A multiplayer game that's very successful on Steam - but published by Sony - suddenly has a requirement to have both a Steam and PSN account in order to log into the game - a couple of months after the game was released.

As a PC gamer I would be pissed too tbh (on the other hand, it's the same bullshit that Ubisoft pulls for their games released on Steam).

And not just that. They required PSN accounts on countries where PSN is not available (and using a VPN to create it goes against the ToS, and people get banned). So in those countries they have effectively banned you from playing the game you purchased weeks ago.

You took my money but refuse to provide the service. This borders on fraud

This sounds like a very simple class action

"very simple class action" is a phrase used only by someone who's never been involved in a class action.

Valve is offering full refunds, in practice very few people would bother going through any legal mess when they can just get their money back.

Class action, as in you get a check for $5 3 years from now? How does that help with the $40 game they stole from you?

Also this is happening in other countries, not USA.

>using a VPN to create it goes against the ToS, and people get banned

Though that seem to be enforced less often than people think it is, one Philippine player (a country that did not have PSN) was ejected from Sony's live esports events because of them entering using another country's flag (in this case, Hong Kong - it is a common practice for players in ASEAN region without PSN, such as Philippines and Vietnam, to create an Hong Kong or Singapore account): https://www.carmudi.com.ph/journal/local-player-qualifies-gr...

> suddenly has a requirement

I think players were already asked to link their accounts since the game's release, but it was optional (in the sense that you could easily skip that step).

also, for further context, here's the official announcement that sparked this whole thing: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/553850/view/41968685...

It was also broken at launch and was made optional.

The somewhat bigger issue is that PSN doesn’t support all countries that Steam does apparently.

In the end I suspect affected players will get a refund.

It isn’t as big a deal as the gamers are making it seem.

This is a big deal because PSN not even available in all EU countries. E.g there is no PSN in: Andorra, Estonia, Latvia. In Ukraine for example you can only register PSN account if you own PlayStation.

Also, they legally cannot sell the game in some EU countries and not others, due to EU single market rules.

So yah, they are kinda fucked if the EU comes after them legally.

Does the account cost money also?

AFAIK no, but I bet there's a lot of details in the fine print that allow Sony to turn your account details and behaviour while logged in into money.

Or secretly install a rootkit onto your machine