PlayStation is making life unnecessarily miserable for fans of Helldivers 2 and Ghost of Tsushima with new rules. They need to be careful with that.
You hardly get it, but gamers in the wildly popular Helldivers 2 – which is all about conquering territories – had to defend themselves en masse against an enemy from an unexpected quarter: PlayStation.
Sony wanted all Helldivers 2 players, including those on PC, to sign up through a PlayStation Network account. That backfired on many gamers and Sony beat a retreat, defeated. Victory for the gamers! Or not: Sony returns with yet another screw-up. This time, Ghost of Tsushima fans are screwed.
Helldivers 2 almost lost all its fans because of PlayStation
Helldivers 2 has been one of the biggest games since its release. On Steam as well as on the PlayStation 5 and Xbox, millions of players log in daily to blast over planets full of bugs and robots. But overnight, that didn’t just happen. All gamers on PC suddenly had to create a PlayStation Network account.
So whether you had a PlayStation 5 or an overpriced gaming computer, a PSN account was mandatory. Fans of Helldivers 2 protested en masse, and within days Sony reversed the change, much to the relief of many gamers. Unfortunately, it didn’t stop there.
(Image: Sony Interactive Entertainment)
Ghost of Tsushima, one of THE best games on the PlayStation, has also been available on PC since its release. But not anymore: in over 200 countries, the game is no longer playable online. Both on PlayStation and via Steam. Fortunately, most of the game is single player and can still be played. Still, it’s sour for fans of the otherwise near-perfect game.
This is why Sony wants you to create an account
Does Sony enjoy harassing its fans? Probably not. All the hassle surrounding the PlayStation Network account arises because of legal rules. It all has to do with rights surrounding the games Sony has released. Helldivers 2 and Ghost of Tsushima, as you guessed, were released by Sony.
Sony is also partly selling its rights for the games to Steam. As a result, these games for PlayStation can also be played by PC gamers. Therefore, users are indirectly connected to the PlayStation Network even if they don’t have a PlayStation 5 themselves. Now, for some reason, a lot of countries do not have access to the PlayStation Network (PSN).
Ghost of Tsushima (Image: Sony)
Now, somewhere in the rules it says that gamers in countries where no PSN is possible are therefore not allowed to use Sony’s services. So that means no Ghost of Tsushima or Helldivers 2 for countries like Pakistan, Bangladesh, Suriname and Syria.
PlayStation should be careful with its expansion
This legal wrangling does not come out of the blue, of course. It has long been known that PSN is not allowed in all kinds of countries. The reason it is suddenly causing a fuss now is because Sony is expanding more and more. The company also wants to make money outside the PlayStation. That’s why more and more exclusive PlayStation games are also available on Steam, for example.
There is nothing wrong with that in itself and it ensures that more gamers than ever can enjoy all kinds of top games. Provided it doesn’t involve hassle, as it does now. It is extra sour for gamers in some of those countries where no PSN was allowed but Steam was available. They now lose the opportunity to play online.
Ghost of Tsushima Director’s Cut (Image: Sony)
So PlayStation and Sony will have to be careful not to make more changes like this. It could yet again mean that fans will switch to another console en masse. It may not be that drastic, but Sony can count on buckets of displeasure being poured on them by fans.
