Sony finally surrenders: PSN accounts will be 'optional' for games on Steam, but they'll give you free stuff if you sign up

[zahille7@lemmy.world]

Nice. Just in time for me to consider buying it even more.

Consider

[ampersandrew@lemmy.world]

Personally, I don't even like piracy as a form of protest. It means you're spending time on their game when you could be spending time and money on a game that respects your values. Plus, if you like the game, you're still spreading positive word of mouth. I don't need to play Horizon when there's so much else out there.

[sudomeapizza@lemm.ee]

To my understanding that's not valves responsibility (i dont have a source). It wouldnt make sense for valve to be required to make those changes themselves, the publisher would be responsible for making those edits.

I could only imagine all the problems if Valve accidentally restricted/allowed certain regions and got constant sued over it.

[evotech@lemmy.world]

Smart tbh, just "give" them decent skin and most people will not hesitate

[socsa@piefed.social]

I assume we still will and it will just lean more carrot than stick in terms of offering discounts and bonus items.

[noobmaster@lemmy.ml]

I already add most of their games to Ignored list on Steam, and I'm not undoing that.

[reev@sh.itjust.works]

I honestly don't know how a company that's supposed to know the industry took this long to figure it out. They've been giving people fortnite skins for a long time, they know the bar is super low for people to get super excited about changes instead of antagonizing them.

[katana314@lemmy.world]

To try to explain this better, imagine this:

You're browsing Steam. You find "ULTIMATE Inchworm Arena", a strange but fun-looking online multiplayer arena. You buy it, and download it. The game then says "Welcome to Inchworm Arena! To certify yourself for online play, you must provide One MoistCoin, a cryptocurrency obtainable only in the Republic of Kongo!" None of this was clear from the Steam store page. The developer support response is less than helpful.

Would you continue protesting the developers, or would you blame Valve for presenting this obvious worthless scam game as an offering on Steam? By putting it on their store, Steam asserts some level of responsibility that the game in question is actually playable, and doesn't contain critical bugs; like failing to start up, or having a user license agreement that its lawyers did not think through.

When this happened for Helldivers, it was Valve that restricted their access because Sony didn't even know what they were doing on the PC store, and hadn't thought through that players had no legal avenue to play in some countries. Valve does not want to be put through more cases of user customer support complaining to them, and wants to ensure certain behavior from their game vendors to ensure that doesn't happen.

[duamerthrax@lemmy.world]

I was gonna try HD2 when I upgraded my machine, but swore it off when that shit happened.

[noxypaws@pawb.social]

That's not exactly surrendering. It's still scummy. But it's less objectionable, at least.

[_cryptagion@lemmy.dbzer0.com]

It shouldn’t be, but here’s the thing. Valve isn’t distributing games out of the goodness of their own heart. They don’t want to have to process refunds for every person who buys it and realizes they aren’t allowed to play it. That’s just a waste of time and money for them. And Sony hasn’t invested in a launcher and store of their own on PC, so they’ve got no choice but to obey whatever conditions Valve puts on the sale of their games, unless they want to pause until they get a storefront up.

[thebat@lemmy.world]

that's not valves responsibility (i dont have a source)

Hehehe

[monkdervierte@lemmy.ml]

Patient gamers: look, this is what they need to do to emulate a fraction of our power.

[rayquetzalcoatl@lemmy.world]

Good choice. I haven't really kept up with new releases for a few years as the mainstream of the industry started to feel more and more like a scam, but I wonder if anybody's ever done studies comparing people with short term memory issues, and people who play video games - because video game consumers seem to forget getting screwed over and constantly get surprised when they reward bad behaviour lol

[aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com]

Gamers should be wise enough to time their game playing of Sony games so that it doesn't overlap with Sony's quarterly shareholder reports!

/s

[aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com]

If there's one thing that Sony's transition from a quality electronics company to a copyright-heavy media-driven pro-DMCA-lobbying company back in then 00s has taught me it's to "Never, ever trust Sony".

[nugscree@lemmy.world]

Valve does not limit you in where your game is sold, the publisher of the game has to set this and the publisher for Helldivers 2 is
PlayStation Publishing LLC.

[mynameisigglepiggle@sh.itjust.works]

To be fair Sony may have produced quality electronics but their tactics have always been anti consumer.

They always insist on proprietary everything and try to get first mover advantage for each new iteration of tech and then lock the market down. The problem is they hold out for so long with their proprietary formats that it makes their products unattractive. Case in point their memory cards.

Requiring a psn account is just another anti consumer control tactic by the company.

[katana314@lemmy.world]

Valve absolutely limits the sale of people’s games.

Usually, this would come in the case of “Hey, this game doesn’t work, we’re taking it out of sale everywhere.” But with Helldivers 2 being so popular and high profile, that wouldn’t have been a good look for Valve. Instead, they limited the zone of sale to prevent customer support complaints.

Sony was limiting where you could legally sign up for PSN and thus play the game, not where you could buy it off Steam. That was a conflict of their own mismanagement and inexperience selling on PCs. Had they been smarter, they would have restricted regions to begin with and there might have been less outcry, but poor planning caused Valve’s parental slap.

[hugin@lemmy.world]

Having dealt with Sony for years as a engineer their non consumer hardware is a true pain. Trying to interface with some of their ccd image sensors was some of the most PITA integration i've ever dealt with.