Helldivers 2 is by far the most fun multiplayer game I've played in a long time

It seems like this is on me for missing the fine print

When I originally launched the game it asked me to link my account, but I don't do that as a matter of course. The dialog did say "this is required to play the game" but then also just had a big ol "skip" button, which I pressed

I wonder if I can use the existence of that skip button as justification to ask for a refund

I'm really hoping they will reverse course on this decision. Remove crossplay if they have to, I don't care about being able to play with Playstation players at all. I only play with a group of friends anyways

I probably just have take the L and either just stop playing make a PSN account. What a miserable future we've made for ourselves

It is surprising it took this long. Microsoft Studios games are like this. At least it doesn’t involve another launcher.

At one time I was involved in the EA Origin effort, which had many strands but the huge one was essentially some identity fusion nightmare. It is the dream of every games marketer to have a single account that follows individuals around across platforms and devices. As the market competition gets worse and the pressure to extract meaningful profits goes up I would expect a lot more moves like this from everyone.

I really do hope we're eventually heading towards a massive consumer revolt against how massively interwoven our digital identities are because corps want to make it easier to farm our data. I know it's unlikely because too many people don't care, but the more and more inconvenient things become, requiring multiple accounts and passwords and linking tons of shit, maybe it will happen

Since Origin, I haven't purchased a single EA title.

Can't say I disagree with that sentiment. Like many things what improvements to the player experience such things could hypothetically enable get completely overwhelmed by less noble concerns.

EA, Epic and Ubisoft have all shown that having too much money to throw at a launcher project, that serves only the interest of the publisher, is in the long run a losing proposition, as the team running it will just go completely off in the wrong direction. The Epic one in particular is like missing an open goal from two yards away.

Helldivers is the best selling game of the year I think.

Since the news broke, 92.2% of steam reviews have been negative.