Helldivers 2 now has the most negative reviews among all paid games

- Honestly I'm more annoyed by the rootkit "anti-cheat" the game uses, than this Sony action. It's easy enough to make a burner email account for Sony, and for better or worse, I'm not in one of the countries impacted.
  They DEFINITELY need to refund all players that are from newly blocked countries - anything short of a full refund is unacceptable, but it's not like people have cared that PSN is unavailable in Nigeria before this point.
  All that said, I love seeing the community putting Sony's feet on the fire for implementing even mildly anti-consumer BS. I just wish the outrage was more consistent
  
  It’s easy enough to make a burner email account for Sony, and for better or worse, I’m not in one of the countries impacted
  Some countries require an ID verification
  
  Yeah I was actually baffled by the lack of backlash for that, as that was much worse than the PSN account requirement issue, at least data/privacy wise.
- Right? This game requires users install a kernel-level anti-cheat in order to run. That's a huge privacy and security risk just to play a non-competitive video game. Nobody seemed to care about that, but signing up for PlayStation Network? That's where gamers draw the line!
  I mean, I'm glad they're finally pushing back against terrible corporate decisions but what set them off is puzzling.
  
  The difference is everyone CAN install a bad anti-cheat, or decide to not do it.
  But if people who bought the game suddenly CAN'T legally play it anymore, because PSN doesn't allow accounts in their country, they don't even have a choice.
  Selling the game in those regions in the first place was deeply wrong, but then taking away the ability to play AFTER they sold it to people, that's a bridge too far.
  And we're not just talking about most of Africa (not that that would be less bad), we're also talking about countries like Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania, those are EU members, how is there no PSN available there?
  
  The people who cared about it never played the game.
  Like me; I loved the first helldivers but noped out of this one.
  
  This is why I bought it on my ps5 only, at least there it doesn't matter
  
  People are already playing games with anticheat like Apex, Fortnite, Valorant, League, Genshin Impact, etc so that part is the least surprising.
- I think it's because PC gamers are often anti console so having to sign up to PSN and you don't even own a PlayStation feels very wrong.
  It's a branding issue. If they required you to have an "Arrowhead Network" account login no-one would bat an eye... Even if it was just rebadged PSN.
- oh, my God.... the gamers... are rising up.....
  
  We are after all, the most oppressed group
  
  They targeted gamers.
  Gamers.
  
  I'll have you know this is oppression worse than what people of color experienced during the antebellum south. By God it might even be worse than the Holocaust.
- Yeah compared to rootkits, micro transactions, unfinished games at launch, publisher launchers, seems there's no shortage of things to whinge about in the current gaming space.
  This game has a couple of those things but generally has been the best co-op shooting experience since Left for Dead 2 to me. Helldivers 1 was a blast too though.
  I feel like the level of whiplash this game is getting is similar to that of Cyberpunk but I could be exaggerating. If the game wasn't so successful at checking people's boxes at the outset, I think we wouldn't be having this discussion today. It being so popular is why there are a ton of people freaking out. I'm not saying it's not warranted, just observing.
  Needless to say, Sony is never going to allow an account linking grace period in any of their games going forward. It looks like they gave the kids candy and then took it away, better for them to just not give the candy in the first place.
  Edit to add: I also find it hard to stomach the amount of ire to some degree because the creative devs had nothing to do with this and clearly put a ton of energy and love into the game. They even have a unique connection to the community through the bespoke game master, Joel. I'm pretty torn about it: I want the gaming industry to stop this full speed charge toward enshittification like, literally, every other aspect of life now. But I don't want developers to have to not only worry about mass layoffs and internal industry enshittification on top of reactionary blowback from the people they make the games for.
  I will say I have the luxury of living in a country that's supported by PSN and already have an account, so it colors my opinions.
  
  If it makes you feel any better, one of Arrowhead’s community managers specifically said to take the anger to steam. It makes it very public that people are unhappy, and it’s more likely to get Sony to change the policy. So the devs are aware of why this is happening, and it appears that to an extent at least, support the negative reviews
- For me personally, it just got to me that Sony gave negative shits while Arrowhead was fighting an uphill battle getting their game playable in the face of overnight success, and now that everything is great and the hard work is done, Sony's seeing dollar signs and pushing their fucking corpo bullshit on a studio that sees zero benefit and suffers all the fallout. They're all too happy to shit where Arrowhead eats and it pisses me off.
- Better late than never I guess.

Hate is just love getting all twisted up. You can’t get this kind of negativity from something that’s always been awful, it has to be deeply loved first in order for the hate to properly flow.
- This is beautiful. I hate it.

Overwatch 2 being at only 18% positive brings me joy
- I'm actually surprised they increased it that much. Last time I checked, it was swimming at 9%.
  
  steam deleted a LOT of reviews on the overwatch page at some point (probably repeatedly, probably an automated system).
  their "anti-review-bombing" measures sure love to fire when even when the community does have legitimate complaints.
  so overwatch hasn't gotten better, they just keep deleting some of the negative reviews...

Ah yes
PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds Battlegrounds
- I hate that they renamed it to this.

This is why I mostly play games from yesteryear. You start it up and play. No nonsense.
- Until they retroactively add a launcher like BioShock 1, 2007 game getting a launcher added in 2023. Luckily that one's not DRM and can be circumvented, ~~unlike Monster Hunter World getting DRM 6 years after release breaking it on some platforms.~~ Seems like only Monster Hunter Rise got the new DRM that broke Steam Deck support for a few days.
  
  Source on Monster Hunter World DRM? It’s not listed on the stream page.

It beat out ow2. Impressive.
- Not in rating though, I didn't know they fell so low - 18% !
  
  Notice how much lower numbers are for OW2 tho. Its so unpopular less people are even bothering to review it.

That war thunder 62% should be way lower but Gaijin got Valve to remove a ton of their reviews for "spam"
- Eh, war thunder did make some neat changes after that protest.

What other games require an arbitrary extra account just to play? I know Ubisoft does it. How about EA or Epic?
- Epic did it to fallguys a ~year after the game came out
- Most of the F2P games.
- SquEnix does for a lot of their newer games. WB requires one for Multiversus, which that one requires your fucking address for some damn reason?!
  And yeah, most F2P and MMOs require one. I don't even remember mine for SWTOR.

hopefully this is the kick in the ass that sony needs to learn that bait and switches are universally hated by customers.

This gives me a sense of pride and accomplishment.

SNOY already got your money though.

Cs2 filled with salt
- Nah with all the cheaters at the moment there is no room for salt.
  ( I know ban waves are going on but that has only decreased the likelihood of running into one from 80% to 50% sofar.)

And yet still in top ten sales per day. Last I checked was sixth for paid games. In the end most will just keep playing and do as the company tells them to do.

FAFO

Goddammit I want this game to succeed without this bullshit. I cannot compete PvP but I can throw my ass into the fodder mill against some bots.
Now...I dunno...shit.

People are fucking babies. I bought this on PS5 and it was so good I got it on Steam for my son. It asked me to sync to my PSN and I did. If we didn’t live somewhere that had PSN, that would be different. But those who do, who gives a flying fuck that you have to have a free PSN account….
- Good for you, your circumstances lined up in such a way as for you to already have a PSN account through the console you own. But the issues you are ignoring are as follows:
  it is predatory to impose such a major change (and, yes, it is major) on people AFTER they have purchased the game. The ease of creating a PSN account is an utterly moot point, a paying customer should not be forced to suffer changes to a thing they, supposedly, already owned, let alone a change which basically reduces the options to "you either give us your information, or you don't play the game ON WHICH YOU ALREADY SPENT MONEY."
  the more accounts you have nowadays, the more your personal data is sold around. In addition, it's a clear demonstration of encroachment by corporations who really should have no business forcing you to sign up to their shitty platforms.
  it's an extra layer of DRM, and DRM is exclusively a bad thing however you cut it (DRM means you don't actually own the thing you friggin' bought).
  fuck Sony and their atrocious greed. Pure and simple.
  
  You forget their inability to guard personal data. It's like telling your secrets to the town blabbermouth.
  Or using lastpass. The only thing they needed to do was keep your passwords safe. And it happened so often its almost a meme. I dont even know why They're still in business
  
  And for so many people there isn't even a choice. They bought the game, and now they can't play it, because no PSN in their country.
  And even for some countries with access to PSN, creating an account requires photo-id and a face scan. That's complete bullshit.
- "It's not a problem until it happens to me."
  It looks like c/conservative is leaking again.
- You seem pretty simple-minded
- The issue is for people who don't have a PlayStation so making an account does nothing, and a PSN account is yet another account they need to manage and will get spam emails from. The other issue is this was a bait and switch since people didn't need to connect the accounts at first, and on top of that the sole reason why linking is now required is because Sony wants to artificially inflate their account numbers for investors, which is misinformation for investors and annoyance for users
- mayb you will think differently when next time you get locked out for no reason
- For some people it is a privacy issue for others extra work.
- Sony seems like the babies to me blundering a nice surprise success and good will from the community with an unnecessary change. It's more their issue than mine. I just lose out on a game. Them on the other hand have PR to work out and potential consequences for employees. All for a change that didn't need to happen. Stupid business decision.