After a weekend of chaos and a descent into hell for Helldivers 2’s community rating on Steam, Sony has finally reversed its plan to make a PlayStation account login mandatory.
It took Sony three days to reverse its decision. Three days were enough to transform one of its successes of the year into one of the most unpopular games on Steam. Friday May 3, the developers of Helldivers 2 announced, we understand at Sony’s request, that their successful game would soon include a mandatory connection to a PlayStation Network account on PC. The logical continuation of Sony’s strategy which consists of making the PC a secondary platform in the PlayStation environment. However, connecting to the PlayStation account was optional until then. This announcement obviously displeased many Steam players.
From popular game to “extremely negative” review
Beyond dissatisfied players, this decision above all caused a fundamental problem for the game. Indeed, Helldivers 2 was marketed in more than 177 countries where Sony does not offer a PlayStation Network account. As a result, players would no longer be able to connect to the game. As a logical consequence, players turned to the Steam rating system to advise against the purchase, particularly in the countries concerned. In a few days, the game exceeded 260,000 negative reviews and is now rated “ extremely negative “.
Very quickly, and probably by Valve’s decision, Helldivers 2 was withdrawn from sale in 177 countries and the platform manager accepted refunds unconditionally, even if we played the game for more than two hours.
Sony finally backs down
Faced with this fiasco clearly endangering the future of its multiplayer game, Sony PlayStation ended up announcing that the compulsory connection to the PlayStation Network account would ultimately not be implemented: “ Helldivers fans — we’ve heard your feedback on the Helldivers 2 account linking update. The May 6 update, which would have required linking Steam and PlayStation Network accounts for new players and for current players at from May 30, will not go forward “.
Sony will therefore have left the game developers facing a crowd of disgruntled players for an entire weekend for nothing. On Twitter (X)the boss of the development studio Arrowhead did not hesitate to explain that it was not the choice of his teams, that they would have preferred to keep an optional connection to the PlayStation account. Perfectly understood, and your voice did not go unnoticed. I think this is one of the biggest and most powerful revolts in the industry so far. “.
What should Sony have done?
It is clear that Sony wants to increase the number of players connected to its PlayStation Network on average and thought that a mandatory connection after the launch of the game was a good solution. The publisher has chosen the game of the year that best showcases solidarity between players and a common front to push back against tyranny.
We think it would have been much simpler for Sony to leave the PlayStation account connection optional, but to offer benefits to players connected to this account. For example, access to an obligation (the game’s battle pass system) exclusive for people connected. It’s with this kind of incentive that players would have naturally accepted a PlayStation account login, without complaint.