This dude is in over his head.
They knew about the PSN requirement for 6 months before launch. This makes Arrowhead at fault here.
I think the only reasonable thing to be done, is issue refunds for the people who want refunds, and then we can all get on with our lives.
yeah, the more that comes out, the more it seems that this was a hard requirement by Sony that they ignored. Ballsy by Arrowhead, and I get why they wanted to, but I’m guessing Sony is pissed at Arrowhead for doing this, and they’re pissed that their name is getting dragged for it. They’re not the good guys, but I’m guessing there are a lot of super fun conversations being had
They didn’t ignore it. They shut it off after the first week because Sony’s servers were so clogged up, people weren’t able to set up their accounts. Plus, they were dealing with all the other server issues. It was only a matter of time before they were going to have to turn it back on.
Not only has the “requires linking a PlayStation Network account” advisory been on the Steam page from the start, but anyone that picked up the game at launch is already linked.
I’m not a fan of the linking; but since I don’t own a Sony console, it’s just yet another account that serves no purpose to me other than letting me play a couple of games I own on PC.
Yeah the only actual issue here as far as I’m concerned is that it shouldn’t have ever been sold in countries without PSN. And I’m pretty sure it’s the publisher (Sony) that handles… Publishing.
The requirement has been there since day one. It was on the steam page where it always is for every game. There were technical issues that meant enforcement was shut off temporarily.
Sony dropped the ball by letting it be sold in countries it shouldn’t have been. Sony dropped the ball by having their support pages having incorrect wording about whether linking is required. They clearly changed their own policies at some point and never updated the PSN linking support pages. How long ago they changed the linking requirement, that’s debatable.
Yes, Arrowhead dropped the ball with communication here, but that’s par for the course with their Community Managers from everything I’ve seen since launch. The difference here is that they aren’t the ones that have the final decision here, Sony does. Arrowhead is stuck with a situation that wouldn’t have existed if Sony’s servers weren’t total shit and causing issues at launch. Since at launch the PSN linking was enforced and causing some of the server issues the game had.
By that same logic, the customers are also at fault because the requirement has been in the terms of service since day 1.
Not taking sides obviously this sucks, but blaming Arrowhead seems arbitrary.
I think the most likely outcome is one of:
- Sony pays to reimburse people who lost access
- Sony pays to reimburse anyone who demands a refund
- Sony removes the requirement entirely
- Nothing happens
edit: #3 it is apparently https://twitter.com/PlayStation/status/1787331667616829929?t=NhwAEm4fGpVJj-UyI1lrXA
If you and I negotiated a software project, and I failed in one of the requirements for the project, causing third parties to lose money because of that. I’m definitely at fault. The third parties are not privy to our conversation, and therefore are not responsible for any obligations I might have to the first party.
They knew about the PSN requirement for 6 months before launch. This makes Arrowhead at fault here.
How does that make this Arrowhead’s fault? What should they have done?
Not allow sales in countries outside the PSN ones would be the obvious move.
If they knew PSN was going to be required to play, then they would be massive scumbags to sell to folks they know can’t play.
Require a PSN login from day one. So the people who cannot or would not make one simply could refund directly from steam within that 2-hour window.
If the PSN servers were down, they could have fallen back to setting a flag on the client computer to say they’ve logged in at least once. That would reduce their PSN load to only new logins. But would prevent anybody from starting the game without logging into PSN.
I’m glad PlayStation has capitulated on their PSN requirement today. But Arrowhead leadership failed their customers. To put us all in this situation to live through this drama
It’s also posts possible that they intentionally sabotaged the PSN rollout early on, knowing this shit show would ensure and force Sony to reconsider a dumb decision.
Imagine SONY calling all this backslash for feedback that they have now considered and are grateful for.
Its like they want us to communicate with them like this if its the only feedback they react to
He “doesn’t have the final say” because before any of this, before the game even released, Arrowhead signed a contract that stipulated PSN requirement.
He knew from day one that there was a PSN requirement. He has admitted as much, which is nice, but it still amounts to a bait and switch.
Also, to all the people who are like “Knowing where the PSN actually is available is the Publishers job!!!”
I reiterate: Arrowhead signed a contract. This contract would include this kind of information. This information was not hidden from him or anyone at Arrowhead. He is being somewhat commendable by being honest, but the reality is Arrowhead made the choice to sign the contract and accept that they would only be selling to PSN customers. Despite knowing this, they disabled PSN requirements because they hadn’t worked out all the bugs before release. He made his own bed here and I’m sick as living fuck of people blaming it all on Sony.
Sure, Sony sucks, but this is just stupid. It’s called “Not reading your fucking contract or doing due diligence for the people who paid for your product and then kicking the can to the people you signed a contract with.”
@TachyonTele@lemm.ee nailed it: This dude is in over his head.
At launch the PSN linking was required. It was only disabled because the PSN servers were causing some of the overall server issues at launch. They made the decision to temporarily remove the requirement to get the game more stable while Sony fixed their server issues. I highly doubt Arrowhead though that would take nearly this long, so the number of affected users would be minimal. But clearly it took longer than planned, or Sony took this long to let them know the issues were fixed and they needed to require linking again. Given Sony’s rather spotted history, it could be either honestly.
Linking clearly was intended to be brought back at some point once that issue was resolved. The only bad decision Arrowhead made was not making it more clear to people between then and now that login would still be required at a later date.
The Steam page listed the PSN requirement from day one. The sales page setup should have prevented sales in non-PSN regions, that not being done looks to be due to Sony as the publisher failing to limit that as they should. That’s either sheer incompetence or greed to try to get as many additional sales as possible and try to force people onto PSN after the fact. Maybe both.
To be honest, the contract requirement for PSN isn’t the issue here. It was there from the beginning, and disclosed on the sales page. Sony’s shit servers were an issue, and the ultimate root cause of all of this bullshit. If the PSN servers weren’t dogshit to start with none of this would have happened.
It’s called “Not reading your fucking contract or doing due diligence for the people who paid for your product and then kicking the can to the people you signed a contract with.”
If people had read the bright yellow text above the buy button on the Steam store page or the EULA, the account linking announcement would not have been a surprise.
My copy was given as a gift. I don’t recall ever seeing a link account message…
Yeah stuff like that needs to be in the check box terms and conditions format and individually agreed to. Then you can’t purchase if you don’t check a ‘I understand I need a PSN account’ box. The format it’s in just feels like I’m agreeing only to the steam terms and the other ones are designed to be ‘snuck in’
That being said I guess everyone needs to read every detail before purchasing, which I and many others don’t do. I think even if they put a notice somewhere at first launch describing that their servers are overloaded and it will require PSN linkage eventually this wouldn’t have blown up at all. I’m way more salty at the shadiness of how it was handled over the fact that I missed the notice on purchase. That’s why they have the 2 hour return window. If I boot it and it says log into this site and I’m not ok with it, I can just give it back. Which is great that they are giving refunds regardless of hours played to remedy that.
And yes, I do take responsibility for not checking.
A lot of steam games that say require a third party login, actually work just fine without the login. The login is available for some optional extra, cloud saves, the social aspect etc The game still works. The only way to really tell is to buy the game and play it and see if it works or it doesn’t. So the behavior of the game becomes the de facto contract. Especially because steam allows for no questions asks refunds with less than 2 hours of gameplay. So in those two hours you get to figure out what the actual experience is.
Changing the lived experience substantially 3 months after release is the issue here. I know it’s been resolved by Sony backing down. So we’re talking academically.
He doesn’t have the final say because Arrowhead doesn’t own Helldiver’s. The IP is owned by Sony and they can do whatever they want with it. If Sony wants to make Helldiver’s 3 without Arrowhead they can. Sony can change anything they want about Helldiver’s anytime they want. Arrowhead didn’t know about the PSN requirement until six months before launch, that was a late addition.