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.
True but if the removal WAS done by Steam, this could be not just protecting themselves legally but also opportunistic retaliation and setting a line in the sand.
In the past, I don't think Steam had the leverage or power to tell publishers not to do that for fear of losing games being published on their site.
Current day, we see how MASSIVELY bad all game studios and publishers are doing financially thanks to both ideological decisions and mismanagement. Might be the perfect opportunity to do this now right when Sony made the biggest blunder with a once praised game when they have the maximum leverage and Sony have little to retaliate against since their other games have been suffering thanks to their mismanagement.
If the removal was done by Steam, it opens Steam up to a lawsuit from the publisher. For a non-valid reason, they restricted it to a number of countries for their own business gain at the cost of the second party's income. That is a form of tortuous interference, and Steam would be liable for all the refunds and all the lost potential sales.
Steam is stupid, and has more than a few danger-hair DIE types, but I don't think they're quite so terminally stupid as to do that.
Not that I know the finer points of business or contract law—or whatever contract Steam may have in place specifically—but I would think "you made it so that the people here literally cannot use this product, we cannot sell it to them because of that" should be a valid reason.
"We aren't obligated to continue to sell a non-functioning product that could open us up to legal liabilities" should be somewhere in Steam's contract, one would think.
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.
True but if the removal WAS done by Steam, this could be not just protecting themselves legally but also opportunistic retaliation and setting a line in the sand.
In the past, I don't think Steam had the leverage or power to tell publishers not to do that for fear of losing games being published on their site.
Current day, we see how MASSIVELY bad all game studios and publishers are doing financially thanks to both ideological decisions and mismanagement. Might be the perfect opportunity to do this now right when Sony made the biggest blunder with a once praised game when they have the maximum leverage and Sony have little to retaliate against since their other games have been suffering thanks to their mismanagement.
If the removal was done by Steam, it opens Steam up to a lawsuit from the publisher. For a non-valid reason, they restricted it to a number of countries for their own business gain at the cost of the second party's income. That is a form of tortuous interference, and Steam would be liable for all the refunds and all the lost potential sales.
Steam is stupid, and has more than a few danger-hair DIE types, but I don't think they're quite so terminally stupid as to do that.
Not that I know the finer points of business or contract law—or whatever contract Steam may have in place specifically—but I would think "you made it so that the people here literally cannot use this product, we cannot sell it to them because of that" should be a valid reason.
"We aren't obligated to continue to sell a non-functioning product that could open us up to legal liabilities" should be somewhere in Steam's contract, one would think.