Sony's game publishing arm has done a 180-degree turn on a controversial policy of requiring PC players to sign in with PlayStation accounts for some games, according to a blog post by the company.

Sony hasn't lost hope that players will still go ahead and use a PlayStation account, though, as it's tying several benefits to signing in.

The change is a major about-face for a handful of single-player titles after Sony faced considerable backlash from many angry PC players about the PlayStation account requirement to play the games.

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[–] Computerchairgeneral@fedia.io 52 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Mildly surprised Sony actually budged on this. Of course, they really should have had this setup from the start. No one is going to like being forced to set up a PSN account to play a game, but I imagine a lot of people will do it for a free cosmetic skin or whatever in-game incentives they come up with.

[–] ipkpjersi@lemmy.ml 12 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

No one is going to like being forced to set up a PSN account to play a game, but I imagine a lot of people will do it for a free cosmetic skin or whatever in-game incentives they come up with.

That's the thing I don't get. If they give a free skin or two, and advertise that, and also make it clear that it's optional, I see no reason why they wouldn't still get tons of people either way. That way, everyone is happy.

These companies really don't understand that like, if you make good games, and you do things that gamers like, they will be happier with your games, buy more games, buy more DLC, etc. These game companies would make far more money being nicer than being shitty.

[–] Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

I suspect the heads of those companies, frequently not even being gamers themselves, don't really see gamers as fellow human beings but instead think of them with the same level of empathy as one has for numbers in a ledger.

It probably doesn't help that the phenomenon of fanboyism means that a large proportion of gamers might was well be nothing else than numbers in a ledger, given that they always go along with whatever the game maker that they're fans of wishes and does, with no real bottom-line-affecting reaction.

[–] Rekorse@sh.itjust.works 1 points 23 hours ago

They were trying to either profit off the data collection directly or use it to increase future sales or improve marketing.

They tried the stick, which was you can't launch the game without an account, when they should have used the carrot instead, which would be giving in game bonuses for logging in and willingly giving them your data.

Also part of the problem is that Sony does make good games, and has for a while. They are games people want to play so that makes it more frustrating.