Sony’s game publishing arm has done a 180-degree turn on a controversial policy of requiring PC players to sign in with PlayStation accounts for some games, according to a blog post by the company.

Sony hasn’t lost hope that players will still go ahead and use a PlayStation account, though, as it’s tying several benefits to signing in.

The change is a major about-face for a handful of single-player titles after Sony faced considerable backlash from many angry PC players about the PlayStation account requirement to play the games.

  • atmur@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    7
    ·
    9 days ago

    Nice, waiting paid off. I’m actually interested in picking up the new God of War and Horizon games now.

  • Muffi@programming.dev
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    6
    ·
    edit-2
    9 days ago

    I really hope other publishers will be inspired. Just yesterday I had an hour to kill on a train ride, and wanted to play some Mass Effect on my SteamDeck. It took 25 minutes just to get started, because EA updated their required launcher, which couldn’t be bypassed because it required Internet connection, and then forced the update (which of course bugged out, and had to be redone thrice). A 25 minute boot time for something that doesn’t affect the game the slightest is a terrible user experience.

    • LinuxEnjoyer@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      5
      ·
      8 days ago

      Valve should use it’s position on the market for something good and straight up not allow single player games to use external launchers. I’m buying the game on Steam so I just want to play, not make yet another 3rd party account and then pray the 3rd party launcher will work fine on Linux.

      • wellheh@lemmy.sdf.org
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        7 days ago

        Thing is they’ll then just miss those games or be accused of abusing its market position to be anticompetitive, but I think in general these publishers are getting that we don’t want stupid launchers/extra logins. It happened with 2k and it’s good it’s happening with Sony. Honestly I check before I buy any game if the store mentions a third party account now because that’s so annoying. Especially origin- they are awful and their business is awful.

  • Computerchairgeneral@fedia.io
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    4
    ·
    9 days ago

    Mildly surprised Sony actually budged on this. Of course, they really should have had this setup from the start. No one is going to like being forced to set up a PSN account to play a game, but I imagine a lot of people will do it for a free cosmetic skin or whatever in-game incentives they come up with.

    • ipkpjersi@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      edit-2
      9 days ago

      No one is going to like being forced to set up a PSN account to play a game, but I imagine a lot of people will do it for a free cosmetic skin or whatever in-game incentives they come up with.

      That’s the thing I don’t get. If they give a free skin or two, and advertise that, and also make it clear that it’s optional, I see no reason why they wouldn’t still get tons of people either way. That way, everyone is happy.

      These companies really don’t understand that like, if you make good games, and you do things that gamers like, they will be happier with your games, buy more games, buy more DLC, etc. These game companies would make far more money being nicer than being shitty.

      • Rekorse@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        8 days ago

        They were trying to either profit off the data collection directly or use it to increase future sales or improve marketing.

        They tried the stick, which was you can’t launch the game without an account, when they should have used the carrot instead, which would be giving in game bonuses for logging in and willingly giving them your data.

        Also part of the problem is that Sony does make good games, and has for a while. They are games people want to play so that makes it more frustrating.

      • Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        edit-2
        8 days ago

        I suspect the heads of those companies, frequently not even being gamers themselves, don’t really see gamers as fellow human beings but instead think of them with the same level of empathy as one has for numbers in a ledger.

        It probably doesn’t help that the phenomenon of fanboyism means that a large proportion of gamers might was well be nothing else than numbers in a ledger, given that they always go along with whatever the game maker that they’re fans of wishes and does, with no real bottom-line-affecting reaction.

    • LucidNightmare@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      8 days ago

      They were.

      I bought God of War Ragnarok through Steam, and had a hell of a time trying to get past the PlayStation account. I spent an hour or two trying to do this, gave up, refunded the game, and immediately pirated the game.

      No PlayStation login, and the game worked fine with whatever updates I could find.

      Fuck that, and fuck Sony. You will not do that to me again. I can’t speak for others though. I’m sure they will eventually pull this scummy shit again, and we’ll be talking about it. Again.

      • Rekorse@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        8 days ago

        I’m not disagreeing with you but can I ask what made it so hard to get through the PS account login?

        • LucidNightmare@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          8 days ago

          Well, at first I was begrudgingly trying to find SOME way to not use it. I don’t want it, I don’t need it, and the game most definitely does not need it.

          Then, after an hour of trying to find that avenue, I said, “Okay. I have a PSN account from way back on the PS3, so I’ll just fucking use that I guess.”

          Cue to me finding my login stuff, trying to log in, getting a password reset prompt, click the reset password link, and wait for the email to arrive.

          Dear reader, the email NEVER arrived, and then they would say that I had sent a request already and then I said fuck this, fuck Sony, I’ll just pirate the game.

          Then, I was able to play the fucking game.

          • Rekorse@sh.itjust.works
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            7 days ago

            Okay yeah this literally happened to me too with my old account, although eventually I did recover it. Their self service stuff is bullshit. Also the psn requirement of course.

  • Hal-5700X@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    9 days ago

    “However, to incentivize you to still sign in with a PSN account while playing those games, Sony says that it will “soon” be adding “in-game content unlocks” like outfits and resources.”

    This is a half win.