Apparently Valve is giving refunds on Helldivers 2 regardless of hour count. Details inside.

[Space Lynx]

Helldivers 2 was the sleeper hit very positive rated game... this is quite the turn around, and another reason I don't bother with multiplayer games, they always get harvested in the end, in one way or another.

I used to love Sony... forcing account linking after the fact is a bit... eh... iffy imo. Full disclosure this is all happening really fast, I can't even keep up with it. European Union GDPR doesn't allow for changing of policy on whim like this, so EU people can get refunds regardless of hour count apparently. Source

This is not the first refund I have seen, I have seen a few posts like this, so I do believe they are legit.

Sony basically said no PSN account linking would be required on Steam, then changed it's mind. It was optional at first because it was not ready yet apparently for the launch of the game, but most people didn't read it this way is my understanding of the situation.

Here is an image from Reddit showing the before and after of the policy update regarding linking accounts:

before and after image

Spitz I think is the head guy giving some updates about the account linking: Update from Helldivers 2 team


Long story short, Sony took a good thing they had going and fucked it up because of forcing account linking. lmao the industry is so out of touch, but the Helldivers 2 crowd don't take shit laying down. Also, note to self: next time I am in EU make a new steam account for multiplayer only game purchases. Fucking mad respect to the EU boys!!!! Ironic that that the best democratic system in the world is the same system giving Helldivers 2 (an ironic comedy that is against democracy thematic) their refunds. Fucking legend.

 

[LabRat 891]

This, has the potential to be fantastic!
HDII was a smash hit. All those gamers suddenly becoming aware of this crap will change feelings towards account requirements at large.

This does leave me wondering what hand Arrowhead did or did not have in this decision. Because, this is going to ruin the studio's name, to the point that they may have legal options for damages (assuming Arrowhead had little to no 'say' in the matter).

 

[Space Lynx]

I think I speak for everyone when I say we are all fucking sick of having 10 accounts to login to just play a fucking video game. It's nice to see the Helldivers 2 community standing up for themselves.

This, has the potential to be fantastic!
HDII was a smash hit. All those gamers suddenly becoming aware of this crap will change feelings towards account requirements at large.

This does leave me wondering what hand Arrowhead did or did not have in this decision. Because, this is going to ruin the studio's name, to the point that they may have legal options for damages (assuming Arrowhead had little to no 'say' in the matter).

From all of my reading Arrowhead had nothing to do with it, it all Sony corporate shit, this is the same shit I talk about all the time, how all these little MBA bitches get 6 figure jobs, but actually have no idea what they are doing, that's another example of this is my guess.

 

[R-T-B]

The larger issue is that the game has been sold in areas where you literally cannot create a PSN account. For those players, the game will simply become unplayable on the 30th. This is likely why refunds are being granted.

I'll be honest, I thought this was a storm in a teacup until I heard that. Absolutely scummy move by Sony.

Side note; it sucks but the game is still fun so my friends and I will still be playing.

 

[Space Lynx]

The larger issue is that the game has been sold in areas where you literally cannot create a PSN account. For those players, the game will simply become unplayable on the 30th. This is likely why refunds are being granted.

I'll be honest, I thought this was a storm in a teacup until I heard that. Absolutely scummy move by Sony.

Side note; it sucks but the game is still fun so my friends and I will still be playing.

yeah Spitz talks about that too in the link I provided in the first post, Spitz in that same post if you scroll to the end even encourages bad reviews and refunds to make Sony hear loud and clear. Pretty fucking wild, never thought I'd see that kind of rebellion. lol

It's an oversight by some MBA who makes six figures and thinks he/she is a big shot, I'd bet money on it. Fucking joke that our society is run by these brain dead MBA's.

from the link in the first post of the update from Helldivers 2 team:

 

[tabascosauz]

The larger issue is that the game has been sold in areas where you literally cannot create a PSN account. For those players, the game will simply become unplayable on the 30th. This is likely why refunds are being granted.

I'll be honest, I thought this was a storm in a teacup until I heard that. Absolutely scummy move by Sony.

Side note; it sucks but the game is still fun so my friends and I will still be playing.

I hopped on the game rather early and didn't even know the linking was optional. So on this whole matter I'm just kinda a passive spectator lol. But I agree with the community's sentiments about the region restrictions, it will be a massive hit to the playerbase.

I mostly play solo these days and unless something more drastic transpires, that will continue. Spitz has something of a reputation (though not too surprising given the expected stresses of being a community manager) and I don't put any trust in what he says until the studio confirms it.

Maybe enough backlash can be generated to force Sony's hand. Maybe that's just a pipe dream.

 

[Space Lynx]

I hopped on the game rather early and didn't even know the linking was optional. So on this whole matter I'm just kinda a passive spectator lol. But I agree with the community's sentiments about the region restrictions, it will be a massive hit to the playerbase.

I mostly play solo these days and unless something more drastic transpires, that will continue.

Maybe enough backlash can be generated to force Sony's hand. Maybe that's just a pipe dream.

I wouldn't worry about it, this is obviously just an oversight on Sony's end, they will reverse course, backlash is already fairly massive and I bet Arrowhead calls Sony exec's on Monday. If Sony doesn't reverse course they are dumb as shit lol, right now they are only dumb as bricks. lol

 

[R-T-B]

I hopped on the game rather early and didn't even know the linking was optional.

Same, it really did not present as optional early on lol.

 

[Space Lynx]

Same, it really did not present as optional early on lol.

It was stated that an account linking with a PSN account wasn't ready for the launch of the game, so it makes sense you wouldn't know about it until now, this was apparently something just in the written agreement sections that no one ever reads (but that it was optional)... but how is it optional if it isn't ready yet? I don't know, lol

 

[R-T-B]

It was stated that an account linking with a PSN account wasn't ready for the launch of the game, so it makes sense you wouldn't know about it until now

I mean I setup really early and it was there and in my face, looking nearly mandatory. The captcha for it is something else...

 

[Space Lynx]

I mean I setup really early and it was there and in my face, looking nearly mandatory. The captcha for it is something else...

Ah, dyslexia. Read your question wrong. lol

My guess is Sony says countries that have PSN accounts will be forced to link, countries that don't have it, won't have to link. Or they will rapidly deploy account creation to those countries.

@lexluthermiester I'm with you brother, GoG only games for me til the day I fucking die, long live the mother fucking g

 

[cvaldes]

Videogame news sites are tracking the Steam refund topic:

Steam Is Seemingly Waiving The Refund Playtime Limit For Helldivers 2 Players

Helldivers 2 players are reporting successful refunds despite their playtime exceeding the two-hour limit.

www.thegamer.com

The dev is really, Really, REALLY uncomfortable. Poor handling on this situation by all parties but especially by PlayStation.

While Sony Interactive Entertainment is headquartered in California, parent company Sony is Japanese of course. Unfortunately Japan is in the middle of their Golden Week holiday and likely nothing will be resolved until Tuesday at the earliest (Monday is the observed holiday for Children's Day).

If that's the case Valve will be issuing refunds for the next couple of days and the review bombing will continue.

 

[Dr. Dro]

Sony got chummy with PC gamers and thought we'd subject ourselves to the same Stockholm syndrome that affects PlayStation diehards. Those guys take personal pride in their practice of brand worship, they will take anything this corporation does and enshrine it as something noble and praiseworthy. It doesn't matter if it goes against preservation, customer rights, privacy, if it's price gouging, censoring developers, going against their artistic vision, their direction or their idea of how to develop and market their games, or anything really - Sony is immune to it all, praise unto them. It's the same deal that the Radeon fans do, but taken to a whole new extreme.

Somehow, I don't believe they'll get the hint, though.

Videogame news sites are tracking the Steam refund topic:

Steam Is Seemingly Waiving The Refund Playtime Limit For Helldivers 2 Players

Helldivers 2 players are reporting successful refunds despite their playtime exceeding the two-hour limit.

www.thegamer.com

The dev is really, Really, REALLY uncomfortable. Poor handling on this situation by all parties but especially by PlayStation.

While Sony Interactive Entertainment is headquartered in California, parent company Sony is Japanese of course. Unfortunately Japan is in the middle of their Golden Week holiday and likely nothing will be resolved until Tuesday at the earliest (Monday is the observed holiday for Children's Day).

The Japanese Sony Corporation's completely hands-off whatever SIE does, really. Devs are uncomfortable but this is the wake-up call that as rightsholder and publisher, whoever's running SIE right now doesn't exactly care. I personally think that expecting this to be solved by Tuesday is pretty optimistic, really.

 

[Space Lynx]

Videogame news sites are tracking the Steam refund topic:

Steam Is Seemingly Waiving The Refund Playtime Limit For Helldivers 2 Players

Helldivers 2 players are reporting successful refunds despite their playtime exceeding the two-hour limit.

www.thegamer.com

The dev is really, Really, REALLY uncomfortable. Poor handling on this situation by all parties but especially by PlayStation.

While Sony Interactive Entertainment is headquartered in California, parent company Sony is Japanese of course. Unfortunately Japan is in the middle of their Golden Week holiday and likely nothing will be resolved until Tuesday at the earliest (Monday is the observed holiday for Children's Day).

damn dude, nice attention to detail on this one. This is wild indeed. Talk about bad timing, wild

Sony got chummy with PC gamers and thought we'd subject ourselves to the same Stockholm syndrome that affects PlayStation diehards. Those guys will take anything this corporation does and enshrine it as something noble and praiseworthy. It doesn't matter if it goes against preservation, customer rights, privacy, or anything - Sony is immune to it all, praise unto them.

Somehow, I don't believe they'll get the hint, though.

I remember telling my friend when Helldivers 2 was exploding how I was tempted to get the game and really wanted to, but that all multi games die for one reason or another rather quickly these days. Do I think Helldivers 2 will die any time soon? No, but this is definitely taking the steam out of the run it was having, it was becoming fucking massive. Might have even been the next Fortnite given another year or so. Sony shot itself in the foot, lmao

Honestly this is no surprise to me, as someone who has played Final Fantasy XI mmo since launch day and Final Fantasy XIV MMO, Sony is fucking terrible when it comes to the account anything process, up until about two years ago it was very easy to mistake ending your monthly subscription with deleting your account in Mogstation for example. Sony doesn't understand account stuff, they never have, lol FFXI was a nightmare to navigate Playlink I think it was called by Sony.

not to mention all the security breaches Sony has had over the years regarding gaming accounts. forcing that extra layer on people for no reason at all is a clown move,

 

[Dr. Dro]

I remember telling my friend when Helldivers 2 was exploding how I was tempted to get the game and really wanted to, but that all multi games die for one reason or another rather quickly these days. Do I think Helldivers 2 will die any time soon? No, but this is definitely taking the steam out of the run it was having, it was becoming fucking massive. Might have even been the next Fortnite given another year or so. Sony shot itself in the foot, lmao

Honestly this is no surprise to me, as someone who has played Final Fantasy XI mmo since launch day and Final Fantasy XIV MMO, Sony is fucking terrible when it comes to the account anything process, up until about two years ago it was very easy to mistake ending your monthly subscription with deleting your account in Mogstation for example. Sony doesn't understand account stuff, they never have, lol FFXI was a nightmare to navigate Playlink I think it was called by Sony.

I'll be honest man, account linking isn't that much of a dealbreaker to me, I have a Sony account after all. But it's taking away user agency, our choice that's always the problem for me. I didn't end up buying Helldivers mostly because my backlog is getting ever more extreme and I can't seem to shake off the Hoyoverse fever, i'm actually slowly getting into Honkai Star Rail as I play Genshin Impact almost to the point of obsession. FFXIV Dawntrail coming and I never even installed my Endwalker limited edition copy, not to mention I still have to start playing Horizon Forbidden West too. And the whole bunch of games I bought last year. And get back to Fallout 76. I also want to replay the Street Fighter games. Oh god. Backlog!

 

[tabascosauz]

I'll be honest man, account linking isn't that much of a dealbreaker to me, I have a Sony account after all. But it's taking away user agency, our choice that's always the problem for me. I didn't end up buying Helldivers mostly because my backlog is getting ever more extreme and I can't seem to shake off the Hoyoverse fever, i'm actually slowly getting into Honkai Star Rail as I play Genshin Impact almost to the point of obsession. FFXIV Dawntrail coming and I never even installed my Endwalker limited edition copy, not to mention I still have to start playing Horizon Forbidden West too. And the whole bunch of games I bought last year. And get back to Fallout 76. I also want to replay the Street Fighter games. Oh god. Backlog!

These days I pretty much only play some combination of star rail/genshit/helldivers/DCS, so what's one more game? Surely you can fit it in there lol

I wouldn't buy it until after this ordeal is finished however

 

[dgianstefani]

Saw this online.

Let's not jump to conclusions whether it's Sony or ArrowHead leading this, or both.

Still, glad I never bought the game, although I skipped it because of the intrusive rootkit anticheat in a PvE game.

Good for the community to demonstrate this is unacceptable, hopefully it doesn't end here and the other issues with this and other games are also not tolerated anymore.

Never give them an inch.

IMO DRG never lost it's throne for PvE anyway, so no skin off my back there.

 

[Space Lynx]

I'll be honest man, account linking isn't that much of a dealbreaker to me, I have a Sony account after all. But it's taking away user agency, our choice that's always the problem for me. I didn't end up buying Helldivers mostly because my backlog is getting ever more extreme and I can't seem to shake off the Hoyoverse fever, i'm actually slowly getting into Honkai Star Rail as I play Genshin Impact almost to the point of obsession. FFXIV Dawntrail coming and I never even installed my Endwalker limited edition copy, not to mention I still have to start playing Horizon Forbidden West too. And the whole bunch of games I bought last year. And get back to Fallout 76. I also want to replay the Street Fighter games. Oh god. Backlog!

Endwalker is my all time favorite game, even if you just pay for the story skip all the way to Endwalker and just play Endwalker. You are missing out man. Shadowbringers is pretty damn good too though yeah.

Account linking doesn't bother me, although I did make a free trial for FFXIV to see if it would work on steam Deck through steam, and now that free trial account is forever locked onto my steam account. its really fucking annoying, cause I wanted to play with my main account on steam Deck. oh well. fuck account linking. but yeah I will keep using it where I have to, but I will also keep saying fuck it and fuck them, and I am proud of this Helldivers 2 community for giving them hell for a change, fuck yeah

 

[dgianstefani]

damn dude, nice attention to detail on this one. This is wild indeed. Talk about bad timing, wild



I remember telling my friend when Helldivers 2 was exploding how I was tempted to get the game and really wanted to, but that all multi games die for one reason or another rather quickly these days. Do I think Helldivers 2 will die any time soon? No, but this is definitely taking the steam out of the run it was having, it was becoming fucking massive. Might have even been the next Fortnite given another year or so. Sony shot itself in the foot, lmao

Honestly this is no surprise to me, as someone who has played Final Fantasy XI mmo since launch day and Final Fantasy XIV MMO, Sony is fucking terrible when it comes to the account anything process, up until about two years ago it was very easy to mistake ending your monthly subscription with deleting your account in Mogstation for example. Sony doesn't understand account stuff, they never have, lol FFXI was a nightmare to navigate Playlink I think it was called by Sony.

not to mention all the security breaches Sony has had over the years regarding gaming accounts. forcing that extra layer on people for no reason at all is a clown move,

Yep.

 

[Space Lynx]

Saw this online.

Let's not jump to conclusions whether it's Sony or ArrowHead leading this, or both.

Still, glad I never bought the game, although I skipped it because of the intrusive rootkit anticheat in a PvE game.

Good for the community to demonstrate this is unacceptable, hopefully it doesn't end here and the other issues with this and other games are also not tolerated anymore.

Never give them an inch.

View attachment 346266

IMO DRG never lost it's throne for PvE anyway, so no skin off my back there.

as far as this goes, Arrowhead made a huge mistake with its anti-cheat choice of software, and 99% of the community agrees with this, it doesn't work well and it causes issues from what I read. they really should have looked into some other form of anti-cheat software company, this was Helldivers 2 biggest mistake imo from the very beginning and the final reason I decided not to buy it, I gave up on multiplayer games around black ops 3 time when it came out on PC, every single multiplayer game I have ever played always has outright hackers or subtle cheaters that just ruin the fun, so if a game doesn't have offline mode with bots, I'm not playing it, that simple. been this way since I play SOCOM and SOCOM 2 on playstation 2, those games were fun as hell at first, but eventually the hackers came they always do. I learned my lesson. I don't waste my time on multi games for this reason anymore.

edit: imagine if Arrowhead went to Valve and asked for help in implementing the Valve anti-cheat software - and it had no account linking of any kind - this game would have skyrocketed to the top of the charts for longer than it did and sold more units to boot imo.

 

[cvaldes]

not to mention all the security breaches Sony has had over the years regarding gaming accounts. forcing that extra layer on people for no reason at all is a clown move,

If you read the Steam reviews for Helldivers 2, one of the top reviews is a list of Sony's recent security breaches.

The top review lists all of the countries where PSN is not available. There are 60 countries with PSN access. How many countries are on Planet Earth? Two hundred? More?

Double Ouch.

 

[Space Lynx]

If you read the Steam reviews for Helldivers 2, one of the top reviews actually lists all of Sony's recent security breaches.

Ouch.

Exactly, and again nice find, thank you for helping with this thread, much appreciated. ^^

It's how it's been for a long long time. Short term profits + nothing else matters = inability to use reason and logic for long term growth and success of products.

 

[cvaldes]

Let's not jump to conclusions whether it's Sony or ArrowHead leading this, or both.

Actually, we have a good clue which side of the fence the dev is standing.

Arrowhead Game Studios is actively encouraging the gaming community to review bomb their own title:

Helldivers 2 devs tell the community to review bomb the game

Helldivers 2 is facing controversy after Sony announced that all players must connect a PSN account to keep playing the game.

www.videogamer.com

Enjoy reading!



Disclaimer: I have removed Helldivers 2 from my Steam wishlist.

 

[Space Lynx]

Actually, we have a good clue which side of the fence the dev is standing.

Arrowhead Game Studios is actively encouraging the gaming community to review bomb their own title:

Helldivers 2 devs tell the community to review bomb the game

Helldivers 2 is facing controversy after Sony announced that all players must connect a PSN account to keep playing the game.

www.videogamer.com

Enjoy reading!



Disclaimer: I have removed Helldivers 2 from my Steam wishlist.

I have a picture of this in post 5 btw for those who don't want to click the link.

I think what @dgianstefani is trying to say is it may be a grayer area than we realize from the outside looking in is all, and he provided evidence for that. I agree with you though, this is all very strange.

 

[AsRock]

I think I speak for everyone when I say we are all fucking sick of having 10 accounts to login to just play a fucking video game. It's nice to see the Helldivers 2 community standing up for themselves.



From all of my reading Arrowhead had nothing to do with it, it all Sony corporate shit, this is the same shit I talk about all the time, how all these little MBA bitches get 6 figure jobs, but actually have no idea what they are doing, that's another example of this is my guess.

Well it's Steams annoying enough, even more so when it goes offline and kills your game.

What i all so find funny is that you cannot comment on their discord unless you give them proof who you are, so either way they going be data mining this shit anyways.