What a terrible mess that would have been solved by blocking the purchase from countries without PSN from the beginning and through better communications..
this post was submitted on 04 May 2024
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Helldivers 2
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The whole thing is a crap show from the start. I mean selling to places Sony knew couldn't get a PSN account, putting PSN as optional for months, and then making it mandatory after all of this was just a hellbomb waiting to explode.
They should have just left it as optional and disabled cross play of you didn't in my opinion.
Disabling crossplay is a good idea, anyway. PS5 teammates tend to be a lot worse than PC ones. I started getting vastly better teams when I turned it off.
Shame I won’t be getting any teams whatsoever now, since it seems like Valve is honoring refund requests regardless of playtime.
What a wild case study in earning good will and success only to immediately burn everything to the ground and salt the earth. It’s bonkers, man.
A good move, but a move that would have been a lot more appropriate before the game launched in the first place.
Pursuing a refund after a couple dozen hours. On try 2. Fingers crossed.
Open a support ticket. The refund system won’t do it for you.
I’ve seen multiple confirmations tonight that Valve is honoring refund requests regardless of play time.
You have to try over and over. First time is always automatically accepted or denied, according to time played or when you bought the game
3rd time is a charm? I'm really hoping I get a refund now, this is exactly why valve is so good and everybody loves them. Valve being a class act as usual.
Makes sense to delist in places you cannot ensure it working in the future.
No, it makes sense to not release AT ALL in those areas if you knew from the beginning they were going to lose the ability to play. This is indefensible.
PSN was optional for PC titles till a few days ago. Then Sony made a policy change requiring it.
So arrowhead even if they wanted to require it could have just made it optional for countries without psn. But since the policy change... Nope.
I still see them using that work around though.. I just wonder how they will deal with the refund request from all the EU users locked out of their products after the fact.. cause this will be a thing.
It seems like it has been listed as a requirement on the store page since launch, although Steam's age check breaks the wayback machine. If it's true, that means they knew this was coming. They still allowed it to be sold, probably maliciously in the intent of building out a player base to improve the buzz of the game early, and making a few bucks with the intent of then hoping the affected users would be too few to make a stink when the change was made. The bigger player base at the start allowed the game to build a following in a way that would've been harder with a release limited to PSN countries.
Every single thing points to this being an intentional, nasty, anti-consumer decision. Best case scenario the angry customers would've been few and it wouldn't have mattered, worst case scenario would be exactly what's happening now, but this was factored in. Most customers will just create a PSN account and continue playing, and let's say refunds go to 90% of the players in non-PSN countries and 10% of PSN country players demand refunds in solidarity... The remaining 90% of PSN country players + the 10% of non-PSN country players that are leaving their money behind is likely still more money than they would've had if they had launched it with the PSN requirement enforced. Regardless of how this shakes out, Sony is going to come out the other end of this with more money than they would have had by limiting it from the start - not everyone is going to request a refund... and those that don't? That's free money for Sony they never would've had.
Is it POSSIBLE it's just a tone-deaf decision they didn't think through completely? Sure. Do I think it's likely, given the size of the company and the way modern big game companies squeeze and manipulate customers with a callousness bordering on disdain? I wouldn't put my money on it.
Yeah..
They have altered the deal, we should pray they don't alter it any further.
Yes but i don't think they thought about that shit.
I don't know about that. It's too good for them. They gained a LOT by this. Refunds don't mean anything to them - even in the worst case scenario they're still not paying back as much as they made. They made out from this decision. I think they know exactly what they're doing.
Eh lawsuits cost and they maybe issued fines besides having to pay back. In EU they could even become liable to Damages in some sense.
Wow. The dumb bastards at Sony are actually ploughing ahead with this. Congratulations on killing a great game, morons.
We had a good thing, you stupid son of a bitch! We had hype. We had a great PR. We had everything we needed, and it all ran like clockwork. You could've shut your shareholders up, sat back and have arrowhead make as much money on sales and micro transactions you ever wanted. It was perfect. But, no, you just had to fuck it up! You and your greed and your advertisers! You just had to want more money for advertising. If you'd done your job as a publisher, known your place among the players, Helldivers 2 would be fine right now and would have been the best damn live service currently being offered.
It makes sense to delist and stop new players from buying in those areas until the login stuff is sorted out.
Could be but who knows may be temporary, could be Sony.
177 Countries added to the Purchase Restricted List...
Edit: It's actually a mix of Countries and Territories (Including places like Guam, American Samoa, etc).
I wonder if it's a move by Valve or Sony
Could be a mix of the two, like Valve saying "look if you continue on with this plan we're going to issue blanket refunds to anyone in a non-PSN country" and Sony realizing they're putting their asses on the line (legally speaking) if they let sales in those countries continue.
I mean, they don't really have a choice at this point?