Helldivers 2 Players Express Frustration On Steam As It Will Soon Require A PSN Account

The current top Steam Review;
Yeah i'm not linking my account to PSN.
April 2011: Hackers Access Personal Data of 77 Million Sony PlayStation Network Users
May 2011: Personal Details on 25 Million Sony Online Entertainment Customers Stolen
June 2011: Sony Pictures Website Hacked, Exposing One Million Accounts
November 2014: Hackers Steal 100 Terabytes of Data from Sony Pictures
August 2017: Hacker Group Accesses Sony Social Media Accounts
September 2023: Sony Investigates Alleged Hack
October 2023: Sony Notifies Employees of Data Breach
- Ah, that explains why all of my accounts disappeared…

Didn't think this was real at first read. But holy fudge it it is.. Game is now being review bombed on steam. Here's an additional article from Gaming on Linux:
https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2024/05/helldivers-2-will-soon-actually-require-a-playstation-network-account/
- The review chart is hilarious.
  Doubt Sony or the developer expected this would happen.
  Edit [May/04, 14h UTC]: Updated chart. More than 70k negative reviews already.
  
  thanks for sharing the chart! I doubt they Sony takes a hint from this too, but it certainly shows other developers and publishers something about signing contracts with Sony...
- Although the Steam page for HELLDIVERS 2 has clearly stated since release that a PlayStation Network account is required, you actually haven't had to link them. That will change really soon.
  So if it were clearly written on the Steam page, I don't really get the complains.
  
  So if it were clearly written on the Steam page, I don’t really get the complains.
  It was optional for several months and the info on the PSN page contradicted that, so there was a lot of room for confusion.
  Not surprisingly that PSN page was edited earlier today, but there's a million screenshots floating around already, plus you can check the previous version in the Wayback Machine.
  And even if it was clearly written on all places, it's still a "too bad you didn't read the fine print, now you're past the limit time for a refund, so either let Sony track you or lose access to the game" situation which is very shitty. There's also the fact that they sold the game to people in countries where is PSN is not available, which should not have happened if that requirement was going to be enforced in the future.
  Not hard to see why people would get pissed and lose trust in the developer. I also think that players have been annoyed for a while with this type of requirement (not specifically in this game), and they are now getting a good outlet with a lot of publicity around to vent about it.
  
  Who the fuck reads the entire steam page? My friend says buy the game, the reviews say it's great with friends, you go and buy the game not scan the steam page for predatory data hoarding policies.
  
  “But the plans were on display…”
  “On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them.”
  “That’s the display department.”
  “With a flashlight.”
  “Ah, well, the lights had probably gone.”
  “So had the stairs.”
  “But look, you found the notice, didn’t you?”
  “Yes,” said Arthur, “yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard.
  — Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
  
  By clearly stated, they mean, in small letters further down on the steam page that nobody reads. Just like a cheeky terms of services..

So, at first install, I actually linked my account to a PSN account that I knew was banned due to a charge back on an unwanted purchase. At the time, I figured if I discovered that I can't play because my account is banned from PSN, I'd just refund on Steam. I feel I'll be very justifiably pissed if my account is now banned from playing retroactively, long after the refund window.
- This is the point of contention I am curious about. If Sony can be the one to kick you off the game that you bought on Steam and you don't get refunded for it, I will review it negatively. Let me know what happens after the update forcing PSN.
  
  As of today, I am still able to log in. The next point I'm concerned about is the 30th, so we'll be waiting a while, but I'll do my best to update.

This feature doesn’t affect me personally, but it is still very scummy to add it after launch. Long after refund window is out of the question.
- Well, it affects me in that now I know not to buy this game and support such a scummy practice.
  
  Is the game developer involved or is it just Sony doing Sony there are some things that there are some things that don't things?
- A change like this may warrant special exceptions to the refund rules. Steam has made exceptions for similar changes to games made after launch in the past.
- It wasn't added after launch. You could bypass it. Now they are changing that.
  
  That's true. Personally though, it not being optional for any amount of time just shows that there's no good argument to have it be mandatory in the first place.
  
  By feature I just mean it being mandatory now

They sold this game in dozens of countries where you can't make a PSN account. That right there is what pisses me the fuck off. Complete horseshit to do that to people.
- PSN doesn't care if you lie and just choose your nearest supported country.
  
  They literally do care: https://www.ungeek.ph/2018/09/pinoy-gt-sport-player-disqualified-from-gran-turismo-world-tour-2018-due-to-technicality/
  It might not affect most people as they won't get caught, but Sony absolutely cares when you've given them false information. I'd much rather get my refund than be at the mercy of Sony who can be pretty liberal with the suspensions.
  
  Their terms of service specifically say if you spoof your location or do not sign up in your country you will subject to review and punishment. Aka permabanned
  
  It actually does, it's something people get their accounts banned over.

As a PlayStation user, I’d be pissed if I needed to use a steam login.
- Maybe not if you could cross play.
  
  To many cheaters on PC

Well that’s certainly one way to kill a game. Heck, I HAVE a PS5, and I still would be annoyed as fuck by that.
Sure, you can offer to link an account for things like progress tracking. But it certainly shouldn’t be forced on anyone.

Why would people not trust putting any info and linking their Steam account to a company with a history of at least 8 hacks + 5 massive data breaches? I wonder. 🤔
- Also this one: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootkit_scandal
  
  Please, anyone who reads this, stop posting links to the mobile version of Wikipedia. It doesn’t switch automatically on PC, and I see it happen all the time. Just take the half a second to remove the “.m” from the beginning of the link, save everyone else from the pain of having to be surprised by it and taking the time to do it themselves.

Well my PSN account is banned so am I just fucked? Lol what a joke
- Well if you link it, you will "gain the right to appeal a ban".
  (This is not a joke it's in the actual announcement from sony)
- If that's the only problem, can't you make a new one?
  
  Yeah I'm not making a 49th account to play a game I bought with my steam account. That's just another attack vector for me to deal with. Especially when I've been playing on my steam account just fine. Not to mention, my PSN credentials have already been hacked from PlayStation once before after the account was banned. Someone was trying to login to it. So why the fuck would I trust them a second time? Its just more data to leak that's mine.

I would love to see Valve allow refunds. This was not an agreed upon stipulation at the time of purchase. If they pull the game from you now so soon after purchase, is it not grounds for a refund? Give Sony the choice to backtrack or lose money.
- It's been on the steam page since day one, so I doubt they'd refund. It was agreed upon but not enforced until now.
  
  By reading this comment you agree to pay me $1,000.
  
  It also prompted for a login at the start

Man it's such a shame. I was looking forward to trying it, but I'm not going to create a psn acc for it
- The game is very repetitive, anyway. I was bored after about 20 hours. By then you've already seen everything there is to see.
  
  Every game is repetitive, it comes down to whether the repetition is entertaining. It wasn't for you but for a lot of people it is. It is trending downward according to Steam stats but it still has around 60-70k concurrent players during the low points and in terms of hours played it's be in the top 10 games.
  Personally while the overall mission structure is "repetitive" I think the randomization of mission parameters, how the mission play out and the spectacle make it very fun. I would still be playing if not for the Sony shit. It's a great game to peace out with friends.
  
  Agreed. Fun with other people. Boring as fuck solo.
  
  More stuff is coming / is already out. It's actually a really well done implementation of a live service game which I never thought I'd say about anything. That does mean it has a shelf life though and the live service won't last forever, which is a bummer. I'm curious what they'll do with it once they're finished actively managing the war story. Maybe hand it over to an AI in 2-3 years.
- I’m guessing you have an Origin, EA and Microsoft account though? Along with Steam, Epic, Gog and what else?
  EDIT: lol at all the downvotes with zero explanations 🤣
  
  At least you use those for other games, what are you using your PSN acc with no PlayStation for?
  
  So what?

Even worse! You can't even have a PSN account everywhere you can have a Steam account with this game
- I live in one of the grey countries. You can create an account, but Sony offers different stores in different countries, so you have to pick another country. They even sells consoles in many of the grey countries. The biggest issue is that you probably won't be able to buy anything without extra hustle because your card is not issued in the country of your PSN account. Also, this is technically against their ToS. But you can create an account to play Helldivers 2.
  With that said, I can't speak for all countries. Maybe somewhere it's really impossible to create an account without VPN.
  
  I live in a gray country as well. It's like this for a lot of products. And a lot of websites block you too. Everything here is more complicated
- The baltics and the balkans never get a break.
  
  As if having been oppressed by orcs is not enough.
- thanks for sharing!

Trying to refund it, although pretty low chance since it's well past the window. But that's part of what makes it so bullshit to bring this in long after that window closed. I'd have refunded the game on the spot if it actually required the account creation from the get go. I refunded Red Dead 2 after it turned out to require a Rock Star account. Fortunately that was apparent on start up so I just quit and refunded.

Looks like Nintendo and Sony are competing who can get away with being a bigger asshole. Boundary testing sociopaths. Game becomes popular, dev and publisher foist unpopular requirement to continue playing in order to see what the response is and if it doesnt tank numbers too much, they now have a green light to weasel this into other games. Hell even if it does tank numbers, they already have their money and you probably wont be able to get a refund at this point.
- Yeah, but I can get a refund for Days Gone which I haven't played yet AND I can not buy as many of snoy games as they can publish from now on.

People have been remarking that numerous countries are unable to join PSN and this will lock them out of the game. But can someone explain to me how that could be true? Are they literally not on the drop-down menu for selecting your country?
- Yes. PSN is only available in about 70 countries (out of 190). E.g. in the entire continent of Africa only one country has access.
  Even some members of European Union don't get PSN.
- One of the Arrowhead community managers said they're trying to get more information regarding regions, so it kinda seems like they weren't fully prepared for this/got blindsided by Sony a bit. There should be an FAQ/QA with additional info coming soon.
- Evidently that is the case.

Welp it was fun playing while it lasted. Sorry arrowhead but fuck that not happening. Time to move on to another game

I was gonna finally get around to buying this last night, and this stopped me.
- Patient gaming wins again
- Back to Earth defence force ig

I already made an uplay account, a social club account, an origin account, an epic account, I'm tired, I'm not making a CONSOLE account, I don't have a playstation and I won't have one since I'm against everything sony is doing to asian games.

Does anyone know what type of information is shared by linking accounts
- Afraid you're gonna have to dig deep into their privacy policies for that, including all third party vendors they partner with, which I'm assuming is more than just a few. The world of policies is intricate by design...
- If it links to your Steam account, I assume it's going to get all the info in your Steam account.

Just curious, did anybody with over two hours got a refund?
- It’s been like 24 hours. Everyone at Sony is asleep while Arrowhead is being 💩 on for Sonys decision

I feel weird using my PSN account because the birth date on it is wrong.... I tried to tell Sony this, but they said they couldn't change it
- If you're in the EU, they have to correct your personal information. Threaten to report them to your local privacy authority if they don't.
  
  If they're as incompetent as they sound they'd have to change it manually and assuming you could make them do that it would probably break something in the account. 😄 There's no good way to do this if it was badly put together.
  
  I'm in the Land of Eagles and Hamburgers I'm afraid
  
  So every company you give info to is responsible to catch every one of your lies? That sounds hard.
- That's probably a good thing. I generally put different information into every service. If you keep track of who you told what, you can use that information later. If you receive spam from somewhere random, but they use the name you gave Sony, you can say "oh so Sony sold my data to you..."
  
  Sony has been part of at least one major data leak. They don't have to tell anyone since all of their data already is on the internet.

Playstation is the most anti-consumer company ever, even worse than Epic, which is insane.
- You are forgetting about Nintendo. And that is only mentioning gaming companies... look outside gaming and there is a whole shit-show going on at the moment for that position.
- "The good news is we have a console for people without internet access, it's called Xbox 360"
- What about Comcast?

- Americans are not going to stop playing video games anytime soon. I think they can easily get away with more

What’s going on? Is this game published by fucking Sony?
- Yes?
  
  “Wow sony, such quality” - Mike stoklasa, c. 2017 or so

What does a PSN account involve? Just an email and password, maybe a handle/nickname?
I assume it needs no credit card or payment.
If all that is true a PSN account is annoying but doesn't seem so bad.
- Remember when telemetry/data collection across the internet was often optional and pretty minor?
  The more shit we absentmindedly agree to because it's not really a big deal in the short term, the worse it gets in the long term.
  If I play a game on Steam, then Playstation, EA, Ubisoft, etc should all fuck off. I already gave those companies my money, it's insulting that that isn't enough anymore.
  Edit: great point I just saw someone else mention, the fact that Sony has allowed over 100 million users' data to be exposed due to various breaches by bad actors over the past 15 years. At least one of those times, the data was revealed to be nowhere near as secure as it should have been.
  
  If all that is required is an email address and password I could live with giving Sony a special email address and unique password, I don't see where I have a privacy or security risk there. Annoying, but it's a lot better than another launcher or something. ETA: It asks for birthdate, definitely don't give them your real birthdate but give them something close. I have a standard fake that I use.
- I want to buy and eat soup without someone dipping their dick in it and telling me it's a part of the experience.
  
  But that’s what makes it artisanal and an extra 3.50
  
  "Well if it is just the Tipp I'm fine with it. It is a bit annoying but better then two sweaty balls"
  
  Oh my!
  
  Pretty silly comparison.
- I read that in some regions ( I think UK/Ireland? ) it requires a picture OD your face/ID to verify your age.
  Can't verify that though
- People nowadays hate having more than one account. They can't even bare having more than one exe that launches other exes installed on the same computer anymore
  
  Needing to run a programm just to launch a different program is stupid. I don't need a middleman, just let me launch the second program directly.
  
  I would definitely be annoyed but have had to create an account for other games too. Give them an email that isn't your primary email and a unique password, I don't see where there is any risk after that.

Eh, I knew it when I bought it. I didn't know better and signed up. I wasn't tricked and we all started the game that first time and were told about it

I had to sign up for PSN over a month ago, why is there outrage now?
- Account creation fatigue. I'm personally not fond of creating a one-off account for every fucking game I play on steam. It's enough already. EA account, ubisoft account, rockstar account, PSN account, xyz account, ugh. Every new account I create is just an additional attack vector for when all of these companies eventually get hacked. I get occasional emails about security breaches or unauthorized attempts for random ass accounts I created years ago, and it's so frustrating. I don't even have a playstation. It's just so annoying. I'm sick of it. I don't believe for a fucking second that Sony is requiring this for "security and safety." Those fucks just want to inflate their user numbers for the shareholders and collect our data to sell to 3rd parties. I am so fucking sick of this shit already. I bought the game on steam. Just let me use my steam account only god dammit.
  
  Wwwwwaaaaaaaa
  I don't have Xbox or PlayStation and I still signed up. Just use a stupid throw away password. Ya know how many times people have tried to log into my twitch account and I ignored it because even if they did get the password it means absolute jack shit. If ya do use the acct to buy stuff, use a virtual credit card to make payments so its as easy as shutting down that CCD and opening a new one.
  Be more pissed about the rootkit of a anti cheat that they use
- They are removing the “Skip” button from the linking page on game launch and forcing anyone who used it to link a PSN account now
  
  There was a skip button?
  I mean its not like EA games where ya need to install a 3rd party launcher
  Still anyone review bombing over such a stupid thing needs a slap upside the head. Took me all of 2 min to sign up and now I have 90 house played
  No one complains about having to sign up for Xbox shit.
- Same— my understanding is that there’s now no option to play without making one, which for some countries and territories is not even an option, making the game unplayable for them.
  
  This makes sense, that's kind of a shitty deal for them.
- It was apparently skippable before.
  
  It was so skippable I never even knew there was an option to link to a PS Account, which I dont have because my last PlayStation was the PS2

It doesn't seem like a big change to me, so long as you can just have it linked to your Steam account and nothing else.
I'd mostly be upset if it breaks Linux compatibility or was a single player game (HD2 isn't).
E: Changed only to mostly
- And the people that bought it but can't get PSN accounts? Do they get a refund (HAHAHAHAH) or are they just fucked?
  It's a huge change even if you can't grasp it.
  Enough demanding accounts for everything.
  
  I think those people that will no longer be able to play it, because Sony doesn't let them do the thing that they now require, deserve refunds. I will leave a negative review when the update drops if they don't, despite really enjoying this game, because it's not fair to those who bought it and will be locked out. If they can make it such that you can have a placeholder Sony account that can’t access all PSN features, for the sole purpose to play this and other Sony games on Steam, that anyone in the world can access, that would be an acceptable compromise to me.
  I understand EULA and account creation fatigue. It's just that it's not the accounts themselves that are the worrisome part of the change for me is what I'm saying. If it's for specific reasoning (console crossplay), is unobtrusive, and maintains access for existing Steam purchasers then I don't have a real problem. If they use it to limit people's access that's where I have a problem.

As always, people completely overreacting to the minor inconvenience of creating an account. Crazy
- You're completely missing the point.
  
  What am I missing?
  I have just seen that certain countries can't make an account which is extremely scummy. But most people are just whining about having to make one
- I wouldn't let them fondle my testicles.
  As always, people completely overreacting to the minor inconvenience of having testicles fondled. Crazy
  
  Why? A good fondling is nice