Sony gives up on forcing PlayStation Network for Helldivers 2
Sony gives up on forcing PlayStation Network for Helldivers 2
Operation Completed? Sony announced their plans for forcing PlayStation Network accounts for Helldivers 2 have now been scrapped.
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Sony learns that PC players are somewhat harder to fleece than console players. Will try to be gentler next time.
PCMR was fleeced 20 years ago when they gave up disks to gaben. I save thousands a year renting and reselling my games. It's beyond me how PCMR will rage about an account but to this day tolerate no discs.
While I understand that I'm giving up "owning" the game, Steam has a good track record of trying to make users happy. It being a private company means that it's beholden to users rather than shareholders. In this instance, the benefits outweigh the drawbacks, at least for me. I don't have enough space in my home for the 100s of games I have on top of not having to worry about disks getting scratched or corrupted. Then I also don't have to worry about downloading game patches from a 20 year old site that may or may not still be up (AoE 2) to keep playing on a modern OS. Also, there's a centralized space for users to communicate, upload mods, host servers, etc. without having to jump through different hoops for different games (Hamachi, GameSpy, etc.).
That being said, I appreciate that there are alternatives for people that feel differently. And I appreciate there are alternatives and competition (even people like you) keeping corporate greed in check and making Valve have to work to stay good for users.
When Gabe Newell dies or leaves the company though, I'll be watching closely to see who the new CEO will be and figure it out from there.
While I understand that I'm giving up "owning" the game, Steam has a good track record of trying to make users happy.
When Gabe Newell dies or leaves the company though, I'll be watching closely to see who the new CEO will be and figure it out from there.
This is one of the many reasons why I prefer to buy games in Gog, although I have more games on Steam mainly because I got them on bundled deals.
The rule of thumb is that "this is why we can't have nice things" and all things eventually become enshittified. Enjoy the nice things while they're there, but always have contingencies.
It bothers me less due to the nature of backups. You can back up a DRM free PC game. You cant back up a console game without jailbreaking it.
Agreed, I said harder not impossible.
Yeah, cause "PC players" are somehow completely different people from those who play on consoles. Literally every person I know personally who plays on PC also has consoles. So the chances are, vast majority of gamers just play games, whatever the platform.
Sony just sometimes reacts to pushback, like they reversed the decision to remove Discovery content, or how they kept the PS3 and Vita stores running after people complained.
Stop this gaming elitism.
Claiming a console only player would be more willing to accept this than a pc only player isn't elitist, it's common sense. Owning a console is already saying "I'm okay with exclusivity and walled gardens." If you weren't you wouldn't have paid so much for access to exclusive titles. Also just because your friend have both doesn't make that the norm. I haven't owned a console since I built my first computer and only know one person who owns a console that isn't a switch.
Putting personal experiences side, I already provided 2 examples of cases that would've affected exclusively console players and they pushed back enough to cause a reversal.
Y'all both look right in certain respects, but I do need to point out, Sony is public, and as much as I'd like to comment them on listening to feedback, I guarantee you they have a set threshold on losses per product before they walk back any decision. This is not something they did for their players, it's something they did for their investors.
Of course, Sony is corporation and doesn't do things purely to appease consumers. But they also care about their reputation, so getting negative press is damaging to them.
Unlike with the Helldivers situation, where people could refund, the examples I listed had no direct way of causing financial damage, only reputational one. And it still worked, cause at the end of the day, reputation converts into money.