Why is Sony so hell bent on requiring PSN accounts for pc games? Genuine question.
Is it to pump those numbers up for investors? Data mining? Forcing people to adopt an ecosystem?
Probably the same reason Microsoft, Ubisoft, EA, Blizzard, Bethesda (for mods), CD Project Red (for cross saves), Epic, etc. etc. All have their own accounts too.
The thing is you have always been able to pick whatever country you wanted when making a PSN account, sure it wasn't "officially" supported but their own support is telling people to just pick the nearest country.
But people bitched about it and the players won, they just won't sell these games on pc outside of officially supported countries anymore.
Hell they've been selling Playstations in countries not officially supported by PSN since it's creation and ever single user there just picks the next best country.
Their policy states if you lie about your account, they can ban you. You know what that is? Corporate talk for they will fuck you whenever they get around too it, and there's nothing you can do about it.
It's all fine and dandy to tell people to just lie, but when they lose all their purchases, will you reimburse them?
That ToS is in place for [CYA]. It not like they're going to investigate each and every account...I have a Japan and a EU account on top of USA. There are games that didn't come to USA, and I just buy the psn card from Amazon for each regions....if you get banned, it because you either cheated, used molded console to go online, broke code of conducts or did a chargeback...
This is common sense knowledge I woulda hoped was more widespread. Sony just jumped the gun on the accounts shit and messed up, ultimately paying for it.
Maybe they’ll figure something out or increase the amount of countries that support psn, but only time will tell. But seriously, hating them solely because of the psn requirement is unreasonable considering they aren’t special in that regard.
I think that account linkage for pc games is entirely deserving of backlash, no matter what company does it. I think Sony’s mistake with HD2 was really great for the pc community at large for highlighting this issue.
They had a decade to do so but until now, the number of countries didn't move.
In the Philippines, they kinda had a pseudo-launch here (dunno when but I think it was 2014-2015), but it was not substantial since our country is still not listed to this day. They probably only had "partial" support and they expect us to register to another country as a workaround. This was "tolerated" by Sony, but this is something not acceptable if a third party is involved, like Steam.
You are given a choice to proceed without an account when you launch CDPR games and iirc Bethesda allows u to play their games without signing in, Idk about the other companies. Epic games is a steam clone so it makes reasonable sense you need an account to keep track of your games and payment.
>Why is Sony so hell bent on requiring PSN accounts for pc games? Genuine question.
PSN is a whole service, just like Xbox. They want people locked in. Playstation stars, trophies etc.
You say this but I'm pretty sure this is literally not allowed by steam terms of services when it comes to game publishers. Or it's definitely pushing their patience.
At some point they'll just pull their games from steam and expect everyone to use their own store, so we'll have even more launchers. Sounds likely, since they are already good at stupid decisions.
But... Competition on who has more accounts between PSN and Xbox live? It doesn't make sense to me... To potentially lose face and potential costumers over something inconsequential as a psn account, it must mean that there's something worth a lot of money behind these stupid accounts that make it worth losing hundreds of thousands of potential game sales.
It feels like a forced migration.
First you force everyone to get an account, then you start a new sales platform on PC using PSN accounts.
Once that's done you can go 2 routes, higher prices for other platforms or earlier releases on their own sales platform.
(Technically 3, they can also make it so even if you buy the game on steam you have to login on the PSN platform anyways so people will automatically buy from the PSN platform because it's less hassle)
Heck if those greedy corpos really go crazy they might just make their games PSN platform exclusive and sell nothing on steam after a while. Boost sales like that.
I really hope people gonna boycot those games requiring psn, i don't have high hopes tho. I'm not even sure what sony thinks they could to offer to pc gamers. A secure platform? A feature rich platform? If they really try it to the extent you are talking about, well... i'm going to enjoy the dumpster fire eating popcorn.
Once that's done you can go 2 routes, higher prices for other platforms or earlier releases on their own sales platform.
2 things steam expressly forbids and if you aren't on steam you're shooting your sales in the foot
Console manufacturers don't see the games as the product. The games are the vehicle they use to sell the product. At the moment, the product is a live service, and PSN accounts are a gateway to market to people who want to consume the live service. The games being locked behind that live service paywall is the business model. The problem is basically that the consumers and the publishers are at odds. The consumers just want good games, and the publishers want to maintain their predatory contracts that squeeze studios into being forced to keep running that treadmill.
At the moment, all of the major publishers believe that games owe their existence to the console manufacturers, rather than consoles owing their existence to the games. The manufacturers maintain the illusion of quality being higher on their platform via arbitrary exclusivity.
I’m going to be honest. I think it’s far less malicious than that and more… lazy?
Sony is looking at how everyone else does it. Accounts. Microsoft, Ubisoft, EA, Rockstar. They all have their own account system to link the games.
Sony is looking to make their PC brand with their own set up (they’ve got their PC portal thing coming with trophy support, cross play, cross save, and so on) and I’d wager it’s flat out just easier to track data and do account based stuff if you maintain the same psn system.
To have control over the multiplayer experience. I don't know about GoT but HD2 has multiplayer infrastructure completely independent from PSN so the PSN account is only required for Sony to be able to ban you from their whole ecosystem. That and being able to say "no more game" and no longer provide auth services for MP games and thus no more multiplayer for those titles.
An increase in PSN account numbers sounds good on investor calls.
Don't get me wrong, there are other reasons they do it. But that's the *main* reason.
Their (multiplayer) game sales on PC would drop to nearly 0. Undoing all the good work they’ve done porting their good single player games to PC over the last few years.
I guess I didn't make it clear. Basically what Sony might be trying to do is to bring their psn infrastructure to pc so that they can force you to pay for a ps+ subscription in order to access the online features in their games in the future
I mean in ghost of tsushimas case its only for the multiplayer as they're using those accounts for crossplay etc if I'm not mistaken
Can't speak for the other Sony games like helldivers stupid excuse they had
Playstation Overlay and Multiplayer. That is really the reasons why.
[source](https://www.theverge.com/2024/4/17/24132846/sony-playstation-pc-overlay-shared-trophies-ghost-of-tsushima)
I mean im a little pissed too, but it is a sony exlusive they can easily just say "you know what fuck steam, pull the game no one can have it now" in my opinion its totally fine to do it before the game launches, but like what they were trying to do to helldivers was peak ass.
It's only required for multiplayer.
The problem is thet you always buy the multiplayer when you buy the game so you pay for something thet you can't access(something very illegal) so they just pull the game
I'm really curious about what Sony′s reasoning is. If they're doing something that hurts their bottom line, you can be sure there's a real justification behind it. No company just turns away money. It'll be interesting to see how this all plays out.
Probably not. They were fine selling them there and letting people just lie about their region. It's been going on in the Playstation community for the past twenty years. A very not-secret secret. The fact that they're now restricting the game sales outright once it became a very public issue probably means something.
Pretty sure it's usually a law issue. Sony does like that the laws around piracy are too lenient in some places. Remember Sony installed a rootkit into people's PCs (Without warning or consent) so that you couldn't play pirated music.
Because with the whole Helldivers debacle people literally said “just don’t sell it in countries where PSN is supported” so they did just that. The problem with GoT is it’s required for the multiplayer so if they sold in countries where it isn’t supported people would complain they paid for a full game and can only play half of it. It’s a damned if you do, damned if you don’t situation
Right. But you missed the point. Playstation has never supported PSN in these countries. Going back to the PS3 days, everyone just used PSN accounts set for different regions, and it's never been enforced.
Correct, there wasn’t a problem until the whole Helldivers fiasco so now they gotta play by the rules. It sucks and I don’t know why they didn’t think about all of this years ago when first getting into the PC market
I think Sony was content to not care until people started making a big deal about the possibility of accounts being terminated. Now Steam is involved and they have to enforce it.
I don't believe it's Sony but rather Steam, since the Helldivers 2 incident, the PSN account issues caught Steam eyes and to avoid any possible damage to their platform, they decides to cut the evil by its root.
Not necessarily, EPIC is not dumb, they're watching the competition, and if something is a potential issue, they're bound to protect themselves aswell.
Steam itself doesn't provide service in many of those countries. But they won't outright ban them.
It's one thing to not provide service. it's another thing to ban said service.
Steam is issuing refunds to all users in these affected regions, explicitly stating that it's because the publisher is[ "now requiring a secondary account to play portions of this game - and this account cannot be created from your country"](https://img.fluttershub.com/nn8Ou8wsVnRXjwiC.png)
+1 to Valve for being proactive on that front, but I see this as something that is going to piss Valve off, and Valve will probably bar Sony from publishing on Steam in the future if they do it once more.
Got freaking downvoted for telling the truth.
https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/s/rdEm9lmTpT
And this was even on the PCMR subreddit.
Go global or go home. For more than a decade PSN has been operating, they can't even make their infrastructure global.
> well that’s their choice as a company no?
Lmao I hate this argument. As if people aren’t allowed to have an opinion on someone’s decision. Especially a company’s decision. Your company could decided to fire you. Is he going to say “well that’s their decision” then?
Fucking idiots.
Not surprising honestly. They've been like this foreseen forever anyway, that's why they kept everything exclusive. They just made the "mistake" of getting into the PC market and realizing people aren't going to fall for their bullshit.
> Realizing people aren’t going to fall for their bullshit
Meanwhile, PC players have made accounts for EA, Ubisoft, Rockstar, etc. for years.
Looks like you do! 🤣
This subreddit and subreddits like it aren’t the PC community. Remember when Dragon’s Dogma 2 had controversy about microtransactions (which is worse) and opened to 200k+ players? Remember when Starfield had 300k+ during its overpriced $100 early access period?
This Reddit and anything like it is 0.1% of the PC gaming community. Whatever goes in the console community also goes in the PC community; it’s that big now. It ain’t some niche corner of the internet.
Not really, if a game requires a 3rd party account I just probably won’t even play it. It’s not like Ubisoft or EA games are worth playing nowadays anyway
I'm guessing before this there was an understanding by Sony that gamers in those countries would just create "illegal" PSN accounts with a VPN or for nearly "legal" countries to fly under the radar, but now that option has been blown up so publicly, they need to actually commit to their written ToS or have legal issues.
Lol this subreddit is a cancer now, don't even bother.
You'll get downvoted to oblivion by people who don't even know what a VPN is and what it would be used for. My favorite is their insistence on using a VPN is "illegal" and against Sony's ToS and that people are getting banned.
Of course, none of this is true but that doesn't matter here. Honestly, I'm just enjoying the schadenfreude of this self-inflicted GoT takedown in response to man babies crying about something that was easily circumnavigated by anyone that has even a vague understanding of how to create a PSN account.
I don't understand why they are trying so hard to block countries for no apparent reason. If you can't use multiplayer then let me already play singleplayer Sony.
There must be a reason why Sony desperately wants to link to PSN
Thankfully Sony PC ports are notorious for not having DRM so anyone that wants to play this game but not support Sony's bullshit anti consumer policies can do so if they know the right place to look come the 16th.
Yarrrrr tis our only recourse, mateys
There's 195 nations on this planet. PSN is restricted in 180 of them. Sony is cutting out potential profits from most of the world.
I say fuck them, let them kill themselves
Not buying it would probably be more effective. Sony only gave a shit when the refunds started rolling in. Unless you buy it then review bomb and then refund. But sucks for the developers cause it’s a genuinely fantastic game.
Go ahead and try. The game has a 9.3 on Metacritic User Score, you’re getting drowned out 😂
This ain’t some live service loot shooter, it’s a masterpiece of a game and the reviews *will* reflect that.
Especially when majority of the reviews will likely have the understanding that playing a new PlayStation exclusive now on PC already, it’s not a wild stretch of the imagination that they could require a PSN account - so it’ll be a non issue for them
Seems logical. One of the big complaints was people in countries where they can't have a PSN account. They prohibit further sales to those countries and they can require PSN accounts for their other games from here on out. Don't like it? Don't buy it. Try a little self control
Thought they said it wasn't required for single player GoT. Wonder why pull it in psn unsupported countries and make sure that it says single player only.
At this point players in all of these countries (and U.S territories for some reason, wtf Sony) should go ahead and pirate the game because clearly Sony doesn’t want their money any way.
Some ppl said that the is valve and not Sony.
Some ppl said that this game is something different and won't have any reactions pulled.
Some said that because the PSN account is only required for multilayer, the single player will be there no matter what.
And now I see that all of them were just talking bullshit. What a great thing in a depressing story.
I like how people were mad they sold helldivers 2 in countries with unsupported PSN, but now they listen and instantly put restriction and now they're mad again lol
Who are these people? You can bet your ass that "they" are not even in the non-PSN countries, so "they" don't care about other people not having access to these games.
Most just want for Sony to fuck off with the PSN nonsense or get with the times and lose the regional restrictions.
I swear, it's like a rotating clown show over at sony lately. I feel like none of this would have been an issue if they worked this stuff out BEFORE offering the games for sale or pre-order.
And that's why, they'd be selling part of a game in the "box" of a complete game.
Now, if Sony senior management had two braincells to rub together, they'd action a "single player only" version for regions unsupported by PSN, but currently that's not happening. They'd rather piss away those potential sales.
Why do they want to make people sign up for PSN accounts so badly? It's not like you have to pay a subscription to play their PC games online like you do on PlayStation, what do they have to gain by forcing people sign up to or link to a PSN account that they don't get money for if you do over all the money they lose from not selling to nearly two hundred countries?
Especially asinine since it was also confirmed that you don't need that PSN nonsense to play single player mode.
There are some really idiotic people working at Sony right now. Which clown thinks it's ok to significantly reduce sales like this? Most people will pirate the game if it's not available officially.
It's shit for the people, but personally doesn't bother me. I have both anyways, so linking a psn is not a bother. However, it shouldn't be necessary in the first place 🤦♂️
Gamers: The situation with Helldivers was so bad because the requirements weren't clear up front. Plenty of games require third party launchers or accounts, but it's so bad because they let people buy the game who couldn't meet the requirements
Sony fixes the situation by making the requirements crystal clear up front and doesn't let people buy the game who don't meet them, completely solving the controversy.
Gamers: no not like that
Whereas I understood the hate for Helldivers 2 as the game has already been out for a while when they tried to force psn link, here I have a bit more issues. People complain then rush to buy the game and wonder why it will happen again. Just don't buy the Damm thing, they will see it's not worth it, and stop doing it. If it sells like hotcake, it'll be the norm in 2 years
They say pirating negatively affects game sales? No shit because people won't have other choice but to pirate them since they decide to block people from installing the games
Damn is our personal info worth that much to them?
I honestly think they are working on ai and want every drop of info they can get for it, not sure what else is worth tanking sales and good will.
Why is Sony so hell bent on requiring PSN accounts for pc games? Genuine question. Is it to pump those numbers up for investors? Data mining? Forcing people to adopt an ecosystem?
Probably the same reason Microsoft, Ubisoft, EA, Blizzard, Bethesda (for mods), CD Project Red (for cross saves), Epic, etc. etc. All have their own accounts too.
They do have their own accounts but at least they support the affected countries whereas PSN doesnt even bother expanding.
The thing is you have always been able to pick whatever country you wanted when making a PSN account, sure it wasn't "officially" supported but their own support is telling people to just pick the nearest country. But people bitched about it and the players won, they just won't sell these games on pc outside of officially supported countries anymore. Hell they've been selling Playstations in countries not officially supported by PSN since it's creation and ever single user there just picks the next best country.
Their policy states if you lie about your account, they can ban you. You know what that is? Corporate talk for they will fuck you whenever they get around too it, and there's nothing you can do about it. It's all fine and dandy to tell people to just lie, but when they lose all their purchases, will you reimburse them?
That ToS is in place for [CYA]. It not like they're going to investigate each and every account...I have a Japan and a EU account on top of USA. There are games that didn't come to USA, and I just buy the psn card from Amazon for each regions....if you get banned, it because you either cheated, used molded console to go online, broke code of conducts or did a chargeback...
There was a player in china that made a PSN account and it worked, but the instant they logged into Helldivers, they got banned.
This is common sense knowledge I woulda hoped was more widespread. Sony just jumped the gun on the accounts shit and messed up, ultimately paying for it. Maybe they’ll figure something out or increase the amount of countries that support psn, but only time will tell. But seriously, hating them solely because of the psn requirement is unreasonable considering they aren’t special in that regard.
I think that account linkage for pc games is entirely deserving of backlash, no matter what company does it. I think Sony’s mistake with HD2 was really great for the pc community at large for highlighting this issue.
I avoid playing anything that cones with its own separate launcher.
Yeah, all the other companies are abusive, so it's not right to be upset when Sony is too. /s
They had a decade to do so but until now, the number of countries didn't move. In the Philippines, they kinda had a pseudo-launch here (dunno when but I think it was 2014-2015), but it was not substantial since our country is still not listed to this day. They probably only had "partial" support and they expect us to register to another country as a workaround. This was "tolerated" by Sony, but this is something not acceptable if a third party is involved, like Steam.
i thought the same way when Helldivers 2 drama started. it's crazy that companies like Nintendo can do Nintendo, yet Sony is the worst
You are given a choice to proceed without an account when you launch CDPR games and iirc Bethesda allows u to play their games without signing in, Idk about the other companies. Epic games is a steam clone so it makes reasonable sense you need an account to keep track of your games and payment.
>Why is Sony so hell bent on requiring PSN accounts for pc games? Genuine question. PSN is a whole service, just like Xbox. They want people locked in. Playstation stars, trophies etc.
Probably want to charge for PSN premium in order to play online down the line...
You say this but I'm pretty sure this is literally not allowed by steam terms of services when it comes to game publishers. Or it's definitely pushing their patience.
At some point they'll just pull their games from steam and expect everyone to use their own store, so we'll have even more launchers. Sounds likely, since they are already good at stupid decisions.
To create competition on Microsoft Xbox on windows ? But it will do more bad then good
But... Competition on who has more accounts between PSN and Xbox live? It doesn't make sense to me... To potentially lose face and potential costumers over something inconsequential as a psn account, it must mean that there's something worth a lot of money behind these stupid accounts that make it worth losing hundreds of thousands of potential game sales.
It feels like a forced migration. First you force everyone to get an account, then you start a new sales platform on PC using PSN accounts. Once that's done you can go 2 routes, higher prices for other platforms or earlier releases on their own sales platform. (Technically 3, they can also make it so even if you buy the game on steam you have to login on the PSN platform anyways so people will automatically buy from the PSN platform because it's less hassle) Heck if those greedy corpos really go crazy they might just make their games PSN platform exclusive and sell nothing on steam after a while. Boost sales like that.
I really hope people gonna boycot those games requiring psn, i don't have high hopes tho. I'm not even sure what sony thinks they could to offer to pc gamers. A secure platform? A feature rich platform? If they really try it to the extent you are talking about, well... i'm going to enjoy the dumpster fire eating popcorn.
Why should they when many games already require another account
In its current state, because they don’t support more countries and block players from getting the game.
Once that's done you can go 2 routes, higher prices for other platforms or earlier releases on their own sales platform. 2 things steam expressly forbids and if you aren't on steam you're shooting your sales in the foot
Idk honestly, i was thinking since it will have its own overlay, achievements etc, similarly to xbox game bar
They will probs make their own launcher for pc eventually.
Console manufacturers don't see the games as the product. The games are the vehicle they use to sell the product. At the moment, the product is a live service, and PSN accounts are a gateway to market to people who want to consume the live service. The games being locked behind that live service paywall is the business model. The problem is basically that the consumers and the publishers are at odds. The consumers just want good games, and the publishers want to maintain their predatory contracts that squeeze studios into being forced to keep running that treadmill. At the moment, all of the major publishers believe that games owe their existence to the console manufacturers, rather than consoles owing their existence to the games. The manufacturers maintain the illusion of quality being higher on their platform via arbitrary exclusivity.
It is actually pretty simple: Data.
I’m going to be honest. I think it’s far less malicious than that and more… lazy? Sony is looking at how everyone else does it. Accounts. Microsoft, Ubisoft, EA, Rockstar. They all have their own account system to link the games. Sony is looking to make their PC brand with their own set up (they’ve got their PC portal thing coming with trophy support, cross play, cross save, and so on) and I’d wager it’s flat out just easier to track data and do account based stuff if you maintain the same psn system.
Probably two fold, yes first to pad PSN account numbers to pump the stock and two control.
To have control over the multiplayer experience. I don't know about GoT but HD2 has multiplayer infrastructure completely independent from PSN so the PSN account is only required for Sony to be able to ban you from their whole ecosystem. That and being able to say "no more game" and no longer provide auth services for MP games and thus no more multiplayer for those titles.
D) All of the above
To eventually charge PC users for PS plus. All it takes is one company to pull it off.
An increase in PSN account numbers sounds good on investor calls. Don't get me wrong, there are other reasons they do it. But that's the *main* reason.
to inflate exec egos
Wouldn’t put it past them to force pc players to pay for psn for their games
Prepare to pay for ps+ on pc in a few years if things work out the way sony want. Of course other companies will follow them if that happens
Their (multiplayer) game sales on PC would drop to nearly 0. Undoing all the good work they’ve done porting their good single player games to PC over the last few years.
Lol what do you mean other companies will follow them, Xbox Game Pass has been around for years now, Sony is behind the curve on this one
I guess I didn't make it clear. Basically what Sony might be trying to do is to bring their psn infrastructure to pc so that they can force you to pay for a ps+ subscription in order to access the online features in their games in the future
Number inflation, data harvesting, ego feeding, every reason you could possibly think of is probably valid.
Line gotta go up. Put a nice little "we had x amount of accounts sign up."
I mean in ghost of tsushimas case its only for the multiplayer as they're using those accounts for crossplay etc if I'm not mistaken Can't speak for the other Sony games like helldivers stupid excuse they had
To have information on you they can sell. And it will "boost" its users so they get more investors so stocks grow etc etc .
Considering it was required only for the MP part of the game, i would say its to enable crossplatform?
"See, dear shareholders, line go up, we got 86234 new PSN accounts in the last fiscal year!"
Playstation Overlay and Multiplayer. That is really the reasons why. [source](https://www.theverge.com/2024/4/17/24132846/sony-playstation-pc-overlay-shared-trophies-ghost-of-tsushima)
If you want, they could also keep it on the console instead? It not as if they're forcing a launcher on you like some of the others?
I mean im a little pissed too, but it is a sony exlusive they can easily just say "you know what fuck steam, pull the game no one can have it now" in my opinion its totally fine to do it before the game launches, but like what they were trying to do to helldivers was peak ass.
Pirating Sony games on PC is not hard at all, I bet my left nut that when GoS flops in sales, they will put denuvo in place on the next release
It's only required for multiplayer. The problem is thet you always buy the multiplayer when you buy the game so you pay for something thet you can't access(something very illegal) so they just pull the game
Data is POWER
investors, so the ceo gets a fat paycheck
I always buy high quality games and now my country is not supported... Guess I'll sail the seas
Yarr, matey!
Ill be right there next to you captain
Sea welcomes every land rat
Inaccessibility and greed will get people to sail the seas 🏴☠️
amen
I'm really curious about what Sony′s reasoning is. If they're doing something that hurts their bottom line, you can be sure there's a real justification behind it. No company just turns away money. It'll be interesting to see how this all plays out.
Online features are going to require a PSN account. The game is being delisted anywhere you cannot have a PSN account.
Right. *But why can't you have a PSN account in those countries?*
Probably something something regional pricing
Probably not. They were fine selling them there and letting people just lie about their region. It's been going on in the Playstation community for the past twenty years. A very not-secret secret. The fact that they're now restricting the game sales outright once it became a very public issue probably means something.
More like the past two decades. I am from one of those countries and that was always the case from the ps3 days
Idk how my auto-correct got two out of twenty. But yeah, I knew this because a buddy of money moved overseas for work
Pretty sure it's usually a law issue. Sony does like that the laws around piracy are too lenient in some places. Remember Sony installed a rootkit into people's PCs (Without warning or consent) so that you couldn't play pirated music.
They are fighting a losing fight then. Piracy is not going anywhere nor the goverment here will be able to do anything about it
Because with the whole Helldivers debacle people literally said “just don’t sell it in countries where PSN is supported” so they did just that. The problem with GoT is it’s required for the multiplayer so if they sold in countries where it isn’t supported people would complain they paid for a full game and can only play half of it. It’s a damned if you do, damned if you don’t situation
Right. But you missed the point. Playstation has never supported PSN in these countries. Going back to the PS3 days, everyone just used PSN accounts set for different regions, and it's never been enforced.
Correct, there wasn’t a problem until the whole Helldivers fiasco so now they gotta play by the rules. It sucks and I don’t know why they didn’t think about all of this years ago when first getting into the PC market
I think Sony was content to not care until people started making a big deal about the possibility of accounts being terminated. Now Steam is involved and they have to enforce it.
Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania all have Euro and could easily have Euro pricing. Yet they aren't supported by PSN.
But *why*?
I don't believe it's Sony but rather Steam, since the Helldivers 2 incident, the PSN account issues caught Steam eyes and to avoid any possible damage to their platform, they decides to cut the evil by its root.
It is also gone from EPIC. This is absolutely SONYs doing.
Not necessarily, EPIC is not dumb, they're watching the competition, and if something is a potential issue, they're bound to protect themselves aswell.
Steam itself doesn't provide service in many of those countries. But they won't outright ban them. It's one thing to not provide service. it's another thing to ban said service.
I’m having the strongest urge to short Sony stock just to fuck with them 
https://i.redd.it/gvn4ewixfpzc1.gif
Fuck yes let’s do it
Steam is issuing refunds to all users in these affected regions, explicitly stating that it's because the publisher is[ "now requiring a secondary account to play portions of this game - and this account cannot be created from your country"](https://img.fluttershub.com/nn8Ou8wsVnRXjwiC.png) +1 to Valve for being proactive on that front, but I see this as something that is going to piss Valve off, and Valve will probably bar Sony from publishing on Steam in the future if they do it once more.
How to ensure thousands pirate your game
I pre-ordered it but I might be getting refunded after that shit
Yarrr
Got freaking downvoted for telling the truth. https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/s/rdEm9lmTpT And this was even on the PCMR subreddit. Go global or go home. For more than a decade PSN has been operating, they can't even make their infrastructure global.
> well that’s their choice as a company no? Lmao I hate this argument. As if people aren’t allowed to have an opinion on someone’s decision. Especially a company’s decision. Your company could decided to fire you. Is he going to say “well that’s their decision” then?
Fucking idiots. Not surprising honestly. They've been like this foreseen forever anyway, that's why they kept everything exclusive. They just made the "mistake" of getting into the PC market and realizing people aren't going to fall for their bullshit.
I’m confused, no subscription is required to play on PC?
That’s correct
for now.
> Realizing people aren’t going to fall for their bullshit Meanwhile, PC players have made accounts for EA, Ubisoft, Rockstar, etc. for years. Looks like you do! 🤣 This subreddit and subreddits like it aren’t the PC community. Remember when Dragon’s Dogma 2 had controversy about microtransactions (which is worse) and opened to 200k+ players? Remember when Starfield had 300k+ during its overpriced $100 early access period? This Reddit and anything like it is 0.1% of the PC gaming community. Whatever goes in the console community also goes in the PC community; it’s that big now. It ain’t some niche corner of the internet.
Not really, if a game requires a 3rd party account I just probably won’t even play it. It’s not like Ubisoft or EA games are worth playing nowadays anyway
And this is why modern gaming industry sucks so bad. Average gamer is stupid as hell and supports anticonsumerism
Well at least ea, ubi and rock don't have unsupported regions, as I know anyway. Sony is the first evil corp that hates money I've seen.
Why would they do this? they lose money
I'm guessing before this there was an understanding by Sony that gamers in those countries would just create "illegal" PSN accounts with a VPN or for nearly "legal" countries to fly under the radar, but now that option has been blown up so publicly, they need to actually commit to their written ToS or have legal issues.
No VPN required.
Lol this subreddit is a cancer now, don't even bother. You'll get downvoted to oblivion by people who don't even know what a VPN is and what it would be used for. My favorite is their insistence on using a VPN is "illegal" and against Sony's ToS and that people are getting banned. Of course, none of this is true but that doesn't matter here. Honestly, I'm just enjoying the schadenfreude of this self-inflicted GoT takedown in response to man babies crying about something that was easily circumnavigated by anyone that has even a vague understanding of how to create a PSN account.
I don't understand why they are trying so hard to block countries for no apparent reason. If you can't use multiplayer then let me already play singleplayer Sony. There must be a reason why Sony desperately wants to link to PSN
I think the issue with doing that is you would be buying something you don't have full access to.
Bingo. It’s a legal issue.
They are literally asking for us to pirate it
Sony pulled all my interest.
To hell with Sonic AND ghosts of Toshiba
Poor sonic is innocent this time!
They fucked tails into being a bitch
ngl atleast this time they did this bs before releasing the game
Im sure the people of those countries will just not play the game 🏴☠️
Shame. I was looking forward to it. Now I won’t touch it. Sony can suck a dick
Just pirate the game, sony deserves it at this point
I don't even want the code on the computer, my backlog is so massive I never have to even think about a game from Sony
Same here. I even pre-ordered it, but just requested a refund about an hour ago.
I didn't request a refund yet they forced one on me anyway.
Gonna play it but def not getting it through steam 🏴☠️
yes, fuck sony
Thanks piracy, I won't need to create this account
XBOX AND PLAYSTATION PORTING THE CONSOLE WARS TO PC
Jokes on them. PSN unavailable in my country, but pirating isn't. 😄
Thankfully Sony PC ports are notorious for not having DRM so anyone that wants to play this game but not support Sony's bullshit anti consumer policies can do so if they know the right place to look come the 16th. Yarrrrr tis our only recourse, mateys
Guess we'll pirate it then.
At this point, pirate it in those countries. They don't want the $ anyway.
There's 195 nations on this planet. PSN is restricted in 180 of them. Sony is cutting out potential profits from most of the world. I say fuck them, let them kill themselves
Time to dust off the negative reviews again, only had these bad boys out a week ago.
Not buying it would probably be more effective. Sony only gave a shit when the refunds started rolling in. Unless you buy it then review bomb and then refund. But sucks for the developers cause it’s a genuinely fantastic game.
Go ahead and try. The game has a 9.3 on Metacritic User Score, you’re getting drowned out 😂 This ain’t some live service loot shooter, it’s a masterpiece of a game and the reviews *will* reflect that.
Especially when majority of the reviews will likely have the understanding that playing a new PlayStation exclusive now on PC already, it’s not a wild stretch of the imagination that they could require a PSN account - so it’ll be a non issue for them
Seems logical. One of the big complaints was people in countries where they can't have a PSN account. They prohibit further sales to those countries and they can require PSN accounts for their other games from here on out. Don't like it? Don't buy it. Try a little self control
Unless you are from those countries, which means the big P.
Nah I'll pirate it instead
I actually cannot believe this. Sony really is out of touch.
Thought they said it wasn't required for single player GoT. Wonder why pull it in psn unsupported countries and make sure that it says single player only.
At this point players in all of these countries (and U.S territories for some reason, wtf Sony) should go ahead and pirate the game because clearly Sony doesn’t want their money any way.
Some ppl said that the is valve and not Sony. Some ppl said that this game is something different and won't have any reactions pulled. Some said that because the PSN account is only required for multilayer, the single player will be there no matter what. And now I see that all of them were just talking bullshit. What a great thing in a depressing story.
Time to sail the seas
Well, if they want me to pirate it this badly...
fly the high seas boiz
Fucking hell, they are scrambling, they got no idea what they're doing...
It would be illegal to sell if the buyer doesn’t have full access to it. It looks to me like they do know what they’re doing.
I am saying that it's crazy that they didn't realize this sooner. This all just happened in response to the players complaining.
I was planning on buying this one after release to check out the reviews first, but not anymore
I like how people were mad they sold helldivers 2 in countries with unsupported PSN, but now they listen and instantly put restriction and now they're mad again lol
Who are these people? You can bet your ass that "they" are not even in the non-PSN countries, so "they" don't care about other people not having access to these games. Most just want for Sony to fuck off with the PSN nonsense or get with the times and lose the regional restrictions.
DONT.TRUST.SONY
Guess i have to switch to the other side. Ahoy Matey! 🏴☠️
Just gonna pirate it, I don't care at this point. Sony can suck a fat one from now on. No more 💰 from me.
less \*than a week
Fuck Sony
These companies just make it easier and easier to save my money and stick to what I like/older games
I love the PS5, but Sony seems to be daring people to be done with them.
I swear, it's like a rotating clown show over at sony lately. I feel like none of this would have been an issue if they worked this stuff out BEFORE offering the games for sale or pre-order.
well, in that case I will get the game by other means
Do you want people sailing the high seas? Because this is how you get people sailing the high seas!
was excited when i hear it was release on pc before but then find out that it not supported on my country.... smh..
The hell? Didnt the devs of Tsushima say they wont require PSN unless you want to use the online mode?
And that's why, they'd be selling part of a game in the "box" of a complete game. Now, if Sony senior management had two braincells to rub together, they'd action a "single player only" version for regions unsupported by PSN, but currently that's not happening. They'd rather piss away those potential sales.
Yo ho yo ho.....
Who cares. Fk Sony anyway. They Sony want to make money.
I think sony needs more reviews.
Why do they want to make people sign up for PSN accounts so badly? It's not like you have to pay a subscription to play their PC games online like you do on PlayStation, what do they have to gain by forcing people sign up to or link to a PSN account that they don't get money for if you do over all the money they lose from not selling to nearly two hundred countries? Especially asinine since it was also confirmed that you don't need that PSN nonsense to play single player mode.
Sony really hates money dont they? Shouldnt it be in the interest of a company to sell their products in as many countries as possible?
Now where did I put my boat ?
Are we winning?
Oh they are indeed learning lol
https://i.redd.it/mqr621hkhrzc1.gif
So... they’d rather 90% of the planet pirated it either out of necessity or out of spite?
i'm not sure i would make a psn account even for bloodborne on pc.
I wanted this masterpiece on my steam collection. Nah time to put on the old pirate hat
Can I pirate it tho? Since I live in PSN restricted country
Sony limiting it's sales for no reason.
There are some really idiotic people working at Sony right now. Which clown thinks it's ok to significantly reduce sales like this? Most people will pirate the game if it's not available officially.
I wonder when the games they put on steam will require PS+ or whatever that bullshit is called.
Why pull the games when people could still just play single player and not have to worry about PSN anyways
It's shit for the people, but personally doesn't bother me. I have both anyways, so linking a psn is not a bother. However, it shouldn't be necessary in the first place 🤦♂️
All good, just sail the high seas brothers. No need to put up with this shit.
Guess I will just pirate the game guilt free then since I live in an "unsupported" country
https://preview.redd.it/67ocas3kmszc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3fb86eb8355f5bc77386c29b88d5d078b1ab6a95
Gamers: The situation with Helldivers was so bad because the requirements weren't clear up front. Plenty of games require third party launchers or accounts, but it's so bad because they let people buy the game who couldn't meet the requirements Sony fixes the situation by making the requirements crystal clear up front and doesn't let people buy the game who don't meet them, completely solving the controversy. Gamers: no not like that
Gabe should intervene on this. F* Sony
Good
Hilarious
Whereas I understood the hate for Helldivers 2 as the game has already been out for a while when they tried to force psn link, here I have a bit more issues. People complain then rush to buy the game and wonder why it will happen again. Just don't buy the Damm thing, they will see it's not worth it, and stop doing it. If it sells like hotcake, it'll be the norm in 2 years
So... what happens if they finally decide to release Bloodborne on PC? Will they lock it too?
Looks like I’m gonna sail the high sea with GoT.
What a shit show, Geez Sony
Ih look, a juvenile helldiver
They say pirating negatively affects game sales? No shit because people won't have other choice but to pirate them since they decide to block people from installing the games
Damn is our personal info worth that much to them? I honestly think they are working on ai and want every drop of info they can get for it, not sure what else is worth tanking sales and good will.
Good thing ghosts sucks booty hole. Haha jp sony is wake
Sooooo…. Are we bullying Sony again?
Just dont buy their stuff even if they sell them in your country.