It's perfectly reasonable for PC gamers who use the Steam platform, which provides copy protection, to be annoyed by having to sign onto services they otherwise would never use. There is no purpose to it aside from marketing and data collection.
to be annoyed by having to sign onto services they otherwise would never use
Once.
You only have to sign in ONE SINGLE TIME, to link that one game to your PSN account.
And then you never, ever, ever, EVER have to do anything with that account again, until the sun burns out.
But people will cry their entitled fucking eyeballs out, regardless. Whatever. Like I said, seethe away. It just makes me erect.
EDIT: Also, what data collection? If you're fucking stupid enough to give Sony an email address that you actually use, you truly, actually deserve to be tracked. Scientists track dumb animals all the time. Nothing wrong with that.
EDIT: Also, it WOULD be fine for people to "be annoyed." But that's not what's happening, is it? These people are throwing a five-alarm, heart-attack-inducing, cringe-o-riffic, shit-smearing tantrum about it.
Sony has an atrocious record of being hacked as well.
Ohhhh NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!
Unsavory bad-actor types might get access to my THROWAWAY PROTONMAIL ACCOUNT???
OH. MY. FUCKING. GOD.
Some of the countries the game was sold in don’t allow PSN accounts to be created. So those users can’t play the game on steam.
And I have to use a VPN to watch porn in Texas. Go find a fucking Kleenex for either your tears or my VPN-powered fucking jizz load. Or don't buy a box of Kleenex this month, and you'll save enough money to afford a premium VPN subscription.
Like I said to someone else, in this thread: if you give Sony your real email address that you use for your real personal shit and your real business shit, you deserve for your info to be tracked. Scientists track dumb animals all the time and there's nothing wrong with that.
Sony isn't asking for your fucking SSN and your birth certificate. They're asking for ANY RANDOM EMAIL ADDRESS THAT YOU HAVE ACCESS TO, SO YOU CAN CLICK AN ACTIVATION LINK.
I'm not even sure they want you to do that. They might not even ask for activation. I haven't done it, so I don't know.
I only haven't done it because I don't play Helldivers 2. Not because I have some kind of principled objection to making a free web account.
I mean, do you realize how many free web accounts we've all made in our lives? Between the years 1997 and 2012, I probably made LITERALLY TENS OF THOUSANDS OF FREE WEB ACCOUNTS. Now you guys are gonna draw a line in the sand for me, and say "hey, now...don't make any more of those, or you're a corporate shill."
Fine. Whatever. I guess I'm a shill. I'm not going to stop making free accounts for internet shit. That behavior is literally part of my culture.
EDIT: I think I'm going to go ahead and make myself a PSN account, right now. Even though I don't play any Sony games that require one. I'm just doing it to make you guys seethe some more.
I'm not really a gamer, so I'm really not fully sure what you are getting at. I just hope you experienced some kind of catharsis with this comment that will help you continue to live your best life as a Chill Dude. Heh, 69.
The tldr version = people are blowing a gasket, because a game published by Sony is requiring people to create a free account for their online gaming service, even if they bought the game through Steam (the Steam platform has nothing to do with Sony).
I hold the opinion that it's not any kind of a big fucking deal to spend 120 seconds giving Sony an email address that you only use for making free web accounts.
Other people are choosing to absolutely lose their fucking minds, talkin' about boycotting and whatever. And calling me a corporate shill.
Yes, I would advise to simply disregard these individuals and/or focus on spreading the gospel of how best to make throwaway email accounts. Don't blow your own gasket! We need more Chill Dudes, not less.
Absolutely good advice. In fact, I'd just replied to another person, basically outlining how a consistent plan to only give out throwaway email addresses could change everything, by making those vast collections of email addresses worthless, on the corporate data-trading market.
This doesn't apply worldwide, but to put some stuff in perspective privacy-wise: in the UK you need to go through age verification to create an adult PSN account, kinda hard to stay anonymous, and I'm not sure how much data Sony retains.
Like I said to someone else, if the citizens of the UK chose to vote for shitty politicians, they should blame themselves for voting stupidly and their politicians for enacting stupid policy.
Nobody should blame Sony for obeying the law.
But that's what people are doing. Because people are fucking stupid.
They can blame Sony for forcing them towards their systems, especially if the person in question didn't vote for the government who enacted those rules.
Noticed you glossed the TOS bit. Idk if you know this but they'll ban you for using a VPN to create an account. So all those regionally locked people that bought it just should not have? A megacorp like Sony who installs fucking rootkits on CDs is a weird company to lick the balls of but go off.
they’ll ban you for using a VPN to create an account
I assume that means they'll ban people who play on PS5 through a VPN. That's not ideal, but that doesn't apply in this situation. In this case, you just have to make a PSN account, then connect it to your copy of Helldivers 2 ONE SINGLE TIME.
If I'm wrong, then that does suck. I'll admit that.
As for the TOS, who fucking gives a shit? "Ohhh nooooooo, they LIED TO US! A corporation LIED to us!"
Yeah, no shit. All companies are going to lie to you. All people who do business with you are going to lie to you. All random people you meet a few times are going to lie to you. All your friends are going to lie to you. All your family is going to lie to you. Everyone you ever love or fuck is going to lie to you. LITERALLY EVERY SINGLE PERSON YOU WILL EVER MEET IS GOING TO LIE TO YOU.
Get that through your head. Or, to put it more bluntly, grow the fuck up.
Knowing that everybody lies, it's TRULY a matter of choosing which lies you're really going to get your nads in a twist about.
Setting aside the people who might have region-based problems, literally every other person can just GIVE SONY A THROWAWAY EMAIL ADDRESS.
Getting Sony to store everyone's worthless email addresses is, if anything, an expense for them. There is no downside, for us.
You don't know what a Terms of Service is? You'd be breaking it in that case, resulting in a ban. They didn't lie. Its just a shit ass thing to do. Its not a win for anyone. Expect more of this, make 599 million accounts. Enjoy it.
I will freely admit that it really does suck for Sony to require people in countries that can't make a PSN account to...just fuck off, I guess?
But I know you WON'T admit that it's fine for everyone ELSE to just make a throwaway account.
For some reason, you consider 120 seconds of typing an email address into a text box and clicking an activation link to be some kind of ridiculous bar to clear. I just don't get it. Give them a throwaway email and get on with your fucking life, goddamn.
Idk how old you are, but that's not why I have a steam account, to make more accounts. Its not. If we're going to do this shit we might as well go back to the wild west of a launcher per game. I'm not making a fake PSN account and getting banned from a game I spent money on and have been playing just fine. That's bullshit.
This is the world we're making for ourselves. No middle ground between heroic rebel and evil corporate shill.
Whatever. Keep seething. It just keeps making me more erect.
EDIT: I'm just saying, this is how people get radicalized. But NOT the way you're thinking. Not in the socially positive way that you're thinking of.
Be mad all you want. I actually don't care. I'm seriously warning you about this shit where you're altering your worldview to see "your side" as the heroic good guys, with no faults, and anyone who even SLIGHTLY disagrees with you as one of the evil, evil bad guys.
It's not even about the impassioned nature of your views. It's about ALTERING YOUR PERCEPTION IN A WAY THAT BLINDS YOU FROM REALITY.
Here's what it is: I actually don't care about this issue AT ALL. I don't even fucking play Helldivers 2, yet.
I might, at some point. But I dunno. I'm certainly in the key demographic for it. I even played Helldivers 1, which puts me in VERY rare company, compared to all these bandwagon-jumpers, who are now jumping OFF the bandwagon.
But I digress. The point is, I actually don't really give a shit about the whole PSN thing. I don't support it. I'm not mad about it.
Now, you DEFINE ME as being a corporate shill, on that basis. And that would be fine, in an academic sense. It would be fine, as long as you remembered "I'm the one defining that guy's beliefs for him, because I feel that anyone who isn't fighting against the corporate bullshit is actually supporting it."
But that's not how human minds work, in the information-addicted, hyper-connected, echo-chamber-ified social media age.
That environment is hacking your brain. If you're not careful, you're going to wake up one day, having completely forgotten that I'm not really a corporate shill. You'll forget that you defined those terms, and you'll TRULY BELIEVE that I am an actual servant of the Sony Illuminati.
I'm just saying. That's how we've gotten these Q motherfuckers, these flat-earth motherfuckers, these people who worship indicted political candidates. All that shit. Disagree with me all you want, insult me and my stupid face all you want. But don't call me a shill so much that you actually start to believe it.
For your sake, more than mine. But for all our sakes, because we don't need more brainwashed people out here.
Lots of people with a sub-3rd-grade reading level, running around on the Web. It's getting terrifying. Way more so than Sony asking for your email address.
But which of those two things is everyone shitting their pants about?
I use Plex to stream to my AppleTV 4k. I am prepared for the inevitable comments shitting all over Apple, however this is very easy to setup and is very reliable and very easy to use, so the haters can kick rocks.
EDIT: Please everyone enjoy this cat picture, and allow it to calm your internet rage where applicable.
There is also jellyfin as an alternative to plex that I will mention everytime someone mentions plex because I believe jellyfin deserves more visibility and is the better option considering plex's cons
Fair enough, and if you prefer Jellyfin, then please do enjoy it in good health. For me, I can never get it setup to function reliably, and I do not care for the UI at all.
Prove that shit. There is ABSOLUTELY NO WAY that Sony can demand a photo ID from you. I mean, the Allies fucking won the war with Japan. Did you not get that memo, somehow?
I'll be goddamned. Now that I think about it, this must be because of that anti-porn law that you've got, over there. They're somehow applying it to game services, too.
But then, like, don't blame Sony for following your laws. How is that fair? If you gave your freedom away, that's your own fault. Sony can't change what the UK government requires.
EDIT: lol, ask your king to fix it, peasant
EDIT 2: I live in Texas, and they just enacted an anti-porn law, here. I don't like it. It's objectively stupid, and won't protect anyone from anything. But it's not worded in such a way that you have to present an ID to Sony, to make a gaming account. So, again, your stupid law is your own fault. It's incredibly dishonest to blame Sony for problems you created for yourselves.
For sure, there's no need for any fuss, just keep quietly taking all the corporate bs as always.
Next time when you'll need to submit an income form just to access a microtransaction-riddled single player game - just use your parents bank account statement, no need to use your own.
And when you'll need to enter a fingerprint id to unlock your multiplayer account - just ask your friend to help out.
It's a modern day privacy, apparently. Someone think of those poor companies barely getting by just by selling you the game, the least you could do is share your personal data for them to sell too, better yet get locked into their ecosystem for a long term milking.
The simple reality of the situation is it was a business decision by Sony. They saw this groundswell of potential players to add to their huge database of people to market to, and said "we're getting those email addresses". If I had to venture a guess, the higher-ups at Arrowhead are probably livid and pushed back. They get zero out of this change and they have to deal with the fallout. It's likely part of the publishing agreement.
That said Sony knew this would happen, if probably not to this degree. Maybe they post a solemn jpeg talking about how they "fell short of expectations". Being Sony it's likely that they just ignore the backlash. Their projections say they'll make more money with all that new data than they'll lose on some half-hearted boycott. Gamers are notoriously horrid at sticking to that shit. And you know what? That next battle pass is gonna sell just fine even if the vocal folks don't buy it.
Yes, it sucks and it's reasonable to be annoyed. Yes, many loud people on the internet are acting like a helldiver kicked down their door and demanded a kidney. Yes, only one party gains from this and it's Sony. These things aren't mutually exclusive. No need for argument imo.
They saw this groundswell of potential players to add to their huge database of people to market to, and said “we’re getting those email addresses”
See, this is the salient point, right here.
The correct response to this action is "LOL, sure. You can have my protonmail account that I only use to sign up for free shit, anyway."
Checkmate. Internet 1, Sony 0.
But instead, we get all this shit-flinging, foot-stomping, childish nonsense.
EDIT: Now that I think about it, signing up for all the shit they ask us to sign up for, in an ORGANIZED WAY, could actually change the whole situation, for the better. Here's the plan that should be enacted:
Nobody gets screeching mad. Angry people behave predictably.
Everyone reminds each other to ONLY USE THROWAWAY ADDRESSES TO SIGN UP FOR CORPORATE SHIT.
Everyone reminds each other to NEVER ENGAGE WITH ANY MAILING LISTS OR OTHER BULLSHIT THAT YOU GET, ON ANY OF THOSE THROWAWAY ADDRESSES.
Stick to that shit, for EVERYTHING. Don't try and stop people from asking for your stupid throwaway email. Don't threaten anybody with boycotting. Just continue giving out the completely worthless email addresses.
Sooner or later, it becomes apparent that the majority of email addresses that are being collected in this manner are basically worthless.
Consequently, the value of these email addresses plummets, both as a tradeable commodity and as a means of mining further data.
Corporations slowly stop trying to track people via email.
I use Musicbrainz-picard to organize music and clean up metadata. For Shows and movies, it's pretty easy. I use Plex and it's pretty flexible with naming conventions
You sound like a kid whining about other kids. The people complaining are mostly adults who are reasonably upset that their data is being harvested. Yes the steam page did say a PSN account was required. Except it wasn't and the game worked fine for months just to have sony come back and tell us that it's suddenly required now. Kids don't give a fuck about making a new account.
I don't get why the self proclaimed chill dudes are always the least chill. Honestly if I see you in my game I'm booting you. You sound like an ass.
WHAT DATA??? They don't have any power to mine your data, here! They will only get what you give them. AND YOU DON'T HAVE TO GIVE THEM ANYTHING VALUABLE!
As I keep saying: the correct response isn't getting mad. The correct response is to give the corporation a throwaway email address.
The smart move isn't taking your ball and going home. The smart move is STUFFING THEIR CORPORATE MAW FULL OF THROWAWAY PROTONMAIL ADDRESSES THAT WON'T BE WORTH A PENNY TO ANYBODY!!!
Kids don’t give a fuck about making a new account
You say that, but look at what various people are asking, in this situation.
Sony is asking for any email address, HOPING you give them a real one, but without any power to make you do that.
I'm asking for people to give Sony nothing but throwaway email addresses that you don't care about.
Others are asking THESE KIDS TO STOP PLAYING A GAME THEY LIKE.
Can you look me in my faceless, digital cyber-persona and tell me that these kids will continue to boycott a game they enjoy?
You know they won't. They're hyped up and mad, right now. They won't be, in a few weeks, and they'll start crawling back to that game they already bought.
BUT MAYBE WE COULD USE THEIR ANGRY MOMENT, RIGHT NOW, TO CONVINCE THEM TO CREATE NEW EMAIL ACCOUNTS.
Once they do that, and they give Sony those accounts, it's done! The damage has been done to the godforsaken corpo data mining machine.
What's the fucking problem? Like I said to someone else, I have probably made 300 email accounts since 1997, and I've probably used them to make ACTUAL TENS OF THOUSANDS of free web accounts, for shit on the internet.
Why would it bother me to make some more? It's literally part of my culture. What is there to be so fucking mad about?
Uh-huh. How many is "a lot," in this context? More than 500? Because the Fortune 500 list of companies only has 500 companies on it.
That means there are 500 CEOs out there, who could make the argument that their time is so valuable that they can't spare a few seconds of it, to create some free accounts for some shit that they're using.
Let's be honest: you're NOT one of those people. Just shut up and create the free fucking accounts. You've already wasted SO much more time, throwing a fucking tantrum over this shit.
Like enough to make a big ruckus about it online. It's just unnecessary dumb shit so of course people find it annoying. Seems simple enough tbh.
Let's be honest: you're NOT one of those people. Just shut up and create the free fucking accounts. You've already wasted SO much more time, throwing a fucking tantrum over this shit.
Someone went around asking women which they would pick to be stuck in the woods with. Almost all of them picked the bear. This resulted in a bunch of men harassing the woman who wrote it... Fully proving why people keep picking the bear.
This reminds me of a meme that originated on somethingawful.com, you don't know who you could be talking to online, and its a bear. Man I miss that site.
A women wrote an article about how women are afraid of the possibility of male strangers attacking them, comparing it being stuck in the woods with the bear.
And, as is tradition, instead of actually reading the article a bunch people took it to mean that she would literally rather be attacked by a bear rather than a man.
Who gives a shit? They're going to get my 0 dollars worth of Playstation Bucks that I'm never going to put in there?
They're going to play my other PSN games that I have on there? Except I don't have a single one of those?
They're going to fuck with my Helldivers 2 account? OH WAIT, THEY CAN'T DO THAT EITHER, BECAUSE THEY'D STILL ALSO NEED TO HAVE ACCESS TO MY STEAM ACCOUNT. The two accounts get linked. You still do all the game shit through Steam.
There is NO RISK, here. The only thing that could possibly happen would be someone spams my throwaway Protonmail account with nonsense spam. And I don't care about that.
Plenty of ways to fuck with you, getting the account banned, deleting it etc. Sorry friend but using a throwaway email for any accounts you actually use is a terrible idea.
You know what would solve this all? If there wasn't a dumb requirement for a PS account. See why people are annoyed with it now?
using a throwaway email for any accounts you actually use
When I say "throwaway," I don't mean "I forgot about it, and I no longer have access to it, and I picked a really stupid name and password."
I mean: "this is not the same email that I use to do my primary banking and contact my grandmother."
I have two-factor authentication set up for everything that supports it. I just looked it up, and PSN supports it. Yes, that doesn't mean it's immune to being hacked, but my use of a "throwaway" email address doesn't do ANYTHING to increase the odds of my account being hacked, for anything.
If you won't admit that, I don't care to discuss this with you, any further.
That's an even bigger pain in the ass than creating a throwaway account. At least throwaway would've been two second and forget it, now you're having to create an actual account.
Your anger about the people that are upset by this is way more irrational than the anger of those people. Like it literally doesn't affect you at all if people stop playing the game.
Technically true, since I don't play that game. But I actually understand that the game in question is designed to have a lot of crowd-directed gameplay. If the player-base hollows out, it actually will negatively affect a lot of the people who are playing it.
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