Helldivers 2 has been in the news for both the right and wrong reasons since the start of the year. For those unfamiliar, Helldivers is a cross-platform game available on PlayStation and PC that gained sudden popularity and has been a fan favorite since launch. The game is highly regarded as one of the best community-oriented games exclusive to PlayStation and PC users. While Palworld seemed to dominate the meta at one point, Helldivers 2 was Sony’s response to Microsoft’s Palworld monopoly. In short, Sony launched a game exclusively for PC and PlayStation. The game was so successful that fans claimed Sony became greedy and made detrimental decisions regarding the community and game.
HellDivers 2 Vs Palworld A.K.A Sony Vs PlayStation
At a time when Palworld was dominating the meta, Sony launched Helldivers 2. The reception was wild upon launch. In fact, the developers struggled to maintain online connectivity for more than four hours before the servers crashed and required a few hours offline. Arrowhead Games, the developers of Helldivers 2, did not anticipate such a high number of players purchasing the game at launch, causing them to struggle to keep up. A few weeks later, the game was competing with Palworld, making it one of the most played games on both PlayStation and PC.
Sony needed a title to compete with the success of Palworld, and Arrowhead Games provided them with that title. Palworld was exclusive to Xbox/PC, while Helldivers 2 was a PS/Xbox exclusive. The battle was on between Xbox and PC until Sony made a controversial decision.
Sony Tries To Sneak One In by Forcing Everyone to Register for “Playstation Network” accounts.
Everything was going smoothly until Sony made a bold move. They announced that users who wanted to play Helldivers 2 had to register and link their Playstation Network account to play the game. This requirement came after many users had already spent $30 on the game. Users began criticizing the game with negative reviews flooding the Steam store. The game, which once had over 95% positive ratings, now faced over 25,000 negative reviews within 48 hours of the announcement.
While it’s not a significant issue for PC users to create a Playstation Network account, almost 160 countries/regions did not have access to the Playstation Network. Sony had prohibited users from these regions from creating new accounts, effectively preventing them from playing the game. Now, users were in a situation where they had paid $30 for a game they could never play again. Sony confirmed that with account linking, users would not be able to play Helldivers 2. I’m still confused about how this requirement came about. Perhaps this was Sony’s way to compel PC players into their network and encourage them to buy Sony titles from their store instead of giving a cut to Epic/Steam stores. Either way, this decision prompted the entire gaming community to accuse Sony of greediness. Steam also confirmed that they wouldn’t issue refunds and directed customers to contact Sony for refund-related queries.
As of now, Sony has withdrawn the new requirement due to the backlash they received over the past few days. It was only because of the loud outcry from the community that Sony completely backed down. They apologized and stated that they are new to the PC gaming space and this incident has taught them a lesson.
