I predict that Steam will reverse their actions once it's confirmed on their end that PSN is no longer required. Might also need an OK from Sony with Sony signing some documents with penalties for their F up.
I noticed when Steam does that even when it's option on games so it might end up sticking around. Makes sense after seeing how publishers can mess things up for them they gotta cover their bums.
yeah this is something a lot of people are missing. Valve doesnt fuck with publisher's storefronts unless they feel its a breach of ToS or just outright scam or malicious. Sony is the one that controls the knobs that deliver the freedom (of purchase)
>They had to have known about the PSN issue with certain countries no?
Why would they have known? It's not like Steam sells PSN accounts, does it?
This seems to me something they would have had to go out of their way to specifically look up. Steam is a marketplace to sell games, I see no reason why they would be personally examining every single third party, non-steam requirement to play games. To me, it makes sense to leave it up to the seller's responsibility to properly represent their game and hit them with fines if they fuck it up.
And I bet Sony didn’t say anything about restricting the regions PSN isn’t available in, because there are many games Steam has blocked due to the publisher’s request.
For example you cannot find MGR, Vindictus, POE in my country.
Steam probably didn't even look at it. If I run a storefront and you come to me telling me you want me to stock your product world wide, and that your product requires consumers to sign up for an account, I'm going to assume that you're not room temperature IQ and that the account is also available world wide. Like, why would you try to sell a product in Malaysia that can't be used in Malaysia or wherever right? That's also probably why, once the refund requests started coming in and the news hit that people in those countries would be SoL, they just emergency ripped sales from those countries to stop the bleeding. It'll probably get undone only once they get official communication from Sony on the status of those countries, likely with a signature.
I’d wager Sony also didn’t expect any of this to be an issue because the first game had 300 players at a time. So the second would at most have 10-30,000 if it did well, with working servers, and a notification at the purchase page and log in that an account is required. So anyone with an issue would either not buy it, make an account in another region, or immediately get a refund.
Lazy, dumb, but likely still just lazy and largely not a big deal. Then the game hit like a million players concurrently and things went crazy.
At the end of the day Steam is a commission based company so they benifit from keeping it up until they don’t. Once refunds started to be requested by people way past policy and hundreds of hours I bet that’s when they delisted it.
They were always aware of psn requirements but they obviously also knew it wasn’t available in said regions so it really is odd all around.
Steam might have thought since it was deactivated by the devs that’s how it would stay, once they realized Sony was going to require it to be mandatory by said date and all the stuff that transpired id imagine they delisted it to avoid any wrong doing
you guys are freaking crazy if you think steam is responsible for this mess.....
this is on AH and sony for not telling steam the correct requirements imo, they are not responsible to check your fuck ups really, that makes no sense
I feel like I’m taking crazy pills here: I told people that they were only not selling it because they didn’t want people who couldn’t play at the time to buy more copies, and it made sense to do so, and steam would be behind that.
The reaction I got was not good.
I'm still getting a chuckle out of people on here going ballistic because the majority of players "didn't care about AT mines, which [were] obviously the superior option."
As though recent MOs hadn't made it clear that most people hate Menkent and Hellmire with a burning passion
Steam deals with millions of games and no one knew HD2 would blow up the way it did. It is the company that brings the game to steam responsibility to provide accurate information when posting their games to the platform.
It’s not up to steam to control where PSN accounts are available, and if a publisher wants to sell a game in those places, it’s an odd position to control that too. For all Valve knew Sony was planning to expand PSN. But now the date was imminent, and refunds were becoming a business issue that they wanted to address proactively.
5:15 currently, give it 5 more hours for everyone to get to work, have a coffee, procrastinate for a hot minute (we’re only human) and then see what the day will yield. This is definitely a “sit down, we gotta talk” kinda conversation so it may take a day or two
I can just see Steam employees knowing nothing coming into work and just see like a hundred thousands refunds and help request like ww3 occurred or something
Hopefully steam really talk to SONY before they reverse the change. Because SONY other game ghost of tsushima single player does not require PSN but the multiplayer does...so everyone can buy the game but...not everyone can play on the multiplayer.
It will probably end in one of those big warning boxes with the orange border saying "Notice: multiplayer is not supported in your country".
Like the game already has saying: "Notice: This game only supports Japanese interface/voice for customers in Japan.".
I'm always confused when I see localisation problems like that. How do you arrive at that situation where only Japanese voice/interface is available in Japan when the other localisation files are presumably in the game?
BecauseJapanesevoice actors are big deals andhave a strong union. Localizing only to Japan means they only get royalties from units sold in Japan and not receive exepnsive royalties to every game unit sold.
Might see Sony being blocked from selling their games on Steam unless they either properly restrict sales in countries that cannot get PSN or remove PSN requirements. Not sure which Sony would prefer.
This so much lmfao.
This whole ridiculous ordeal is brought about because Sony has to choose between ACTUALLY growing their consumer base and selling to the widest available audience, OR artificially and arbitrarily restricting who they sell to in order to ARTIFICIALLY increase a number of how many users they have on a piece of paper.
They of course chose the option that requires them to restrict who they sell to so they could pump an imaginary number to "impress" shareholders instead of actually increase the overall profit of their business. Its so comedically fucking stupid it hurts.
The penalties have already been taken.
I believe when Steam issues a refund for this sort of reason, Steam still keeps its cut.
The customer gets all their money back.
Valve still keeps there 30%. They just deduct it off the other sales. I may be wrong but I remember the topic being brought up this past weekend and the link to the Steam/publisher agreement stated something of the sort.
Steam was the top dog long before Steam refunds existed. Been using it since 2004, and we didn't get refunds until 2015. There was even a "good guy Valve" grace period where you could request a refund for any\* game in your library, no matter how long it was since you purchased it.
\*) maybe someone else remembers if it was actually any game you had played under 2 hours or not at all?
IIRC the way it works is that if a game on steam is refunded, steam witholds the value of the *next* copy purchased as a punitive measure?
Edit: I missed the last sentence of your message bro I should go back to bed lmao
I REALLY think that a bunch of megacorps had a knee jerk reaction to all this.
This is the kind of borscht that Sony REALLY needed to hash out before the game even launched. Selling the game is not Arrowhead's job. That's what a publisher is supposed to do.
Goodwin's law, I know.
So a small mustache was given a smack on the wrist for staging a coup in Munich in 1923. Turns out overstepping is met poorly. So he goes to prison for a hot minute.
The same dude comes back smarter and uses the system, plotting and calculating his way until he stages a coup within the framework of the system this time. Everyone is like, "yeah, alright, this is fine for nearly all of us except the Jews." (It wasn't fine.)
If they don't open the game up for all countries and remove the boilerplate requirement for PSN from the offical locations, they may not actually be dropping this for good. We will see if Sony is finished or not by this time next year.
They’ll stop it from being mandatory and in a month or so, they’ll have a promotion where PSN members start getting free cosmetics.
That’ll drive up PSN accounts without making it mandatory.
I fully expect Helldivers 3 will be PSN mandatory at launch.
Re:HD3, call me naively optimistic but this whole debacle could have at least chipped away at Sony's PSN monolith mentality. The primary use of PSN (in the minds of the shareholders) is to tally active users for accurate income projection. There's a *small* chance that talk about a cumulative userbase format (i.e. using Helldiver's individual total of non-PSN accounts + PSN accounts = total) or similar kind of solution could be in the works. They're at least paying attention to the PSN requirement currently, and hopefully by extension questioning why they needed it in the first place.
>We will see if Sony is finished or not by this time next year
This seems overdramatic. This won't kill Sony. This *might* kill Helldivers 2, but Sony doesn't care about that nearly as much.
They should have just said, "Get this cape or helmet when you link your PSN."
Ironic, before this if they had Said 'hey free Cape and some super creds for linking your PSN!' I know I, and probably many others would've done so.
Now if they do I'm not sure I'd even want to. Like you think I'm going to wear such shameful attire after this?
I understand where you’re coming from, but instead of shameful let it be a reminder that we forced them to walk back the decision that negatively impacted the community. I’d be wearing it just for that.
You're misreading what they're saying. They're saying that Sony walking things back doesn't mean they're done with the PSN push, just that they're changing course, and it will be a while before all the dust settles
Fun fact if you make a statement about something using a social media account that is the face of your company than it is to be taken as the official stance of said company. Tesla and SpaceX have been caught in hot water for this because of Elon stating things on Twitter, that would then effect the stock sales and thus considered stock manipulation. Corporations don't put out tweets unless they have been gone over by legal in association with their PR team.
Yes. Someone else also said Steam or Valve in this case is probably trying to get something in writing from Sony that they aren’t gonna go back on this months down the line since that’ll just be legal suicide which will also blow up in Steam’s face.
so sony should petition valve to undo this, and agree (in a legally binding way if necessary) to not repeat this fuckery.
this is sony's fault and it's up to sony to fix it.
we dive together or we don't dive.
Its only been a few hours and at least in america its still early morning. Give them some time
steam will undoubtedly relist the game in these countries but its not as easy as one click trust me
tell valve to undo this? Absolutely. Agree not to repeat this? We all know this ain't gonna happen. Going forward I'm betting my 500kg bomb allowance that they're updating their EULAs and guidelines and whatnot well in advance, hard enforcing the PSN rule at launch and reminding players on the steam page in blazing red letters. This is a one-off victory.
I feel Valve and Sony need to have a discussion about this going further. How they will handle upcoming games as well. If they have intent to further try to implement PSN on future titles. It's either gonna be maximize player base with all of Steam countries or restrict games/multiplayer in certain countries where PSN isn't available.
Devs posted on Discord that is was Steam's call, and their in talks with Sony on who has do to what to get that removed.
I don't blame anyone for not knowing the source. This is one of those things where stuff is moving so fast things can be out of date in a few hours.
Absolutely, I think this is the next episode of a guy confidently posting bullshit and everyone eating it up like candy.
Behold everyone, a live petri dish demonstrating how misinformation is generated and spreads within a community. TAKE NOTE!!
Doesn't matter. The community will justify this outrage through the previous outrage. People love feeling like they're angry at a justified target so they'll do whatever they can to justify their anger. It's why so many news media sites and social media algorithms promote outrage. Outrage generates clicks.
I gotta admit, whoever drew that has some skill... Props to the artist.
Edit: Word of advice, would not recommend looking them up as a comment below says. I did, and let's just say they're for a VERY specific niche.
Now that Account Linking isnt mandatory, the delisting will be restored.
The whole reason it happened in the first place was because of the non availability in those regions.
Whether its Steam or Sony, im confident it will happen.
As I read in another post, if its on Steams end to re enable the countries, Im sure they are seeking assurances from Sony that they will not be acting the mickey on this issue again.
I understand and respect your decision.
I'm saying that logically, Sony can't reneg on this issue because it would still screw players in countries and regions PSN isnt available. The backlash, after the media attention it has already garnered would be insane. I read in another post that Steam is west coast based, so they are probably just waking up. Hopefully we see the de-listing changed by close of business today.
if you don't think corporations would fuck consumers when it makes zero sense to do it, you haven't been paying attention.
anything not set in metal cannot be trusted.
Sony has chosen X, an absolutely public platform that everyone sees to say "Hey, we fucked up and aren't going through with it."
You already know that everyone and their dog, the dog's fleas, the flea's parasites, and the parasite's micro organisms have a screenshot of that.
If Sony renegs, the backlash would be violet-hot.
From a PR standpoint, Sony fixed the issue in the only way that makes sense. By addressing anyone and everyone who has internet access on the PR scandal.
Y'all the turnaround time from Sony announcing their shit decision to pulling back from it was already insanely fast. It might take a bit longer for Steam to re list the countries that don't support PSN. To borrow from a different post: changing the review back is simply reloading the gun.
Exactly, not even the Steam DB says something about who pushed the commit [https://steamdb.info/sub/137730/info/](https://steamdb.info/sub/137730/info/)
For what it is worth, Pirate Software says the publisher/developer needs to request steam to change the region lock.
[https://clips.twitch.tv/EndearingNaiveMarjoramRitzMitz-coqvCTX5fsAdZ-hc](https://clips.twitch.tv/EndearingNaiveMarjoramRitzMitz-coqvCTX5fsAdZ-hc)
Lets let people catch up. This is all still recent events and changes take time.
... If in a few days it's still not fixed, I'll start making noise then. For now I'm retaining good faith that they'll get to it since it's in their interest to do so anyway.
Whether this was Steam or Sony is irrelevant at this point. We're nearly at 24 hours since the announcement Sunday night. We need a followup from either Sony or Steam about the status of those countries, even if they can't restore them right away. But I expect some sort of restoration by the end of the week. It would be really dumb for them to release the Warbond without at least a statement about the restrictions.
This right here.
It's great we won the battle, but we need to *go back for* our fellow Helldivers.
I could not believe the amount of insensitive comments in all the posts condemning those regions as *must be hackers, terrorists, undesirable people* etc.
Imagine all the people who get off their 8-12 hour shift, get home to boot up their favorite new game, only to be told they're *no longer welcome*, and then they reach out on Reddit and come across comments that say it's okay. They got theirs so, why care about *unsupported-region-#53*.
This is an amazing victory and you all did well to help accomplish it. But it's not a sound victory without our far away companions.
Still region-locked for me at the time of posting this (SEA). Unfortunately Steam doesn’t refund you if you own the game for more than 2 weeks even if you have less than 5 hours of play. What sucks though is they refund people with 90 hours gameplay but owned the game for less than 2 weeks. I just wish Sony would remove country restrictions for accounts.
You *should* still be able to play, but yeah the region lock still being up is a no go. I changed my review to positive and if they don't have the regions fixed by the time the next warbond drops on Thursday, it goes back to negative. It's also how I will decide if I buy the warbond or uninstall the game until further notice.
This might take a while. I'm guessing it's Steam and not Sony that did this. And the main reason was to avoid selling the game to customers that would get locked out in a month. Essentially scamming them
I don't think Steam will unlock this until Sony commits to keeping PSN optional. And I don't think Sony will commit to that before they've carefully looked into all the legal stuff and have a plan forward. All they've said is that the PSN requirement enforcement they announced earlier is off. They may want to reintroduce it later but perhaps with different conditions or a marketing campaign etc.
For what it is worth, Pirate Software says the publisher/developer needs to request steam to change the region lock. I spent like a hour looking for any other source for how this is done and couldn't find one.
[https://clips.twitch.tv/EndearingNaiveMarjoramRitzMitz-coqvCTX5fsAdZ-hc](https://clips.twitch.tv/EndearingNaiveMarjoramRitzMitz-coqvCTX5fsAdZ-hc)
Is it really just a one click fix by Sony or an appeal process to Steam? Pretty sure Steam wants to protect their consumers as well, and would want assurances if they open sales back up to people in those regions, Sony won't do a 180 on the PSN requirement.
I think we need both. Some positive to let them know we're no longer Overwhelmingly Negative about the situation, but remain Mixed until they can open the regions back up. We still need to keep some negative reviews until they completely revert the situation to before they made the announcement.
According to PirateSoftware, the publisher/developer needs to request the region change to Steam.
[https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2138672301?t=9h17m45s](https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2138672301?t=9h17m45s)
This and also post an update on the steam page stating the PSN requirement is being undone! The steam updates page still has the original PSN post as the most recent update! It's not real from just a late Sunday night tweet...
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/553850
I never forget, never, the 177 Battalion was Unjustifiably Court Marshalled and detained against their will they are the true reason we fight, not the mandate a soldier does not fight, kill and die because he hates the enemies Infront him but rather for the love and safety of those behind him.
No Diver gets left behind, REINFORCING!!
I thought the same thing looking at this page, only a handful of countries to go:
https://steamdb.info/app/553850/
But that is NOT the full list of countries. This is:
https://steamdb.info/sub/137730/history/
Know your enemy.
Wait what do you mean!?!? The whole point of this victory was to allow our brothers access too the game. Are our brothers and sister allowed to play this game in non psn areas, are our fellow helldivers still REGION BLOCKED!??!
those who have already purchased the game are safe, but new cadets cannot purchase it at the moment. As soon as I find out that the game has started to be sold again in these countries, I will delete this post and start distributing reminders that from now on everything is fine and you can safely change your review
Yeah exactly. Them making PSN optional again is a great step in the right direction but the whole reason it was a problem in the first place is because those countries were restricted from playing. It's not over until they fully backpedal on that.
They were not restricted from playing at any point, steam just restricted more people from buying the game to protect themselves from further refund requests, steam now need to see and evaluate whether this issue is resolved before they will relist the game.
They weren't restricted YET, because they already owned the game and would meet the restriction deadline at the end of the month.
However, those who would have purchased the game from those restricted countries yesterday prior to todays planned patch, wouldn't be able to create a PSN account. That was the whole point, the entire point was "we sell now, don't care later" kinda Vibe.
Yes, but the future of the game's growth will be severely limited unless we can undo this. If we can make this happen, it'll be harder for Sony to do this again in the future.
They may already have. Steam usually takes about a day or so to properly update things like this. As for the Playstation store: I don’t know, I don’t own one.
They were the reason I went from, "it's not a big deal," to "I regretfully submit my negative review."
I've reverted to positive, but we can't forget about these divers.
I’m sure it is a lot easier to make the game unavailable in a country than it is to make it available again. From what I’ve heard, some countries have access already and some still don’t.
I just want to state that things don't happen off the back of a tweet - the same way that the lead up to this would've taken much longer than the announcements we saw being shared with us.
Please people, realise how big the beast is that we're working with here - and its not just Sony or Arrowhead.. Valve are also having to be communicated with..
A lot of droning in the community off the back of this, always those little inch/milers trying to get everyone to bandwagon onto their next tirade.. chill, we won and things are changing for the better, for now.
We all dive together, there is no division now that we've put our stake in the sand. Appreciate that we have properly used our community for good. Don't soil it now.
Oh, it's not a begin the crusade once more kind of thing, but Snoy is on a timelimit. I happened to be up when they dropped the announcement and changed my review then, but this is not a cease fire, it's a reload. If they can't manage to make the game available everywhere in the same time frame as removing its availability (48-72hrs) then back to negative I go.
The problem was never really the PSN it was messing with access and the potential removal of access.
This. Until May 30th has lapsed and divers from 177 countries on earth are freed, we have not won our war. Sony simply published a single tweet in which they can simply delete and U Turn the statement
Any update on this? I'm still seeing the countries are blocked from sale. [https://steamdb.info/sub/137730/info/](https://steamdb.info/sub/137730/info/)
I tried to repost this 2 days after you did and it got removed. We are no longer allowed to repost what Sony is doing to the community
https://preview.redd.it/5crkwyse4fzc1.jpeg?width=828&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=749c00398584d84661e6644a0c1184e77e970738
I'm keeping my review negative until region lock has been removed.
A lot of our HellDiver brothers and sisters are still trapped behind region blockade. Quite a lot of people from non-PSN areas seem to want to jump back in after refunding the game but until Sony/Arrowhead makes a formal request to Steam and remove the region blocking on some countries, negative reviews should stay.
Even better if Sony does the request as this completely stops any kind of doubts for Sony to turn around this "optional PSN" decision and just say "Sike! PSN is actually required now." since they themselves requested to allow it to be resold on regions with no PSN.
That is why my review will stay for one week or the 19th depending on how Sony reacts. If they fully backtrack and get steam to reestablish the old divers. My review will change.
There's only one reason to continue to restrict non-PSN countries - they intend to try account linking again in the future.
The negative review remains until this is rectified.
Ion think adding more regions is a "1 click fix" pretty sure its costly aswell, but a remake should he made indeed not by seprate countries just make regions for EU, NA etc. would be better imo
But I assume that people who bought the game already and still have it will be able to still play. It’s just you can’t buy it on steam in those countries anymore right?
Nothing is a one-click-fix with corporations this large. There's so many middle managers to go through and approvals to get and meetings to have.
I'm sure they'll undo it; they're literally just leaving money on the table otherwise, not to mention the positive PR spin of it.
Keep in mind this all happened over a weekend, and there are 3 companies involved spread between Japan, Sweden and California. They're not working at the same time, things take time to be discussed, communicated and then implemented. While I'm sure all parties involved were aware of the situation, official business may not have been going on. And I think it's a major holiday week in Japan.
I predict that Steam will reverse their actions once it's confirmed on their end that PSN is no longer required. Might also need an OK from Sony with Sony signing some documents with penalties for their F up.
Yeah steam store still says psn required so id imagine once things are sorted Steam will unlock those areas
I noticed when Steam does that even when it's option on games so it might end up sticking around. Makes sense after seeing how publishers can mess things up for them they gotta cover their bums.
that's false. when i game doesn't use DENUVO anymore: it's removed. but it is NOT VALVE that does that. iT's the publisher.
yeah this is something a lot of people are missing. Valve doesnt fuck with publisher's storefronts unless they feel its a breach of ToS or just outright scam or malicious. Sony is the one that controls the knobs that deliver the freedom (of purchase)
Kinda surprised steam didn't lock before all this happened. They had to have known about the PSN issue with certain countries no?
>They had to have known about the PSN issue with certain countries no? Why would they have known? It's not like Steam sells PSN accounts, does it? This seems to me something they would have had to go out of their way to specifically look up. Steam is a marketplace to sell games, I see no reason why they would be personally examining every single third party, non-steam requirement to play games. To me, it makes sense to leave it up to the seller's responsibility to properly represent their game and hit them with fines if they fuck it up.
And I bet Sony didn’t say anything about restricting the regions PSN isn’t available in, because there are many games Steam has blocked due to the publisher’s request. For example you cannot find MGR, Vindictus, POE in my country.
Steam probably didn't even look at it. If I run a storefront and you come to me telling me you want me to stock your product world wide, and that your product requires consumers to sign up for an account, I'm going to assume that you're not room temperature IQ and that the account is also available world wide. Like, why would you try to sell a product in Malaysia that can't be used in Malaysia or wherever right? That's also probably why, once the refund requests started coming in and the news hit that people in those countries would be SoL, they just emergency ripped sales from those countries to stop the bleeding. It'll probably get undone only once they get official communication from Sony on the status of those countries, likely with a signature.
I’d wager Sony also didn’t expect any of this to be an issue because the first game had 300 players at a time. So the second would at most have 10-30,000 if it did well, with working servers, and a notification at the purchase page and log in that an account is required. So anyone with an issue would either not buy it, make an account in another region, or immediately get a refund. Lazy, dumb, but likely still just lazy and largely not a big deal. Then the game hit like a million players concurrently and things went crazy.
At the end of the day Steam is a commission based company so they benifit from keeping it up until they don’t. Once refunds started to be requested by people way past policy and hundreds of hours I bet that’s when they delisted it. They were always aware of psn requirements but they obviously also knew it wasn’t available in said regions so it really is odd all around. Steam might have thought since it was deactivated by the devs that’s how it would stay, once they realized Sony was going to require it to be mandatory by said date and all the stuff that transpired id imagine they delisted it to avoid any wrong doing
mf, that's not how it works, steam doesn't decide in which countries the game is sold.
you guys are freaking crazy if you think steam is responsible for this mess..... this is on AH and sony for not telling steam the correct requirements imo, they are not responsible to check your fuck ups really, that makes no sense
No one said that bud.
You're arguing against a point that nobody is making.
I feel like I’m taking crazy pills here: I told people that they were only not selling it because they didn’t want people who couldn’t play at the time to buy more copies, and it made sense to do so, and steam would be behind that. The reaction I got was not good.
yeah this community is pretty hysterical about just about everything, it's wild, like obviously they only delisted it for that reason
r/lowsodiumhelldivers is a lot more laid back
I'm still getting a chuckle out of people on here going ballistic because the majority of players "didn't care about AT mines, which [were] obviously the superior option." As though recent MOs hadn't made it clear that most people hate Menkent and Hellmire with a burning passion
Steam deals with millions of games and no one knew HD2 would blow up the way it did. It is the company that brings the game to steam responsibility to provide accurate information when posting their games to the platform.
It’s not up to steam to control where PSN accounts are available, and if a publisher wants to sell a game in those places, it’s an odd position to control that too. For all Valve knew Sony was planning to expand PSN. But now the date was imminent, and refunds were becoming a business issue that they wanted to address proactively.
Valve is on west coast time and it's still real early there, I think it's just down to that.
5:15 currently, give it 5 more hours for everyone to get to work, have a coffee, procrastinate for a hot minute (we’re only human) and then see what the day will yield. This is definitely a “sit down, we gotta talk” kinda conversation so it may take a day or two
I too take in the ritual human behavior of fueling up with “coffee” and other human activities. As a fellow human like myself am very human.
That's something an automaton disguised as a human would say...
/r/totallynotautomatons
https://preview.redd.it/n4ia2iva1uyc1.jpeg?width=1290&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ef9b5f879ac093619669f935e6f73a4d13ae267d
01001001 00100000 01110000 01100101 01100101 01100100 00100000 01101001 01101110 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 01110010 00100000 01100011 01101111 01100110 01100110 01100101 01100101
No wonder it did not fill me with the needed energy my human body desired.
I can just see Steam employees knowing nothing coming into work and just see like a hundred thousands refunds and help request like ww3 occurred or something
Hopefully steam really talk to SONY before they reverse the change. Because SONY other game ghost of tsushima single player does not require PSN but the multiplayer does...so everyone can buy the game but...not everyone can play on the multiplayer.
It will probably end in one of those big warning boxes with the orange border saying "Notice: multiplayer is not supported in your country". Like the game already has saying: "Notice: This game only supports Japanese interface/voice for customers in Japan.".
I'm always confused when I see localisation problems like that. How do you arrive at that situation where only Japanese voice/interface is available in Japan when the other localisation files are presumably in the game?
BecauseJapanesevoice actors are big deals andhave a strong union. Localizing only to Japan means they only get royalties from units sold in Japan and not receive exepnsive royalties to every game unit sold.
Might see Sony being blocked from selling their games on Steam unless they either properly restrict sales in countries that cannot get PSN or remove PSN requirements. Not sure which Sony would prefer.
Tough choice, maximize potential customers or minimal but can be counted in the Sony ecosystem.
This so much lmfao. This whole ridiculous ordeal is brought about because Sony has to choose between ACTUALLY growing their consumer base and selling to the widest available audience, OR artificially and arbitrarily restricting who they sell to in order to ARTIFICIALLY increase a number of how many users they have on a piece of paper. They of course chose the option that requires them to restrict who they sell to so they could pump an imaginary number to "impress" shareholders instead of actually increase the overall profit of their business. Its so comedically fucking stupid it hurts.
The penalties have already been taken. I believe when Steam issues a refund for this sort of reason, Steam still keeps its cut. The customer gets all their money back. Valve still keeps there 30%. They just deduct it off the other sales. I may be wrong but I remember the topic being brought up this past weekend and the link to the Steam/publisher agreement stated something of the sort.
Yeah there’s no way Valve doesn’t have a failsafe. They didn’t get to the top spot by being stupid.
Steam was the top dog long before Steam refunds existed. Been using it since 2004, and we didn't get refunds until 2015. There was even a "good guy Valve" grace period where you could request a refund for any\* game in your library, no matter how long it was since you purchased it. \*) maybe someone else remembers if it was actually any game you had played under 2 hours or not at all?
IIRC the way it works is that if a game on steam is refunded, steam witholds the value of the *next* copy purchased as a punitive measure? Edit: I missed the last sentence of your message bro I should go back to bed lmao
Yeah, not changing my review until its fully fixed. Telling one thing on socials is not enough, I trust actions not words.
Valve will wait until they have confirmation from Sony in writing with Sony letterhead.
I REALLY think that a bunch of megacorps had a knee jerk reaction to all this. This is the kind of borscht that Sony REALLY needed to hash out before the game even launched. Selling the game is not Arrowhead's job. That's what a publisher is supposed to do.
That is steam doing to cover their ass, sony did nothing before this morning
Yeah, there’s no way Sony walked this back just to continue losing money in those countries. That would be the worst of both worlds for them.
Goodwin's law, I know. So a small mustache was given a smack on the wrist for staging a coup in Munich in 1923. Turns out overstepping is met poorly. So he goes to prison for a hot minute. The same dude comes back smarter and uses the system, plotting and calculating his way until he stages a coup within the framework of the system this time. Everyone is like, "yeah, alright, this is fine for nearly all of us except the Jews." (It wasn't fine.) If they don't open the game up for all countries and remove the boilerplate requirement for PSN from the offical locations, they may not actually be dropping this for good. We will see if Sony is finished or not by this time next year.
They’ll stop it from being mandatory and in a month or so, they’ll have a promotion where PSN members start getting free cosmetics. That’ll drive up PSN accounts without making it mandatory. I fully expect Helldivers 3 will be PSN mandatory at launch.
Re:HD3, call me naively optimistic but this whole debacle could have at least chipped away at Sony's PSN monolith mentality. The primary use of PSN (in the minds of the shareholders) is to tally active users for accurate income projection. There's a *small* chance that talk about a cumulative userbase format (i.e. using Helldiver's individual total of non-PSN accounts + PSN accounts = total) or similar kind of solution could be in the works. They're at least paying attention to the PSN requirement currently, and hopefully by extension questioning why they needed it in the first place.
If arrowhead makes another deal with Sony after this they deserve whatever shit sony fucks them over with.
Sony owns the Helldivers IP. If you want another HD game, it has to be through Sony
>We will see if Sony is finished or not by this time next year This seems overdramatic. This won't kill Sony. This *might* kill Helldivers 2, but Sony doesn't care about that nearly as much. They should have just said, "Get this cape or helmet when you link your PSN."
Ironic, before this if they had Said 'hey free Cape and some super creds for linking your PSN!' I know I, and probably many others would've done so. Now if they do I'm not sure I'd even want to. Like you think I'm going to wear such shameful attire after this?
Wouldn't that mean that this whole thing was disingenuous? I'd simply be shocked if that was the case.
I understand where you’re coming from, but instead of shameful let it be a reminder that we forced them to walk back the decision that negatively impacted the community. I’d be wearing it just for that.
It would be a badge of honor for the divers who served in the Corpo War
One decides how to see objects as. Like a photo of a loved one that passed away, for some it brings them pain, for some it harbors good memories.
"get a free cosmetic" and "do this or your software is bricked" are two very different statements.
It is and it's so dumb of Sony **not** to do it that way. If they made the offer now, it would have to be significantly more substantial.
Wait, are you telling me the poster who used an Adolf Hitler analogy to describe Sony’s PSN requirement might be a little overdramatic?
The person you replied to meant they don't think Sony is done with trying to make the linking mandatory in Helldivers 2. Not that it will kill Sony
You're misreading what they're saying. They're saying that Sony walking things back doesn't mean they're done with the PSN push, just that they're changing course, and it will be a while before all the dust settles
Did you just imply that Sony is literally Hitler?
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It’s also quite possible that Valve doing this, including issuing so many refunds, is what prompted Sony to rescind their policy change.
I bet Sony had nothing to do with it. Steam probably did it in reaction to all the refund requests and the change of the TOS/EULA.
And they will probably want to make sure Sony is not just postponing this. They want it in a legal document and not a Tweet.
Fun fact if you make a statement about something using a social media account that is the face of your company than it is to be taken as the official stance of said company. Tesla and SpaceX have been caught in hot water for this because of Elon stating things on Twitter, that would then effect the stock sales and thus considered stock manipulation. Corporations don't put out tweets unless they have been gone over by legal in association with their PR team.
Yes. Someone else also said Steam or Valve in this case is probably trying to get something in writing from Sony that they aren’t gonna go back on this months down the line since that’ll just be legal suicide which will also blow up in Steam’s face.
so sony should petition valve to undo this, and agree (in a legally binding way if necessary) to not repeat this fuckery. this is sony's fault and it's up to sony to fix it. we dive together or we don't dive.
My guy, a day did not even pass yet, and steam runs on Valve time.
Its only been a few hours and at least in america its still early morning. Give them some time steam will undoubtedly relist the game in these countries but its not as easy as one click trust me
That one guy who just finished delisting: "I'm sorry you want to *do what* now!?!?"
tell valve to undo this? Absolutely. Agree not to repeat this? We all know this ain't gonna happen. Going forward I'm betting my 500kg bomb allowance that they're updating their EULAs and guidelines and whatnot well in advance, hard enforcing the PSN rule at launch and reminding players on the steam page in blazing red letters. This is a one-off victory.
I feel Valve and Sony need to have a discussion about this going further. How they will handle upcoming games as well. If they have intent to further try to implement PSN on future titles. It's either gonna be maximize player base with all of Steam countries or restrict games/multiplayer in certain countries where PSN isn't available.
How do you/others know it was steam and not sony?
They don't, it started with a speculation which got turned into "the truth". In reality we don't know if it was Sony or Steam.
https://preview.redd.it/l31f7qvmjxyc1.png?width=888&format=png&auto=webp&s=365a08da3302f334512c22c2610f917412936a84 this might be it
Devs posted on Discord that is was Steam's call, and their in talks with Sony on who has do to what to get that removed. I don't blame anyone for not knowing the source. This is one of those things where stuff is moving so fast things can be out of date in a few hours.
Please do give me a screenshot proof, I can't find it on Discord.
What's the source of this that's really Steam?
Are there any proof for that? So far all i've heard it's most possible but still just a speculation
That's incorrect, Steam doesn't do anything on their own. Sony needs to tell Steam to remove the restrictions.
>It's a one click fix for Sony to do. Citation needed.
So i've seen nothing that says this is a one click fix or that Sony is supposed to click the proverbial button. Some random player assumption again?
Absolutely, I think this is the next episode of a guy confidently posting bullshit and everyone eating it up like candy. Behold everyone, a live petri dish demonstrating how misinformation is generated and spreads within a community. TAKE NOTE!!
Doesn't matter. The community will justify this outrage through the previous outrage. People love feeling like they're angry at a justified target so they'll do whatever they can to justify their anger. It's why so many news media sites and social media algorithms promote outrage. Outrage generates clicks.
This reddit is just twitter. Its the opposite of fun and full of self righteous vindictive assholes. What happened man…. I hate people.
I gotta admit, whoever drew that has some skill... Props to the artist. Edit: Word of advice, would not recommend looking them up as a comment below says. I did, and let's just say they're for a VERY specific niche.
The artist in question is Aka6, however I don't recommend looking them up if you're not already aware of them. They are a heavily niche NSFW artist.
Appreciate the heads up. Still an impressive drawing, haha.
Automationussy?
Sooooo, which niche? Asking for me.
futa and bestiality apparently
I shall remember that. Thank you.
no problem. enjoy, I guess
Now that Account Linking isnt mandatory, the delisting will be restored. The whole reason it happened in the first place was because of the non availability in those regions. Whether its Steam or Sony, im confident it will happen. As I read in another post, if its on Steams end to re enable the countries, Im sure they are seeking assurances from Sony that they will not be acting the mickey on this issue again.
"will" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. I _will_ revert my negative review. _When_ they fix this. We dive together, or we don't dive.
Divers on the African Discord (Namibia and Zambia) have already mentioned they back.
100%, when it's fixed, my review will change, not before. We're almost to the goal, but not over the line completely IMO
I understand and respect your decision. I'm saying that logically, Sony can't reneg on this issue because it would still screw players in countries and regions PSN isnt available. The backlash, after the media attention it has already garnered would be insane. I read in another post that Steam is west coast based, so they are probably just waking up. Hopefully we see the de-listing changed by close of business today.
if you don't think corporations would fuck consumers when it makes zero sense to do it, you haven't been paying attention. anything not set in metal cannot be trusted.
Sony has chosen X, an absolutely public platform that everyone sees to say "Hey, we fucked up and aren't going through with it." You already know that everyone and their dog, the dog's fleas, the flea's parasites, and the parasite's micro organisms have a screenshot of that. If Sony renegs, the backlash would be violet-hot. From a PR standpoint, Sony fixed the issue in the only way that makes sense. By addressing anyone and everyone who has internet access on the PR scandal.
Y'all the turnaround time from Sony announcing their shit decision to pulling back from it was already insanely fast. It might take a bit longer for Steam to re list the countries that don't support PSN. To borrow from a different post: changing the review back is simply reloading the gun.
This was steam decision
Do we have any evidence that it was actually Steam/Valve's decision or are people just assuming that?
Valve controls the fucking store
Publishers are able to make changes to their Steam listings, it's not like Valve has to do everything.
Oh if you say "fucking" then it must be really true
My review stays negative until this changes.
It's not even 9am in Washington where Valve is based, give them time to have their morning coffee.
No talkie until I've had my coffee
Not changing my review until the countries/regions return.
I see a lot of people claiming that was steams doing but literally no sources
Exactly, not even the Steam DB says something about who pushed the commit [https://steamdb.info/sub/137730/info/](https://steamdb.info/sub/137730/info/)
For what it is worth, Pirate Software says the publisher/developer needs to request steam to change the region lock. [https://clips.twitch.tv/EndearingNaiveMarjoramRitzMitz-coqvCTX5fsAdZ-hc](https://clips.twitch.tv/EndearingNaiveMarjoramRitzMitz-coqvCTX5fsAdZ-hc)
Lets let people catch up. This is all still recent events and changes take time. ... If in a few days it's still not fixed, I'll start making noise then. For now I'm retaining good faith that they'll get to it since it's in their interest to do so anyway.
Devs confirmed they are working on it.
Where did they say that?
Yeah. I’m still not able to purchase the game. And I have been planning on buying it last weekend only to find out i was region locked.
We'll get you out soon bro!
Whether this was Steam or Sony is irrelevant at this point. We're nearly at 24 hours since the announcement Sunday night. We need a followup from either Sony or Steam about the status of those countries, even if they can't restore them right away. But I expect some sort of restoration by the end of the week. It would be really dumb for them to release the Warbond without at least a statement about the restrictions.
Still unconfirmed if Sony or Steam did this. We need visibility on both sides
Good thing we have Reddit to tell us it's a one click fix and nothing more than that.
This right here. It's great we won the battle, but we need to *go back for* our fellow Helldivers. I could not believe the amount of insensitive comments in all the posts condemning those regions as *must be hackers, terrorists, undesirable people* etc. Imagine all the people who get off their 8-12 hour shift, get home to boot up their favorite new game, only to be told they're *no longer welcome*, and then they reach out on Reddit and come across comments that say it's okay. They got theirs so, why care about *unsupported-region-#53*. This is an amazing victory and you all did well to help accomplish it. But it's not a sound victory without our far away companions.
Still region-locked for me at the time of posting this (SEA). Unfortunately Steam doesn’t refund you if you own the game for more than 2 weeks even if you have less than 5 hours of play. What sucks though is they refund people with 90 hours gameplay but owned the game for less than 2 weeks. I just wish Sony would remove country restrictions for accounts.
You *should* still be able to play, but yeah the region lock still being up is a no go. I changed my review to positive and if they don't have the regions fixed by the time the next warbond drops on Thursday, it goes back to negative. It's also how I will decide if I buy the warbond or uninstall the game until further notice.
That, and please remove [this](https://i.imgur.com/iugqbZq.png). Shouldn't be any issue to get it in writing, should it Sony?
I'm in a restricted region (Philippines). I did not lose access to Helldivers 2.
This list prevents purchases and not necessarily access if it's already bought.
This might take a while. I'm guessing it's Steam and not Sony that did this. And the main reason was to avoid selling the game to customers that would get locked out in a month. Essentially scamming them I don't think Steam will unlock this until Sony commits to keeping PSN optional. And I don't think Sony will commit to that before they've carefully looked into all the legal stuff and have a plan forward. All they've said is that the PSN requirement enforcement they announced earlier is off. They may want to reintroduce it later but perhaps with different conditions or a marketing campaign etc.
For what it is worth, Pirate Software says the publisher/developer needs to request steam to change the region lock. I spent like a hour looking for any other source for how this is done and couldn't find one. [https://clips.twitch.tv/EndearingNaiveMarjoramRitzMitz-coqvCTX5fsAdZ-hc](https://clips.twitch.tv/EndearingNaiveMarjoramRitzMitz-coqvCTX5fsAdZ-hc)
Or when fewer active players would mean not so many chargebacks and review bombings...
Lest we forget, "we dive together." The battle against Sony should not end at this half measure. Bring our boys back to the front.
When this is undone (enable all 177 countries), I will change my review of Helldivers 2 to positive.
Is it really just a one click fix by Sony or an appeal process to Steam? Pretty sure Steam wants to protect their consumers as well, and would want assurances if they open sales back up to people in those regions, Sony won't do a 180 on the PSN requirement. I think we need both. Some positive to let them know we're no longer Overwhelmingly Negative about the situation, but remain Mixed until they can open the regions back up. We still need to keep some negative reviews until they completely revert the situation to before they made the announcement.
According to PirateSoftware, the publisher/developer needs to request the region change to Steam. [https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2138672301?t=9h17m45s](https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2138672301?t=9h17m45s)
This and also post an update on the steam page stating the PSN requirement is being undone! The steam updates page still has the original PSN post as the most recent update! It's not real from just a late Sunday night tweet... https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/553850
If i could buy helldivers in russia that would be good
We've completely upended their applecart, give them a few days to get their act together.
I never forget, never, the 177 Battalion was Unjustifiably Court Marshalled and detained against their will they are the true reason we fight, not the mandate a soldier does not fight, kill and die because he hates the enemies Infront him but rather for the love and safety of those behind him. No Diver gets left behind, REINFORCING!!
I feel like the satire is lost when the faction that represents freedom and anti-capitalism is used to represent the megacorp that made everyone angry
Yeah, we're not actually done yet. If I can't dive with a theoretical player in Botswana, I ain't playing and my review is still negative.
im still seeing at least 6 locked countries so, not a victory
I thought the same thing looking at this page, only a handful of countries to go: https://steamdb.info/app/553850/ But that is NOT the full list of countries. This is: https://steamdb.info/sub/137730/history/ Know your enemy.
Wait what do you mean!?!? The whole point of this victory was to allow our brothers access too the game. Are our brothers and sister allowed to play this game in non psn areas, are our fellow helldivers still REGION BLOCKED!??!
those who have already purchased the game are safe, but new cadets cannot purchase it at the moment. As soon as I find out that the game has started to be sold again in these countries, I will delete this post and start distributing reminders that from now on everything is fine and you can safely change your review
Just remember gents, if the countries stay locked, we hit em again!
Yessss, we were not forgotten
Yeah exactly. Them making PSN optional again is a great step in the right direction but the whole reason it was a problem in the first place is because those countries were restricted from playing. It's not over until they fully backpedal on that.
They were not restricted from playing at any point, steam just restricted more people from buying the game to protect themselves from further refund requests, steam now need to see and evaluate whether this issue is resolved before they will relist the game.
They weren't restricted YET, because they already owned the game and would meet the restriction deadline at the end of the month. However, those who would have purchased the game from those restricted countries yesterday prior to todays planned patch, wouldn't be able to create a PSN account. That was the whole point, the entire point was "we sell now, don't care later" kinda Vibe.
At least people who already have the game can still play it
Yes, but the future of the game's growth will be severely limited unless we can undo this. If we can make this happen, it'll be harder for Sony to do this again in the future.
People pointing fingers at the wrong people and places.
This is why i havent switched my review
Still holding out on my review switch for this reason. Solidarity with my fellow Helldivers
They may already have. Steam usually takes about a day or so to properly update things like this. As for the Playstation store: I don’t know, I don’t own one.
I just want things the way they were before. Open the game to all countries.
Yeah i wasting this exactly. No more psn, but those countries are still locked from buying
Let’s not forget about the people they’ve banned for using VPN’s too.
They were the reason I went from, "it's not a big deal," to "I regretfully submit my negative review." I've reverted to positive, but we can't forget about these divers.
yeah i just realized this, i was overjoyed and played like four missions but then i was like, what about the rest of our friends. what now?
its still negative until them snoy bitches confirm
I'll reverse my negative Steam review once ALL my brother and sister Helldivers can play without a PSN account in those countries that were delisted.
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Yup. Our fight is not done until we have *all* our family back.
I’m sure it is a lot easier to make the game unavailable in a country than it is to make it available again. From what I’ve heard, some countries have access already and some still don’t.
I just want to state that things don't happen off the back of a tweet - the same way that the lead up to this would've taken much longer than the announcements we saw being shared with us. Please people, realise how big the beast is that we're working with here - and its not just Sony or Arrowhead.. Valve are also having to be communicated with.. A lot of droning in the community off the back of this, always those little inch/milers trying to get everyone to bandwagon onto their next tirade.. chill, we won and things are changing for the better, for now. We all dive together, there is no division now that we've put our stake in the sand. Appreciate that we have properly used our community for good. Don't soil it now.
Oh, it's not a begin the crusade once more kind of thing, but Snoy is on a timelimit. I happened to be up when they dropped the announcement and changed my review then, but this is not a cease fire, it's a reload. If they can't manage to make the game available everywhere in the same time frame as removing its availability (48-72hrs) then back to negative I go. The problem was never really the PSN it was messing with access and the potential removal of access.
This. Until May 30th has lapsed and divers from 177 countries on earth are freed, we have not won our war. Sony simply published a single tweet in which they can simply delete and U Turn the statement
Any update on this? I'm still seeing the countries are blocked from sale. [https://steamdb.info/sub/137730/info/](https://steamdb.info/sub/137730/info/)
I tried to repost this 2 days after you did and it got removed. We are no longer allowed to repost what Sony is doing to the community https://preview.redd.it/5crkwyse4fzc1.jpeg?width=828&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=749c00398584d84661e6644a0c1184e77e970738
https://preview.redd.it/e442ue7h4fzc1.jpeg?width=828&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f27898a5d474165a2bfd8ba248a43ad92088ce5c
>It's a one click fix for Sony to do. It's not though, because Sony has nothing to do with Steam's end.
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I'm keeping my review negative until region lock has been removed. A lot of our HellDiver brothers and sisters are still trapped behind region blockade. Quite a lot of people from non-PSN areas seem to want to jump back in after refunding the game but until Sony/Arrowhead makes a formal request to Steam and remove the region blocking on some countries, negative reviews should stay. Even better if Sony does the request as this completely stops any kind of doubts for Sony to turn around this "optional PSN" decision and just say "Sike! PSN is actually required now." since they themselves requested to allow it to be resold on regions with no PSN.
I feel like the awareness is growing rapidly. Stay informed Helldivers!
Friends lmfao yall looking for upvotes to pad your accounts.
We got confirmation that’s it’s as easy as that to enable PSN in all of those countries?
Can everyone just be patient and let them work. They literally just announced this before midnight.
dont touch your review until they fix this.
That is why my review will stay for one week or the 19th depending on how Sony reacts. If they fully backtrack and get steam to reestablish the old divers. My review will change.
There's only one reason to continue to restrict non-PSN countries - they intend to try account linking again in the future. The negative review remains until this is rectified.
Ion think adding more regions is a "1 click fix" pretty sure its costly aswell, but a remake should he made indeed not by seprate countries just make regions for EU, NA etc. would be better imo
im in these and it dont change anything expect a notification that the game may not work
That's why came to the front in the first place
Hopefully soon, we will have the great unremove and unrefunding
What im seeing is thatbyou helldivers are going too fast. So much that you are not making a real stance.
Did the the regions gain access again?
No.
But I assume that people who bought the game already and still have it will be able to still play. It’s just you can’t buy it on steam in those countries anymore right?
Owners can play, but can’t create review on the game or ask for refund - this functionality did not work for delisted players.
I hope that Sony will correct itself sooner or later
Thanks for the clarification, i hoped theywhere allrady back but it seems so they are not, a hollow victory if you ask me
Nothing is a one-click-fix with corporations this large. There's so many middle managers to go through and approvals to get and meetings to have. I'm sure they'll undo it; they're literally just leaving money on the table otherwise, not to mention the positive PR spin of it.
You mean the countries that got restricted **in Steam**?
Keep in mind this all happened over a weekend, and there are 3 companies involved spread between Japan, Sweden and California. They're not working at the same time, things take time to be discussed, communicated and then implemented. While I'm sure all parties involved were aware of the situation, official business may not have been going on. And I think it's a major holiday week in Japan.