The censored one is probably Niger
UPDATE - special thanks to @dditty@lemm.ee for making a map showing the countries without access to PSN:
I want to live in ♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️.
Looks like they censored the country Niger in their own post.
Steam censored it for them. Nobody would go and use hearts if they were to self censor. They’d use ****ing asterisks.
Fucking h*ck.
Did you just say the fuck word?
I’m telling Mom you both said fuck.
at least he censored the H word
You’re G****mn right.
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Niger is a known intentional misspelling of the n-word used to circumvent censorship. So this is an evolution of the Scunthorp problem.
The hearts are how steam censors things it believes to be swears
love country
You might not. It’s very hot desert weather all year around.
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So where is 🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍?
Someone didn’t realize Niger isn’t an offensive word.
No, racists can’t spell so steam has to censor both of them. :-/
Or they were using Niger as a way to say the other word.
🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍 is everywhere <3
Between Nepal and Nigeria, it seems.
Isn’t this illegal according to EU law? It’s a common market but the Baltic states are excluded.
Overseas territories like French Guyana too. It’s fully part of France so you can’t exclude it like that.
It’s not even an overseas territory, it’s a full-fledged department of France. They couldn’t exclude it even if they wanted. And it’s not excluded in the map, if you look closely, even while Guyana and Surinam are.
Yes it is
Oh man, even all the small European ones are fucked. Andorra, Liechtenstein, San Marino, Monaco. Hilarious!
Wait, Luxembourg is not on this list? Wow.
I’m more surprised with the three baltic states
Sony still salty about USSR dissolution
Luxembourg is very wealthy.
Also an EU member, so all EU regulations apply within tjeir borders.
Estonia is also EU member but listed in the screenshot.
So are Latvia and Lithuania, so i guess fuck the Baltics
Wasn’t Valve the one who pointed out that Russia was always pirating games not because they were inherently pirates but because the game releases had zero support for Russia lol. Hence why Valve was the first foreign developer/publisher that gained an actual foothold in the Russian market.
This is kind of like the same thing. Sony will just say something dumb like “we don’t allow PSN accounts in these countries because they’re full of pirates”.
The second problem is absence of regional prices in other markets but Steam.
They are selling games two (!!) or so times cheaper in RU region. For example, AAA game might cost 60 dollars or 6000 rub in US but it will costs 35 or 3500 rub in russian steam.
Even though I couldn’t afford games in the past and pirated them - at some point I started buying stuff just because it gives much better, hustle -free experience.
If I’m low on cash, I pirate. When I have cash, I buy up the games I want. If it’s a game I enjoyed years ago and it’s on sale, I grab it.
The idea that piracy results in lost sales is flawed. No one I know who pirates can purchase the game to begin with.
Is a library piracy? No? Cool, discussion over.
I mean… Saying that it doesn’t result in lost sales at all is disingenuous.
They aren’t losing 70 dollars for every download, but they also aren’t losing zero.
They’re about to be full of pirates.
Now if only I could see this on a map
Edit: I made a map
Countries whose exchange rate likely made the game even more expensive, and you’ve taken it from them just to dox PC gamers on the PlayStation network.
This isn’t even enshittification. It’s outright fraud.
The silver lining: steam’s refund policy is good enough that most of them will get their money back. Hopefully that’s painful to Sony.
It launched 4 months ago. How are you assuming people who bought it and could play it are still in the 2-hour refund window?
Edit: I hear you. I hope Steam allows a special exemption refund for this issue…
Steam support usually makes exceptions for situations like this.
OK, maybe I’m missing something in all this, as I have both Steam and PSN accounts already, but wasn’t it always on the Steam page, in a gold box, that a 3rd party (PSN) account was needed to play the game?
Yes. I also haven’t seen any confirmation that any of those countries listed had the game available to purchase without spoofing their location.
The bandwagoners are all getting upset over the implementation of the requirement that was always there, and now that they’ve been given like a month’s notice that they have to actually make a PSN account that was always a listed requirement, they’re all in a tizzy.
People don’t read the TOS, you know that. I didn’t read them either. If you want to say that’s my fault then that’s fine but I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect people to pay attention to something like that in this context. It’s a video game. Any restrictions or conditions like this are arbitrary and unnecessary.
I don’t have a Playstation, have no interest in one, and will not be creating a PSN account. I probably won’t refund the game but I’m not going to keep playing it if they keep this requirement, which is a shame because I’ve really enjoyed my time with it. If this is the hill they want to die on then my interest will die on that hill with them.
It’s not buried in a TOS. It’s in a big gold/bronze highlighted area right on the purchase page.
The requirement was a small bullet on the Steam page. And Sony’s own website says a PSN account is not required. So Sony has said both things, and for three months it was not required. There is also no actual functional need for the account. Additionally the game studio has said that the countries where the game was sold, but PSN was not available is an issue they are looking into. I don’t understand why anyone is defending this move from Sony. The users gain no benefit, and there is an obvious negative impact. So maybe stop sucking off corporations?
A small bullet? Really? It’s gold/bronze highlighted in the same spot they’re always placed in, in some of the largest font on the page.
The 2 hour refund window is for automated refunds, you can still make a request if you’re past that - it’s just going to need a human to take a look at it. I’ve once succesfully returned a game I’ve played for about 5 hours because it had game-breaking bugs and ran like crap for no reason, and it got accepted within a day without an issue.
So Helldivers owners have a chance. I’m assuming that Steam’s Customer Support department is having some kind of an internal discussion right now on how to handle this case.
I haven’t seen anyone actually confirm the game was for sale in any of those countries. I know people from some of those countries have been playing, but did they buy the game by spoofing their country, or was the game ever actually available in any of them?
They can only remove what was previously available.
I’m in Finland and peering toward Estonia and wondering what the heck did they do to annoy Sony so much that you can’t make a PSN account there.
My instant guess would be that Estonians are in possession of a Sony tape deck from the 1980s that still works (being a Sony product from the 1980s), and Sony is like “No! We refuse to do business there until they join the modern time planned obsolescence club.”
Probably Sony won’t comply with some sort of regulation.
Liechtenstein as well lol
Andorra
Someone must stop this cruel oppression against the ethnic group of influencers.
Poor Niger can’t be mentioned on Steam apparently.
Can we get a similar map of Helldivers 2 players, based on location, prior to the change?
I’m not a big gamer so I’m not entirely getting this. It sounds like the issue is they want you to link your steam and PSN accounts, which people don’t want to do. And in some countries it’s even a TOS violation.
My question is, why would they have such a requirement to link the two accounts in the first place?
The legitimate reason is for crossplay.Sony said in the announcement it was for player “protection”, so they could ban people. Plus there is no doubt some data tracking going on.But cross-platform worked just fine before this requirement? Or atleast well enough, I’ve been playing with a PS4 friend for the last month.
The publishet is Sony. This way Sony can harvest your data and has total control over bans. If they didnt force the links bans for pc players would go through steam and could be challenged over steam in the case of an unfair ban.
The only data they can get is what you already share in game. And a little portion of what is on Steam.
You obviously have to give them whatever data is required for a PSN account. You could give them fake personal data of course, but good luck remembering your fake info if you ever need to reset your password.
It’s a Sony online game and it shouldn’t have worked without an account in first place on PC. But they allowed it regardless due to server issues.
It explicitly said you do not need a PSN account to play, in a number of places. Both on the game page, on the Sony FAQ page, and the Steam page too I believe.
It was bait and switch, which is why so many people are upset.
Why are there so many overseas territories in there? No wonder so many people are pissed off
I don’t know what a PSN account is, but I’m surprised you can get one in North Korea.
Sony Account (PlayStation Network account)
I’ve always wondered how much we are lied to about North Korea.
I would imagine, very little
