The most depressing thing I’ve seen related to this topic. A small team that worked incredibly hard were lucky enough to achieve the impossible, and now they watch without any control as it is taken from them, for no other reason than greed.
Due to unchecked neoliberal capitalism, big companies like Sony already cover so much of the developed markets, that they have no way to naturally grow more. So they are forced to squeeze more out of what they already have, as stagnation is not accepted in this hellish system.
The line must go up, whatever the cost!
Edit: damn, Sony actually listened
The line must go up, whatever the cost!
Including lying, controlling narratives, committing outright fraud, controlling the fate of companies through “consultants”, changing the definition of Recession, killing of whistleblowers, killing of journalists who help whistleblowers, to name just a very short few.
This system blows, how many millenia does it fucking take to figure that out?
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”
-Upton Sinclair
Jurgis recollected how, when he had first come to Packingtown, he had stood and watched the hog-killing, and thought how cruel and savage it was, and come away congratulating himself that he was not a hog; now his new acquaintance showed him that a hog was just what he had been-one of the packers’ hogs. What they wanted from a hog was all the profits that could be got out of him; and that was what they wanted from the workingman, and also that was what they wanted from the public. What the hog thought of it, and what he suffered, were not considered; and no more was it with labor, and no more with the purchaser of meat. That was true everywhere in the world, but it was especially true in Packingtown; there seemed to be something about the work of slaughtering that tended to ruthlessness and ferocity-it was literally the fact that in the methods of the packers a hundred human lives did not balance a penny of profit.
- Upton Sinclair
I read The Jungle a few months ago and its aged so depressingly well. Nothing has changed, it was obvious what was happening long ago, but we’ve done nothing but watch it get worse.
“The Jungle” famously spurred large reforms. The FDA exists and has a lot of power because people were disgusted by what they read.
That’s why you’re reading a hundred-year-old book: it was influential.
it was influential.
But only on one topic. Yes the FDA was created in large part from outrage over food condtions described in the book. But that really is only one chapter of the text, the majority of it deals with the exploration of workers in ALL sorts of industries (not just food), how preadatory home loans lead to finical ruins, how voting systems are rigged and how our policing system only produces more experienced criminals, not reform.
The last 2-3 chapters are explicitly socialist talking points that are still being said, for good reason, today. If the book was as influential as Sinclair wanted it to be, then we would’ve seen FAR FAR FAR more than the FDA.
I mean, heck, reread the passage I copied in. It’s not really about food.
The last 2-3 chapters are explicitly socialist talking points
My high school English class (in the Deep South) explicitly left those chapters out of our study of The Jungle lol.
So you’re intentionally exaggerating when you say “nothing has changed”. Yeah nothing has changed, except an entire Executive Branch department that didn’t exist before. It was more influential than many other books written at the time.
Of course the author wanted the book to be even more influential, that’s why authors write. No writer says “this book kinda sucks, I hope people read half of it and put it down”.
intentionally exaggerating
🙄🙄🙄
You can “uh actually” my phrasing if you really want to, but playing tone police is to miss my actual point how these are long standing and well known problem that Sinclair spoke about extensively.
If you don’t have anything meaningful to contribute to the conversation, it’s okay to just keep scrolling.
I’m afraid “this system” has existed since humans learned to lie and commit fraud, and it’s not called capitalism.
But there are some laws which these things follow - the more horizontal and decentralized everything is, the less such rot.
The political ideology is called distributivism and unfortunately associated with Catholicism, but it’s the sanest I’ve encountered.
Capitalism is the current name for the problem.
No, capitalism is a religious term among leftists, used for things much younger.
The most depressing thing I’ve seen related to this topic. A small team that worked incredibly hard were lucky enough to achieve the impossible, and now they watch without any control as it is taken from them, for no other reason than greed.
KSP’s original team must feel the same way
There are a lot of console exclusives that I like. I think an argument can be made that companies like Sony and Microsoft can add funding and support to make games better, sacrificing profits for console value.
With Xbox failing for another console, putting out half-baked products, and buying IPs instead of creating new ones, I’m worried that Sony will just start maximizing profits.
Sony brought out a console that was almost impossible to buy and has no games. Now they try to inflate their numbers by forcing people to make psn accounts. Fuck them. Not that i ever planned to buy a playstation, but i make sure to stay away from everything sony related
You were right though. And it’s only because we were all so furious about what they were doing and raised such a fuss about it that they decided to renege on that.
The devs that made Helldivers MUST have been aware of Sony’s mandatory PSN policy. This is just a sob story and throwing Sony under the bus at this point.
This would have been less of an issue if it remained enforced from the start. Re-enforcing it after demonstrating it clearly works without makes it look scummy and greedy. People could also easily refund if they didn’t agree. Now its too late.
For a lot of people it now looks as: now that the game is a success we want to collect everybody their data as well so we can make even more money.
Tbh, other games just require a 3rd party account without linking them explicitly. This requires an actual link which ( likely ) gives them access to a lot of your steam information which you’d rather NOT give to a corp that doesn’t seem capable at guarding people their data.
Re-enforcing it after demonstrating it clearly works without makes it look scummy and greedy.
Day 1 policy was that PSN linking was mandatory. Arrowhead execs knew this. Players who bought the game in non-PSN countries should have gotten a pop-up banner saying as much instead of the payment screen.
Im not even sure if the game would have taken off at all. Psn servers couldn’t handle the load which is Why it was disabled ( temporarily ) in the first place.
A lot of people, including myself, never even linked the psn because I could skip it.
Sony bailed them out when their servers went down in February by sending engineers to assist. It makes sense that Sony wants a favor in return.
Sounds like a mobster kind of favor. If that is true, then it sounds like Sony took advantage of Arrowhead weakness.
In what world is that a mobster deal? The game initially released saying that PSN accounts were required, this is in every store front description. The devs clarified that was not enforced due to technical issues at release time.
Sony funded the game in the first place too. They didn’t take advantage of a moment of weakness. This is all contract stuff agreed upon long before release.
It absolutely sucks ass, but this is an incredibly basic business deal. Sony stepped in to provide server support because it’s Sony’s game, and Sony makes money off it. Now that the game is more stable, they likely went back to Arrowhead and said “Hey, it’s time you sorted out the contracted requirement for PSN accounts. You agreed to this.” and here we are.
Maybe Sony told Arrowhead that PSN accounts could be made by everyone. Maybe Arrowhead thought they could push back on the requirement after the game came out without them required. We likely will never know what went on behind closed doors.
But this isn’t shady, just absolutely monumentally fucking shitty.
Unfortunately, as long as refunds are handled reasonably well like they were with Cyberpunk 2077’s PS4 release, gamers won’t really have a leg to stand on. It’ll just be complaining that they can’t play something they wanted to play, after getting a number of hours in it for effectively free.
Sony announcing the PSN requirement without detailing what unsupported country purchasers should do is at least nearly shady. Dumbasses
Or… think like an adult… they have support contracts in place.
Why do you care that a company as scummy as Sony is getting thrown under the bus? Outside of this fiasco Helldivers was a pretty great game. If throwing Sony under the bus gets this decision reversed literally EVERYONE wins, and honestly, as the Publisher, thats probably one of the things that comes with the title, taking the heat for shitty ass decisions that could otherwise tank a game
My argument here is that Arrowhead is not some great dev that is helpless.
I didn’t think that’s necessarily true. They were contracted to make the game by Sony and when they started probably had no idea it would even be sold on PC.
Sony just did a Unity here. How the hell can you ruin such a beloved game in a single cheer stupid move, for the purpose of just gathering data. It’s beyond me.
I feel like Sony did a Sony here.
I’m old enough to remember when Sony shipped 22 million malware infested CDs because they were worried about Napster.
Also earlier this year they stole purchased content from millions of their customers
Also they bait and switched everyone with the advertising for the last of us pt 2.
I am unaware of this one. Can you share what is this about, or share the relevant search keywords?
Spoilers ahead for the game:
Yeah so if you look at the pre launch trailers
spoiler
Joel is portrayed as being a part of the journey of the game. He dies in the first “chapter”. They went so far as to switch a character out for him to make it look like he would be alive for the game. And then they try to make you sympathetic to the person who killed him by making you play as them for half the game. :::
It makes my blood boil how bad pt 2 is after the first one is one of the best games ever.
Yikes. I am yet to play the game but I knew Joel dies in the second one, as it almost felt like a setup for his death was built-in.
However, I wasn’t aware of Sony going to such lengths to misdirect the game’s players.
Thanks a lot for sharing the context.
P.S. you might want to fix the formatting for the spoilers as it is currently not hidden.
I tried my best. I can’t tell when it works
Your spoiler syntax is incorrect (or not working on Jerboa).
I dunno why it won’t work. I put the content between the tags and formatting with spaces and without. No dice
I clicked the formatting button on boost…dunno why it ain’t working. Thnx I’ll mess with it.
Not just any old malware, but insecure rootkits that allowed ANYONE to have total control over the system with their own malware above the OS-level with no way to even know the malware was there.
Did that actually break computers? I remember hearing about it at the time but I also don’t remember having a problem. I didn’t think I took any real precautions either, I just carried on as per and nothing ever happened.
the starforce driver sometimes prevented some exotic cd drives from working or caused bsods while playing audio cds, but the cases were relatively rarenvm i didn’t realize they were talking about a different kind of drm
It’s not fair the developers take the heat for this. We should learn to find the right people to complain to.
That’s why Spitz said to be angry in the Steam reviews instead of their Discord. People mistakenly took it as a dismissive whine, but that was actually a very important comment that I feel many people overlooked. Sony ain’t gonna do anything differently unless there is actual, tangible damage to their brand. That damage doesn’t come from chat rooms, that comes from storefront reviews.
Keep the bad reviews coming if you want any hope of Sony relenting.
Doing a pretty good job so far
lmao rekt
I really hope Steam doesn’t consider this “review bombing” and take down such reviews. The response is entirely justified.
Good guy Valve appears to be quietly figuring out refunds for folks, even though almost all are above the hours played limit
I wonder if it’s more damage control, why are they allowing games to be sold in markets where the mandatory linking wasn’t possible?
Steam should know this limitations, the devs knew about the requirements from Sony, it was listed on the store page since it was listed.
Apparently they recently updated the store to no longer sell in unavailable psn regions.
Its probably BOTH damage control AND Valve being staffed by PC nerds who ALSO dont want toxic console BS infecting the PC Sphere
Every single one of those reviews missed multiple warnings about the required account linking.
They are false reviews by definition, the store had the requirements listed, and there was a splash screen you had to accept when loading the game.
Every single one of those reviews is someone who made an uneducated purchase, they shouldn’t be defended for their willful ignorance.
Steam shouldn’t sell products in a country where you cannot use them
You’re absolutely correct, how many of those reviews are pointing the blame correctly? I haven’t seen a single one yelling at Steam or arrowhead for selling the game in these markets that wouldn’t be able to play the game.
There’s no way Steam is 100% in charge of what regions a game is available in. The publisher absolutely has a say in where, and if it was available in all regions at the start that was on purpose.
Steam just limited the purchase to right markets today, so yes they are.
Multiple being TWO at most, one nestled in the effectively credits section of the Steam page which almost never contains information pertainant to the purchase of the game, and another nestled in the “Skip over this usually optional content” settings after you have already installed the game. I didnt even know this game was linked to PlayStation in ANY WAY until this whole fiasco. Its only uneducated because it was HIDDEN.
I’m guy buy it just to get a refund just for you
EULA roofie-ing shouldn’t be defended
This isn’t about Sony “relenting”, Arrowhead needs Sony’s PSN support network to deal with support tickets: it’s the whole reason Arrowhead signed up with a publisher instead of self publishing and developing an international workforce of support agents. I hate Sony as much as the next person but let’s be honest, Arrowhead needs Sony and PSN, and it makes sense given they want to spend their time making games rather than getting into being a publisher and help desk.
Ultimately, Arrowhead should have made it a day one requirement and delisted the game on Steam for every country that lacks PSN support. Instead Arrowhead and Sony decided to let it ride and enjoy the sales and accompanying popularity.
And now because of that the PSN requirement is a poison pill. If that was a requirement from the get go, I likely would have reluctantly agreed to it. It now being retroactively enforced means if Sony doesnt relent, I and likely a lot of others will abandon the game and do what we can to get a refund, which will end up costing them a lot of money
It was a requirement from the beginning but it was not enforced due to the initial server issues. It was always there…
Not saying it’s a good thing but a lot of the discourse I see online seems to overlook that crucial detail and imply this was pulled out of the blue with no warning.
Yeah as if they had no idea what’s going on. They just thought they get away because they played the “cool” developers as long as they could
If the high-ups at Arrowhead knew and made that decision anyway, it’s squarely on them, full stop.
Sure, but if I put myself in their shoes, what better options did they have?
Communicate better? Not sell the game in markets where it wouldn’t work. The limitation was something from the get go.
Push their scummy politics at launch so people know what they get into or not.
Easy: Don’t be a greedy asshole and don’t sell in regions with no PSN support.
I can fully understand the agreement between the two parties was “also requires a psn account” while AH being completely unaware that getting a PSN account is so restrictive.
Sony likely didnt explicitly add that the game cannot be sold in regions where they can’t create an account.
Edit: or the didn’t explicitly state which regions a psn account CAN be created in.
It was a bit frightening for me to see how quickly the mob turned on AH during this fiasco and just how much vitriol and propaganda has been generated on the subreddit like this is any other ingame operation with the associated shitposting… except this time it could very well shape the futures of real people and fate of the company for years to come.
Unfortunately this is the only way to accomplish anything. If there wasn’t an outcry like this both AH and sony would just ignore any criticism and move on until it gets buried and forgotten. It’s a world of extremes and the scales could have easily tipped into the other side, with people rightfully complaining about these shitty practices but getting ridiculed for complaining about just another account or sth.
Sony backtracked! The PSN plan is off!
This is good, but I think there needs to be some regulations. Companies keep introducing all sorts of anti-consumer practices to fuck over users (not only in gaming land). Now it got (for the time being) reverted, but the trust has (again) been broken.
Consumers (should) buy something based on what has been presented at the point of time. If that changes in the future with negative effects for consumers, than this should get investigated and ultimately penalized. Companies have become too big and too powerful, which can lead to shit like this
This. I’ll forever be mad at Rockstar for removing songs from their games, because their licenses expired. But it’s cheaper to just “update” the game so they can continue selling it without the songs, instead of renewing contracts. Oh, you bought the game before that? Too bad, update to continue playing
I’ve heard that this happened with Scrubs (and possibly other TV shows) leading to the original box set of DVDs having different songs playing in the background than the streaming versions.
Yay ! I don’t know what happened honestly other than drama suddenly everywhere, but I am glad its all over.
Take Two interactive is really lucky this happened right after they sacked the KSP2 team, otherwise people would be talking about that instead.
I’m not sure ksp is popular/broad-based enough to generate much of an uproar. I’m unhappy about it, but most people just see another headline.
And Roll7
what ?
This statement reminds me awfully of the Living World Season 4 Story in Guild Wars 2.
And yes, before people become angry about this comparison: I said “reminds me”, not “the same as” or anything else.
Explanation (hard spoiler!):
spoiler
In essence, you do everything you can, unite different people for the fight that determines the fate of the world. But… you lose and that was the only chance. You barely survive with your friends; but not all.
https://youtu.be/jk5nfHxyQno?t=7220
The Commander (you) are asked what to do (because you always had some kind of answers; a plan; every time). But since this was the only hope, you say “I don’t know.”
That line hit hard when I played it. It’s rare to see protagonists acknowledge being at the end of their wits and have no clue what to do in face of impending doom.
It really did hit hard.
At least for me I could get into the next story part after I was like “wtf just happened” but for players at the time of release this was the latest part of the story and they were stuck with this awful last line for week(s).
I don’t know whether this is sad or really funny.
Comedy is just tragedy + time
Patient gaming for the win.
Does that really apply to a live service game?
Like I get your sentiment, and I agree…but waiting for a game like this to die and then going see it wasn’t worth it good thing I waited doesn’t make any sense in a general way. Like imagine waiting for destiny servers to shut down in the future and say good thing I didn’t waste my time. Like yeah of course it does when the player base moves on. The point was to play it before that happened.
Like…youre right…but whats the point of saying anything. You don’t like live service games because of the risk of stuff like this happening. It’s not like a no man’s sky thing where you wait for them to patch and offer discounts
Yes I would say so. If game doesn’t show itself able to stay around for years and shuts down early like other live services games then I’d personally have considered it a waste of money due to it becoming unplayable compared to non live service games.
Most successful live services games are free too, so that’s an additional uphill battle for paid live service games. It depends on if someone is willing to spend full retail money on what may be a temporary experience. I’m not one of those.
For paid online only games I don’t rush in. If it seems like it will stick around after steep discounts that’s when I’d be fine with spending money. If it dies before then I’m glad I didn’t waste money on it. No need to be offended that I take the same approach to paid live service games as I do regular games. You can choose to pay for early access if the experience is worth it too you, and if it is worth it you should.
Oh I’m not offended, I don’t play hell divers. I just associate patient gamers mentality with discounts and all dlcs and patches included. So I wanted to know what you said that for
They devs say the knew of the requirement from Sony and it was also part of the store requirement since it was listed, so why would they list it for sale in those countries? It seems Steam should have some limitation in place on their end, and the Dev picks sales on Steam, not the publisher.
Theres shit to go to everyone here, not just Sony in this case. And no one seems to want to accept personal responsibility for not reading the game requirements and ignoring the splash screen when you first loaded the game. Everyone who bought and missed all the warning flags should also take a look back at themselves before complaining about something that was always going to be required and was at the very start at launch.
Did the CEO of Sony write this? A bait and switch scam is fine apparently, as long as there’s some legalese to protect the company in there.
It seems Steam should have some limitation in place on their end, and the Dev picks sales on Steam, not the publisher.
Then what is the job of the publisher? To perpetrate scams it seems, because seemingly the devs published the game just fine all by themselves to Steam. If they didn’t do that right, the publisher suddenly has no responsibility to make sure that was distributed correctly? Whose job is it to ensure the product is published in line with their inevitable goals, we wonder.
so why would they list it for sale in those countries?
Because they botched the bait and switch. And now Valve is cleaning up Sony’s mess. Too bad they couldn’t clean up Sony’s mess of leaked customer data. I guess they can’t fix it but prevent the next one by making publishers agree up front that they can’t require data from players, in order to publish a game, but I digress.
no one seems to want to accept personal responsibility
No one should have to expect to be subject to a bait and switch scam in the first place. Which is what this clearly is, because if they were truly up front, they would have required the account on day one and had the appropriate region filters in place, so consumers could never be in this position.
Stop blaming the victims of corporate greed and scams; people should be able to reasonably enjoy things they paid for without being molested and exploited. Personal responsibility my ass when there should be laws to prevent this kind of thing in the first place.
A publisher in gaming bankrolls a lot of the costs and hurdles. Why do you think developers often use publishers? You think they just want to have a boss and give a cut of the profits away for nothing?
Steam and arrowhead both allowed the sale of the game in non-compatible markets.
Everyone is to blame in, it all depends on how you want to swing it.
I’m not defending any single entity, I literally blamed them all lmfao.
But of course someone is a shill when they go against your bias and narrative…. Give your head a fucking shake.
Sony ripped you off here, so did Steam and so did arrowhead. Arrowhead is kind of being the worst here throwing everyone else under the bus instead of owning up to their mistake and sever lack of communication though. They are trying a strong arm tactic now that they got caught with their own hand in the jar.
Steam and arrowhead both allowed the sale of the game in non-compatible markets.
No. Sony handles the publishing on Steam. Sony set the countries allowed for sale – neither Steam, which is only the platform, nor arrowhead, who did not publish the game, have any responsibility in the matter. You’re taking away blame from Sony which is the single culprit for that mistake
against your bias and narrative
If being a regular person who just wants to enjoy the things they pay for in peace is bias, and being fed up with this crap is narrative, what does that make you?
Stop trying to normalize exploitation by greed, and stop normalizing the acceptance of it.
Just because Sony can manufacture a bait and switch with some boilerplate doesn’t mean they should. Regular people should not be blamed for being exploited when purchasing in good faith. The developers made a game that works, clearly, and Steam delivered it, so they are culpable, but if Sony can stop their horseshit, and this all goes away, it is clear who really is to blame.
Was it actually for sale in countries that don’t allow psn accounts, or did people spoof locations to buy the game from those countries? I’ve been trying to find this out the past two days and still haven’t gotten confirmation that the game was or is for sale on steam in a place like Egypt. All I’ve seen is people saying it was for sale there, but it’s all coming from assuming it is, because others also not from any of those countries have made the same claim.
So; can anyone from a region that doesn’t support PSN confirm if they were able to buy HD2 with their correct region selected? I just genuinely want to know, because if so, I would think at least those individuals should be able to get a refund, even though they ignored all the warnings about the psn requirements.
The game was allowed for sale worldwide, Sony changed the restrictions today on the steam store, delisting the game in 177 countries where it was previously available
Steam article May answer that question
I’m not really sure that does answer the question, actually. I think that’s a bit different of a question.
deleted by creator
and the Dev picks sales on Steam, not the publisher.
Do you happen to have a source for this? It was my understanding that the publisher handled all distribution. Hence the name. And if I’m wrong, I’d like to fix my misunderstanding.
I never even had the option to skip linking accounts. Granted I bought the game within the first few weeks of release.
The option to skip was there 20 minutes after launch until now.
It said required in the popup, but still had a skip button with no consequences.
Oh I guess I missed that. I wonder if I can unlink.
Open minded but not sure I agree: is it really on the consumers to ensure that a product won’t completely stop working for them?
Ya ArrowHead knew what they were doing and what was going on. They signed up for it. There’s no way this wasn’t on their risk matrix ahead of time with the resolution already scoped out.
It’s extra funny that not even a week ago they took shots at tarkov.
Can’t you make a free PSN account from any country? I know people in countries with no PSN using US PSN account, without any VPN or anything. You just set your country to US, or UK.
Yes you could. Then you Break TOS and Ban you, so still you cant play. Thats the issue (and ofc dataleaks every year)
Well, 3 data leaks in the last 10 years, at least one of which wasn’t their fault at all. This change is bad for several reasons but “data leaks” isn’t really one of them.
Personally, I think the best way to protest this is to continue to play and use the servers to the point of overload, but no one buy anymore super credits. Make Sony continue to pour money into the servers but get no return as no one buys war bonds anymore. Would take ENORMOUS coordination, but Sony not getting paid by this cash cow yet having to still put money into their servers would hit them where it hurts, line go down.
Pipe dream, but if everyone just didn’t buy in game content for a little bit, I think they would see the effect. As of right now though, they don’t care, because “consumers will pay for anything”
Do you know what Sony and its stakeholders would see? High player counts and growing active PSN userbase.
The best way to protest is to stop playing, request a refund, and rate the game negatively everywhere. Arrowhead is now talking to Sony about dropping the mandatory linked account, showing them that they’ve fucked the golden goose will get their attention better than trying to strain the infrastructure.
Arrowhead also knowingly sold a game in markets where it wouldn’t be possible to play the game, even at launch with the restrictions in place you could buy the game in these markets. Steam also allowed these games to be sold in markets where they knew the restrictions wouldn’t allow them to play the game.
They fucked up and are now trying to deflect blame from themselves, yeah Sony is shitty, but arrowhead and steam both saw dollar bills and tried taking them.
Edit, if anything, Sony can turn this around that Arrowhead and Steam strong armed their way out of the contract requirements. Steam and arrowhead should take the fall and costs in this one if that’s the case.
I’d love some sauce with those claims.
That arrowhead and steam sold a game in markets that the game was restricted? Just go to the steam page I guess.
Steam also just today restricted the sales to the correct markets, they always had the capability it seems.
I don’t see Sony caring about reviews and refunds, they are the publisher, they will let the developer be the fall guy, walk away smelling like roses and go on to the next method of fleecing gamers. Bottom line is all that matters. They made their money off on Helldivers, they could hit the kill switch right now and be up. I just don’t see this ending well for arrowhead, and I see this blowing over for Sony, not even a footnote. I hope I’m wrong, I really do.
Apparently, they cared.
Make Sony continue to pour money into the servers
I work in IT. I can pretty much guarantee that server load for a game like this is nonexistent from a cost perspective. They’re not going to be using cloud services, they’re going to privately host because it’s way cheaper. Early days playercount woes were before they added more nodes to their solution. Whatever cost they had for servers is already paid. Electricity and facilities costs are whatever because they are paying it anyway. They can’t just fire the people maintaining their solution either but that’s also baby bucks compared to the money spent building this thing or marketing it.
Gaming protests of popular games never work unless the objective doesn’t alter the bottom line.
I completely understand where you are coming from. Not being knowledgeable about IT infrastructure and how to host game servers, I was making assumptions based on how publishers are shutting down games that have low play count. Assuming it was a nominal amount of money to house and maintain servers for a game that generates no revenue, multiple servers for 100s of thousands of players that generates zero revenue would be noticeable. But if it’s just pennies, then it really would just be a drop in the bucket.
Sony should hurt in the bottom line for this, and I don’t see them caring about reviews and refunds, they will just move on to the next fleecing method.
