Helldivers 2 has received 100,000 negative reviews since announcing players must link Steam to a PSN account
Earlier this week, Helldivers 2 players on PC were informed that they should soon link their Steam account to a PlayStation Network (PSN) account. Two days later, the game received 100,000 new negative reviews on Steam.
Additionally, Arrowhead developers have made several statements to say that they are on the players’ side.
“Ouch, straight into the review score,” tweeted Johan Pilestedt, CEO and Creative Director of Arrowhead Game Studio. “Well, I guess it’s justified. Sorry everyone for how this all went down. I hope we make up for it and regain trust in delivering a continued and great gaming experience. I want just make great games!”
When Pilestedt made this comment yesterday, Helldivers 2 still had a “Mostly Positive” user review rating on Steam, with a “Mixed” rating based on reviews from the last two weeks alone. As of this writing, the overall rating is now mixed – showing just 59% positive reviews – and recent reviews are mostly negative.
Internal discussions are ongoing about the mandatory binding change and while I can’t reveal details, the response from our development teams has been pretty universally negative and we are looking for better options,” wrote Spitz, head of the Arrowhead community, on Helldivers Discord (as shared by Reddit user Navar4477).
Spitz also said that the decision and announcement was made by Sony and not Arrowhead itself.
Players object to requiring their PSN accounts to be linked for a variety of reasons, ranging from fundamental inconveniences to broader data collection and privacy concerns. This change is of particular concern to players in regions where it is not possible to create a PSN account. An earlier comment from Arrowhead suggested that these players would have to sign up for PSN for a region other than the one they reside in, but that would actually violate Sony’s own terms of service.
“If a better solution is not provided for players who are in regions without PSN coverage, I am assured that we will not make this requirement mandatory for these players,” Spitz wrote. “We’re not going to force people to break Sony’s terms of service or not play the game.”
Sony has been bringing more and more of its games to PC in recent years, usually years after their exclusive console release. Helldivers 2 is a little different, in that they are publishing the game and it is developed by a third party studio not owned by them, and it was released simultaneously on the PC and PlayStation platforms. This multiplatform version partly explains why it was so successful; It is would have the seventh highest-grossing Sony-published game of all time, with over half of its sales on PC. It’s also just a great game.
It’s all a shame that the experience is tarnished for players by an unnecessary account requirement.
News Source : www.rockpapershotgun.com
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