Just be a hardware company with a publishing division like you used to be. The tech monopolies rose and fell while you were asleep; let us just enjoy our games now.
This game upsets me every time I see it. The developers have no backbone and delisted it from any country they thought it could be controversial the day after release.
You know, as someone who doesn’t have a PlayStation, I want to support PS game developers by buying the games on Steam. But after this atrocious nonsensical debacle by Sony, I will have to leave for the high seas.
“we’ve built a platform that at least give piracy a run for its money, and used it to develop a massive user base so conditioned to buying from us that they happily joke about how 50% off a game they won’t play is cause for them to buy four times as many. Please, join us all in the baffling orgy of commerce, all we ask is 30% of the treasure.”.
“We will, but we’re gonna try to get the users to come to our platform with less content and maybe a $500 buy-in so we can have a bigger portion of a smaller pie”.
“Lol, go for it”.
“…”.
“…”.
“Why are you being anticompetitive?”
The hilarious thing is that Sony could open their own pc storefront selling steam keys, keep their 30%, and the only restriction would be maintaining price parity with the same game on the Steam storefront.
For a. Company like Sony that already has all the payment processing and customer service knowhow, this would be far easier for them than most.
Yet they can’t or won’t bother because suits are fucking stupid.
Shit, I assumed that valve somehow got a cut of games from keys as well, but looking it up (briefly), it looks like you’re entirely right and they don’t.
That makes it even more bonkers that companies keep trying to siphon off the market share, since you could just take your market proceeds as bonus revenue as long as valve got their share of what they sell.
I’m assuming that’s a big chunk of how things like humble bundle make their money?
You can’t actually, they won’t let you generate more keys if you sell fewer units through Steam directly (probably not 1:1, they don’t state precise numbers as it’s up to their discretion).
Here’s the relevant part of their website for reference:
If you request an extreme number of keys and you are not offering Steam customers a comparable deal, or if your sole business is selling Steam Keys and not offering value to Steam customers, your request may be denied and you may lose the privilege to request keys.
I find it hard to believe Sony would run afoul of these guidelines. I’m not sure what they mean by “if your sole business is selling steam keys”. Maybe referring to shovelware ‘developers’ that use steam for laundering money, if I had to guess.
Parity in this case would likely mean nearly everyone just buys directly from steam. No doubt Sony would infect the gaming process by injecting their launcher no matter what you do, but steam will get their 30%.
I don’t know what Sony could offer on their own storefront that plays well with parity rules to make people choose it over steam.
But the thought of them operating their own store front and offering steam keys with every sale won’t happen. Valve have stopped that in the past.
God preach here. "Our storefront works half the time, is clunky, bulky, filled with flashy ads and no substance, allows no customization, you can’t add your own games, you can’t run it on Linux, and our games will always assume you’re trying to pirate or hack even when we know you just bought the game. Switch over now! You’ll love it!
What does he think the mental process is? “Oh Spiderman 2 dropped I’m going to buy a PS5 and play that immediately”?
Nah, the process is, “Oh Spiderman 2 dropped? Oh it’s console exclusive? Guess I’ll play looks at the hundreds of unplayed games in my steam library The same 3 games I always play while I wait.”
This is annoying in a way, but really, how is this any different than buying an EA or Ubisoft game on steam? I mean, besides that it’s actually a good game. This bullshit has been normalized for awhile and isn’t a surprise.
Gotta give it to EA and ubisoft tho, they really help me boycott them. I wish I could say it takes some effort to avoid their games or that I would buy them if they were good companies but damn, I don’t think they released a single interesting game in the past 10 years
I suppose I have accepted it as just the way it is and will be, which is a shame, but I don’t buy their products either. I would love to play the new God of War, but I don’t need to that badly. There’s plenty of other great games out there without this bullshit which I would rather support
They’re delisting in regions without PSN. The irony of Helldivers is they backpedaled on PSN requirement but left it delisted in those countries. So people who already bought it can still play but new people can’t buy, so the player base is steadily declining.
Yeah, the previous Sony games on PC can be bought anywhere in the world but in Russia, yet the latest cannot be purchased in 170 countries, including some EU members like Estonia and Lithuania.
how is this any different than buying an EA or Ubisoft game on steam?
Who says it is different? Some time ago, I wanted to buy South Park: The Fractured but Whole on Steam, but when I saw the Ubisoft account requirement, I immediately close the tab.
As you should, good job. I guess I failed to elaborate - I think unfortunately it will still sell very well, as has been demonstrated by other companies doing this. I don’t expect Sony to stop, they had the opportunity, are doubling down, and it does suck. I guess I have a hard time being outraged when really it’s nothing new. Same shit, different company.
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