until now the noise about Helldivers 2 retroactively enforcing its requirement to have a PSN account to play was pretty much just noise (especially once the absolute chodes started piling in for unrelated reasons like whining about Crunchyroll or stellar blade, allowing those who were uneasy about the decision but still enjoying the game to just tune out all the criticism entirely). All in all it was more or less destined to blow over
but now Sony (or possibly Valve) actively delisted the game on Steam for people in 177 different countries and territories where PSN is not officially supported, including mine, where all Philippine PSN accounts have a faked Hong Kong or Singapore address. I can still play the game on PC as I bought it, but I can't even view its steam store page now without turning on a VPN.
Were all those accounts that important to Sony that they'd willingly nuke the biggest game they've published so far this year? Companies move slow, so this was probably pre-scheduled and the company hasn't yet decided on its response, but we're talking insane levels of just, completely preventable PR disaster.
like after looking at this what still-independent developer in their right mind would allow sony to publish their next live service game or whatever? knowing that some c-suite chud would potentially sabotage all the goodwill their game can generate to juice PSN signup numbers?
all thoughts go out to arrowhead and its community team. they're probably having a really shitty week
