I bet it was the incoming refunds/lawsuits in the non-PSN countries that was the decision maker. The refunds or litigation wasn't worth the $$$. The normal gamers that were just angry didn't change shit. They are used to angry gamers, they don't care.
The requirement was in the TOS from the start, and it was explicitly stated when you bought the game that you needed a PSN account. People in PSN capable countries had no grounds to sue.
Was it in the ads? Nobody ever reads eulas. It's incredibly impractical to do so. Someone did the math once and it came up to something like 10,000 years worth of reading for the average person's Eulas combined.
I don't remember where, but I remember seeing it when I bought it. (Not in the TOS, who reads those). But I was digging up my old PSN account while it downloaded. I bought it a couple weeks after launch. When the prompt to sign in popped up, I signed in. I didn't even realize you could skip it but I didn't mind signing in, I bought the game so I could play with my buddies that are on Playstation. I guess it seemed reasonable, to me, to sign into a PSN account to play with PSN players, i honestlythoughtit was a requirementfor cross-platform. But I don't play a lot of cross-platform games so I am not familiar with what is normal I guess. Of the fuckery going on in the gaming industry and the internet in general this seemed like small potatoes.
At least that's a bit more reasonable warning, but it's still kinda crap. I think anything that isn't an MMO or ranked matchmaking should give up the publisher control. I also think that for everything that has ranked matchmaking, there should be a private server option.
For me, who has no idea about this, why Sony was so forceful with adding that PSN integration and what it would mean for the gamers, that they were so angry about it?
Edit: ok looks like Louis explained the POV of gamer to me: https://youtu.be/I2VA0eum6w4 though I still don't understand what was the motivation for Sony to start this shit show.
huge demand and server load make linking psn for PC players buggy and difficult
psn requirements are disabled "temporarily" around that time to ease the load
the game becomes even more successful, tens of thousands of players buy and install it, without ever being prompted to make a psn account
Sony has wording in their PC requirements that said linking to psn is optional for PC users
now, months later, Sony decides they want more psn users for their metrics, and make a psn account mandatory retroactively
huge amounts of players feel duped out of their product, especially those from regions steam serves, but Sony doesn't, because they will essentially lose access to their product completely. Others are mistrustful of Sony's data protection record, they got hacked with disturbing frequency over the years, and dont want to give them their data on principle, especially with the knowledge that the game ran perfectly fine for months without psn
Players are up in arms, barraging the arrowhead (who were forced by Sony to do this) community managers with hate
players review bomb the absolute shit out of the game on steam, causing it to go from mostly positive to mixed over the course of a day
Sony half heartedly rolls back the requirement after a weekend of huge community backlash, poor press coverage, and depressed arrowhead CEO tweets
If psn account was a requirement from the start why is it available for non psn countries/regions? Valve should have restricted the game from the start.
Certainly, though I suspect the sales outside their psn market were a significant factor in making them reconsider now. They likely didn't want to deal with the legal fallout of essentially arbitrarily taking away the product the customers already paid for, and played with. If it weren't for that I bet Sony would have just pushed on through, bad reviews be damned