[GoLLuM13]

Those of you who know me here know the love I have for video games, and in particular the license that is "God of War". I don't need to tell you how happy I was when I saw that it was coming to PC on September 19, with all that it brings, but Sony has stained and even spoiled this beautiful picture with a decision that I find more than questionable, not to say completely st💙pid. Geo-blocking, the new trend in Sony game ports for PC. Since Helldivers 2 and Ghost of Tsushima, a PSN account is mandatory for Sony games on PC, so far so good, I need a Blizzard account for Overwatch, an Ubi account for Rainbow Six, and an EA account for It takes two (for example). The problem is that by doing so, Sony has geographically blocked access to these games, meaning that apart from the few countries where PSN exists, other countries or territories (including the Maghreb, Monaco, Egypt, Jordan and others... I'll let you see the full list >>here<<) can neither buy nor activate the game. Yet it's perfectly possible to play the game on PS4 or PS5 in these countries with or without a PSN account, with the possibility of creating a PSN account in just about any country.

What do you think of this trend? Do you think it's a good move on Sony's part? Do you think the illegal acquisition of these game(s) will explode? Do you think Sony is losing sales by doing this? Do you think other developers/publishers will be inspired by this approach?

Tell us what you think about all this!

[DoctorEldritch]

@GoLLuM13 What I would want to know is the reason why it is only the PC that is affected and not consoles? It seems odd to me that PC is singled out like that, I mean, it would maybe be easier to understand the reasoning behind something like this if it applied to all devices for some sort of grand reason, whatever that may be, but if it is just PCs that are affected, for me it is harder to understand why. Could it be a strategy to boost console sales in those countries, I wonder?

[GoLLuM13]

@DoctorEldritch is don't understand this either, they make the account mandatory to inflate the subscribers number and please the shareholders but at the same time they block the access to a majority of cpuntries. IMHO a sell is a sell no matter where it comes from, they still fog cash in their pockets, and this behavior will only encourage people to acquire the game in an illegal way and it will be on them for the lost sells 👀
Sorry I'm salty about it

[DoctorEldritch]

@GoLLuM13 Well, as the old saying goes, "Pecunia non olet". Times must have changed and it may no longer be the case... Personally, I find it overwhelming about how many accounts you have to maintain these days to play. Xbox Game Pass, EA, Ubisoft, and now PSN too, and who knows what else. It's beginning to look like the whole streaming service situation, and we all see how well that works these days...

Not much of a consolation, but the good news is that not every developer has this view. Just recently I read a tweet (or whatever we're expected to call those now, I dunno 😅) by Arsi "Hakita" Patala about their indie game ULTRAKILL and pirating:



This is not excusing or advocating piracy by any means, the main takeaway here for me is "culture shouldn't exist only for those who can afford it". In a similar fashion, one could argue that "culture shouldn't exist only for those who live in certain places". That's a statement I can get behind.

[GoLLuM13]

@DoctorEldritch I agree 100% with Hakita, culture should be accessible to everyone no matter if we can afford it or not or wherever we live.

As for the accounts I share the feeling but I guess there's a technical limitation, for online games I guess that's the only way to connect people from different platforms. For a game like Overwatch for example, if I'm on Steam and a friend on Xbox and a other one on a Playstation, how can we invite each other to a game match if none of the 3 can see each other's database, we need a common account and in this case it's Blizzard's Battle.net, what I like less, is the fact that I need 2 launchers for 1 game just because of some DRMs (looking at you EA and Ubisoft 👀)

[DoctorEldritch]

@GoLLuM13 Well, I think CD Projekt RED had a somewhat similar view, I think the quote was "we cannot force people to buy things. We can only convince them to do it." or something close to that. And the easier it is to buy games, the more convincing it may be.

Technical limitations are a common factor, but as you said, they are most evident in online games. But Ghost of Tsushima is a singleplayer game, so why here too?

[GoLLuM13]

@DoctorEldritch there's an online part for Ghost of Tsushima IMHO the obligation of PSN should have been for that part only without any geo restriction
And games like God of War Ragnarok and Until Dawn are 100% solo

[DoctorEldritch]

Originally Posted by GoLLuM13

@DoctorEldritch there's an online part for Ghost of Tsushima

Ah, I did not know that, I have not tried it yet. That is good to know.

Originally Posted by GoLLuM13

And games like God of War Ragnarok and Until Dawn are 100% solo

Exactly, so what is the logic there? Statistics or something?

[GoLLuM13]

@DoctorEldritch from what I've read, the illogical logic is to inflate the number of PSN subscribers to brag we have x million players and get the shareholders happy because of the rising share price, but at the same time they could have more if they didn't ban 170+ territories 😅

[DoctorEldritch]

@GoLLuM13 But if that's such an "open secret", would shareholders not catch on that?