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Helldivers 2 received over 14,000 negative reviews today due to an update that will require PSN accounts next week.
(twitter.com)
this post was submitted on 04 May 2024
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I've never understood why players can't demand a refund when a fundamental aspect of a game changes.
Well, to be fair, they did write - in bold letters - on the Steam page that a Playstation network account is required to play.
They simply didn't enforce that rule up until now.
Also locks out anyone not living in the 66 countries serviced by the PSN.
Also now requires giving your personal info to yet another third party and their friends. A third party which has a storied past of losing user data.
The game was sold other places (like the Humble store) without the PSN warning.
Also it’s been sold in countries that the PSN doesn’t support.
I'm totally with you on that latter point - Sony needs to do something about that.
Idk about other places than Steam, but I'm surprised more people haven't gone at Steam for allowing the game to be sold in countries that will get essentially blocked from playing. I feel like they should've had some kind of cross referencing going on there.
Sony did. They said you need an account.
I thought someone had gone to the waybackmachine and confirmed that it said it was optional initially and changed it when they made this decision?
That was Sony's site. Super shitty what they did there.
But on the Steam Store page it was always "a PS account is required".
That was PirateSoftware, and yes, but that was for Sony's website not for the Steam page.
Still shit though.
Not having a system up to spec, I didn't look at the Eula. That's bizarre.
Greed
EULA
It's not in the EULA at all. A major problem with this change is that PSN is only available in about 66 countries. Locking out the rest of the world from playing without fear of repercussions due to falsified account info.
Also just the shitty problem of having to give your personal info to yet another third party. One who has a long history of losing personal data of its users.
Parrot. You misread that there are 66 countries locked out, probably in this very thread, and just repeated it. Do your own reading and learning. You are choosing to be angry with no evidence.
Literally not angry with no evidence.
Perhaps I misremembered what I read from other sources. My memory isn't infallible. The thing I'm angry about has evidence and I made it clear why that upsets me. I also clearly stated that there are only about 66 countries WITH access. Meaning over 130 other nations without access. Including the entirety of the Bulkan states.
Go lick some other corpo's boot.
I partially agree, but would you expect to be able to return a sandwich if you're nonlojnger hungry by the time you finish it? Not really the same, but I haven't played this game in weeks. This annoys me, but not really because I'm playing the game and more because it's a dick move. If they let me refund I would, but it'd be a little fucked up if I did because I've already had my fill of the game.
Idiotic analogy
If you bought an electric car and the company recalled it and changed it to a petrol motor, would you be a Tesla owner and just roll over and lube up your sphincter?
Ha ha yeah I actually typed that 😂
The analogy applies perfectly well to people like me who have stopped playing the game. If they let me refund it'd be pretty stupid. It doesn't matter what they do, I would choose more money.
You should probably attempt to understand the topic / post before diving in.
If they did not want that to happen, they should not materially change the game.
OK, sure change access. Materially change? So they shouldn't patch it? If your favorite gun gets a nerf, refund?
According to some players, yes lmao
Yeah, and that's an extremely stupid reason why someone should get to refund.
You are applying a standard to the game that applies to YOU. Other players who are currently playing a game do not care that you are finished playing the game. They are not. The game did not ship with a 3 month subscription plan. It shipped as a sold product. Your analogy is like an all-you-can-eat buffet where after twenty minutes they close it down and make everyone stop eating, and your argument is, "Well, I'M full. It's fine."
Sure. I agree. I never said it applied to everyone. However, how do you identify people who have left the buffet and come back and those who are still there? There's no good way to do that with a game.
It'd be horrible business to give refunds to people every time a game changes, especially if you include people who aren't even effected by it.
Be mad about it, especially at Sony, but don't expect a refund. That's not coming.
This is Sony's decision. It is a material change to the product that was sold. It is not the same as a patch or a nerf. It has rendered the product unplayable. Yes, you can make the argument that it was listed on the page from the beginning that an account was required, but it is also the case that EULAs are actually not legally binding contracts. Sony has made a unilateral decision, and as a result it does not matter whether a person is finished with the game or not. This is a change to the actual contract, which was the purchase of a game to use in perpetuity for the length of time that it is available on steam. Sony has made this decision, customers don't have to justify the reason that they don't like the change. It is a change. They are counting on people letting it slide, because most of the time that is how businesses do business.
Also, you should really stop standing up for giant corporations. Sony doesn't need your help. They have teams of lawyers whose job it is to argue with valve over whether they need to give refunds. They may also end up having to deal with class action lawsuits, and potential legal issues with 177 countries which may have completely different laws of consumer protection than the US. That is not your responsibility.
Besides, one of the pillars of capitalism is rational self-interest, and that goes both ways, not just in the business side. If you can get a refund for something because a company has made a bad decision about how they do their business, why do you care about whether it's fair or not to the company? They sure don't care about whether it's fair to you. Are you a Sony lawyer? Are you the "be nice to big companies police"? Let Sony and Valve, and possibly the court system, worry about what their legal obligations are, and you worry about your personal decision of whether you are going to take advantage of your legal rights. Don't start judging whether others should or shouldn't do the same.
Yeah... That's not what I'm doing. I'm just trying to explain to people why their demand of a refund just is not going to happen. It's not a defence of the actions. It's a response to people expecting something unreasonable.
Sure, it's a material change to the product. If you buy a smart device and they stop support, do you expect a refund? That's not how this works ever. It's not going to happen. Maybe people living in regions that don't have PSN support will, but not everyone else. I don't have a PSN account even, and I won't be making one no matter what. I recognize that there's no way Sony or Valve are going to take a tens of millions (probably) dollar loss.
I don't care if it's "fair". I said I would take it. I don't give a shit about Sony or Valves bottom line. I just know it's not going to happen because there are plenty of reasons it wouldn't be offered.
There is absolutely zero legal obligation here. You purchased a product and agreed to a license. They can add a requirement for an account at any time. Plenty of games get sold to a different company and require an account with that new company. No one has ever reasonably argued they should be refunded for that. It'd be ridiculous. There's no refund coming.
This is a good analogy if you think of video games as a consumable product.
It's not a good analogy if you see video games as art. Like if you buy a portrait from a painter and two weeks later they come to your house and paint over it to be a stick figure. Especially if it's just because they want more money from you.
It's also not a good analogy if you see video games as rented or leased goods, like most game studios execs want video games to be. Imagine renting a car for your trip across the country and half way there, you wake up at your hotel, look out the window, and the rental company swapped it out for a tractor in the middle of the night. Hope that works for you!
Sure, it's in the contract that they can do that. And maybe you finished the trip so it doesn't really affect you. But it's happening to other people, and we shouldn't trust the company going forward because one day it could be you that's screwed out of what you paid for.
I would expect to be able to return a sandwich if halfway through eating it, the owner came up to my table and put cheese on it after specifically asking for no cheese because I'm lactose intolerant.
Or in the case of discontinued online games, it would like eating half the sandwich and having it taken away.