Why does most blame go towards Sony and not Arrowhead Studio?

[Poison]

I am not defending Sony in any way, but I'm very curious on why so many people defend Arrowhead and bash Sony at the same time. In my eyes both should be equally bashed, maybe Arrowhead even more so.

Whilst the idea of separate account linking always sucks and deserves the criticism hiding information is much worse in my book. And in those terms I would argue that arrowhead clearly did not intend to make it obvious enough that this game will require a PSN-account until it was way too late.

This is especially problematic when you think about PSN not being available in every country.

Arrowhead CEO himself said and I quote:

"I do have a part to play. I am not blameless in all of this - it was my decision to disable account linking at launch so that players could play the game. I did not ensure players were aware of the requirement and we didn't talk about it enough.

We knew for about 6 months before launch that it would be mandatory for online PS titles."

In my book not only does he have a part to play, but its the lack of communication and restrictions in countries in the first instance that lead to this debacle. Not that it would have been great in any way, but Arrowhead themselves are mainly at fault for the lack of clear communication.

Luckily, in the end it seemed like this will lead to everyone being able to play without PSN-Accounts and with no country restrictions.

Thoughts?

[RX-3DR]

Some people are desperate to hate Sony so they're always the bad guys and everyone else, the good guys. Some people want to make AH their hero because they view them in good light akin to people who look up to celebrities.

If you ever wonder why people who are interviewed by the police say things like, "He is a good neighbor, there's no way he could have committed such a crime" even with evidence and a confession, these are the same types of people.

The irony of the whole situation is that Sony is the one to bail out everyone, themselves, Arrowhead and the customers, but will very likely still be viewed as the enemy.

[Torniquet]

Originally posted by RX-3DR:

Some people are desperate to hate Sony so they're always the bad guys and everyone else, the good guys. Some people want to make AH their hero because they view them in good light akin to people who look up to celebrities.

If you ever wonder why people who are interviewed by the police say things like, "He is a good neighbor, there's no way he could have committed such a crime" even with evidence and a confession, these are the same types of people.

Yeah, can't fix stupid sadly.

[Artaeus]

I don't understand why and who decide to sell game in country without PSN and PSN not enable at start, it's the big mistake in Arrowhead or Sony.

[Blerrger19]

Arrowhead is the little guy getting pushed around by a big-name publisher in this scenario. As you might have guessed, none of this would have been possible without Sony giving the developer a huge budget to work with. And while Arrowhead could have been more vocal or transparent about Sony's decisions, the decision to attach PSN account linking to Helldivers 2 was still very much Sony's decision.

I don't get what's not to get?

[Poison]

Originally posted by Artaeus:

I don't understand why and who decide to sell game in country without PSN and PSN not enable at start, it's the big mistake in Arrowhead or Sony.

Must be Arrowhead then, since they knew it 6 months in advance and should have done some research on what it means. In my personal opinion I suspect that this was done to get more sales. No other rational reason apart from lack of awareness.

[TrixyTrixter]

Originally posted by Artaeus:

I don't understand why and who decide to sell game in country without PSN and PSN not enable at start, it's the big mistake in Arrowhead or Sony.

Publisher decides those things . So sony.

Was arrowhead tho that decided to turn off the "Required" linking of accounts on launch and then not mention it again for 3 months.

[MystShade]

AH got plenty of blame - look at all the review bombing on their previous games.
Guy literally had a meltdown over the weekend.

You quote him on accepting the blame for failing to understand and communicate Sony's scheme but failed to quote him when he said he did not know 8 years ago when he signed that psn would become mandatory nor how limited the network actually is. he is not responsible for those things and that is why the blame shifted over the weekend.

The reality is, he accepted the money because everything was great when they worked on HD 1, But it is a different Sony now and nobody could have seen it coming. Sony had made successful ports to PC before, and i think people can sympathize that AH simply could not
foresee nor walk it back 8 years later.

What changed everything was steam removing 170+ countries that did not have psn coverage. it wasn't just "signing up for a 3rd party account" any more it was Sony making a statement that 170+ countries who could play the game just fine before could no longer now because they were born under the wrong set of stars.

[Sacred)(Rhaine]

Originally posted by Poison:

Originally posted by Artaeus:

I don't understand why and who decide to sell game in country without PSN and PSN not enable at start, it's the big mistake in Arrowhead or Sony.

Must be Arrowhead then, since they knew it 6 months in advance and should have done some research on what it means. In my personal opinion I suspect that this was done to get more sales. No other rational reason apart from lack of awareness.

Its not arrowhead, arrowhead is the developer.

The publisher is the one who sells the game.

I thought for sure sony must have had a work around for people who couldn't make a psn account but now it feels like they just dumb af.

[Erdbeergnom]

The publisher (SONY) sold the game in countries where you cant even make a PSN account, so this would have locked these players out of a game they paid for. Why blame someone else than SONY for that?

[Myth Alric]

Sony is the publisher, so they should be aware of regional restrictions. Arrowhead can get the blame for agreeing to push PSN accounts, but you can't really blame them for not being aware of PSN specific restrictions, which Sony as the publisher should of been handling.

[Poison]

Originally posted by Sacred)(Rhaine:

Its not arrowhead, arrowhead is the developer.

The publisher is the one who sells the game.

I see.

[TangoLimaRomeo]

Because AH realized it was a dogwater policy, supported Operation Downvote, and did their part in getting Sony to back down.

The CM stuff reeks of antiwokes looking for excuses to stay mad forever and as much as I enjoy them being upset I do not care about any of it.

[Blerrger19]

Originally posted by Poison:

This is especially problematic when you think about PSN not being available in every country.

Hear hear.

Basically, the short version is everything that's happened is because of Sony, and Arrowhead is more or less going along with what their sugar daddy wants. Does framing it that way help?

It wasn't Arrowhead who sold a bunch of copies in countries that aren't allowed to play the game. It was Sony. Because the decision to make PSN account a requirement came from Sony. The decision to blacklist those countries also came from Sony. Sony has always known account linking was a requirement (duh they created PSN and came up with the idea), and Sony has always known those countries are unable to create PSN accounts--but still decided to sell their game in those countries anyway.

I kind of see where you're coming from? The inventor of the mousetrap isn't responsible for the death of every mouse--except they are responsible for all the mice killed by mousetraps. Don't get it confused.

[Blerrger19]

Originally posted by TrixyTrixter:

Originally posted by Artaeus:

I don't understand why and who decide to sell game in country without PSN and PSN not enable at start, it's the big mistake in Arrowhead or Sony.

Publisher decides those things . So sony.

Was arrowhead tho that decided to turn off the "Required" linking of accounts on launch and then not mention it again for 3 months.

This. Do people seriously not understand what "publisher" and "developer" are?

Developer develops, meaning they make the game. That's it. End of story.
Publisher publishes, meaning they handle sales and distribution, the marketing, and all license deals and other legal arrangements that go into that. They handle literally everything, Think of it like putting a product on the shelf.

[Moodyman90]

Ahem, intentional or not (and if not then that's negligence) Sony as a publisher allowed Steam the platform to sell to countries with no PSN support since day one (despite having and linking to a PSN account was a listed requirement since day one) and for three months afterwards and those countries were delisted AFTER this situation blew up. This makes Sony liable for fraud because they either intentionally let the game be sold to unsupported countries for so long or were negligent enough to let it happen in the first place.

There's a fair amount of blame that falls on Arrowhead, but it's Sony that's the root cause of this hellstorm.