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Penny Arcade - Comic - Documancy

DogDog Registered User, Administrator, Vanilla Staff admin
in The Penny Arcade Hub

Documancy!

Penny Arcade - Comic - Documancy

Videogaming-related online strip by Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins. Includes news and commentary.

Read the full story here

Posts

  • V1mV1m Registered User regular
    After ruining their reputation and destroying their trust amongst the PC gaming market, Sony have already backed down. Thus shooting themselves in the dick to gain precisely nothing.

  • OverkillengineOverkillengine Registered User regular
    Sony has a history of making blunders like that on a semi regular basis. Hopefully this will teach their execs to stay hands off for at least a while.

  • DjiemDjiem Registered User regular
    Big execs just can't seem to stop themselves from big-exec-ing.

  • V1mV1m Registered User regular
    I mean Helldivers was making boatloads of money for Sony. It was a huge unexpected smash success. All they had to do was sit there and rake it in. But they just couldn't stop themselves thinking "man having a goose that lays golden eggs is great and all, but it sure would be nice to have roast goose too"

    If Sony had just said something along the lines of "Hey there PC Helldivers, if you link your Steam account to a PSN account you'll get a couple of special skins! And if you do it before the end of May, also a unique Murdershooter-9950 that's like 2.2% better than the existing Murdershooter-9949!" then they'd have probably got about 75% uptake anyway, for essentially zero cost, and everyone would be happy with them.

    But no, they just can't bear to think of the existence of a single cent that's not being given to them, right now, and be dambed to the future if getting that cent today costs them a dollar next week.

  • LttlefootLttlefoot Registered User regular
    Had they already written the warning on the steam store (about the planned shift) before the game got big?

  • palidine40palidine40 Registered User regular
    Well this WAS going to be my replacement for Overwatch, and then they got greedy... ffs sony, no one likes your intrusions, and its going to kill the game if you don't lighten up...

  • V1mV1m Registered User regular
    Lttlefoot wrote: »
    Had they already written the warning on the steam store (about the planned shift) before the game got big?

    They had but it wasn't enforced for months, and Sony also went right ahead and sold the game to people living in countries which are blocked from creating a PSN account. So people quite reasonably assumed that it was just standard boilerplate that wasn't going to be applied because Sony was just making so much money from the way things were.

  • KeitreKeitre Registered User regular
    palidine40 wrote: »
    Well this WAS going to be my replacement for Overwatch, and then they got greedy... ffs sony, no one likes your intrusions, and its going to kill the game if you don't lighten up...

    They did! Sony announced they're not going to require it.

  • Eat it You Nasty Pig.Eat it You Nasty Pig. tell homeland security 'we are the bomb'Registered User regular
    how do they even get money out of linking a steam account? I guess harvesting a little more data about players?

    hold your head high soldier, it ain't over yet
    that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
  • DjiemDjiem Registered User regular
    Eat it You Nasty Pig. wrote: »
    how do they even get money out of linking a steam account? I guess harvesting a little more data about players?

    Very likely. They need to know who you are, what you buy, what you watch, and which spices you season your chicken with.

    And beyond money, there's probably something about control. By linking to their PSN crap, I suspect it gives them a bunch of legal rights and protections regarding the game, your account, their service, etc.

  • TofystedethTofystedeth Registered User regular
    At minimum it gets people into the PSN ecosystem, even if just minimally. They now a screen name and an email for you. They can stay marketing at you when they release new Sony PC games, or try and sell you a console or whatever.

    Aside from the moderation stuff or whatever.

    steam_sig.png
  • tgbennett30tgbennett30 Registered User regular
    ^^ That's what made me curious - I saw numerous complaints that PSN had far stricter rules than Steam, and so stuff that was a go on Steam would get you banned on PSN.

    I have no idea how any of that shakes out or if it's true - be interested to hear what folks here think of that.

  • DratatooDratatoo Registered User regular
    Yeah, mandatory PSN Account isn't the smartest business move. I get it, you have million of players buying and using a Sony product, but optional linking + a reward would be the better option. But Sony is always like that: "We don't want crossplay with everybody else - buy the game again if you you want to play with your friend. Why not using a established format when you can buy _our_ memory sticks / UMD / other proprietary crap. Lets sue Lik-Sang.com for exporting to other countries, it cannot be that the 0,001% from our playerbase is using our products which are not available in their region anyways." But big business is always going big-businessing.

  • MercadeMercade Registered User regular
    I loved Helldivers 1, but the only real press I’ve heard of Helldivers 2 is this whole PSN debacle. Backtracked or not, it made me lose interest immediately. Good job, Sony.

    If I play a Steam game, I just want to deal with Steam, not another service, even if I have an account there. Squeenix pulled that shit with at least one FF port, too. Just stop.

    Switch: SW-1909-0466-9585
  • klemmingklemming Registered User regular
    Overkillengine wrote: »
    Sony has a history of making blunders like that on a semi regular basis. Hopefully this will teach their execs to stay hands off for at least a while.
    It'll teach them to require it from the start for any games going forwards.
    Just like their climbdown from saying that Horizon Forbidden West wasn't going to have a combined PS4/5 release for the normal price, after they said it would.
    They backed down from that, only to announce that all future games would do that.

    Nobody remembers the singer. The song remains.
  • DelzhandDelzhand Registered User, Transition Team regular
    klemming wrote: »
    Overkillengine wrote: »
    Sony has a history of making blunders like that on a semi regular basis. Hopefully this will teach their execs to stay hands off for at least a while.
    It'll teach them to require it from the start for any games going forwards.
    Just like their climbdown from saying that Horizon Forbidden West wasn't going to have a combined PS4/5 release for the normal price, after they said it would.
    They backed down from that, only to announce that all future games would do that.

    The house always wins. Even when it looks like the player wins, the house will change the rules so it doesn't happen again.

  • TofystedethTofystedeth Registered User regular
    Mercade wrote: »
    I loved Helldivers 1, but the only real press I’ve heard of Helldivers 2 is this whole PSN debacle. Backtracked or not, it made me lose interest immediately. Good job, Sony.

    If I play a Steam game, I just want to deal with Steam, not another service, even if I have an account there. Squeenix pulled that shit with at least one FF port, too. Just stop.

    How did you avoid seeing any press for HD2 until now? It's been a surprise smash hit for the last 2-3 months, far surpassing anything the first game managed. Like as of 2 months ago the all time peak concurrent players on steam was 25x what the first game achieved.

    steam_sig.png
  • Steel AngelSteel Angel Registered User regular
    klemming wrote: »
    Overkillengine wrote: »
    Sony has a history of making blunders like that on a semi regular basis. Hopefully this will teach their execs to stay hands off for at least a while.
    It'll teach them to require it from the start for any games going forwards.
    Just like their climbdown from saying that Horizon Forbidden West wasn't going to have a combined PS4/5 release for the normal price, after they said it would.
    They backed down from that, only to announce that all future games would do that.

    My understanding is that they originally did require it but suspended it after the game got so popular it melted the servers. And faced with a choice between enforcing said requirement and making more money, they chose the latter.

    Big Dookie wrote: »
    I found that tilting it doesn't work very well, and once I started jerking it, I got much better results.

    Steam Profile
    3DS: 3454-0268-5595 Battle.net: SteelAngel#1772
  • OverkillengineOverkillengine Registered User regular
    Steel Angel wrote: »
    klemming wrote: »
    Overkillengine wrote: »
    Sony has a history of making blunders like that on a semi regular basis. Hopefully this will teach their execs to stay hands off for at least a while.
    It'll teach them to require it from the start for any games going forwards.
    Just like their climbdown from saying that Horizon Forbidden West wasn't going to have a combined PS4/5 release for the normal price, after they said it would.
    They backed down from that, only to announce that all future games would do that.

    My understanding is that they originally did require it but suspended it after the game got so popular it melted the servers. And faced with a choice between enforcing said requirement and making more money, they chose the latter.

    Correct. Turns out consumers do have power, but they have to actually *use* it.

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