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Helldivers 2 Removed from Purchase on Steam in over 150 Countries

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Re: Helldivers 2 Removed from Purchase on Steam in over 150 Countries

#181

Post by bun_terminator »

gambiting wrote: post #124
bun_terminator wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

true in legal terms. But it was hidden and the reason given for the change was a blatant lie. They were deceiving users until they could no longer refund. Something like that is often called a scam or fraud

>>But it was hidden When you start the game, you literally get a full screen banner that says a PSN account is required to play and you must sign in. It's just that until now you could click cancel and the game would still launch. How can anyone call it "hidden" is literally beyond me. It's not hidden on page 527 of the EULA or something - it's literally said explicitly on a full screen banner shown to every player w…

In lawyer terms: yes.

But the reality of modern gaming is this: You start a game and do a marathon of pressing "no", "cancel", "skip", "x", "close" etc to shut off all the bullshit it throws at you. I did so with helldivers and was completely unaware what it says about psn. I didn't even know it was a console game or that Sony was involved! And I would never have bought it if I knew. So in practice I'd say it's exactly as hidden as page 527 on EULA

Re: Helldivers 2 Removed from Purchase on Steam in over 150 Countries

#182

Post by twixfel »

gambiting wrote: post #124
bun_terminator wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

true in legal terms. But it was hidden and the reason given for the change was a blatant lie. They were deceiving users until they could no longer refund. Something like that is often called a scam or fraud

>>But it was hidden When you start the game, you literally get a full screen banner that says a PSN account is required to play and you must sign in. It's just that until now you could click cancel and the game would still launch. How can anyone call it "hidden" is literally beyond me. It's not hidden on page 527 of the EULA or something - it's literally said explicitly on a full screen banner shown to every player w…

OK but by that point it is too late, you need to be informed before you purchase the game, not after.

> Not to mention it's mentioned on the Steam store page.

On the sony online store it's stated that it is not necessary.

Re: Helldivers 2 Removed from Purchase on Steam in over 150 Countries

#183

Post by FMecha »

haunter wrote: post #136
rezonant wrote: post #134

There's so much coverage of this from the gamer crowd that entirely ignores that a PSN account was required from the beginning but waived because of the unexpected popularity of the game and how Sony couldn't handle it. To be fair, when they had problems and added a Skip button, they should have made it more clear that a PSN account would be required in the future, but given the willful ignorance of the facts by the…

>entirely ignores that a PSN account was required from the beginning but waived because of the unexpected popularity of the game They shouldn't have sold the game on Steam in countries where PSN is not available.

Even if they did that at launch, I can still smell backlash.

Re: Helldivers 2 Removed from Purchase on Steam in over 150 Countries

#184

Post by Uvix »

remram wrote: post #162
Uvix wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it’s being controlled by Tokyo, why do they keep censoring Japanese games but not Western ones?

Why not? Regardless of the conversation above I don't understand this argument. Toyota sells car with the driving wheel on the left in the USA. Does that make them less of a Japanese company?

No, but it's a terrible analogy. The equivalent would be if Toyota started selling only left-hand drive cars in Japan.

Re: Helldivers 2 Removed from Purchase on Steam in over 150 Countries

#185

Post by hiccuphippo »

bluefirebrand wrote: post #148
gambiting wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>But it was hidden When you start the game, you literally get a full screen banner that says a PSN account is required to play and you must sign in. It's just that until now you could click cancel and the game would still launch. How can anyone call it "hidden" is literally beyond me. It's not hidden on page 527 of the EULA or something - it's literally said explicitly on a full screen banner shown to every player w…

Two things: 1) This dialog only showed one time, the very first time you launched the game 2) This dialog was skippable If you skipped it one single time, it let you play for months now without ever seeing it again. If they wanted to make it clear it was mandatory eventually then the wording and behavior should have made this clear every single time you open the game Allowing to skip means it's not mandatory, regardl…

Yes, how is it a technical difficulty to remove a skip button? Players from countries that can't legally acquire a PSN account, or don't want to get one, would have been able to return it ASAP. I guess it was easier to inflate their numbers.

Re: Helldivers 2 Removed from Purchase on Steam in over 150 Countries

#186

Post by gambiting »

twixfel wrote: post #182
gambiting wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>But it was hidden When you start the game, you literally get a full screen banner that says a PSN account is required to play and you must sign in. It's just that until now you could click cancel and the game would still launch. How can anyone call it "hidden" is literally beyond me. It's not hidden on page 527 of the EULA or something - it's literally said explicitly on a full screen banner shown to every player w…

OK but by that point it is too late, you need to be informed before you purchase the game, not after. > Not to mention it's mentioned on the Steam store page. On the sony online store it's stated that it is not necessary.

On the steam page it says it is. I wasn't aware that Sony's page says otherwise.

Re: Helldivers 2 Removed from Purchase on Steam in over 150 Countries

#187

Post by FMecha »

aarroyoc wrote: post #30
flohofwoe wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A multiplayer game that's very successful on Steam - but published by Sony - suddenly has a requirement to have both a Steam and PSN account in order to log into the game - a couple of months after the game was released. As a PC gamer I would be pissed too tbh (on the other hand, it's the same bullshit that Ubisoft pulls for their games released on Steam).

And not just that. They required PSN accounts on countries where PSN is not available (and using a VPN to create it goes against the ToS, and people get banned). So in those countries they have effectively banned you from playing the game you purchased weeks ago.

>using a VPN to create it goes against the ToS, and people get banned

Though that seem to be enforced less often than people think it is, one Philippine player (a country that did not have PSN) was ejected from Sony's live esports events because of them entering using another country's flag (in this case, Hong Kong - it is a common practice for players in ASEAN region without PSN, such as Philippines and Vietnam, to create an Hong Kong or Singapore account): https://www.carmudi.com.ph/journal/local-player-qualifies-gr...

Re: Helldivers 2 Removed from Purchase on Steam in over 150 Countries

#188

Post by gruez »

viraptor wrote: post #12
unpopularopp wrote: post #3

I hope one day the EU will go after Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo. If iOS is a walled garden then consoles are prison.

iOS only matters in this case, because they have close to monopoly in some areas. But at you listed, in the EU you've got Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, and the whole PC market. Consoles are really not a prison in this case. (I agree the behaviour would be regulated a bit either way. But it's not even close to "prison")

>iOS only matters in this case, because they have close to monopoly in some areas

AFAIK at the country level ios market share tops out at around 60%. That's nowhere near a "monopoly".

Re: Helldivers 2 Removed from Purchase on Steam in over 150 Countries

#189

Post by gruez »

darby_eight wrote: post #174
goosedragons wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it actually Sony selling their games or consoles in your country or is it 3rd party sellers who import them from elsewhere because there's demand? It is still shitty and annoying that stuff is geoblocked, be it games, movies, books, etc. But the two are pretty different.

If you have to distinguish this sounds like a rather twisted conception of property to begin with.

Assuming it's actually sold by unauthorized third party sellers, every step in the chain seems pretty straightforward. People in [country where PSN isn't available] want PS5s. Enterprising people see an opportunity. Sony (or their authorized resellers) in those other countries sell PS5s to the importers because to them you don't need to fill out a KYC form to buy a PS5 so they're they're indistinguishable from someone who's buying one for domestic consumption. The end result is not ideal and the OP acknowledges this, but I'm not seeing where the "rather twisted conception of property" is coming from.

Re: Helldivers 2 Removed from Purchase on Steam in over 150 Countries

#190

Post by Biganon »

henry_viii wrote: post #65

> in over 150 countries In 177 countries to be exact. For context, there are 195 countries in the world.

The list used by steam contains like 250 countries, because they split some countries in different regions, e. g. Mayotte is listed as a separate country despite being part of France
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