I’m a PS5 player, so I can’t make an impact, but if you did write a negative review (thank you, you made this happen ❤️) please consider taking the time to change it! This was clearly not AH decision and the game deserves an accurate review, it’s easily one of the best games I’ve ever played and definitely the best game as a service!
Edit: woke up to new comments, this post reminded… Lemmy is just the same as Reddit.
Edit2: Christ I need to turn off Lemmy notifications, I’ve left this community and this was a stark reminder for me… don’t engage with a specific game community, just enjoy the fucking game!
Changed my review to positive. I also added a note that a thumbs down from a second bait-and-switch won’t be coming back up.
HD2 is a very rare example of a AAA live service game done right, Sony really had to come this close to fucking up what will be one of their top sellers.
In related news, HD2 is already Sony’s 7th best selling game. Of all time.
Note: this wasn’t my original source, but still
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If steam hadn’t started refunding i dont even think that they’d have changed their mind
Shouldn’t the review reflect what the game actually is though?
If the game ships with
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additional unnecessary activation requirements
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a rootkit
Then those factors should affect the reviews. You’re not reviewing specific segments of a product, you’re sharing your experience start to finish.
The recent reviews aren’t about the “rootkit”
And while I don’t necessarily disagree I do think that reviews should ideally reflect the game as it currently is and not as it were. It’s no big deal though.
No, the recent reviews are about a company trying to pull a stunt expecting no backlash. There was backlash. You review the game at the time and how it was then. You don’t keep re-reviewing after every week to keep your review up to date.
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That’s why steam has a review system based on dates, bad reviews will go away as time goes on if the game goes the right direction, the negative reviews simply serve as a point you can see that they fucked up, like a review time capsule. That’s how I see it.
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Do what you want, i dont care if the reviews are bad or good.
But i just have to react to your “legal” argument.
Legal pressure over an EULA you accepted when you bought the game and got reminded on when you first started the game? The game you didn’t refund for over 3 months and probably have 10s if not 100s of hours in? That EULA?
Because contrary to what you seem to think it was in there from the get go. That it didn’t work is nice, but doesn’t mean anything.
That they created a workaround because it didn’t work is nice of them but again, besides the point.
You accepted the EULA. you clearly didn’t read it. Who’s fault is that?
The only pressure they felt where you guys making a lot of noise. And that was and is great.
But what did Sony learned? What did they really learn?
I’ll tell you:
Next time, when they fuck up… Don’t back down. Because if you do back down the negativity stays anyway and you gain nothing.
That’s the lessons the corpos have learned. They’ve learned they can’t win. Just accepting the damage is the better strategy. That way you earn something (the ones who did link) at least.
I signed nothing. There’s no fingerprint anywhere. It might be strange to you, but in some places of the world an EULA is not a binding contract signed in blood that you or your children must fulfil.
When we played for months without the link, when there were no advertisement that the link would be enforced at some point, when Sony faq informed that it was optional, this EULA is mere bullshit.
There is no legal argument. You (or whoever up in this thread) brought that up, not me. I reacted to that. It was never stated anywhere that it was optional. You pulled that out of, I dunno. I strongly suggest you yourself read that faq and dont regurgitate BS you red on discord but didnt bother to confirm yourself.
You accepted the license and the end user agreement the moment you started the game and didn’t reimburse the game in the first few hours. No blood, no fingerprint or the life of your firstborn son needed.
Read shit before you click accept. Don’t accept what you dont like. That is all.
Sony changed its faq during the debacle. May the 3rd it was stated that psn was optional to play on pc. May the 4th it was stated that some games may require it. The game also allowed you to play without psn account, and there was a button programmed in the game to skip the link. There was no information that it was a temporary bypass anywhere.
I don’t know why you support Sony on this kind of bullshit. You don’t seem very informed about all the problems there were.
You brought the EULA thing. This is the legal argument. And it’s plain worthless.
I’m not changing mine until (1) after the 30th, (2) game is back on for purchase in restricted countries, and (3) Sony doesn’t backpedal yet again before then.
Look, I honestly get the sentiment and AH deserves the praise for sure, but at this point I honestly can’t confidently say I trust Sony to not just be doing all this for positive PR.
Well, if they do, that’ll be the death of the game
People make mistakes, even intentional ones. I’m a big believer in recognising when people admit to their mistakes because otherwise why even bother to right any wrongs you have made?
100%. I hate how everyone wants to completely burn all bridges with people who make mistakes, even when they own up and demonstrate that they understand what was incorrect about their actions. It’s a very pervasive attitude on the internet and it’s leaking into real life too.
Absolutely cut out toxic people and companies that continue to abuse, but recognize legitimate attempts to change and give people credit.
To be fair, this was less of a “legitimate attempt to change” and more “the devs and community forced Sony’s hand.”
If no one changes their review then they did it for nothing and won’t listen next time because it makes no difference for them either.
No, for the next time they should have learned not to so obviously fuck up people games after sales so they don’t get such negative review accumulation.
Next time they will do what they want reviews be damned because they already have your money
Most people will never buy a Sony game ever again.
Therefore, stop giving them money.
Correction, the object of our ire isn’t “people”, but the Sony corporation which has repeatedly demonstrated that it cannot be trusted. This is not a “legitimate attempt to change”, this is a reluctant policy rollback.
I am 100% behind this sentiment outside of continued abuse (like that of nearly every publishing company in the video game industry) as long as they apologize.
But the problem is that corporations are not people. One of the biggest downfalls of America getting into the shit situation that it is in was legally treating corporations as people. It screwed them over
The same is true socially. Corporations are not people. They are composed of people, but the problem is that many or most people will compromise their personal values to keep their job or get a promotion. That has been shown time and time again. A corporation’s goal is 100% exclusively, both legally and internally, to make profit for the shareholders. It will do whatever possible, screw over whoever possible, and even harm whoever necessary to create extra profit for shareholders. (Ex. Boeing, Nestle, Coke, Blackrock, palantir, exxon, the lidt goes on) The only thing that makes them back down in regulation or people threatening their profits.
This time, gamers were vocal enough, outraged enough, and ready to actually affect their profits (and future prospects of microtransactions or profitable sequels) enough for them to back down.
THEY DID NOT EVEN APOLOGIZE, read their statement, they did not make a mistake, they just chose a wrong time to try to squeeze some extra profit and were surprised that the pushback was enough to affect their profits and not just fade away like it usually does.
I completely agree. And of course they didn’t apologize, it was a classic, corporate „we hear you“. What do you suggest we do?
Stop giving Sony any money.
Whether or not they’re going to walk back the changes, steam still has the game delisted in the countries where you can’t make a psn account. Until that block is lifted, not changing my review at all.
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Or when they see it they’ll think the reviews will be bad no matter what they do so why not just do what they want
Because at that point they can just write off the game for a tax rebate.
Then you won’t be able to react once more.
Tell me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t that a move from steam to mitigate the damage that would occur if Sony went through with the account link requirement?
I’m honestly unsure. But that’s the point where I personally would consider the issue entirely cured. I.e. steam is ok again with selling the game in places where you can’t make a psn account.
No. At this point, it’s more about the message.
The only message you’re sending is “They gave me what I want but I’m still holding onto this anger”.
We won, son. The war’s over. You can let go now.
They were forced to change their mind. They didn’t change it because you really really wanted it. They dont care what you want.
If steam hadn’t started refunding sales, i doubt that they would have changed their mind.
Damaging their sales numbers is what forced them to change their minds, yes. Who did that, again?
We took action (through reviewing the game and requesting refunds) and made demands, they responded and met the demands. I’m not sure what’s gotten lost in translation here.
If you tell somebody “Do this, or else” and they do it, you’re supposed to drop the “or else” part, otherwise you go from having a legitimate argument to being a bully. Sony capitulated this time, but that’ll only keep up in the future if they’re given positive reinforcement when they actually fix problems. If Sony gives in and the response we give them is “Fuck you anyway”, they’re not likely going to cooperate the next time their communities are in uproar over their next inevitable fuckup.
I’m sure the Stellar Blade community is watching us closely, hoping we don’t piss off Sony too much before they make their petition to the King.
Good. Sony should be afraid of burning their review scores so badly that they can’t recover.
If they refuse to cooperate then they deserve to lose market share over forcing unpopular choices on their customers and potential customers.
Okay, and what do they deserve when they do cooperate?
Parole.
It’ll take years to build up trust again, they need to avoid squandering what little goodwill they have left (from people with memories too short to recall the Sony Music rootkit debacle).
The black mark stays on their permanent record, but they have an opportunity to demonstrate that they have actually reformed and aren’t just saying the right things to mitigate the current PR disaster.
And what of the people who can’t play because they pulled the game?
I assume they’re all getting refunds, unless Sony and Valve can work something out to allow the sale in those regions again.
Don’t even see why they would need to work anything out, just inform them they’ve lifted the requirements and can return to selling in those regions
The message is that if they even try to fuck up they get to pay it.
Simp harder for the corporation, they need more simping.
You think I’m defending Sony?
Good reminder. Was happy I got to update mine. And for folks saying “future buyers should know about this bullshit”, leave the original content, just update the rating and add some commentary.
Definitely will do that, the game itself is still very fun and not deserving of the bad ratings.
And with Sony finally having gotten the message (for the time being at least) they faced their mistake and were willing to make up for it, which doesn’t happen too often these days. And I do appreciate that.
Deciding not to do the unpopular thing that was costing your shareholders money isn’t deserving of praise. The fact that such a backlash was necessary to force their hand in the first place is proof that Sony has not learned their lesson.
I don’t think they should, TBH. Sony needs the reminder that this was a giant mistake. HD2 is already a successful game with extremely positive reviews from before the PSN issue. Now that we know the HD2 dev was not included in the decision to require PSN, not many still hold a grudge against Arrowhead.
If they hold to their promise going forward, the reviews will start coming down/changing. Let’s just see how they deal with Ghosts of Tsushima release.
I did Monday morning before work, if we punish them when we are upset, they fix it, and we continue to punish them then what is Sony’s incentive for backpedaling ?
To avoid upsetting people in the first place.
If you change your review, they’ll know they can pull shit like this again and you’ll still give them money.
Is op post satire?
Sony fanboys are hard at work to get those reviews back to positive. I don’t think you can pay people to get a better job than those fanatics. Some are even asking for public apologies to those who had hard words against Sony or arrowhead.
I absolutely will as soon as i get home from work!
If it takes this much effort to pass over ‘feedback’ for them to learn about the PC platform, then i think the reviews deserve to stay. Its the price SONY chose to pay
Backpeddeling works and is very cool.
Why? Nothing has changed yet.
Wait, did they ever stop people logging on? Was this drama over a promise in the future?
I thought everyone was blocked from logging on over the weekend and they only recently promised to remove that feature.
did they ever stop people logging on?
No, this wouldn’t have happened until May 30th as the tweet mentions. Starting May 6th is when new players would have been required to sign up for a PSN account before playing the game for the first time.
Was this drama over a promise in the future?
Yes, nothing actually changed on the players’ side of things. The announcement was made and subsequently backtracked on before any updates to the game were even pushed out. No one was blocked from logging in at any point, but they were told that without a PSN account by the end of May, they would have been.
They still thought it was a good idea and AH didn’t care enough to not sign a contract with Sony.
Wait, is it possible to publish a PlayStation game without going through Sony? They own that particular platform, and I have no info on if they allow third party publishers or not.
Yes it is possible, Rockstar publish their own games and if you need a non-major-studio example then Hollow Knight is published by Team Cherry.
They still need to go through Sony to get it onto the PS5. And Sony’s forced weird things before. It’s why there was an exclusive character for each console during Soul Calibur 2 days, Sony forced exclusive content in a game they didn’t publish in order to have that game on their console. There are plenty of other examples from that time, but I didn’t own a Sony system back then, so I can’t remember any off the top of my head.
Sony has final say on anything that goes into their console’s library, but they mostly mess with directly published games these days.
There was a timeline update from the devs, they signed with Sony 8 years ago, were made aware of this requirement 2 months prior to launch, then disabled during launch because servers were exploding. Apparently this wasn’t something put directly in the contract 8 years ago and if you think a tiny game studio has the resources to litigate their way out of that detail or decide to go it alone 2 months before launch you are wrong.
Sorry to link to this shitbox website. I don’t know where wlse it’s hosted. https://www.reddit.com/r/Helldivers/comments/1cl4b2w/all_roads_lead_to_sony/#lightbox
