Just because most games do it doesn't make it right.
They allowed sales of the game in countries where you could not make a PSN account for one, only to bait and switch those users long after the grace period for refunds had expired on Steam.
Also, there was no need for a PSN account for Steam users. They cite things as "making the game safer for everyone", which doesn't make sense considering how often SONY has leaked user data.
The fact they the game is so beloved by a community that is also large and organized is probably what led to such a massive backlash in such a short amount of time.
All correct, but this still isn’t a unique scenario. Many games that have been very loved with a very active community have had the same requirement over the years, helldivers wasn’t anything new.
I suspect this was just a case of the internet caught hold of something and went nuts as it normally does. Was the outcome positive? Absolutely, but it isn’t a new scenario like everyone’s acting it is.
* The game was being sold in regions where players would not be able to make a PSN account, because of PSN's restrictions being tighter than Steams
* At launch the account linking was not mandatory.
* It was also not clearly communicated at this time that it would become mandatory later.
* Even after their public statement that it would be mandatory, Sony's own FAQ still said that PSN accounts were not required to play any games on PC. This was edited after people noticed (Thanks to Arrowhead's CEO calling attention to the FAQ)
At this point it would be reasonable for players to assume it was not actually mandatory at all, despite wording saying it was
And the worst part is it took months for them to fix so they could make it mandatory. Well outside of the usual return window policy for Steam
As I've said elsewhere, this is not just one screw up, it's a bunch
It would have been a very different story if the first time you launch the game it did not let you play unless you link your PSN, which is what most games with this requirement will be like. Then you can choose to either link your account or happily get your refund because you haven't actually played
Also this game has been mired in mild controversy the entire time it's been live because the dev team is genuinely incompetent ie, they released an update that included new purchasable armor that eliminated electric damage, ie a buff to electric weapons.
The same update made using electric weapons crash most games.
The released a new mech that could fire rockets. The rockets would explode immediately after firing in some cases because they would recognize a collision with the hitbox of the mech you are firing from. That's like, my-first-unity-game level bad programming there.
They released an update that supposedly fixed enemies spawning. The actual result was enemies spawning within view, constantly, to the point that even the easier difficulties would overwhelm you. I'm talking you kill an entire patrol, turn 360 degrees, and an entire new patrol spawns directly on top of the corpse of the previous group. The way the game works, this makes it essentially unplayable.
The game's friend and squad management system doesn't work fully if you play on playstation. Since launch. It also fucks up sometimes on PC if your steam username is too short. None of the Steam user APIs work on usernames, they all use a numeric SteamID
If you aren't the "host" of the session (which actually isn't the actual host of the session!) "Damage over time" effects like setting enemies on fire, or using poison gas, do not work at all, ie 0 damage. That hasn't stopped them from buffing the flamethrower because their "Metrics" (lol) say not enough people use it. They've even released armor that buffs using fire without fixing that it literally doesn't work for 3/4ths of the group.
The premier anti-armor weapon the game has is a knock off of the Javelin anti-tank missile launcher. The lock on has never worked correctly. It sometimes refuses to lock on to an enemy vehicle 10 ft in front of you. After 4 months of complaints, the devs FINALLY put it on the list of "known bugs". When people ask what's taking so long, a dev posted an inane response on discord about how "ray casts are hard and have a lot of edge cases" as if ray casts haven't been a basic tool of game development for thirty years.
Like, Arrowhead is amazing at game "feel", Magica feels awesome, even if I've never been able to adjust to the control scheme. Helldivers one seemed really fun but my friends and I couldn't get multiplayer to work, like it would just ignore some players for no reason.
That reason is because Arrowhead devs could not program themselves out of a paper bag. It's always been this way, Magica was so crash prone and buggy that they added a spell to crash the game as a joke.
Plenty of dev teams are similarly incompetent. Hell, I've been that useless before. But they evidently do zero quality assurance, and don't seem to have good enough source control to know what changes go in what release. Many of the above problems are "this would be caught by a single person attempting to play the game, how did you not catch this?"
The Arrowhead support staff said (there are only 4 of them) is that they cannot process "conduct-based reviews" of reports because they have so many users. They wanted to outsource those reports to Sony.
Basically they wanted to make it easier and quicker to ban people for hurty words.
It's crazy how there wasn't really ANY desire to join NATO before Russia showed, once again, that you can not trust them. The full scale of Ukraine really was the straw that broke the camel's back.
Sweden has been using Nato standards and running occasional exercises with Nato for a while now. They didn’t want to be officially part of it because of their unique perspective on War and Peace (see Olof Palme, sending Blue helmets in Cyprus), but there wasn’t a lack of desire to join. I’d compare it to Switzerland and the EU: the de-facto alliance is obviously beneficial, but principles have kept things separated on paper.
Finland, that’s more complicated: unlike Baltic countries and the Kaliningrad exclave, they were not in the Soviet Union. That meant a lot of pressure to remain neutral, translated until last year into “Finlandization”: a refusal to take either side. That pressure ended with the Fall of the Berlin Wall, but Finland (like Sweden) saw no reason to change their official neutral position.
When Russia started to mess with Estonia, the need to ally with Nato, in particular on cyber-defense questions, became a lot more present for everyone nearby. I suspect that Finland wanted to be ready, adopt Nato standards, training, methods, etc., and pick the right moment to join officially. Like the Baltic trio, the Russian presence looms high in the East, and I’d be surprised if there were not regular overtures and unofficial promises of support. The USA and Canada care a lot about the Arctic, and it’s not hard to count the allies there.
So, I don’t think it was a major shift—like Italy changing sides at the end of WW2. It’s more a gradual rapprochement, matching Putin’s increasingly concerning policies, that hit a very good reason to accelerate. The process has been mostly political and official. Neither Sweden nor Finland had to change guns, tactics, or radio signals.
Finland realized that Finlandization does not work any more, by observing what happened to another country that tried to Finlandize for the last 3 decades: Ukraine.
They presumably meant in terms of popular opinion, which was always going to be de facto necessary to join (even if in the end it happened without a referendum). See the list of polls enumerated here:
The Swiss position on joining the EU follows a similar trajectory: the decision is negative, but that’s not because they think joining the alliance is a bad thing or that relations are strife, but because they thought, or think, that making things official would betray principles.
Maybe compare it to a couple who live together but aren’t married and are opposed to it because one of them sees it as an encroachment of religion.
Honestly I can understand the previous sentiment, joining would have come across as an act against Putin as that's how he always frames NATO. So keeping the status quo was fine for everyone. But then he showed he doesn't respect the status quo. Just my opinion of course.
It's the same in Sweden. My friends and I are all a couple of years passed the age our parents were when they had us.
Out of 7 people who have SO's in my social circle, 0 have children. Why? Because they simply don't have the room. The housing market in Stockholm is insane, and even though most earn above average (most are in tech) they can only afford tiny 1BR apartments. Trying to raise a kid in such a place would be impossible.
Unless you want to move out into cheaper areas, that these days are plagued by high-crime and is no real environment for a kid anyway, you're SoL.
Sure, one could move away from Stockholm into smaller towns up north, but then your career will suffer. Also not something most are willing to consider just as they've gotten a foothold in their respective careers.
The next couple of decades are going to be real interesting, and I don't mean that in a good way...
What I don't understand is that native people who make a good income rationalize that they can't afford kids but yet in the same country there are many non-native people that earn considerably less that continue have children at extremely high birthrates. So why does the group that earns a lot of money claim they are incapable of supporting a family and the group that earns very little actually support a large family, in the same country?
Maybe the non-native people that earn less see their future brighter, whereas the native group with good income sees their future darker.
When you come from nothing its easier to give your kids a better future than you had.
Some animals don't breed in captivity. Some human populations also didn't breed because they were in captivity. Even though people have it better number wise, it's still possible to feel trapped.
same to your argument, why is it my problem that you live far away from work, that you need to hassle and lose hours of your day commuting? live right next to work. It's not our problem that it's a hassle to you. Same if you have kids .. etc. It's not our problem. It's comfortable for YOU to work remotely but it's more comfortable to ME to work from office. Comfort here is always subjective to the choice you prefer.
So we should all go through the hassle of relocating closer to work each time we switch jobs just because it makes it more comfortable for office minded people? You can try to swing the argument the other way but there's no getting around that the opposite side of yours doesn't involve other people doing extra things for other people's comfort-- requiring the office adds extra things to EVERYONE while allowing remote allows savings for the people who care to.
I don't want to relocate myself to be next to some office. I work on a computer specifically because I can do it from wherever feels right to me.
You're right that it isn't your problem that it's a hassle for me: because that mindset is making it MY problem when I don't want it to be. That argument is an incredibly selfish one.
One is you _forcing_ me to do something (come into the office). The other is me not forcing you to do anything. The company is the one making you stay at home.
Sure, we all go back to work in an office. Hurray! Is the company going to force everyone there to be best buddies with you as well? What if nobody in the office likes you? Is it now company policy to be friends with everyone?
Gen Z and A are going to have serious problems. Work and School are biggest sources of friends. The two things they missed out on. I doubt many friends were made in the chat box of an online class.
School goes on until you're 18 or so (and even later if you go to university). Two-ish years of online schooling certainly hurt a bit, but is a small percentage of available childhood socialization time.
It’s so many small things chipping away at young people’s social lives, car dependant design, remote schooling, remote work, the loss of public spaces and facilities, social media, etc. We can see the trend, young people are constantly getting more lonely and isolated, but we only make changes that make it worse.
Actually I’ve seen kids share Roblox usernames through zoom chat boxes and then socialize via zoom calls while they play an online game on their iPads… it is totally possible to socialize, it just starts online now
I don't know you; maybe you don't desire interaction as much, or maybe you just didn't take the time to really digest what the parent said.
For many people, it is really hard to be new in a city. Some people have _no idea_ how to make friends out of college. With remote work this becomes so much harder.
This doesn't necessarily mean that _you_ should be forced to go to the office as a solution. I'm just saying that this can be a really big problem, especially if your team is full of people in a new city.
Not the OP on this thread. It looks like they were just sharing their feelings/experiences without proposing any policy changes. I don't see a reason for anyone to adopt a tone.
Someone asked a dumb question, I replied in good faith. The conversation goes on and on and becomes weirder and weirder, until the person said "You shouldn't have replied me.", and left.
They allowed sales of the game in countries where you could not make a PSN account for one, only to bait and switch those users long after the grace period for refunds had expired on Steam.
Also, there was no need for a PSN account for Steam users. They cite things as "making the game safer for everyone", which doesn't make sense considering how often SONY has leaked user data.
The fact they the game is so beloved by a community that is also large and organized is probably what led to such a massive backlash in such a short amount of time.