The damage is still done. People know that the sword of Damocles is hanging over their heads now. I'm sure some will go crawling back, but their success will never be what it was before all of this.
The fact that Arrowhead knew all of this was coming six months ago and didn't say anything is absurd. If these AA developers are going to act no differently than the AAA studios, they will be going down with them in the coming crash. Fuck Arrowhead. Fuck Shift Up. Fuck Sony.
Arrowhead knew all of this was coming six months ago and didn't say anything is absurd
In Arrowhead's defense, they never anticipated six months ago how much this game would blow up. They then spent weeks in crunch time just trying to keep the servers alive. Then Sony starts demanding that they crack down on PSN linking even though Sony, who is in charge of sales, sold the game in countries with no PSN support. Sony deserves the bulk of the blame here.
A lie of omission is still a lie. Arrowhead is equally guilty, just like Shift Up is for their mess. "Just following orders" will never earn any sympathy from me.
The real issue at the end of the day was that Sony willfully listed the game on Steam in regions that cannot (without breaking ToS) create a PSN account. Even if the account linking requirement was supposed to be in from the start and only got kicked down the road due to server issues, Sony created a shitstorm largely because of how widely listed the game was. Arrowhead isn't to blame for that aspect at the very least, because the reason studios opt for a publisher is to manage logistics, like where to sell the game.
The damage is still done. People know that the sword of Damocles is hanging over their heads now. I'm sure some will go crawling back, but their success will never be what it was before all of this.
The fact that Arrowhead knew all of this was coming six months ago and didn't say anything is absurd. If these AA developers are going to act no differently than the AAA studios, they will be going down with them in the coming crash. Fuck Arrowhead. Fuck Shift Up. Fuck Sony.
In Arrowhead's defense, they never anticipated six months ago how much this game would blow up. They then spent weeks in crunch time just trying to keep the servers alive. Then Sony starts demanding that they crack down on PSN linking even though Sony, who is in charge of sales, sold the game in countries with no PSN support. Sony deserves the bulk of the blame here.
A lie of omission is still a lie. Arrowhead is equally guilty, just like Shift Up is for their mess. "Just following orders" will never earn any sympathy from me.
The real issue at the end of the day was that Sony willfully listed the game on Steam in regions that cannot (without breaking ToS) create a PSN account. Even if the account linking requirement was supposed to be in from the start and only got kicked down the road due to server issues, Sony created a shitstorm largely because of how widely listed the game was. Arrowhead isn't to blame for that aspect at the very least, because the reason studios opt for a publisher is to manage logistics, like where to sell the game.
That was Steam doing it to go after the publisher for the potential refund shit storm.
Sony wasn't awake and at work til last night, and odds are their executives crapped themselves when they walked in.