I think they knew they would get backlash and factored that in.
He didn’t say anything like “I hear your concerns and we will look into them”
That’s because there’s nothing he can do - this was Sony’s decision as the publisher and the developers can’t do squat about it unfortunately
I’ve heard that their community manager was caught shitting on people who were upset about the announcement. That kinda suggests that it wasn’t a publisher decision, or at the very least, that their community manager(s) are handled by Sony. It’s possible they may be trying to court Sony into buying the company, or that Sony gave them an offer they couldn’t refuse.
This is definitely the work of Sony, not the developer. There is no motivation for the developer to require PSN signups for the game and all the motivation in the world for Sony. In addition, anything dealing with how the game is distributed is solely within the purview of the publisher- the developer almost never has any say in what happens in that case.
As far as the decision behind the policy goes, the game’s community manager said on the game’s official Discord server that it was a Sony decision, not Arrowhead
https://insider-gaming.com/helldivers-2-ceo-apologizes-for-psn-account-requirement/