God do I ever hate corporate speak.
"Yeah we figured we could increase our market share but that controversy would harm profits even more. Nevermind thihi >.<"
"Rest assured we'll keep trying other ways until we find one that you don't really care about or don't realize it's screwing you over. Thank you for your continued support!"
Yeah, but Sony cant say "Fuck, calm down we wont do it if you cunts are gonna carry on like this."
Democracy? No, free market capitalism, yes. They would not give a shit about negative reviews on steam if it were not affecting their bottom line.
Definitely. Hitting them where it matters most, their pockets. They probably have a long term plan with this game and being hit this early with that many reviews would hurt their pockets. I guess most of us have very little hope that Sony would reverse their decision hence the refunds etc but here we are with this announcement. Anyways, what do we know. We are just kids playing games.
Its a reference to the game
Major order complete. The Automaton... Er, Sony Menace has been driven back can the south quadrant of the map just be sony executives and we have to go fight them off periodically
Reminds me of this Steam review I saw posted a couple days ago:
That would actually be fucking hilarious. It is only available to PC players.
So let's see if I've got the situation surrounded here:
Helldivers 2 = popular game built by a mid-sized studio under parent company Sony Fuckwits International. Well liked game, lots of people playing and enjoying it having purchased it on Steam for PC.
Sony Fuckwits International decides after loads of copies have been sold on Steam that a Playstation account is now required, including for copies of the game sold in regions where Playstation accounts aren't allowed.
Helldivers 2 sees a catastrophic drop in reviews, Valve starts issuing refunds outside their normal refund range, and Sony Fuckwits International spends an entire week getting cornholed by the gaming press. The CEO of the smaller studio makes some press releases sounding just as upset as the gamers, almost saying "Things were going so great until ultimate retardation descended from on high."
The backlash was apparently going to effect investor returns this quarter so they have reversed the decision. This is what it takes to keep companies like Sony in check.
This is the sort of thing that should make everyone everywhere really think twice about ordering that shiny new PS6 when it comes out in what? 1 or 2 years?
I've been seeing a lot of this stuff in the gaming news lately. Helldivers 2 has been a big one, I think Kerbal Space Program 2 has outright died, like the parent company fired the team who were making it? And I'm a little nervous about Coffee Stain Studios, the latest update video from Satisfactory's community manager Snutt contained some noise about parent companies and restructuring that had that distinct smell of yacht polish and trafficked children that always follows upper management bullshittery.
The only thing I would say isn't 100% correct here is that the decision to require a Playstation account was made 6 months before the game launched, not after. Technical issues prevented the game from launching with the requirement actually implemented though, and from the abruptness of the original announcement, I would guess that the developers are the ones who actually had their "grace period" from Sony to get it implemented expire.
Still puts me in a place of wanting to avoid large companies in gaming as much as possible. Studios with large parent companies to this shit. I don't understand why anyone is willing to buy games from big companies anymore.
Worth noting that 6 months may not sound like a short timespan, but the game was in development for ~7 years. They were down to the “get this polished” stages, when Sony handed down the PSN requirement. Doing it properly would require a lot of redone work and code. So of course, it didn’t work properly on launch.
I guess seeing your game rating go to nearly 50% negative over the course of 3 days after being overwhelmingly positive for weeks made some execs scratch their heads.
...future plans.
Like what twisted new bullshit scam will be next?
They are working on their ingame overlay for Ghost of Tsushima right now. Which also requires a PSN account for the coop mode.
Probably followed by a PSN launcher for PC and then paid online multiplayer.
I don't think paid online is gonna happen. The only way I could see them doing it would be if they left steam so valve couldn't refund the game, made an absolutely killer multiplayer game, idk if Helldiver's would even be good enough, and bait and switch everyone after the game got really popular. Even then most of the players would probably just go to another game.
Great job PC Helldivers. Can the community do something about the Kernel-level rootkit?
It runs in userspace on Linux
Eee. But, big scary terminals and penguins! /s
what is this feeling, this trembling and energetic feeling, deep within me...?
is it ...
... joy?
The Sony way:
Shitstorm = Feedback
Noted
Nah, you burned that bridge, Sony. I'm not coming back.
This is the wrong way. This is what collective action does. But then we all have to have the grace to let people and Companies change course.
No, what? They're supposed to just return once Sony reverses, trusting they won't try anything again later?
Permanently losing a customer teaches them a better lesson. Distrusting them unless they actually spend the time and effort to earn it back teaches them a better lesson.
Anything else is the same as the slap-on-the-wrist mild fines we all hate to see when businesses are finally caught committing massive fraud.
At the end of the day, you have control over your own actions. You will be the one missing out in HD2, and if you're ok with that, then so be it.
The funny thing about this is that this community has proven it will not take any bullshit, so you're doing yourself a disservice by not allowing yourself to be a part of it anymore.
If you enjoy the game, allow yourself to play it again, and if Sony gets up to fuckery, believe in your fellow Divers to drop the bomb on them again.
Yes, that's the tradeoff, you accept some amount of bad behavior in exchange for a game you enjoy. I don't think a principled stance like theirs is fun. I think long term consequences are the only way to prevent them from trying to creep things like this in over and over until it finally works.
"The community will not put up with any bullshit, we're safe now."
Installs a rootkit.
Hey! You're entitled to that opinion. I think each person has their level of bullshit tolerance. I think many people will review positively since the game was overall very good for 2 months and the change that would have made it awful was reversed, and willing to give it one or more chances. Others will keep the negative and request a refund, which will hopefully remind Sony not to do it again.
Holy crap what a weekend
Time to change back them negative reviews and then time to GET SOME!
Great news.
A huge collective effort to have players voices heard. I think some credit might need to go to the devs as well, as I'm sure they have been pushing back against this bullshit that Sony were trying to pull..
Finally ! I hope we can go back to ~~bitching~~ talking constructively about balance patches now.
Helldiver fans -- we've heard your feedback...
Pretty sure -- and I use them all the time to add bonus thoughts -- that's not how you use an em dash.
You call that an em dash? THIS is an emdash! —
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