I'm getting a lot of mixed information right now so take what I say now as rumours until there's official news:
There is theory this actually Steam flexing their muscles essentially taking the game off the countries where PSN aren't available to ensure THEY aren't legally responsible in any way if any lawsuits happen because of this (Sony can say ToS but that means shit in an actual court case) and keep the hate directed at Sony. Supporting this is rumours that Steam is offering refunds for ALL affected players of PSN denied countries.
I've also heard that apparently they may be no longer making it a requirement for PSN to play Helldivers 2 in those countries, but if they don't need to do it because they CAN'T get PSN, why enforce this at all?
A lot of the information coming out suggests this was at least 90% Sony because guess what's coming up later this month? The investor calls about how the company is doing so my guess, some over zealous executives tried to strong arm the Helldiver players to join PSN to pad their numbers before the call, not expecting or caring for this reaction.
If that's the case it pisses me off more as ANOTHER example of Sony mismanagement when you could've simply offered a 'PlayStation exclusive cosmetic bundle if you join and link for free with PSN' with ZERO backlash, this might have shaken trust so much that you killed a cash cow game.
It's a Sony published game but Steam is just too big a market anymore so they thought they'd use it to try to drive traffic back to psn and whoops it backfired.
I'm getting a lot of mixed information right now so take what I say now as rumours until there's official news:
There is theory this actually Steam flexing their muscles essentially taking the game off the countries where PSN aren't available to ensure THEY aren't legally responsible in any way if any lawsuits happen because of this (Sony can say ToS but that means shit in an actual court case) and keep the hate directed at Sony. Supporting this is rumours that Steam is offering refunds for ALL affected players of PSN denied countries.
I've also heard that apparently they may be no longer making it a requirement for PSN to play Helldivers 2 in those countries, but if they don't need to do it because they CAN'T get PSN, why enforce this at all?
A lot of the information coming out suggests this was at least 90% Sony because guess what's coming up later this month? The investor calls about how the company is doing so my guess, some over zealous executives tried to strong arm the Helldiver players to join PSN to pad their numbers before the call, not expecting or caring for this reaction.
If that's the case it pisses me off more as ANOTHER example of Sony mismanagement when you could've simply offered a 'PlayStation exclusive cosmetic bundle if you join and link for free with PSN' with ZERO backlash, this might have shaken trust so much that you killed a cash cow game.
It's a Sony published game but Steam is just too big a market anymore so they thought they'd use it to try to drive traffic back to psn and whoops it backfired.