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
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    1 month ago

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

    • kitnaht@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      Yeah, $10 for a remastered re-play of Horizon doesn’t sound like a bad time tbh…

    • FooBarrington@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      God of War Ragnarok is really good! Valhalla (free DLC, included) is also pretty good, but only play it after the main game is finished.

  • Computerchairgeneral@fedia.io
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    1 month 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
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      1 month 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.

      • Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        1 month 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.

      • Rekorse@sh.itjust.works
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        1 month 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.

  • Hal-5700X@sh.itjust.works
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    1 month 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.

  • ditty@lemm.ee
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    1 month ago

    I’ve honestly wanted to play all of these but haven’t gotten around to them and also didn’t want to do the Sony account thing out of principle. I wonder how they’d perform on my Steam Deck OLED

    • PM_Your_Nudes_Please@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      Ragnarok is fine if you’re playing on the actual screen. But if you’re gonna hook it up to a monitor, be prepared to see edge jaggies or get lots of frame lag; The SD can’t keep a steady frame rate on anything above Low settings. Low is fine on the built in screen cuz it’s too small to really make a difference. But on a large TV, it makes a big difference.

    • LucidNightmare@lemm.ee
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      1 month 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
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        1 month 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
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          1 month 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
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            1 month 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.

  • stardust@lemmy.ca
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    1 month ago

    Maybe there’s a chance those games will come to GOG now that there isn’t the psn requirement.

  • RedWeasel@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    Glad they came to their senses. I had trouble setting up one as I have/had a sony group account with no security info which is needed to reset the password. Turns out sony doesn’t filter periods from usernames from email. Just ended up adding a couple to my email address for a new account.

  • ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca
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    1 month ago

    Only to add it back once they’ve made their sales

    Can’t imagine anyone is going to fall for it

    • taiyang@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      Iirc, Steam policy is to allow no-strings-attached refunds if that happens, and it indeed has happened before. I don’t see Sony reneging, just doing as stated which is to provide incentives to log in.

    • Odo@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      Starting with tomorrow’s release of Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 for PC, we’re working to add more benefits to playing with an account for PlayStation Network. The Last of Us Part II Remastered (coming April 3, 2025), in addition to God of War Ragnarök and Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered, will all soon be adding in-game content unlocks for PlayStation Network account users.

      “Working to” and “soon be adding” makes it sound like they haven’t gone live with the patches for those games quite yet.