Helldivers 2 PNS Controversy Is Embarrassing For Sony

Controversy won't seem to leave PlayStation easily. It has only been a few weeks since Sony was bombarded with criticism for their stand against Stellar Blade, and now it's happening again with Helldivers 2. In just 24 hours, Helldivers 2 has received over 100,000 negative reviews, as the community fiercely reacts against this insane PSN demand. Since its announcement, a number of things have changed, and it appears that Arrowhead Game Studios is making every effort to turn this around. That being said, they must undo everything, which is completely impossible.

Imagine purchasing a game, playing it for more than three months, and then being informed that you are unable to play it anymore unless you create a PlayStation Network account. Plus, you might be located in a country or region where it is illegal to create a PSN account. Thus, you are unable to participate in the game, which is just insane! We can state with confidence that the community's response to this has been nothing short of outstanding. Sony must be crazy to think it's a smart idea to merely cut ties with such a large player base.

On May 4, the well-known community manager Spitz made a surprising announcement in Discord. He stated that internal discussions regarding the mandatory linking change are still ongoing. Although he is unable to reveal any specifics, he did mention that the response from our developers has been pretty universally negative, and they were looking for better options. Arrowhead Game Studios then issued a formal statement expressing their disapproval and claiming that they are actively seeking solutions to address the issue. Spitz continues by saying that players in areas without PSN coverage will be left out unless a better arrangement is made. For those players, Sony won't guarantee that they will not make the requirement necessary. They will not compel anyone to violate Sony's terms of service or refrain from playing the game.

On May 3, Steam issued a list of all of the locations and countries from which it is not possible to create a PlayStation Network account. This prevented millions of users from being able to play the game. This is a remark that has the potential to be the announcement that Steam entirely eliminates the requirement that users have to have a PNS account. You can't have it both ways; for example, you can't claim that being in a region without PSN legitimately means you don't need it and can instead play on Steam. Since then, the whole point of the argument put forth by Arrowhead Game Studios and, indirectly, Sony, has been that players should link their PSN and Steam accounts so that they may ban you on Steam for violating their TOU. Unfortunately, that's not all: if your region doesn't have PSN, you won't be able to use Steam.

Helldivers 2 will never recover from this, since Sony will inevitably be cornered and the story will finish there. Simply said, such is the usual course of events, but it need not be this way. A large portion of the critic community holds the view that Sony is solely requesting PSN accounts because one of their games has unexpectedly gained massive popularity among people without PSN accounts. Sony is forcing them to sign up for PSN in the hopes that they will become paying customers and that they will be included in Sony's quarterly reports. Simply put, their only motivation is to maximize their financial gain.

The only way for Arrowhead Game Studios to undo whatever damage this has caused is for them to just come out and announce that this update has been canceled. Instead of causing this hassle by releasing an update in the middle of the process, they could have either left it alone or made it optional. These activities bring attention to a worrying trend where gamers' purchases can be rendered useless if the developer or publisher decides to roll out an update that wasn't agreed upon initially. In many cases, the gamers are left with no choice if they do not agree with the modifications that have been implemented. The importance of us, as customers, voicing our concerns and asking for improved user-friendly policies within the business cannot be overstated. Video games, after all, are supposed to be fun and a form of escape, and these anti-consumer policies can ruin that.