Now here is how you can kill your game. Helldivers 2 has been considered an amazing game, which has sold well on PC. However, Sony and Arrowhead will be now forcing you to create a PSN account on PC to play it.

This is kind of nuts as everything has been working fine. Requiring PC players to create a PSN account to play a PC game is a ridiculous requirement. After all, PC gamers have been able to play Helldivers 2 for three months without having one.

As Arrowhead stated:

“As of May 6th, all new HELLDIVERS 2 players on Steam will be required to connect their Steam account to a PlayStation Network account. Current players on Steam will start to see the mandatory login from May 30th and will be required to have linked a Steam and PlayStation Network account by June 4th.”

Arrowhead claims that account linking will protect players from griefing and abuse by enabling the banning of players that engage in that type of behaviour. It will also allow those players that have been banned the right to appeal. Moreover, the devs claim that they’re doing this for security reasons.

Now you can name it whatever you want, but if Ubisoft or Activision did something like that, you’d be cursing them. You’d be calling them liars for selling you a game that, after three months, suddenly requires the creation of a new account.

What’s also ironic here is that Helldivers 2 owns a lot of its success on the PC and Steam. And, believe me when I say this, that’s not how you treat your PC customers.

Naturally, a lot of PC fanboys will come to Arrowhead’s rescue. That’s understandable. Every company has fanboys. As I said, though, if Ubisoft, EA or Activision did such a thing, all of you would be crucifying them. Because, without a PSN account, you won’t be able to play the PC game you have purchased. At all.

Not only that but most PC gamers won’t be able to get a refund now. It’s been three months since the release of Helldivers 2, and most PC gamers have already played over 10 hours of it. So no, Steam will, most likely, not allow refunds.

And that’s one of the reasons I’m not a fan of GaaS (Game as a Service) titles. Helldivers 2 was “advertised” by many as a great example of a GaaS game. Arrowhead was even claiming that it would be focusing on providing new content to it. Apparently, though, forcing PC gamers to have a PSN account is more important to them. In the end, despite the hype and the marketing, it’s all business. And you should do well keeping that in mind for all future games!