this post was submitted on 05 May 2024
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It's not fair the developers take the heat for this. We should learn to find the right people to complain to.
That's why Spitz said to be angry in the Steam reviews instead of their Discord. People mistakenly took it as a dismissive whine, but that was actually a very important comment that I feel many people overlooked. Sony ain't gonna do anything differently unless there is actual, tangible damage to their brand. That damage doesn't come from chat rooms, that comes from storefront reviews.
Keep the bad reviews coming if you want any hope of Sony relenting.
Doing a pretty good job so far
lmao rekt
I really hope Steam doesn't consider this "review bombing" and take down such reviews. The response is entirely justified.
Good guy Valve appears to be quietly figuring out refunds for folks, even though almost all are above the hours played limit
Reminder that the hours played rule is only a limit for the automated refund system. You can request a refund for a game at any time for any reason. It just has to be manually reviewed and deemed justified by a person.
I wonder if it’s more damage control, why are they allowing games to be sold in markets where the mandatory linking wasn’t possible?
Steam should know this limitations, the devs knew about the requirements from Sony, it was listed on the store page since it was listed.
Apparently they recently updated the store to no longer sell in unavailable psn regions.
Its probably BOTH damage control AND Valve being staffed by PC nerds who ALSO dont want toxic console BS infecting the PC Sphere
Every single one of those reviews missed multiple warnings about the required account linking.
They are false reviews by definition, the store had the requirements listed, and there was a splash screen you had to accept when loading the game.
Every single one of those reviews is someone who made an uneducated purchase, they shouldn’t be defended for their willful ignorance.
Steam shouldn't sell products in a country where you cannot use them
You’re absolutely correct, how many of those reviews are pointing the blame correctly? I haven’t seen a single one yelling at Steam or arrowhead for selling the game in these markets that wouldn’t be able to play the game.
There's no way Steam is 100% in charge of what regions a game is available in. The publisher absolutely has a say in where, and if it was available in all regions at the start that was on purpose.
Steam just limited the purchase to right markets today, so yes they are.
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's a good one. Mind if I steal it for future usage?
Go ahead lol. It was the only thing that came to mind as to why you'd want to try and put blame on valve over this whole fiasco.
It is also wholly possible that Steam changed the availability themselves, so you can't take all the blame away from them, but like I said originally, this is Sony's fault first and foremost as the publisher would have first say on regional availability.
Multiple being TWO at most, one nestled in the effectively credits section of the Steam page which almost never contains information pertainant to the purchase of the game, and another nestled in the "Skip over this usually optional content" settings after you have already installed the game. I didnt even know this game was linked to PlayStation in ANY WAY until this whole fiasco. Its only uneducated because it was HIDDEN.
I'm guy buy it just to get a refund just for you
EULA roofie-ing shouldn't be defended
This isn't about Sony "relenting", Arrowhead needs Sony's PSN support network to deal with support tickets: it's the whole reason Arrowhead signed up with a publisher instead of self publishing and developing an international workforce of support agents. I hate Sony as much as the next person but let's be honest, Arrowhead needs Sony and PSN, and it makes sense given they want to spend their time making games rather than getting into being a publisher and help desk.
Ultimately, Arrowhead should have made it a day one requirement and delisted the game on Steam for every country that lacks PSN support. Instead Arrowhead and Sony decided to let it ride and enjoy the sales and accompanying popularity.
And now because of that the PSN requirement is a poison pill. If that was a requirement from the get go, I likely would have reluctantly agreed to it. It now being retroactively enforced means if Sony doesnt relent, I and likely a lot of others will abandon the game and do what we can to get a refund, which will end up costing them a lot of money
It was a requirement from the beginning but it was not enforced due to the initial server issues. It was always there....
Not saying it's a good thing but a lot of the discourse I see online seems to overlook that crucial detail and imply this was pulled out of the blue with no warning.
Yeah as if they had no idea what's going on. They just thought they get away because they played the "cool" developers as long as they could
If the high-ups at Arrowhead knew and made that decision anyway, it's squarely on them, full stop.
Generally publishers handle storefront and distribution
Sure, but if I put myself in their shoes, what better options did they have?
Communicate better? Not sell the game in markets where it wouldn’t work. The limitation was something from the get go.
Push their scummy politics at launch so people know what they get into or not.
Easy: Don't be a greedy asshole and don't sell in regions with no PSN support.
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.
It was a bit frightening for me to see how quickly the mob turned on AH during this fiasco and just how much vitriol and propaganda has been generated on the subreddit like this is any other ingame operation with the associated shitposting... except this time it could very well shape the futures of real people and fate of the company for years to come.
Unfortunately this is the only way to accomplish anything. If there wasn't an outcry like this both AH and sony would just ignore any criticism and move on until it gets buried and forgotten. It's a world of extremes and the scales could have easily tipped into the other side, with people rightfully complaining about these shitty practices but getting ridiculed for complaining about just another account or sth.
And that second option already happened with this exact game when people expressed concern over the DRM, which is designed like a rootkit, giving it essentially full control/access to your system while it's running.