The uniqueness of Helldivers 2 and Deep Rock Galactic (owned by a very pro-consumer company), is that it is a highly cooperative game that gives no reward for not being cooperative. This spawns kinda the best of humanity. And the fiction is really fun to get into.
It was really great seeing people lock arms in protest over the fact that a chunk of the community was gonna get screwed over.
I was struck how much this reminded me of the Tax Revolt in Second Life forever ago. In the same way Helldivers' fans used the game's theme to shape the protest, in SL the protest took on American revolution / tea crate rebellion themes:
A couple friends of mine have been playing this non stop for a few weeks...
From what I can gather, the psn requirement has been there since before release, but wasn't working at launch so they turned it off. Now they wanted to turn it back on, and people realized they wouldn't be able to play anymore...
I'm not sure I get the anger, the steam page clearly said you needed a psn account.
You don't get why people would be annoyed that a new requirement was introduced, that adds nothing, gains them nothing, and prevents a subset of people from playing?
The reason they can't play is because you can't get log in to the PSN in those countries, even though there is no real reason why Sony couldn't let you create an account.
And because they had played for 2 hours, you are no longer eligible for a refund.
You don't get why gamers are unhappy with changing requirements after purchase, to the point where there are literally petitions asking for government intervention to stop publishers from killing old games.
This is the steam page from 2 weeks before launch. The page clearly states that a psn account is required. Read my post again if you don't understand why someone would see this and still choose to buy a game they could potentially not be able to play.
There's no indication that it's a yet-to-be-introduced requirement that will block 100+ countries including the user's own - and a footnote in the sidebar would not be the appropriate place for that.
If it's being sold in their country, works for their friends, and works for months after they purchased it - I think most people won't have reason to think twice about it (if they noticed it in the first place), or just be given the impression that the account is something handled automatically in the background.
Even if the notice clearly and correctly stated "We're taking payment from people in your country, but will prevent it being played in a few months", I think people are right to protest arbitrary enshittification of purchased products.
I read your post, and think you completely miss the point.
People rebelled because this was just enshittification, Sony could have got away with it being "optional with a bonus skin if you do". But this was just kicking a bunch of players off, without offering a refund and no advantage for everyone else by having PSN logins.
You might be fine with that, but the rest of us are tired of being told to rent our software, with features being removed and restrictions being added.
It was really great seeing people lock arms in protest over the fact that a chunk of the community was gonna get screwed over.