Among the myriad scourges that make playing games in 2024 so tiresome, the need for multiple different accounts to various services ranks high. Helldivers 2 players have just been told by Sony that come next week, they’ll have to link their Steam account with a PlayStation Network account, something it’s been working fine without in the three months since the game launched. This is inconvenient, but perhaps not the end of days.

It was, says Sony in a statement on Steam, the result of “technical issues” that the PC version of the Helldivers 2 on Steam did not need to be linked to a PSN account. Or as the statement puts it, “we allowed the linking requirements...to be temporarily optional.” That “grace period”—an odd phrase to use given players weren’t responsible for the technical issues—is now coming to an end, and from May 6 all new players will need to connect the two accounts.

Current players have another month before they need to faff about, with a deadline of June 4.

A PSN account is free, and Sony’s given reasons for requiring the change is to improve players’ experience, allowing them to more easily ban griefers and those behaving abusively—alongside providing an appeals process for those who are banned. And indeed, it was intended to be in place from the February 8 release of the Sony-published game. It was only abandoned when the unexpected popularity of the game caused the servers to struggle. So, um, why are people quite so cross?

Helldivers 2 players angry about PS Network requirement

It’s annoying, for sure. If you’ve ever bought an Ubisoft game on Steam, then discovered that to play it you’re now forced into installing their god-awful Ubisoft Connect, it’ll make you growl and spend the next fifteen minutes updating the software and waiting for a password reminder email, and it’s a whole ballache. Needing to download all 80GB of Helldivers 2, and then find you’ve got another stage of guff to get through, is certainly eyeroll-worthy. But it’s not entirely clear why people are declaring boycotts, and announcing they’ll no longer play a game they were loving.

The most upvoted comment in a Reddit thread on the matter describes the game, with which they’ve spent over 100 hours, as “the most fun I’ve had playing a video game in as long as I remember.” But then adds, “I’ll miss the game like crazy. But I will not be making a PS account.”

Many others pile in to agree, one person saying, “Was fun but I refuse to tolerate this out of principle.” Another adds, “Sony can eat a bag of dicks.” But none of them give a reason why this has affronted them so.

There’s also the inevitable review bombing on Steam, as people express their fury with thumbs-down emblazoned “reviews” that bemoan the change.

“I bought this game on steam with the intention of playing it on steam,” says one review. “I do not now nor will I ever have a playstation account.” Another rages, “Just a big no... Why you want force us to use your PNS ? For security ? The joke you had already an anticheat. Everybody know it will change nothing.”

The closest I’ve seen to anyone rationalizing this anger is the claim, “PSN has had constant data breaches, if you think for a second I’m connecting it to steam, you’re on something else.” In 2011, Sony was the target of an enormous hack, with 77 million PSN account details stolen, including emails, addresses, birthdates and passwords. Then worse, Sony took a week to let its entire userbase know it had happened. It was atrocious, and Sony paid millions in fines, on top of offering free ID protection for all affected, and people were very rightly angry.

It was then claimed in 2014 that it had happened to PSN again, except it didn’t. Certainly, the incredible North Korea attack managed to steal 100TB of Sony Pictures data, in implausible revenge for the Seth Rogan movie, The Interview, but PSN wasn’t affected. In December that year, a DDoS attack spoiled Christmas for PlayStation players, but no data was breached in that incident. Then in 2023, Sony employee data was breached, but again, this had nothing to do with the PlayStation network, nor its customers.

So yes, thirteen years ago in 2011, PSN accounts were horrendously exposed. But it’s certainly not “constant data breaches” by any stretch. Another thing that happened in 2011? Steam was hacked, and 35 million accounts were breached with private information about customers stolen.

But why are Helldivers 2 players angry?

My suspicion is that the reaction is a combination of the peculiar tribalism of some games players and the format they choose, whether that’s Xbox versus PlayStation or “PC Master Race” bullshit, and seeing Sony’s network as somehow antithetical to their identity, alongside a sense of protectionism over Helldivers 2 developers Arrowhead Game Studios.

That Helldivers 2 wouldn’t exist without Sony’s investment seems to have gone over the head of people and as the game’s publisher—on both PC and PlayStation—Sony can do what it likes. But Arrowhead is, in their minds, a small, friendly, and progressive studio made up of accessible, friendly and interactive people, while Sony is a giant faceless corporation that randomly destroys games at its whim. It’s understandable why players want to feel like they’re on one “side” of this, no matter how unrealistic that is.

I mean, it sucks! Having to set up yet another bloody gaming account if you don’t already have one for PSN is deeply tedious, and knowing it’s going to slow down your game’s launch as it loads up god knows what other login windows or whatever—no one wants or enjoys that. It’s also the same tedium you go through if you want to play Far Cry or Diablo or GTAV. I hate it. Yet I don’t necessarily think it’s enough reason to abandon a game you love, and publicly wish for its immediate failure.

The chances are most of the game’s consistent player count of around 100,000 people will just click the buttons and move on, but goodness me, people do like to be cross.

Update 05/03/2024 at 11:40 a.m. EST: It seems many people have been hitting up Johan Pilestedt, CEO of Arrowhead Game Studios, in the hopes that he might be able to intervene. Instead, he has posted a very uncharacteristic response, that has me wanting to reply, “Blink twice if you need help.”

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