Image: Push Square

Sony Boss Says It's 'Learned a Lot' from PC Player Pushback

But it isn't backing down

by · Push Square

Sony’s decision to mandate PSN account linking with its PC ports has caused friction with the fanbase outside of its PlayStation ecosystem, but it’s not backing down.

Speaking as part of a financial call with investors, boss Hiroki Totoki said the organisation had “learned a lot” from the situation but needs to keep players safe. It’s a comment that’s obviously going to invite immediate criticism.

“The PlayStation accounts that we have offered – well actually, by offering them, for instance, sometimes that tends to invite pushback,” he said, via an interpreter. “But for the live service games, in order to maintain order of the gaming so that anybody can enjoy the games safely, we need to create an environment conducive to that and, of course, enjoying the game freely.”

To be fair, Totoki was speaking about failed first-person shooter Concord during this part of the call, so was focusing purely on live service games.

But that doesn’t change the fact that titles like Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered and God of War Ragnarok don’t have any kind of online interaction, so it’s clear Totoki is not being entirely transparent about Sony’s objectives here. In reality, it wants to make PC users part of its ecosystem, so it can track their playing habits and bolster its monthly active user statistics.

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Still, we’re a little conflicted on all of this.

For starters, virtually all games require you to have an account of some sort these days, and we’ve never seen pushback on this kind of scale before. The community around Helldivers 2 almost imploded when the requirement was introduced, and while we appreciate the whole sorry saga was poorly handled, it seemed like a total overreaction from our perspective.

On the other hand, we understand PSN isn’t officially available in every country, and so it seems strange for Sony to curtail its sales like this. Surely, the solution is for it to make the sign-up process as seamless as possible, and officially roll out the service in more regions?

That issue aside, this largely strikes us as a storm in a tea cup. We understand Sony’s not being entirely transparent with its goals here, and we recognise account linking adds a level of friction that players would rather not be forced to deal with. But is it really a big deal – especially when practically every other publisher is doing the exact same thing?

[source gamesradar.com]

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About Sammy Barker

As the Editor of Push Square, Sammy has over 15 years of experience analysing the world of PlayStation, from PS3 through PS5 and everything in between. He’s an expert on PS Studios and industry matters, as well as sports games and simulators. He also enjoys RPGs when he has the time to dedicate to them, and is a bit of a gacha whale.

Comments 87

So learned nothing at all.

oh boy, here we go again with the discourse about PSN...

Edit: PC players "bu-but my data and hacks", please spare me.

Re-edit: For people saying some countries can't get PSN, look I get it, but the majority of this "out cry" is coming from people who don't really care about them and are using it to make their weak excuse valid!

100% agree with multiplayer including co-op games as this gives them a mechanism to ban toxic players / cheats, which is very important imo.
Single player, not as much....

Sony shouldn't back down. They beg so much for PlayStation games then they should suck it up. You'd think if they want them that bad they'd stop stomping their feet like entitled children.

@GADG3Tx87 I can't agree with such mindset. 190 countries are not on list. Such attitude as yours feels very rubbish. Sony should fix that, and provide every country with possibility to open PSN account. I can understand request for PSN account, but make it available for everyone, no matter if those are 5%.

Bro who TF is in danger playing a video game? 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 “play our games safely” WHAT?!

I dunno. The whole strategy about porting games to PC is about expanding their users, so of course they want to "capture" them within PSN.

I think it's 100% fine if PC players don't want to use PSN; as long as it's communicated clearly to them that PSN is required, they're free to not buy those games.

But all the review bombing stupidity because you don't want to input an email address is just absolutely ridiculous. Just don't give Sony your money if you don't want to login to PSN. It's not hard.

@x3King84

They did learn...they learned that player pushback is something that they are willing to absorb into their cost/profit structure.

I learned today that McDonalds is not very healthy, so I had to make a decision of risk vs reward and I had a Big Mac anyway.

Its the same thing with Sony. They learned that a portion of the PC community overreacted to a small change in the terms of service and decided that they were willing to put up with it.

Whats the problem?

Of course they are!

Helldivers has been under fire since people realiced PlayStation owns the IP and ... they just can't stop buying it lol.
That means that what people say doesn't matter, they are going to buy anyway if the game is good.

I still don't get what the big deal is. But thats coming from a console gamer point of view i guess. There are more than 100 million people who signed up for PSN. It cant take any longer than a few mins. Inconveniences wise, its incredibly minor. Is it really about the data argument? Or are these people just too lazy to make an account?

@danzoEX Don't you know that mean words online = worse than irl physical assault. 😋

Player pushback is good but mounting hate campaigns and review bombing great games is a bit much, just don’t buy it, and tbh all of this could and should have been avoided very easily by Sony, now I don’t know if porting games is still worth the effort as everything now will be ridiculously scrutinized or outright rejected by the PC audience.

And tbf I do think the account requirement for single player games specifically is BS, you can play games off discs in PS5 without ever having to log in, why in PC should it be any different? To rack up active PS players stats is the only explanation I find ‘reasonable’, but wasn’t worth burning bridges with that audience.

I thought that the main problem with Helldivers 2 requiring a PSN account was that, prior to the planned mandatory account linking, it was being sold in countries where you can't (without breaching Sony's terms of service) make a PSN account, which would've made the game unplayable in those countries.

This sounds like the text of a Meme.

Sony "I learned a lot from this"
People "So what are you going to change?"
Sony [smiles silently while staring straight ahead to avoid eye contract]

Good. They shouldn't back down

If only PC gamers would spend so much energy complaining about the fact that on Steam you only buy a license and you basically own nothing..... but hey Sony are the bad guys.

I still hope that Sony will finally stop selling PC games completely because it hurts the PlayStation brand and only helps Valve.

@LogicStrikesAgain Not every country has PSN. Simple reason, easily addressed by Sony.

Not so simple reason: explain why someone should need an account to play a single player game? At all? I shouldn’t need a PSN account to play a game purchased from Steam that has no online interaction whatsoever. The existence of the Steam account should be enough, Sony doesn’t need to know when/where I play my legally purchased single player game.

I’m not a PC gamer (heck, I don’t even OWN a Windows machine!), but anyone who doesn’t understand why this is an annoyance isn’t trying hard enough.

Maybe Totoki learned something. Maybe.
What did Hulst learn? Because I learned plenty about him, and none of it was good.

Make it optional but add a bonus if you do link your account, that simple

F-off Totoki. There's a certain level of understanding a for the online games on their own servers, but for single player games to sit there and say "we learned and will change nothing" and lie about it. "We need to protect the players?" From what? playing privately offline without targeted marketing data collection occurring? "Offering" accounts? Absolutely nobody has a problem with being offered accounts. People have a problem with being forced to use an account. PC players dislike games that require a second layer of DRM on top of the layer of DRM they already chose. PC players have always disliked games that do that and the publishers that force them to. If Sony wants to put themselves in the basket with EA and Ubisoft in terms of customer perception, that's their choice. Just expect public discourse to put them in the same basket as EA and Ubisoft.

@Oram77 Yep, if they really cared that much they would have removed their bank information already

if people hate sony that much why do they still want to play their games? wasn't one of the reasons why they wanted a psn account was because they wanted to add trophies to pc games? which that requires a psn account?

@dskatter I do understand that it might be an annoyance for some PC gamers. But from my perspective, i didnt really mind it. I did not give it much thought before making one. Honestly, i cant even remember signing up, it was so long ago. Cant even call it an annoyance to be honest. Also, i only had to sign up once. After that, i never had to be inconvenienced ever again. So yeah, i cannot relate. But i do recognize that im probably seeing it from a console gamer point of view.

I think a nice compromise would be to not require it for any single player games at least. If it's an online focused game then I'd say it's a fair play since...well servers but there isn't any real reason for a single player game to require it.

@dskatter An explanation might be that they are the ones patching(updating) the games, since they are Playstation games after all, not Steam games. Sony is ultimately responsible for addressing bugs and technical issues. It would be way easier for them to patch these games and address bugs if they have better oversight. Im just giving one example, there might be many more reasons why Sony wants this.

@get2sammyb I think blowing this off as "a storm in a teacup" deeply minimizes the real issue here.

For offline single player games, forcing an online connection and login is a huge blow to long-term game preservation. That means those games become unplayable if those servers ever go away.

For online multiplayer games, it is what it is. There is a cost to maintaining that infrastructure so the expectation should be that those games won't stay around forever.

For offline single player games, that should never be the case. They are hamstringing the future of those games so they can harvest data from their userbase.

I still play games from 20-30 years ago on PC. If those games had online logins, many of them would no longer be playable.

@danzoEX "Bro who TF is in danger playing a video game? 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 “play our games safely” WHAT?!"

Ask the parent of the kids who were and still are targeted by pedophiles and groomers on Roblox

@evan23 Those games won't go away, since you have the PS4/5 versions with the disk AND you can find pirated versions without the account requirements for PC anyway.
If you're talking about games like Diablo IV though, games that you need servers to play, that's a whole different story, but the single-player PS games ain't it.

@get2sammyb I think it's more about how many people worldwide aren't allowed to even play the games. Live service is one thing, but single player games it's just unnecessary. It's kind of remarkable this blog is still so tone deaf about that facet. This is only the bazillionth article on the subject

@Athrum Consoles don't last forever. We are already starting to see availability issues on the used market with some of the older consoles. Also, you are assuming those consoles will even still function in the future without their online component. Since the physical drives themselves require online activation, trusting that you will still be able to read those discs in the future is flawed to begin with.

PC is only platform where you have real game preservation so it is critical we push back on these online requirements for offline single player games.

@8bitOG Sony should make PSN available in the affected countries and I sympathise.

I maintain it's being used as an excuse by a vast majority to justify review bombing and whining about having to use their email address.

@get2sammyb "Just don't give Sony your money if you don't want to login to PSN. It's not hard."

And that's exactly what PC players are doing as PushSquare posts articles about how the novelty of Sony games on PC is wearing off due to low sales.

Move to the comments section and people call Sony's push to PC a mistake and how they shouldn't even bother because people aren't buying the games anymore.

We tell people to vote with their wallets and then criticize them for voting with their wallets.

It's very simple Sony:

  • PSN for live service as people are connecting to your servers.
  • No PSN for single-player games because no one on PC cares about your Trophies or your PSN success line chart you report to shareholders.

Do that and perhaps people will believe you've "Learned a lot" from PC players.

@get2sammyb people are allowed to review the product however they wish. I don't complain when the word "masterpiece" is haphazardly thrown at subpar games. Personally, I'm just flat out refusing to buy their PC ports because of the restriction. Since I already have a PSN, I'll link it when they're more inclusive. Otherwise, I'll tend to my back catalog and other releases

@evan23 Once again, I can download those games right now to my PC and keep them in a disk forever or until the disk dies, with no issue whatsoever. So preservation is not the right angle to go at this, these games are not in a server that you need to access, the account is just an authentication thing.

@GamingFan4Lyf Definitely in their right to vote with their wallet, good on them. But Sony is also responding by saying they’re not budging. So i guess one of their goals is to get more players in their ecosystem. And if PC gamers don't want to, maybe Sony isn't really affected by it. It goes both ways i guess.

And hey, maybe if sales dwindle down more, Sony might change its mind.

Talking from my perspective though. If someone had just signed up with the first Sony PC port, they would have been playing more than a dozen PS games without being “inconvenienced” again. I really don't get whats so difficult for these PC gamers. It seems like more trouble and emotional effort to go on websites complaining and review bombing, than just sign up once and get it over with.

These PC players still throwing tantrums about having to make a PSN account? Jesus Christ! Make one and play games or don't and move on.

@Athrum Even if you make a copy of the physical disc, in most cases it won't be very useful in the long run. What is on the disc for most modern is games is a prerelease copy of the code which is typically in a pretty poor state. There are exceptions but most console game discs do little for preservation.

PC is the only real legal preservation platform these days.

@Paramahansa It isn't about being too lazy to make an account. It is about the implications that come with it.

@LogicStrikesAgain By that logic, every game on Steam should require that each game has an account signed in from each developer since technically they’d be providing the updates. That isn’t the case, and updates on Steam are delivered via Steam and not directly from the developer.

@evan23 Are there any PC specific implications? Cause i don't see Playstation users making a big issue about having to sign up for PSN. Again, im not a PC gamer. So maybe im missing something.

@LogicStrikesAgain Odd strategy to disregard the voice of the people you are trying to sell to - especially if you want to grow a Live Service business that will need a player base.

If a company isn't listening to the players, why should they continue to support that company?

I remember when people were losing their minds because there was a bug in the first re-release of the original DOOM where the Bethesda account launcher couldn't be skipped and forced people to sign-in. It was rectified very quickly.

This is the same thing except Sony doing it! Provide the option, and let it be skipped.

@get2sammyb So other than tracking someone’s gameplay stats, what use is there for a PSN signin for a single player game on PC?

That’s still the sticking point here. People can say “it’s no big deal, just sign up, storm in a teacup!” all they want, but it should not be required for a single player game, period. Whether it’s a hardship or not, whether it’s easy or not, there’s no justification beyond “we want to track your playtime.”

I hate the psn requirement on other platforms (and all other publisher acct requirements like this) you should only need an account for the storefront you bought the game on. Single player games are basically always online games as being offline takes away the ability to sign in to this bs. My Steam deck isn't really an option for any of their games unless I'm connected to the internet.

Steam reviews are a great feature. As long as it's not based on something wild like female character isnt pretty enough, review bomb campaigns are mostly a positive thing.

@GamingFan4Lyf I don't know why. Im just pointing out their statement. They are aware about what some PC gamers think and according to this article, they are still not backing down. Im just making an assumption of why they're not backing down. I guess they do want these gamers into their ecosystem more than they care about the sales. Again, im just speculating here

@LogicStrikesAgain PSN is a proprietary signin on a proprietary platform that is linked to every game played on said proprietary platform.

PC is not a proprietary platform and games can be played from almost every non-console storefront. Large difference.

@dskatter "we want to track your playtime so we can show our shareholders that we are having growth in PSN accounts so that they are satisfied".

There, I fixed it for you.

@LogicStrikesAgain Sorry, I wasn't meaning for you to actually have answers. Truly baffling to say they "learned" but won't change. It really does feel like Sony forgot what it's like to have actual pushback.

@dskatter Im not being very clear im sorry. By updating i didn't mean that they have to update games outside of Steam or anything. I just meant that they are responsible for patching(updating) the game for bugs and technical issues. So it might help to have more oversight.

Still find it a minor inconvencience when all this can be circumvented by a 2 min sign up though. Sorry, dont have strong feelings about all these things at all. I once had to sign up for playing a Ubisoft game on Playstation. While a minor inconvenience, it took me no less than 2 mins.
But yeah, this is ofcourse very personal for everyone. I can imagine that some might be more annoyed than others.

@LogicStrikesAgain Yes. The situation on PC is different. The issue for me is not that I need an account. I already have a PSN account. I don't care that much about that.

The issue on PC is that every time you run the game, you have to have that account validated. So once the servers that do that validation go offline, the game becomes unplayable. Again, for an online game, I think that is fair. But for an offline single player game, it destroys long-term game preservation. Also, I hope you weren't planning to play the game offline, like an on airplane.... Preservation is my primary concern.

For other people, there is also a privacy concern. They don't need/want Sony knowing when and how they play their offline games.

@LogicStrikesAgain

Still find it a minor inconvencience when all this can be circumvented by a 2 min sign up though. Sorry, dont have strong feelings about all these proprietary things at all. I once had to sign up for playing a Ubisoft game on Playstation. While a minor inconvenience, took me no less than 2 mins.

It isn't about the time it takes to sign up. On PC, it is something you need to deal with every time you launch the game.

@evan23 The preservation point i respect, but cannot relate to im sorry. And the privacy concern, i understand, but don't care about as much in this specific situation. And seeing as you have a PSN account, im assuming that the privacy concern isn't really a big deal for you as well.

@evan23 Wait, do you mean you dont automatically log in to ur account? Like you have to type it in everytime you wanna play a game or something? Cause that would be annoying lol

So - I do think it's hard for console gamers to understand where the PC gamers are coming from... for them, PC gaming is like dreams of the Wild West, where they feel they are free. There's an ingrained suspicion about Sony - not helped by data leaks/hacks. However, they will gladly give all their details to Steam... or EG... or GoG... or EA... or .... any number of other services.

And yes, we all get it... SP games should not require a log-in. But likewise, Sony is a business, and their business is selling games and content. And driving up numbers (which must go up) is what investors want to see. Shock horror!

It IS however truly bizarre for a business to leave money on the table, by not having PSN in all countries. I assume that there's just some commercial protections that they don't feel are provided; or simply that the infrastructure required isn't going to overcome costs?

@dskatter PC might not be proprietary, but Steam is. And Steam is allowing Sony to do this in their ecosystem. And other publishers as well. So as i see it, no foul done. Sony just needs to think about whats more important to them. Game sales or a larger ecosystem.

@Oz_Who_Dat_Dare Yes, i agree. And i want to clarify that im also against Sony not making PSN available in those countries.

@NEStalgia I think to be fair... as was written in the article... the comment was likely made relating to online MP games on PC. I think people should dial back the negativity unless we have actually seen the context in which the comment was made. I haven't...but in general, of course there's no online safety issue for SP games. I think this is just conflating two things, because Sony.... and people wanting to have a free kick.

I imagine they've learned exactly the percentage of players this actually matters to and that in the end those mouthing off don't make as much difference as the Internet makes it seem like they do...

@Medic_alert Yes, exactly, that might very well be the case. They simply ran the numbers and didn't back down, because it doesn't affect them. And maybe if the sales go down more, they might change their mind.

@LogicStrikesAgain Steam lets developers do what it pleases in terms of how it wants to handle games and lets the free market decide for itself how things play out.

It's not in Steam's interest to police who adds what launcher and authentication to their games. That's on player choice to decide what's right for them.

Steam makes it very clear what is required to play said game to allow people to make an informed choice.

I don't think anyone is arguing whether Sony is allowed or not allowed to do with its own games.

What people are saying is that players are voicing their concerns with Sony and voting with their wallets and, yet, Sony continues to double down regardless of that.

So, if more news comes out that Sony games aren't doing well, there is no mystery why. Sony does nothing about it.

I feel bad for Nixxes.

They do a great job with their ports, but it's all starting to be in vain. Will that studio go on the chopping block if Sony's PC ambitions die due to Sony telling its consumers what they want rather than listening to what they want (or don't want)?

Again, not looking for an actual answer.

@GamingFan4Lyf I do agree, it seems like Sony should be catering more to their audience if they want to grow it on PC. But maybe they're conflicted by what they want more. To sell games, or have people convert over to their ecosystem. Also, other publishers don't have the added responsibility of owning a platform they have to cater to. Sony might therefore sometimes need to make other choices than publishers have made in the past. All i know is i don't want to be in their shoes.

@LogicStrikesAgain I would think selling games since Sony actually makes money from that. Creating a PSN account doesn't cost a dime from the consumer - yet seems to be costing sales for Sony.

I guess some bean counter somewhere feels like ecosystem is the better option since Sony isn't budging on the issues at the moment.

🤷‍♂️

@GamingFan4Lyf Yeah, the Steam being proprietary comment was actually meant for someone else. He said PSN is a proprietary signin on a proprietary platform and PC isn't a proprietary platform. So i just wanted to say that while PC isn't, Steam is.

It wasn't really meant to unlock a discussion whether Sony is allowed to do what they're doing on Steam or not.

@GamingFan4Lyf Lol, “🤷🏻‍♂️” perfectly encapsulates my sentiments as well! And yes, my first thought would also be that sales would be more important. There might be something said for the ecosystem option, as people in an ecosystem tend to spend more. But hey, who knows whats going on in the heads of the people running Sony.

I might be saying something super stupid that makes no sense at all, since I know nothing about how this actually works:

How hard would it be for Sony to have a PC platform, to sell their exclusives pc ports, and perhaps make a deal to also sell some pc versions of games they sell from 3rd parties. This way, PC users would already have a Playstation log in, and would access their platform to access their Sony games. This would make having a PSN account organic, natural and seamless.

Removed - offensive remarks

@Whately86 I think what you’re suggesting would be for Sony to release their own launcher. Which is not a bad idea. Now, im not very knowledgeable about all of this myself, but im pretty sure that while it could be good for Sony, PC gamers would probably strongly oppose that idea. As it would bring another launcher for them to deal with.

@Whately86 There are rumours that Sony are indeed working on a PC launcher , but obviously take that with a pinch of salt.

@LogicStrikesAgain @Whately86 As of right now, if one were to buy a game on Steam from 2K Sports, Ubisoft, Blizzard, Rockstar, and some EA and Activision games, they all require logging into their respective launchers upon booting of the game.

Interestingly enough, it is all Western publishers that require them.

I don't think any major Japanese publishers require launchers with an account. Capcom doesn't require one. Square Enix doesn't (well, except Final Fantasy 14, but that makes sense). Bandai Namco doesn't, either. Neither does Konami.

Microsoft doesn't require any log-in for single player games.

So, yes, there is precedent for launchers on PC, but I also think there is "launcher fatigue" on PC.

I know I have the following installed on my computer:

Steam
GOG Galaxy
Epic Games Store
Amazon Prime Games
EA Play
Battle.NET
Ubisoft Connect

I use Steam the most.

Second-most used app is Epic Game Store to play Alan Wake II, and a bunch of free games Epic has been handing out over the years (as well as free games through Prime Gaming).

I sometimes use GOG Galaxy for Cyberpunk and The Witcher series (and some old games I happen to own as well as freebies that I got both from GOG.com itself and through Prime Gaming).

I loaded the Amazon Prime Games launcher once.
I loaded the Ubisoft Connect launcher once or twice.
I loaded Battle.NET a handful of times.
I don't even really use EA Play at all.

I prefer to use as little apps as I can - and I don't load all these apps up at boot.

I have heard from q few people that the single player Sony games say they need psn, but when you load it up, you can skip, that part and just play.

I've never bought 1 because I use the console for exclusives so I dont know how true this is.

But if it is true, then people are jumping at conclusions for no reason.

It makes sense if its a live service from Sony, why wouldn't they want it on their network.

But single player of true, does not require you to sign up, you can skip it.

@Bez87 Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered kicks you out of the game if you don't log in.

Everything before God of War Ragnarök doesn't require a PSN log-in (it was either optional or login didn't exist at all).

Ghost of Tsushima has an optional log-in to use PlayStation overlay (which makes sense), but it is required to play Legends (also makes sense).

@GADG3Tx87 When did they beg?

Wish he would learn a bit about consumer interaction.

They learned nothing, want people's data as much as possible because they want to sell things to you. Why else wouldn't they have learned how PC gamers think and don't want to use their products/services not just oh a console we don't need that we have a PC.

I turn my PS4's network settings off just to play Immortals Fenix Rising. I refused to play the Prince of Persia Lost Crown demo and deleted it. I play the game itself on Switch in airplane mode, 1.0 and not updated it once (to save space and to see how it goes and good it works, none of Ubisoft's services and me not being able to play a game I bought). EA/Activision/etc. license agreements are one thing but forcing their other services on you (even if I paid $4 for Fenix Rising so it's not the money) it's the forcing their other business practices on you when you say no is disgusting. I do if I want to not letting me progress at all is disgusting.

GTA/Horizon controlling what version of the game THEY want to sell to you is disgusting, it's very controlling. I don't care about the perfect version, I just want to play, I'm glad I own a small handful of 1.0 versions with no updates. Other than Wanted Dead (did have an update later) for a 2023 title, very few 2010+ period games I own for PS4, Switch, Xbox One, Vita are like that.

I mean speedrunning and 1.0 or other region versions (for older games if people want the JP version as it's faster or something for text due to characters to read) or other stuff to consider for other reasons of censorship or speedrunning with glitches is something. The focus on perfection or 'controlling' how they want it I mean sure but it's just annoying. IF the game is broken sure but just whatever they control for other factors is just annoying.

But I can play any build of Minecraft Java Edition with any snapshot, any version, any april fools build out there. But you can't most (probably other examples just that came to mind) if any other games out there. Virtual Machine using on any OS is just as cool too for prototype builds or cut OS that are too buggy let alone older versions of OS.

I have enough experience with different mod APIs/modloader with Minecraft to know how salty and dumb PC gamers are when it's by fans that modding (not talking the official modding), them creating another modloader and trolling about it aka like another game engine, it's like gamers getting salty over other game engines taking the stage. Yes because competition or avoidance of a toxic modloader community situation they know nothing about and trolling over the one they started with, comfort over a modloader. Like it's so stupid. Because 1 API to rule them all in their minds/first they used and they don't even do their at least 5+ modloaders over 10 years history because they are stupid. As if it's nothing new when it's been 10 years of course 5+ APIs have existed out there but no one really does their research or cares about modding flexibility. Stupid players.

But in situations like this I do understand why it's not consistency it's just clear what companies are after when doing this sort of thing.

@get2sammyb Just want to say I agree w/ you about the PSN sign-in issue seeming to be blown out of proportion. That said, the way things have been going for me lately, maybe we're both on the wrong side of this? 😩

@Oram77 when a game's a bit bugged because of an update, people lose their minds all over the internet. When people in whole countries can't play a game because of an unnecessary post-release addition, forced under false pretenses, apparently that's just fine.
I don't think I've logged into Ubisoft, as they repeatedly try to convince you to, since before Odyssey, I don't plan on changing that, and that's a choice that we should always have.

@KawakiisaFraud unlike psn and Xbox digital games, which are totally safe in your library, and not at all licensed to your account or console. Yep, completely safe.
Just like the Discovery channel content on psn, safe as anything could be, for the next two years.

The key here in my opinion is that so odd that PSN accounts isn't available in more countries, countries that Steam, Microsoft etc have no problem having accounts so don't buy that it's legally complicated. Just anti-consumer.

As long as they keep bringing exclusive games to PC.

Paystation should have their own ps store on PC and only launch games there exclusively. If it came with trophies, cloud saves across platforms and good controller support, I'd use it. It'd just be like playing on playstation.

@evan23 On PC, it is something you need to deal with every time you launch the game.

You have to sign into PSN every time? have I got that right?

@REALAIS Have you actually checked that list ??? Some are not even counties Antarctica insisted and it the list was published by Valve not Sony and it was Valve who issues the refunds on the Helldivers 2 PC version. Sony I don't think even did it but it's been known that they can still get PSN and play online they just can't buy Helldivers 2. Quite a few counties use VPNs anyway to get around it all

@Oz_Who_Dat_Dare I'd like to believe you're right however the fact that he's even couching the requirement behind the phrase "offering" makes me very doubtful.

"accounts that we have offered – well actually, by offering them, for instance, sometimes that tends to invite pushback,”

The IRS annually offers us donation boxes, too.

@themightyant That kind of data works with anonymous data aggregation. It doesn't need user accounts at all, and secondary launchers for that. The information they want here is not optimization and bug finding in nature. It's personal information they're after.

'It will bolster its monthly active user statistics' .

That's not good.

I think what he means to say is they want to boost PSN numbers and forcing it on PC players is one of their best ways.

Keep the shareholders happy.

Tbf though Sony hasn't been "for the gamers" for a long time so dosnt suprsie me

Aww boo hoo PC players have to sign into PSN. When they have to start paying for online they can complain.

@NEStalgia I read that on a forum from a dev trying to explain why PSN was a valid requirement. But I can’t find the post, too busy with Pro, so have deleted my post in case it’s misinformation.

Sony want gamers data rather than selling games, I think sony want to make their version of steam store on pc with cross-save option for their console.

Nothing is gonna change unless people stop their biases and actually complain when ANYONE does this.

Instead of singling out Sony.

Cause a fuss when Epic, Microsoft, EA, RockStar and Ubisoft do it

Sony does it better because they allow family sharing but no one complains when anyone else does it and they reward them with millions of sales.

Stop buying Epic, Microsoft, EA, RockStar and Ubisoft games like you all did with Sony and it will change for the better

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