Im not even sure if the game would have taken off at all. Psn servers couldn’t handle the load which is Why it was disabled ( temporarily ) in the first place.
A lot of people, including myself, never even linked the psn because I could skip it.
The thing is that it was enforced right at the beginning. There was a period where you couldn’t play without a PSN account, before they made it optional while Sony rolled out more infrastructure to handle the player numbers.
That’s what I heard as well. I was a bit dumbfounded when I read that it suddenly became mandatory.
I think Arrowhead screwed up because they didn’t know that PSN accounts aren’t available everywhere and so were selling the game in places that couldn’t play it unknowingly.
I think this is the most plausible reasoning. It’s what I’m thinking as well, and also what seems to appear through the CM. In which case it is a screwup on their end. Though in 2024 I do get you’d expect people to be able make an account anywhere in the world for a company like Sony.
Steam is usually pretty good about refunds and has apparently already pulled the game from the store in places where you can’t make a PSN account, so I imagine they’re planning to refund the game. This looks like the kind of thing that could be class-action lawsuit worthy.
If they did that’s good on them, but not wholly their responsibility. It is a good move to prevent new purchases they’d have to refund anyway ( or until there is clarity on what will happen in those regions ). I would kind of expect the publisher to do this once they figured out this was possible though :/
The company that published the game likely updated the region it can be sold in. Steam just offers a platform.
Steam/valve is literally not to blame at all for any of this. Do you work for epic games or something?
I’m all for putting the blame where it needs to be, but you’re just shooting at all parties involved indiscriminately. Like blaming a rental company for a death in a traffic accident because they own the car.
That is true, but it I’d an additional hurdle. Sony is playing it smart.
They made an announcement and had a bunch of Outrage now. If they had just enforced it people would have refunded on mass probably. Now people can still actually play.
I’m guessing steam might be less eager to refund when the actual deadline hits. I also feel like a lot of people will just cave and link/create the account.
That’s definitely what Sony is expecting. And it’s also what I’m hearing from friends. That they dont want to, but that it’s a fun game ans they’d rather keep playing with friends.
I can fully understand the agreement between the two parties was “also requires a psn account” while AH being completely unaware that getting a PSN account is so restrictive.
Sony likely didnt explicitly add that the game cannot be sold in regions where they can’t create an account.
Edit: or the didn’t explicitly state which regions a psn account CAN be created in.
This would have been less of an issue if it remained enforced from the start. Re-enforcing it after demonstrating it clearly works without makes it look scummy and greedy. People could also easily refund if they didn’t agree. Now its too late.
For a lot of people it now looks as: now that the game is a success we want to collect everybody their data as well so we can make even more money.
Tbh, other games just require a 3rd party account without linking them explicitly. This requires an actual link which ( likely ) gives them access to a lot of your steam information which you’d rather NOT give to a corp that doesn’t seem capable at guarding people their data.