Helldivers 2 Community Manager Spitz claims that negative feedback from players regarding the game requiring a PlayStation Network account in order to play it on Steam will not make a difference.
A screenshot from Helldivers II (2024), Arrowhead Game Studios
Sony announced on the official Helldivers 2 forums on Steam that the game would require players to have a PlayStation Network account linked to their Steam account in order to play the game beginning on June 4th.
Sony stated, “Due to technical issues at the launch of HELLDIVERS™ 2, we allowed the linking requirements for Steam accounts to a PlayStation Network account to be temporarily optional. That grace period will now expire. See details below in this post.”
“Account linking plays a critical role in protecting our players and upholding the values of safety and security provided on PlayStation and PlayStation Studios games,” the company posited. “This is our main way to protect players from griefing and abuse by enabling the banning of players that engage in that type of behaviour. It also allows those players that have been banned the right to appeal.”
It then declared, “As such, 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.”
Helldivers 2 announcement requiring PlayStation Network linking
This reasoning for the account linking was reiterated by Helldivers 2 Community Manager Spitz, who stated, “sony is the publisher and needs a way to ban PC players right now they can only do that by having to send a name to valve and wait for Valve to action the ban if players are required to have a PSN linked to their Steam, Sony can just ban the PSN to keep them off the game instead of having to go through Valve.”
Helldivers 2 Community Manager Spitz
He previously elaborated, “If a Sony account isn’t required to play the game / isn’t connected to Steam, it’s very hard for Sony to track player accounts. Steam doesn’t allow us to have any way to keep track of unique player IDs through our systems, and since players on Steam can all have duplicate usernames, if we get a report for a user named ‘John’ for example, we have no idea which of the 450,000 players named John we’re trying to ban. But if they have a unique Sony ID linked to their Steam account we can tell exactly which John it is and ban them easily.”
Helldivers 2 Community Manager Spitz
Nevertheless, numerous players have indicated they will stop playing the game due to the requirement to link their Steam account to a PlayStation Network account. In response to a number of players expressing their dislike of this new policy, Community Manager Spitz has noted that the PlayStation Network account linking was required at launch, but was disabled 36 hours after the game was available.
Helldivers 2 Community Manager Spitz
The Community Manager also noted that the account linking had been listed as a requirement on Steam since it was listed. He wrote, “This panel has been unchanged since the game was listed on Steam, and making an account with an email/pass in five minutes to link it and forget about it forever really isn’t a huge deal tbh.”
Helldivers 2 Community Manager Spitz
Spitz also encouraged players to express their dislike of the update writing, “If you dislike the requirement to link your account, you’re more than welcome to change your Steam review to negative or do whatever it takes to make that dislike known, but attacking AH devs, the community team, our moderators or any other person who has no control or input into the change isn’t going to help anyone.”
Helldivers 2 Community Manager Spitz
However, he also added that the negative feedback regarding the account linking would likely not have any affect, “Feedback is always listened to, most of it is passed on, and most of what is passed on is considered and goes into what changes we make When it comes to a requirement from Sony that has existed since pre-launch, I don’t think feedback is going to change much.”
Helldivers 2 Community Manager Spitz
Not only has Spitz claimed the feedback will not matter, but in what appear to be deleted posts, Spitz mocked at least one player expressing his dislike of the change. X user SnowBallBoy777 shared screenshots of Spitz writing, “It’s not like this is the first or even the fourteenth mainstream game to require a third-party account that takes a couple minutes to create, but if it’s a dealbreaker to have to take 120 seconds out of your day to enter an email and password and then forget about it, change your Steam review and make your displeasure known on a platform where it matters.”
Screenshot of Helldivers 2 Community Manager Spitz via SnowBallBoy777 on X
In another screenshot, Spitz responded to a player that said, “This will kill helldivers 2 on steam. Backpedal or lose your playerbase.” Spitz replied, “I thought you were refunding and leaving.”
Screenshot of Helldivers 2 Community Manager Spitz via SnowBallBoy777 on X
What do you make of Helldiver 2 Community Manager Spitz’s comments?
This is the exact reason I –
He’s not wrong; this is a Sony decision and no amount of player anger will force Sony’s hand, unless people simply stop playing this game that they love. Chances are, that’s not going to happen over something like this.