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Account linking between steam and PlayStation is now mandatory
(store.steampowered.com)
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What a dumb move, timing this with trying to convince people to buy the new warbond. Hopefully Sony reverses this decision after seeing how badly this damages the health of the game.
Unfortunately for those requesting refunds, unless you're in an area that's soon to be excluded, you likely won't get your money back. The game has had the requirement for the PSN account linking listed on the Steam page since day 1, so it's unlikely that Valve will do much in this situation.
Arrowhead isn't free of guilt in this, but Sony and Valve should have both done a much better job at making this clear to players earlier on, since they're in charge of marketing/sales on PC. Like, in-game messaging would have been good for this. They also should have never allowed the sale of the game on regions PSN isn't available to in the first place, since they already knew they would killswitch non-linked accounts eventually.
What a disappointing day for democracy.
Well they kinda did. When you first launched the game it did say that you need a PSN account to play. I know this because that's when I learned PSN isn't available in my country. But you were able to skip it and after skipping you never saw this notification again. Valve also has it on the store page "Requires 3rd-Party Account: PlayStation Network (Supports Linking to Steam Account)", but nobody reads those little notices. I don't blame anyone for missing that information, especially since not linking PSN accounts has not affected the game for months.
And if you want a really fun fact. Web archive link because I imagine Sony is going to change it, but on the Playstation website they explicitly state "Signing in to PSN is optional when playing a PlayStation game on PC.".
I'm not going to to anything hasty. I hope Sony walks it back because I do enjoy the game, but if by June nothing has changed I will ask a refund from Valve because I'll literally be unable to play the game, unless I go against PSN ToS. I have no problem getting on the FUCK SONY train once they've left me no other choice.