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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

#231

Post by leereeves »

RobotToaster wrote: post #106
terramex wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Requirement was always there, just not enforced due to „technical issues”. https://web.archive.org/web/20231207163847/https://store.ste... > „Requires 3rd-Party Account: PlayStation Network” However, making it purchasable from countries not supported by PSN accounts was big error on their part.

IANAL, but couldn't non enforcement create an implied-in-fact contract?

I'm not a lawyer either, but Wikipedia says that requires "a meeting of minds".

It seems pretty clear that Sony always intended to require a PSN account (although that wasn't always communicated well, it was stated on the Steam store page, at the end of news articles, and in the game itself) so there was no meeting of minds. Just confusion.

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

#232

Post by leereeves »

bun_terminator wrote: post #181
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…

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 exact…

I sort of agree, in that I skip a lot of the legal text during installation. I didn't read the EULA, for example.

But this requirement had an entire installation page dedicated to it. It was the only text on that page. I'm honestly surprised people somehow missed it.

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

#233

Post by ClumsyPilot »

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #146
sunaurus wrote: post #16

I've always found it ridiculous that Sony is allowed to sell their consoles and games in my county without allowing me to create a PSN account. They even sell the digital PS5, which REQUIRES a PSN account to get any games. And then, even if you break their TOS and create an account in another country, you're still constantly inconvenienced - you can't pay for games using your local payment method, for example, and a…

A game is just a game. There is nothing vital to it. It's the easiest thing in the world to boycott. And yet, players consistently fail to make the editors pay for their bad behaviors. EA is still craping on their clients. Blizzards fails forward. Loot boxes, DRM, crippling anti-cheat mechanisms, buggy games with expensive DLC and micro payments are everywhere. Sony even infected their customers with a rootkit once.…

> players consistently fail to make the editors pay for their bad behaviors.

This comes across as either gaslighting or refusal of evidence - you have a theory that bad players/companies will be punished by the market, and when it doesn't happen, you conclude that it's the consumer's fault.

Maybe you should consider that your theory is wrong, as it does not match the real world. It appears to me that, these days, most of the time bad players do very well in the market.

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

#234

Post by ClumsyPilot »

onli wrote: post #223
remram wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Proprietary/popular games on Linux come with the same monetization strategy on every platform. You want to play Fortnite, you get the Fortnite ads/loot boxes/nudges even on Linux (plus you'll get banned by anti-cheat quick).

Linux is not the recommended choice for the game selection, it's so that the OS is not already a hostile place with ads and spammy news. The games themselves have still to be filtered, as I wrote.

In the same manner one can avoid many bad aspects of modern cars if they are an experienced mechanic and can build their own, but that's not a reasonable burden for an average person.

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

#235

Post by ClumsyPilot »

hiccuphippo wrote: post #185
bluefirebrand wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Players from countries that can't legally acquire a PSN account

Would easily win a lawsuit.

As a publisher, it is your job to check these things before you process payment, that why you have a department of lawyers and regional availability settings in Steam.

If their system of accounts, online systems and EULA's are mutually contradicting and incompatible mess, that's on them.

Once you have taken my money, it is now your job to provide the service.

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

#236

Post by shermozle »

I tried to buy the game on Playstation's site a couple of weeks ago and kept getting this inscrutable error: Something went wrong.

After digging into the network tab, seems I'm failing a fraud screen somehow. No way to get around it.

Oh well, guess I won't buy your game.

    "errorCode": 3329793,
    "humanReadableCode": "failedFraudScreen",
    "humanReadableValidationErrors": [],
    "apiName": "purchase"

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

#237

Post by pezezin »

Degorath wrote: post #228
JohnMakin wrote: post #56

“Players shocked pikachu sony does something annoying.” any older users here may remember the SOE (sony online entertainment) days. They’d do evil stuff that would make this look like a rookie move.

The problem here is also that it's not just annoying, some EU member states are not supported for PSN accounts and according the TOS you can get your PSN account banned if you sign up with the wrong country!

How is that even legal? Don't such practices violate the Digital Single Market?

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

#238

Post by pezezin »

RunSet wrote: post #96
surgical_fire wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You are being sold a computer Videogame consoles are typically not marketed as general purpose computers. Out of the box, the only thing I can do on my Nintendo Switch is play videogames.

> Videogame consoles are typically not marketed as general purpose computers. Video game consoles have been crippled so that it would be misleading to market them as general purpose computers. However, the videogame industry in its entirety was dead-lifted from its premature grave by one "Nintendo Family Computer".

> However, the videogame industry in its entirety was dead-lifted from its premature grave by one "Nintendo Family Computer".

Consoles maybe, but I don't think that the early 8/16-bit microcomputers were affected by the crash of 1983, and in any case the crash was mostly a US phenomenon with minor effects on other regions.

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

#239

Post by Kiro »

Der_Einzige wrote: post #99

I’m very happy to hear this. Too many good games have had their player bases gimped by the rise of stupid “one hit wonder” games like palworld or helldivers 2. The Finals is somehow struggling to maintain a decent player base despite being objectively one of the freshest and best game releases in a decade. I can’t get my friends to play it because they’re too busy memeing about space bugs on a mediocre shooter. Glad…

You must be trolling. You're mad that people prefer something else than your own subjective opinion. Ridiculous.

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

#240

Post by Der_Einzige »

Kiro wrote: post #239
Der_Einzige wrote: post #99

I’m very happy to hear this. Too many good games have had their player bases gimped by the rise of stupid “one hit wonder” games like palworld or helldivers 2. The Finals is somehow struggling to maintain a decent player base despite being objectively one of the freshest and best game releases in a decade. I can’t get my friends to play it because they’re too busy memeing about space bugs on a mediocre shooter. Glad…

You must be trolling. You're mad that people prefer something else than your own subjective opinion. Ridiculous.

Nope. It’s all Schadenfreude. I want peoples bad video game opinions to be punished, and it’s happening in this case! Yippie!
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