretty good job so far
  
  I really hope Steam doesn't consider this "review bombing" and take down such reviews. The response is entirely justified.
  
  This isn't about Sony "relenting", Arrowhead needs Sony's PSN support network to deal with support tickets: it's the whole reason Arrowhead signed up with a publisher instead of self publishing and developing an international workforce of support agents. I hate Sony as much as the next person but let's be honest, Arrowhead needs Sony and PSN, and it makes sense given they want to spend their time making games rather than getting into being a publisher and help desk.
  Ultimately, Arrowhead should have made it a day one requirement and delisted the game on Steam for every country that lacks PSN support. Instead Arrowhead and Sony decided to let it ride and enjoy the sales and accompanying popularity.
- Yeah as if they had no idea what's going on. They just thought they get away because they played the "cool" developers as long as they could
- If the high-ups at Arrowhead knew and made that decision anyway, it's squarely on them, full stop.
  
  Generally publishers handle storefront and distribution
  
  Sure, but if I put myself in their shoes, what better options did they have?
- It was a bit frightening for me to see how quickly the mob turned on AH during this fiasco and just how much vitriol and propaganda has been generated on the subreddit like this is any other ingame operation with the associated shitposting... except this time it could very well shape the futures of real people and fate of the company for years to come.
  Unfortunately this is the only way to accomplish anything. If there wasn't an outcry like this both AH and sony would just ignore any criticism and move on until it gets buried and forgotten. It's a world of extremes and the scales could have easily tipped into the other side, with people rightfully complaining about these shitty practices but getting ridiculed for complaining about just another account or sth.
  
  And that second option already happened with this exact game when people expressed concern over the DRM, which is designed like a rootkit, giving it essentially full control/access to your system while it's running.

Sony backtracked! The PSN plan is off!
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/third-person-shooter/sony-backs-down-on-demand-that-helldivers-2-players-log-into-a-psn-account/
- This is good, but I think there needs to be some regulations. Companies keep introducing all sorts of anti-consumer practices to fuck over users (not only in gaming land). Now it got (for the time being) reverted, but the trust has (again) been broken.
  Consumers (should) buy something based on what has been presented at the point of time. If that changes in the future with negative effects for consumers, than this should get investigated and ultimately penalized. Companies have become too big and too powerful, which can lead to shit like this
  
  This. I'll forever be mad at Rockstar for removing songs from their games, because their licenses expired. But it's cheaper to just "update" the game so they can continue selling it without the songs, instead of renewing contracts. Oh, you bought the game before that? Too bad, update to continue playing
- Yay ! I don't know what happened honestly other than drama suddenly everywhere, but I am glad its all over.
  
  Long story short: Sony decided (after sales!) to make it impossible for players to get into their already purchased copy of Helldivers 2 without a PlayStation Network account. Originally, players could just use their Steam accounts.
  The problem, aside from bloating and privacy concerns, is that there are many regions in which PlayStation Network isn't even available, meaning hundreds of thousands of gamers would just be locked out of the game they bought.
  Now, after immense pressure (players immediately dumped game reviews into oblivion, and bombarded the developers, forcing them to renegotiate with Sony) it was decided not to make PlayStation Network linking mandatory.

Take Two interactive is really lucky this happened right after they sacked the KSP2 team, otherwise people would be talking about that instead.
- I’m not sure ksp is popular/broad-based enough to generate much of an uproar. I’m unhappy about it, but most people just see another headline.
- And Roll7
- what ?

This statement reminds me awfully of the Living World Season 4 Story in Guild Wars 2.
And yes, before people become angry about this comparison: I said "reminds me", not "the same as" or anything else.
Explanation (hard spoiler!): ::: spoiler spoiler In essence, you do everything you can, unite different people for the fight that determines the fate of the world. But... you lose and that was the only chance. You barely survive with your friends; but not all.
https://youtu.be/jk5nfHxyQno?t=7220
The Commander (you) are asked what to do (because you always had some kind of answers; a plan; every time). But since this was the only hope, you say "I don't know." :::
- That line hit hard when I played it. It's rare to see protagonists acknowledge being at the end of their wits and have no clue what to do in face of impending doom.
  
  It really did hit hard.
  At least for me I could get into the next story part after I was like "wtf just happened" but for players at the time of release this was the latest part of the story and they were stuck with this awful last line for week(s).

I don't know whether this is sad or really funny.
- Comedy is just tragedy + time

To be fair to them, I don't know either.

Patient gaming for the win.
- Does that really apply to a live service game?
  Like I get your sentiment, and I agree....but waiting for a game like this to die and then going see it wasn't worth it good thing I waited doesn't make any sense in a general way. Like imagine waiting for destiny servers to shut down in the future and say good thing I didn't waste my time. Like yeah of course it does when the player base moves on. The point was to play it before that happened.
  Like...youre right...but whats the point of saying anything. You don't like live service games because of the risk of stuff like this happening. It's not like a no man's sky thing where you wait for them to patch and offer discounts
  
  Yes I would say so. If game doesn't show itself able to stay around for years and shuts down early like other live services games then I'd personally have considered it a waste of money due to it becoming unplayable compared to non live service games.
  Most successful live services games are free too, so that's an additional uphill battle for paid live service games. It depends on if someone is willing to spend full retail money on what may be a temporary experience. I'm not one of those.
  For paid online only games I don't rush in. If it seems like it will stick around after steep discounts that's when I'd be fine with spending money. If it dies before then I'm glad I didn't waste money on it. No need to be offended that I take the same approach to paid live service games as I do regular games. You can choose to pay for early access if the experience is worth it too you, and if it is worth it you should.

They devs say the knew of the requirement from Sony and it was also part of the store requirement since it was listed, so why would they list it for sale in those countries? It seems Steam should have some limitation in place on their end, and the Dev picks sales on Steam, not the publisher.
Theres shit to go to everyone here, not just Sony in this case. And no one seems to want to accept personal responsibility for not reading the game requirements and ignoring the splash screen when you first loaded the game. Everyone who bought and missed all the warning flags should also take a look back at themselves before complaining about something that was always going to be required and was at the very start at launch.
- Did the CEO of Sony write this? A bait and switch scam is fine apparently, as long as there's some legalese to protect the company in there.
  It seems Steam should have some limitation in place on their end, and the Dev picks sales on Steam, not the publisher.
  Then what is the job of the publisher? To perpetrate scams it seems, because seemingly the devs published the game just fine all by themselves to Steam. If they didn't do that right, the publisher suddenly has no responsibility to make sure that was distributed correctly? Whose job is it to ensure the product is published in line with their inevitable goals, we wonder.
  so why would they list it for sale in those countries?
  Because they botched the bait and switch. And now Valve is cleaning up Sony's mess. Too bad they couldn't clean up Sony's mess of leaked customer data. I guess they can't fix it but prevent the next one by making publishers agree up front that they can't require data from players, in order to publish a game, but I digress.
  no one seems to want to accept personal responsibility
  No one should have to expect to be subject to a bait and switch scam in the first place. Which is what this clearly is, because if they were truly up front, they would have required the account on day one and had the appropriate region filters in place, so consumers could never be in this position.
  Stop blaming the victims of corporate greed and scams; people should be able to reasonably enjoy things they paid for without being molested and exploited. Personal responsibility my ass when there should be laws to prevent this kind of thing in the first place.
  
  A publisher in gaming bankrolls a lot of the costs and hurdles. Why do you think developers often use publishers? You think they just want to have a boss and give a cut of the profits away for nothing?
  
  Steam and arrowhead both allowed the sale of the game in non-compatible markets.
  Everyone is to blame in, it all depends on how you want to swing it.
  I’m not defending any single entity, I literally blamed them all lmfao.
  But of course someone is a shill when they go against your bias and narrative…. Give your head a fucking shake.
  Sony ripped you off here, so did Steam and so did arrowhead. Arrowhead is kind of being the worst here throwing everyone else under the bus instead of owning up to their mistake and sever lack of communication though. They are trying a strong arm tactic now that they got caught with their own hand in the jar.
- and the Dev picks sales on Steam, not the publisher.
  Do you happen to have a source for this? It was my understanding that the publisher handled all distribution. Hence the name. And if I'm wrong, I'd like to fix my misunderstanding.
- I never even had the option to skip linking accounts. Granted I bought the game within the first few weeks of release.
  
  The option to skip was there 20 minutes after launch until now.
  It said required in the popup, but still had a skip button with no consequences.
- Open minded but not sure I agree: is it really on the consumers to ensure that a product won't completely stop working for them?

Ya ArrowHead knew what they were doing and what was going on. They signed up for it. There’s no way this wasn’t on their risk matrix ahead of time with the resolution already scoped out.
- It's extra funny that not even a week ago they took shots at tarkov.

Can't you make a free PSN account from any country? I know people in countries with no PSN using US PSN account, without any VPN or anything. You just set your country to US, or UK.
- Yes you could. Then you Break TOS and Ban you, so still you cant play. Thats the issue (and ofc dataleaks every year)
  
  Well, 3 data leaks in the last 10 years, at least one of which wasn’t their fault at all. This change is bad for several reasons but “data leaks” isn’t really one of them.
- There are probably workarounds sure, but they shouldn't be the default. Keep up the pressure on these suits so they know what their stupid decisions cause
  
  Workarounds get banned. So PSN gets to keep your money but also denies you the product that you bought.

Personally, I think the best way to protest this is to continue to play and use the servers to the point of overload, but no one buy anymore super credits. Make Sony continue to pour money into the servers but get no return as no one buys war bonds anymore. Would take ENORMOUS coordination, but Sony not getting paid by this cash cow yet having to still put money into their servers would hit them where it hurts, line go down.
Pipe dream, but if everyone just didn’t buy in game content for a little bit, I think they would see the effect. As of right now though, they don’t care, because “consumers will pay for anything”
- Do you know what Sony and its stakeholders would see? High player counts and growing active PSN userbase.
  The best way to protest is to stop playing, request a refund, and rate the game negatively everywhere. Arrowhead is now talking to Sony about dropping the mandatory linked account, showing them that they've fucked the golden goose will get their attention better than trying to strain the infrastructure.
  
  Arrowhead also knowingly sold a game in markets where it wouldn’t be possible to play the game, even at launch with the restrictions in place you could buy the game in these markets. Steam also allowed these games to be sold in markets where they knew the restrictions wouldn’t allow them to play the game.
  They fucked up and are now trying to deflect blame from themselves, yeah Sony is shitty, but arrowhead and steam both saw dollar bills and tried taking them.
  Edit, if anything, Sony can turn this around that Arrowhead and Steam strong armed their way out of the contract requirements. Steam and arrowhead should take the fall and costs in this one if that’s the case.
  
  I don’t see Sony caring about reviews and refunds, they are the publisher, they will let the developer be the fall guy, walk away smelling like roses and go on to the next method of fleecing gamers. Bottom line is all that matters. They made their money off on Helldivers, they could hit the kill switch right now and be up. I just don’t see this ending well for arrowhead, and I see this blowing over for Sony, not even a footnote. I hope I’m wrong, I really do.
- Make Sony continue to pour money into the servers
  I work in IT. I can pretty much guarantee that server load for a game like this is nonexistent from a cost perspective. They're not going to be using cloud services, they're going to privately host because it's way cheaper. Early days playercount woes were before they added more nodes to their solution. Whatever cost they had for servers is already paid. Electricity and facilities costs are whatever because they are paying it anyway. They can't just fire the people maintaining their solution either but that's also baby bucks compared to the money spent building this thing or marketing it.
  Gaming protests of popular games never work unless the objective doesn't alter the bottom line.
  
  I’ma press X to doubt here.
  They're not going to be using cloud services
  Job listing for back-end engineer at Arrowhead says:
  Cloud Engineering: Utilize Azure services to build and optimize cloud-based backend components and make use of monitoring tools to track live performance.
  Our tech stack
  NET/C#, Docker, Kubernetes/AKS, Azure, SQL Server, CosmosDB, Redis, Grafana, Terraform
  Early days playercount woes were before they added more nodes to their solution.
  CEO said during the early day playercount woes:
  It’s not a matter of money or buying more servers. It’s a matter of labour. We need to optimise the backend code. We are hitting some real limits.
  They can't just fire the people maintaining their solution either but that's also baby bucks
  A good back-end engineer is at least 100k. And a just-keep-the-lights-on crew is probably 3-4 of them.
  FWIW: I also work in IT, on an IoT system that you might also assume has a “nonexistent” server cost. (I assure you, the cost exists.) I also used to work in game dev.
  That said: Yeah, protesting by playing the game is a severely misguided notion.
  
  I completely understand where you are coming from. Not being knowledgeable about IT infrastructure and how to host game servers, I was making assumptions based on how publishers are shutting down games that have low play count. Assuming it was a nominal amount of money to house and maintain servers for a game that generates no revenue, multiple servers for 100s of thousands of players that generates zero revenue would be noticeable. But if it’s just pennies, then it really would just be a drop in the bucket.
  Sony should hurt in the bottom line for this, and I don’t see them caring about reviews and refunds, they will just move on to the next fleecing method.