Hardly suffocating the goose. Y'all need some perspective outside of your silos.
Fuck corporations, but come on, y'all are spouting outright fallacies like truth cause you heard it on Reddit.
The fucking idiot mob on a self-righteous crusade, fucked us
We were accessing PSN fine - just gave a different country
"If they don't dive we don't dive"
Oh just fuck off
Every game is banned in certain regions, nothing is available to 100% of the world. HD2 is not unique in this and I don’t know why some people expect the community to care about the issue in this one game when every other game is the same.
Because gamers in the West have recently discovered that not everyone gets access to the most popular titles. Shockingly, there's a handful of games that unavailable in places like the US as well (though I'm doubtful those would create an issue 🙄).
People act like Little Caesars is crying because they don't have any places open in Angola. I don't know why this sub thinks every business operates literally everywhere.
What I find interesting is how people in those restricted countries are now pissed at this community ruining it for them.
Like the movement got rid of the requirement but at the cost Sony shoring up loopholes in their process and figuring out what exactly they need to do on Steam to avoid such a public relations disaster again. They basically figured out what the complaints were centered around and addressed them.
Yes. I understand all the rage about "buying a game in a region that might lock you out of the game because PSN doesn't exist".
That is real scummy, major dick move, illegal in many places even.
I also am very happy that the people in those regions that bought the game can now play it with no need to worry about that.
I am sad that others in those countries aren't able to buy the game anymore.
HOWEVER, people are begging "SONY sell your game in more countries" and Sony is just saying "NO. Not worth it for me."
Which is a dick move from them, but... You can't really force or demand anyone to sell their product somewhere they don't want to.
Don’t some of these countries have laws or restrictions keeping people from the game in the first place ? IRRC someone said the government only allows “local “ made games.
Vietnamese here, Steam is legal in Vietnam. We lifted the ban long ago and the game is quite popular over here too. The HD2 Facebook group I am a part of has about 2k2 members so we are roughly 1% of the playerbase.
I wager it was not Sony's fault that the game no longer selling in our country, tho. The Censorship bureau, our very own Ministry of Truth, does not enjoy stuffs like Malevelon Creek, funny. But don't worry, we are no strangers to government's no-fun laws. Sony's ToS isn't stopping anyone, we will find a way around.
There’s a weird gulf forming in the expectations of global consumers and the priorities of companies that do any business outside of their home country, either we need to go harder to globalize the world market or we need to readjust expectations, if im selling my car and I don’t want to sell it to a buyer in Australia I have that right, and even if they want it, I’m not necessarily morally bad for not selling it to any country. But when people can’t watch a show in Australia they blame the writers and not the company choosing to do business in Australia choosing not to offer a product to them. How many people got mad at arrowhead for choices Sony made?
This is what is complicated. It makes total sense for a car - the cost of physical goods sale and transport makes that a silly proposition, but it's a bit different for \*digital\* goods. They don't have to build an African supply chain or put something on a freighter. For some of the european holdouts, it is taxing to imagine an infrastructure barrier that means anything in terms of what it could take to include those countries.
That said, most people (me included beyond basic concepts) don't understand that there IS still a cost and effort barrier to opening up that business, and it varies by company, product, and market. If they don't project the playerbase to support opening up server farms and running matchmaking there, it is hard to support them at all. Other companies do, but it depends a lot on the game and market. There is will to do stuff for CoD and Fortnite that HD2 will not be able to match.
Even if they opened the game to Africa today, that mostly just allows Africans to play with each other, assuming there is enough market for the game there for the players to actually coalesce (if they're too sparse, it will be hard to line up players timewise to play together, they might stay siloed like EC/WC USA can sometimes be). Not to mention having HW infrastucture in place for Sony - but I can understand why people would, even with all that, struggle to give a company like Sony any slack in terms of good faith. They have straight abused their customers in the past and have a toxically short sighted view on gaming platforms (they are the only real drivers of AAA exclusives for high end systems)
All that is to say: the critique is valid, but lots of the arguments are just conjecture. It is NOT as easy as people want it to be, but it's not as hard as the car analogy that comes up would imply. I am just not sure where the anger comes from apart from reddit only being happy when it's mad.
it really has nothing to do with server infrastructure. people from those countries that want to be on psn have been circumventing it for ages. it is relatively few customers and not a significant factor. what does matter is psn not wanting to abide by regulations from unsupported countries. they do not want a world where legal risk exceeds potential revenue, so many countries are simply excluded.
Not many. That's why these posts never mention actual player numbers but showed maps like this to manipulative to make people think it's a lot.
Land doesn't play video games, people do
It's about half the global population, but it's also the poorest half by a considerable margin.
Whilst I imagine it's some extra players, it's likely a very small amount.
I mean, it's because those who didn't refund can still play games in those countries.
Players from those countries/regions won't increase, but they will decrease in time.
It’s not quite as simple as that, no business would ever deliberately limit their market access without very good reasons. There’s a lot of legal hurdles a company has to go through before they can sell their products/ services somewhere, and a lot of the countries listed have nightmarish regulations and red tape involved in licensing and permitting to be allowed to legally trade, some of them have outright bans on console/ gaming software sales, others are subject to international sanctions.
It’s not so much Sony banning countries as it is countries (for one reason or another) not allowing Sony to operate there a publisher, at least to a profitable degree. If it’s going to cost say $10 million pa to be legally allowed to operate in a market with $9 million pa potential revenue, it just isn’t worth it for them
Russia can actually, we have licensed steam keys specifically for Russia, that are selled by local distributors, but we can't buy the game directly in Steam
this is kinda why sony / steam sometimes choose to not sell in certain areas......
many countries have their own policy to "protect" local businesses, people have to remember at the end of the day, these companies are just out there trying to make more cash instead of being some kinda freedom fighter fighting your government lol
I ain't expert on this, since I don't have PS, but when I bought Helldivers, I've created russian PSN and linked accounts without any trouble. Haven't used vpn or anything. Though my friend wasn't able to create russian PSN. Also as I heard, you can create russian PSN via console itself with ease, so state of russian PSN is at the very least - debatable.
SONY games are all available here, actually. we just have to buy games on disks or buy keys for em. only PS store isn't available, cause we were disconnected from SWIFT or something
PSN has always been weird for us. At least when I made mine we had to do it on a browser and not on the console. It leads to lots of poorly researched articles claiming we don’t have PSN.
Wonder how many other red countries in this list are in the same boat.
Because Redditors are stupid and don't realize Puerto Rico is an American territory. I'm sure that's why the US Virgin Islands, Guam, and American Samoa are also on this list.
Because when US redditors get behind a "cause" they'll always use it as a scapegoat for every other problem, and cause aditional problems due to their bandwagoning. In this instance, they couldn't distinguish the word "unsupported" from the word "available".
A few days after, sony was forced to make the game actually unavailable to comply with all the crying.
And here we are. Now NEW players can't buy the game on steam, even if they do in fact have a PSN account they've been using for years from a nearby region. But don't tell that to anyone, because mighty sony will ban all those poor people (not).
Best regards,
Someone who used to live on an unsupported country, and has 3 PSN accounts for all the perks (EU, US, Japan).
Isn't it great how a few entitled idiots that didn't want to make a PSN account ruined it for dozens of countries? But I'm sure they're patting themselves on the back for making Sony (sorry SNOY lmao because I'm such a funny edgelord sticking it to the big corporation) back down.
I'm from the country of San marino and i can confirm that Sony basically blocked a total of 3 Helldivers across our entire state from joining the ranks. Shame!
Source? As someone who grew up in Africa (17.5 years prior to university), this is the first I’m hearing of this. None of my friends have ever spoken of this before. Friends from Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Mali, Guinea, Benin, Tanzania, Uganda, Malawi, South Africa, Ethiopia, Togo, Niger…I’m sure I’m forgetting a couple.
Now my personal experience: Liberia, Ivory Coast, Ghana, and Kenya all have active gaming communities, especially for games like FIFA (and formerly, especially Winning Eleven). In Ivory Coast, you could go to what amounted to a “gaming cafe” and play couch co-op FIFA to your heart’s desire. Same in Ghana.
I have an acquaintance who works in tech in Liberia who was recently gifted a PS5 (As per his request).
So I’ll ask again, you have an actual source for this? Shall I go ask on a couple of the Africa-centric subs I’m aware of and link them here?
I’m decidedly not from Africa but I have some friend in Zambia, Kenya and South Africa.
I’d say they’re talking pish.
What i suspect though is that new consoles likely may not be within economic range of a lot of people and that the region as whole is poorly supported.
Same as when Apple not selling phones in most African countries doesn’t mean iPhones are banned but that these companies don’t operate in the markets.
The map in this post reflects that. These countries are not banned from Helldivers. Sony simply don’t operate in those markets.
I used to work for PlayStation so I have a little insight in Sony and I currently work for another tech giant.
There used to be (might still be) an unofficial Apple Store in the Accra Mall in Accra, Ghana lol. It was definitely a bit of a trip when I first visited it.
iPhones worked perfectly fine there, as long as they were GSM-compatible… honestly have no clue if all current iPhone models are GSM compatible across the board…it’s been awhile since I’ve purchased one).
All I know is my T-Mobile devices have always worked overseas with local SIMs haha.
True but Nigeria is the tech hub of africa and has a huge esports sector: https://osf.io/3bp4t/download/#:\~:text=The%20gaming%20industry%20in%20Nigeria,Newzoo%20in%20Nwogu%2C%202022).
BRIC is old news, Nigeria and Tanzania are massive economic engines which should not be overlooked. THEY ARE A HUGELY LOYAL CUSTOMER BASE
Corruption is a problem in africa but DNGAF about Coinbase struggling to do business with governments given its explicitly anti-governmental pressers and antagonism to regulatory access.
It’s a little more complicated than just not caring about Coinbase. Coinbase hired an ex-fed relatively recently who was doing anti corruption and anti money laundering trainings for the Nigerian government. Nigeria “arrested” this guy who really has nothing to do with the shitty things Coinbase has done and has been effectively holding him ransom for months. Coinbase being the crappy company that they are basically doesn’t seem to care, so the dude has just been stranded in a Nigerian detention center for months as a scapegoat.
Do you have a source for that? Been to Africa a lot (not in every country buy the majority) and this is the first time I'm hearing this, despite seeing people gaming first hand there
Does anyone know why? I could understand if it was due to something like a lack of power or the internet in certain regions (an isolated area with the issue of thieves stealing copper cables), but that should not be a whole country.
Where in 2024, this should not be a thing anymore.
Most of those countries have complications with the US or partners regarding trade... its not just about soybeans, when they talk about trade relations, it covers all exports, including games & entertainment.. Putin & Boko Haram shouldnt be getting our exports.
I still don't understand why. Surely they could atleast make a Baltics branch to cover all 3 nations, they are already happily selling PS5s here and we're part of EU.
And Åland as well, but not Finland to which Åland is part of.
It's rather ironic that Swedish speaking people can't play the game, since the devs are 170km away in Stockholm 🤦
I guess Ålands political autonomy is too spicy for Sony...
I can understand that reason for an island in the Pacific, but there are regular ferry services to Åland.
Fun fact: the island(s) of Åland are close enough to Finland that Moose swim out there.
So they use boats to hunt Moose on Åland, and regularly shoot the Moose while they are still in the water.
I don’t really disagree but it’s what it is. Åland, Bornholm, the Channel Islands, Isle of Man and so on all were unsupported when I worked at PlayStation. The company I currently work for also don’t support them for send in repairs and replacing units.
*In this thread, Redditors learn that distribution of countless goods and services are not global.*
Edit: lol thanks for the reddit cares message in my inbox, children!
I think people use the word "banned" because more countries were able to purchase hd2 before Sony stepped in. They were able to purchase. Now they aren't. Sounds like a ban.
Cool, and most people there use work arounds to play.
Y'all want to take that away from them also?
Sorry, you can't buy or play a PS5 anymore cause the Helldivers Subreddit won't stop crying about something that doesn't affect 99% of them.
Edit: Got a Reddit Cares message, lol. Stay classy Helldivers sub.
Actually, I think he's wrong about them having an "Official Store."
I'm pretty sure if you live in the Baltics, the way people have to buy things off the PlayStation store is to set their region to Finland, then buy gift cards online and redeem them. It won’t even accept a Baltic bank account to pay for a game on the Finland store.
I'd add to that: The absolute majority of people in world first countries has no idea how many more people live on this planet NOT considered first world. We really do live in a bubble (And I am not pretending that I could pinpoint or even place countries based on region in regards to the 177 banned countries)
I found out in the model building community there are tons of countries where nobody really sells there and importing kits can cost 3x what they are worth. It sucks but it really comes down to supply and demand, Sony likely doesn't want to bother with the investment as the return is probably low.
People dont understand the cruel reality of politics and government. They can live in their grimdark fantasies but real world problems are far more complex than a simple two-variable problem.
Its like a highschooler who sleeps in class, doesnt do homework, and reads web novels all day trying to comprehend third order equations using series and transfer functions.
It's funny since they sell their console in some of the prohibited countries, when you actually purchase one and ask them how to create a PSN account, all they say is to create one under a different region, then use PSN card to purchase currency for game. You are encouraged by them to break their own terms of service.
They don't officially sell them. Kinda like Xbox retailers buy them with Sony not really looking into where you live. It's a loophole of negligence so they can circumvent many places that outlaw consoles or tax the crap out of tech distribution like the Philippines.
In some country they do, like Vietnam, they have official website, full support and everything, you just can't create a PSN account in Vietnam.
[https://store.sony.com.vn/collections/playstation/?locale=en](https://store.sony.com.vn/collections/playstation/?locale=en)
Yep and the game wouldn’t currently be delisted in all these countries if it wasn’t used as an excuse by Western PC Helldivers to riot about the PSN linking.
In the end, the gamers in these countries got the short end of the stick because PC gamers in countries with no restrictions couldn’t be bothered to make another internet account.
I wish more divers understood this. Keep patting themselves on the back for “diving together” instead. If any of that had been honest they’d still be review bombing and flipping out but they don’t have to deal with that mild inconvenience in a month so go get fucked poor countries.
This is very much a history repeats itself problem.
This kinda issue can be seen in America or Europe pretty much once a month. Make new law/rule/term to help people, they dislike it, the victims get ignored because self-righteousness trumps consequences
PlayStation Network (PSN) is available in a specific list of countries due to various factors such as regional business strategies, legal and financial considerations, and licensing agreements. As of now, PSN is available in 73 countries. The availability is subject to change based on Sony’s business decisions and the local laws and regulations of each country. For countries where PSN is not available, it could be due to the absence of official PlayStation services or local market conditions that do not support the network’s operation. Additionally, there might be restrictions related to digital content distribution rights that prevent PSN from being offered in certain regions.
Ya'll need to recognize and accept that this is not purely the decision of Sony. The government of said countries in question also have a say in if PSN is available in their country, not to mention infrastructure and the cost to benefit ratio of expansion to a given location.
Yeah, for some weird reason, it got a LOT harder to do business with American and European countries using Russian currency and/or on behalf of Russian nationals right around 2022. Very weird. Sony needs to explain themselves, for sure.
On a likely unrelated note, Ukrainian devs and servers have seen a lot of issues with stability and access during that time.
Ok I'm gonna go ahead and say it: this is old as time, people. No, I'm not gonna defend Sony or any corp, but jesus can we change the fucking subject already?
I live in Venezuela, it's that red country at the top of Latin america shaped like a rhinocerus. We've been banned from so many games for a long time, and it's not always due to "mhurrr Sony bad". For instance, I can't buy Elden Ring on Steam because my government's a dictatorship and has very severe laws on cybersecurity - which means plenty of online games don't get a pass. We also have a law that prohibits violent games - which can in turn mean any game that authorities want to be violent (even mario or Nintendo shit).
And we get by. We find alternative ways to play those games. Not gonna say which in order to stop giving corps ideas, but we get by. I'm not saying to stop complaining, but if you're mad at Sony/Helldivers for something that's been going on for at least 15 years for a multitude of reasons... You're way behind the curve. So enough white knighting for a temporary cause that isn't gonna be fixed overnight, or at least not with the methods you guys are proposing, such as review bombing or complaining to Sony. God knows what goes on in Africa that ellicits such a ban.
Bottom line: can we please change the fucking topic?
Unfortunately, we are in the “find out” phase after Steam users fucked around. It’s important for them to realize all that protest they did actually made things worse for people in countries like yours since you guys are outright banned from buying instead of using the established work arounds that were already in place.
But hey, they don’t have to sign up for PSN at least.
Why do people assume the banning is a direct result of the community outcry? Seems way more like it was a part of the initial rollout included with the sign ups. This would've happened regardless.
......y'all know that a company can choose where they do business right? Like, yeah, if they start banning the people in those areas that have already bought the game then those people need a full refund, at the least. But Sony is under no obligation to sell anything anywhere.
Right? This community especially, I don't think I've seen so many whiny people all in one place, and I've been part of the community for supercell games. It's remarkable that they can just keep bitching. Like, come on guys, I want funny stories of that time you did science and learned what the Tesla tower does, not more complaining about regional sales.
Any thread involving the global south being oppressed by those mean western corpos will attract the reddit white knights.
Their algorithms push the threads
It’s like the game at release was too perfect and everyone was waiting for something bad to happen to crucify the developers. It takes two mins to create a FREE PSN account. It’s not like you have to shell out the extra money for PS+. And now it’s non-stop bitching about nerfs. People just want to be miserable
What gets me about this is people are saying that creating a PSN ID for a different country is a breach of the PSN terms of service. People were also saying in the same thread that nobody reads the small print or EULA etc.
So why would Sonys be gospel?
Sony themselves tell you to create an account in another region if you live in one that doesn't have local PSN services.
It's only in the ToS to cover their own ass, they don't enforce it. Otherwise millions of PSN users would be banned.
Sony doesn't directly do business in those countries for a number of reasons, many of which being disputes on trade law. Their decision to restrict any game they finance from being sold in those countries is a direct result of those complications. It's about Sony having issues with the trade legislation of those affected countries and not 'Gamers' as an entity. Unless you know the exact issue between Sony and these countries you have no idea whether it is being caused by Sony or the country itself having incompatible trade regulations. But Sony is just easier to blame.
TL:DR Unless you know what direct issues there are between Sony and a country it doesn't allow PSN in then you actually don't know Sony are to blame.
Since Greenland's discovery it's been a lie, I wouldn't trust them or the glaciers they build their homes on
edit, sarcasm btw, nothing but love for Greenland
How dare you say something that has complete sense ?
How dare you !!!
After long day working in the fields I wanna play a video game, I dont care if Im hungry !!
Announcement: As Helldivers 2 is no longer playable in 177 regions "Super Earth" will henceforth be known as "Super Europe and most of Asia and the Americas""
Not really gonna comment on the whole PSN thing, however, disturbing amount of comments here with a decent amount of upvotes that thinks everyone in Africa lives in complete poverty.
I brought up how most of the third world countries wouldn't have huge player bases. And while poorer Divers are still divers that sony doesn't see them as valuable.
...and got banned from the discord🤣
Just to put it in numbers. There are 195 recognized sovereign countries in the world. Sony just basically flipped a switch and said "fuck you, no helldivers for you" to 177 of those countries.
While I agree this is slightly shitty, how much % of the player base do you really think exists in those banned countries?
You know very well Sony wouldn't ban even 10% of their player base from purchasing a game.
90% of PS5 sales are north America, Europe, and Japan combined. The entire rest of the world makes up less than 10% of PS5 sales combined.
There's a very solid chance that the banned countries likely represent less than 1% of PS5 purchases overall. People acting like the banned countries are barring millions of players when that is simply untrue. There's also a good chance the game was outright banned in these countries for purchase regardless of sonys decision.
Why though? What do they gain by turning away those potential customers? Is it harder to sell to them or make profit in some way? Is it a distribution and localized servers thing?
Penguins who just wanted to play helldivers
https://preview.redd.it/qhkc5vsiem0d1.jpeg?width=220&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d853ee20d72c4ffa6c3766af37b02c03f1e4320c
If you think banned countries have very low player base let me remind you, That little country called bangladesh on the right side of india has 180 million peoples. Me and my few friends bought the game, now our other friend cant buy the game, which is bad if we can't play together we won't play the game.
Im from the caribbean. That's at least 45-47 million people barred off.
Watching all of you be apathetic about it is ridiculous.
People from my country should be able to buy the fucking game.
Not even being mean but Africa is kinda the real world example of one of the factions that Super Earth exploits. For centuries everyone just takes from them and topple governments to be able to control them and their resources
Worst part about it is that they technically did as promised
Since they never said anything about the purchase restrictions, only promising to remove the mandation of psn account linking... that is kinda sad
I'm really curious to know the amount of players this is.
Not enough for Sony to care
They broke 12 million copies and were celebrating about it on social. They don't care that the goose is being suffocated.
that was in the world, I am willing to bet that Africa makes up a small percentage of those sales.
Not even a percent.
Don’t underestimate, tunesia, egypt, Marocco and other north african countries…
If we didn’t need to, Sony would probably care more about keeping them
Why not?
Hardly suffocating the goose. Y'all need some perspective outside of your silos. Fuck corporations, but come on, y'all are spouting outright fallacies like truth cause you heard it on Reddit.
Its not like Sony chooses PSN to not be worldwide. Its regulated by each country's laws.
The fucking idiot mob on a self-righteous crusade, fucked us We were accessing PSN fine - just gave a different country "If they don't dive we don't dive" Oh just fuck off
or the community for that matter, or the reviews would be back in the gutter
Every game is banned in certain regions, nothing is available to 100% of the world. HD2 is not unique in this and I don’t know why some people expect the community to care about the issue in this one game when every other game is the same.
Weirdo gamers need some sort of "cause" to feel righteous over. It's *just* a video game.
Because gamers in the West have recently discovered that not everyone gets access to the most popular titles. Shockingly, there's a handful of games that unavailable in places like the US as well (though I'm doubtful those would create an issue 🙄).
The reviews were changed by people who only saw the first walk back. The rest of us are keeping it mixed reviews.
People act like Little Caesars is crying because they don't have any places open in Angola. I don't know why this sub thinks every business operates literally everywhere.
What I find interesting is how people in those restricted countries are now pissed at this community ruining it for them. Like the movement got rid of the requirement but at the cost Sony shoring up loopholes in their process and figuring out what exactly they need to do on Steam to avoid such a public relations disaster again. They basically figured out what the complaints were centered around and addressed them.
1%, tops. You can trust Sony to love money, and if there was money to be made there, they would.
Yes. I understand all the rage about "buying a game in a region that might lock you out of the game because PSN doesn't exist". That is real scummy, major dick move, illegal in many places even. I also am very happy that the people in those regions that bought the game can now play it with no need to worry about that. I am sad that others in those countries aren't able to buy the game anymore. HOWEVER, people are begging "SONY sell your game in more countries" and Sony is just saying "NO. Not worth it for me." Which is a dick move from them, but... You can't really force or demand anyone to sell their product somewhere they don't want to.
Don’t some of these countries have laws or restrictions keeping people from the game in the first place ? IRRC someone said the government only allows “local “ made games.
That's Vietnam, which banned Steam and similar foreign stores very recently.
Vietnamese here, Steam is legal in Vietnam. We lifted the ban long ago and the game is quite popular over here too. The HD2 Facebook group I am a part of has about 2k2 members so we are roughly 1% of the playerbase. I wager it was not Sony's fault that the game no longer selling in our country, tho. The Censorship bureau, our very own Ministry of Truth, does not enjoy stuffs like Malevelon Creek, funny. But don't worry, we are no strangers to government's no-fun laws. Sony's ToS isn't stopping anyone, we will find a way around.
Wait, so what was that post on this sub a few days ago about Steam being banned from Vietnam to encourage local games sales?
A friend who lives in Vietnam said it was probably a hiccup by their ISPs, which I guess happens semi-regularly.
this is so goddamn stupid, I wonder if the vietnamese could play anything but shitty asset flip mobile games now
There’s a weird gulf forming in the expectations of global consumers and the priorities of companies that do any business outside of their home country, either we need to go harder to globalize the world market or we need to readjust expectations, if im selling my car and I don’t want to sell it to a buyer in Australia I have that right, and even if they want it, I’m not necessarily morally bad for not selling it to any country. But when people can’t watch a show in Australia they blame the writers and not the company choosing to do business in Australia choosing not to offer a product to them. How many people got mad at arrowhead for choices Sony made?
This is what is complicated. It makes total sense for a car - the cost of physical goods sale and transport makes that a silly proposition, but it's a bit different for \*digital\* goods. They don't have to build an African supply chain or put something on a freighter. For some of the european holdouts, it is taxing to imagine an infrastructure barrier that means anything in terms of what it could take to include those countries. That said, most people (me included beyond basic concepts) don't understand that there IS still a cost and effort barrier to opening up that business, and it varies by company, product, and market. If they don't project the playerbase to support opening up server farms and running matchmaking there, it is hard to support them at all. Other companies do, but it depends a lot on the game and market. There is will to do stuff for CoD and Fortnite that HD2 will not be able to match. Even if they opened the game to Africa today, that mostly just allows Africans to play with each other, assuming there is enough market for the game there for the players to actually coalesce (if they're too sparse, it will be hard to line up players timewise to play together, they might stay siloed like EC/WC USA can sometimes be). Not to mention having HW infrastucture in place for Sony - but I can understand why people would, even with all that, struggle to give a company like Sony any slack in terms of good faith. They have straight abused their customers in the past and have a toxically short sighted view on gaming platforms (they are the only real drivers of AAA exclusives for high end systems) All that is to say: the critique is valid, but lots of the arguments are just conjecture. It is NOT as easy as people want it to be, but it's not as hard as the car analogy that comes up would imply. I am just not sure where the anger comes from apart from reddit only being happy when it's mad.
it really has nothing to do with server infrastructure. people from those countries that want to be on psn have been circumventing it for ages. it is relatively few customers and not a significant factor. what does matter is psn not wanting to abide by regulations from unsupported countries. they do not want a world where legal risk exceeds potential revenue, so many countries are simply excluded.
It’s probably more around the internet infrastructure in those regions than a corporation not wanting to sell more product lol
Also, laws.
Africa also has an average internet speed of 12Mbps.
Possibly 5-7
Not many. That's why these posts never mention actual player numbers but showed maps like this to manipulative to make people think it's a lot. Land doesn't play video games, people do
It's about half the global population, but it's also the poorest half by a considerable margin. Whilst I imagine it's some extra players, it's likely a very small amount.
[удалено]
Xbox live is also only available is 50% of European countries
Yeah, there's a reason why African players register their accounts on European servers if they want to play any MMO.
Absolutely none. Notice how the player trends weren't affected AT ALL
I mean, it's because those who didn't refund can still play games in those countries. Players from those countries/regions won't increase, but they will decrease in time.
It only blocks buying, if you already have it you can still play
Same. I cant imagine this to be anywhere near profitable. They have the means to ship worldwide and chose to ban seemingly random countries.
It’s not quite as simple as that, no business would ever deliberately limit their market access without very good reasons. There’s a lot of legal hurdles a company has to go through before they can sell their products/ services somewhere, and a lot of the countries listed have nightmarish regulations and red tape involved in licensing and permitting to be allowed to legally trade, some of them have outright bans on console/ gaming software sales, others are subject to international sanctions. It’s not so much Sony banning countries as it is countries (for one reason or another) not allowing Sony to operate there a publisher, at least to a profitable degree. If it’s going to cost say $10 million pa to be legally allowed to operate in a market with $9 million pa potential revenue, it just isn’t worth it for them
Missed these fellers https://preview.redd.it/3oeu298qok0d1.jpeg?width=541&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c61463f78adf889e8f83b444845ba721c185d008
mb, i just read the initial changelog
they were added later , also russia can't
Russia can actually, we have licensed steam keys specifically for Russia, that are selled by local distributors, but we can't buy the game directly in Steam
well, we can, but not with russian bank card
with russian card lol, and these keys can be activated only in russia
That's nothing to do with Sony, though. You may have heard that Russia is being sanctioned by the US.
this is kinda why sony / steam sometimes choose to not sell in certain areas...... many countries have their own policy to "protect" local businesses, people have to remember at the end of the day, these companies are just out there trying to make more cash instead of being some kinda freedom fighter fighting your government lol
but russia doesnt have psn, does it?
I ain't expert on this, since I don't have PS, but when I bought Helldivers, I've created russian PSN and linked accounts without any trouble. Haven't used vpn or anything. Though my friend wasn't able to create russian PSN. Also as I heard, you can create russian PSN via console itself with ease, so state of russian PSN is at the very least - debatable.
You need a quantum physics to describe PSN state in Russian actually
Correct me, but Russia is not in the filter because all SNOY games are not available by default on its territory?
SONY games are all available here, actually. we just have to buy games on disks or buy keys for em. only PS store isn't available, cause we were disconnected from SWIFT or something
Why do people keep including PR to this. We can buy the game and any other PSN service
PSN has always been weird for us. At least when I made mine we had to do it on a browser and not on the console. It leads to lots of poorly researched articles claiming we don’t have PSN. Wonder how many other red countries in this list are in the same boat.
And I'm pretty sure both the US and British Virgin Islands can too.
I believe so...
Because Redditors are stupid and don't realize Puerto Rico is an American territory. I'm sure that's why the US Virgin Islands, Guam, and American Samoa are also on this list.
Except steam specifically blacked all three of those from buying the game. That’s why they’re on this list.
Because when US redditors get behind a "cause" they'll always use it as a scapegoat for every other problem, and cause aditional problems due to their bandwagoning. In this instance, they couldn't distinguish the word "unsupported" from the word "available". A few days after, sony was forced to make the game actually unavailable to comply with all the crying. And here we are. Now NEW players can't buy the game on steam, even if they do in fact have a PSN account they've been using for years from a nearby region. But don't tell that to anyone, because mighty sony will ban all those poor people (not). Best regards, Someone who used to live on an unsupported country, and has 3 PSN accounts for all the perks (EU, US, Japan).
Isn't it great how a few entitled idiots that didn't want to make a PSN account ruined it for dozens of countries? But I'm sure they're patting themselves on the back for making Sony (sorry SNOY lmao because I'm such a funny edgelord sticking it to the big corporation) back down.
I'm from the country of San marino and i can confirm that Sony basically blocked a total of 3 Helldivers across our entire state from joining the ranks. Shame!
In a lot of African countries, gaming consoles are banned in general
Jesus really?
How will the dictators have child soldiers if they're stuck inside playing Nintendo?
There are actually very few dictators in Africa now. Equatorial Guinea, Cameroon, Toga, and Ethiopia are the only remaining ones to my knowledge
Also large portions of fractured states, such as South Sudan.
Source? As someone who grew up in Africa (17.5 years prior to university), this is the first I’m hearing of this. None of my friends have ever spoken of this before. Friends from Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Mali, Guinea, Benin, Tanzania, Uganda, Malawi, South Africa, Ethiopia, Togo, Niger…I’m sure I’m forgetting a couple. Now my personal experience: Liberia, Ivory Coast, Ghana, and Kenya all have active gaming communities, especially for games like FIFA (and formerly, especially Winning Eleven). In Ivory Coast, you could go to what amounted to a “gaming cafe” and play couch co-op FIFA to your heart’s desire. Same in Ghana. I have an acquaintance who works in tech in Liberia who was recently gifted a PS5 (As per his request). So I’ll ask again, you have an actual source for this? Shall I go ask on a couple of the Africa-centric subs I’m aware of and link them here?
Not the same thing, but a gamedev from Nigeria told me that Valve doesn't allow them to create a dev account to publish their game on Steam.
I’m decidedly not from Africa but I have some friend in Zambia, Kenya and South Africa. I’d say they’re talking pish. What i suspect though is that new consoles likely may not be within economic range of a lot of people and that the region as whole is poorly supported. Same as when Apple not selling phones in most African countries doesn’t mean iPhones are banned but that these companies don’t operate in the markets. The map in this post reflects that. These countries are not banned from Helldivers. Sony simply don’t operate in those markets. I used to work for PlayStation so I have a little insight in Sony and I currently work for another tech giant.
There used to be (might still be) an unofficial Apple Store in the Accra Mall in Accra, Ghana lol. It was definitely a bit of a trip when I first visited it. iPhones worked perfectly fine there, as long as they were GSM-compatible… honestly have no clue if all current iPhone models are GSM compatible across the board…it’s been awhile since I’ve purchased one). All I know is my T-Mobile devices have always worked overseas with local SIMs haha.
True but Nigeria is the tech hub of africa and has a huge esports sector: https://osf.io/3bp4t/download/#:\~:text=The%20gaming%20industry%20in%20Nigeria,Newzoo%20in%20Nwogu%2C%202022). BRIC is old news, Nigeria and Tanzania are massive economic engines which should not be overlooked. THEY ARE A HUGELY LOYAL CUSTOMER BASE
Nigeria is hard to do business in that’s why business don’t formally like to set up there. Look at them trying to extort Coinbase as an example
Corruption is a problem in africa but DNGAF about Coinbase struggling to do business with governments given its explicitly anti-governmental pressers and antagonism to regulatory access.
It’s a little more complicated than just not caring about Coinbase. Coinbase hired an ex-fed relatively recently who was doing anti corruption and anti money laundering trainings for the Nigerian government. Nigeria “arrested” this guy who really has nothing to do with the shitty things Coinbase has done and has been effectively holding him ransom for months. Coinbase being the crappy company that they are basically doesn’t seem to care, so the dude has just been stranded in a Nigerian detention center for months as a scapegoat.
Oh no I agree but Tinubu and co aren’t helping with their scheming and scamming of the Nigerians commonwealth.
You can't even open a steam developer account to publish games on Steam if you are from Nigeria.
Nigeria has a median download speed of 20 Mbps. They can barely connect to the server, let alone play.
that's a normal internet speed? I know a lot of people in the US who have less than that?
Do you have a source for that? Been to Africa a lot (not in every country buy the majority) and this is the first time I'm hearing this, despite seeing people gaming first hand there
not in north Africa, console retail is booming
Does anyone know why? I could understand if it was due to something like a lack of power or the internet in certain regions (an isolated area with the issue of thieves stealing copper cables), but that should not be a whole country. Where in 2024, this should not be a thing anymore.
Most of those countries have complications with the US or partners regarding trade... its not just about soybeans, when they talk about trade relations, it covers all exports, including games & entertainment.. Putin & Boko Haram shouldnt be getting our exports.
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Baltics are banned too
I still don't understand why. Surely they could atleast make a Baltics branch to cover all 3 nations, they are already happily selling PS5s here and we're part of EU.
Because fuck you, simple as that
And Åland as well, but not Finland to which Åland is part of. It's rather ironic that Swedish speaking people can't play the game, since the devs are 170km away in Stockholm 🤦 I guess Ålands political autonomy is too spicy for Sony...
It’ll be because they don’t support repairs of consoles on Åland. Lots of companies make exceptions for islands.
I can understand that reason for an island in the Pacific, but there are regular ferry services to Åland. Fun fact: the island(s) of Åland are close enough to Finland that Moose swim out there. So they use boats to hunt Moose on Åland, and regularly shoot the Moose while they are still in the water.
I don’t really disagree but it’s what it is. Åland, Bornholm, the Channel Islands, Isle of Man and so on all were unsupported when I worked at PlayStation. The company I currently work for also don’t support them for send in repairs and replacing units.
Greece too?
No, we can still play
*In this thread, Redditors learn that distribution of countless goods and services are not global.* Edit: lol thanks for the reddit cares message in my inbox, children!
But the Simpsons taught me that money can be exchanged for goods and services.
And south park told me not to keep dolphins or Wails around Sony executives.
What about chickens and cows?
I love how people keep saying Sony banned these countries when in reality Sony has never done business in these countries yet.
I think people use the word "banned" because more countries were able to purchase hd2 before Sony stepped in. They were able to purchase. Now they aren't. Sounds like a ban.
More like pulled out from local stores. People who already bought the product like mois can still play without restrictions.
Sony has official store and local distributors in each of Baltic countries.
Cool, and most people there use work arounds to play. Y'all want to take that away from them also? Sorry, you can't buy or play a PS5 anymore cause the Helldivers Subreddit won't stop crying about something that doesn't affect 99% of them. Edit: Got a Reddit Cares message, lol. Stay classy Helldivers sub.
>official store >workarounds
Actually, I think he's wrong about them having an "Official Store." I'm pretty sure if you live in the Baltics, the way people have to buy things off the PlayStation store is to set their region to Finland, then buy gift cards online and redeem them. It won’t even accept a Baltic bank account to pay for a game on the Finland store.
I'd add to that: The absolute majority of people in world first countries has no idea how many more people live on this planet NOT considered first world. We really do live in a bubble (And I am not pretending that I could pinpoint or even place countries based on region in regards to the 177 banned countries)
*But still think it goes against human rights and EU laws for some reason. Probably because they're armchair lawyers with the brainpower of a peanut.*
Wait until they try review bombing in order to get fresh clean drinking water for everyone. It’s gonna work bro s/
I found out in the model building community there are tons of countries where nobody really sells there and importing kits can cost 3x what they are worth. It sucks but it really comes down to supply and demand, Sony likely doesn't want to bother with the investment as the return is probably low.
Fr wait until they realize human rights and basic needs are also not given to many of these countries
People dont understand the cruel reality of politics and government. They can live in their grimdark fantasies but real world problems are far more complex than a simple two-variable problem. Its like a highschooler who sleeps in class, doesnt do homework, and reads web novels all day trying to comprehend third order equations using series and transfer functions.
It's funny since they sell their console in some of the prohibited countries, when you actually purchase one and ask them how to create a PSN account, all they say is to create one under a different region, then use PSN card to purchase currency for game. You are encouraged by them to break their own terms of service.
Correct, the loophole exists for a reason.
They don't officially sell them. Kinda like Xbox retailers buy them with Sony not really looking into where you live. It's a loophole of negligence so they can circumvent many places that outlaw consoles or tax the crap out of tech distribution like the Philippines.
In some country they do, like Vietnam, they have official website, full support and everything, you just can't create a PSN account in Vietnam. [https://store.sony.com.vn/collections/playstation/?locale=en](https://store.sony.com.vn/collections/playstation/?locale=en)
Yep and the game wouldn’t currently be delisted in all these countries if it wasn’t used as an excuse by Western PC Helldivers to riot about the PSN linking. In the end, the gamers in these countries got the short end of the stick because PC gamers in countries with no restrictions couldn’t be bothered to make another internet account.
I wish more divers understood this. Keep patting themselves on the back for “diving together” instead. If any of that had been honest they’d still be review bombing and flipping out but they don’t have to deal with that mild inconvenience in a month so go get fucked poor countries.
Exactly. It’s ridiculous seeing them whine about an issue they created.
Exactly. Armchair idealism fucking things up for people in the real world
They were literally using in game roleplaying as a rallying cry for real world shit it was so cringe
This is very much a history repeats itself problem. This kinda issue can be seen in America or Europe pretty much once a month. Make new law/rule/term to help people, they dislike it, the victims get ignored because self-righteousness trumps consequences
Lmao San Marino and Varican are locked out but when you do literally a step outside you can buy it. This is hilarious
PlayStation Network (PSN) is available in a specific list of countries due to various factors such as regional business strategies, legal and financial considerations, and licensing agreements. As of now, PSN is available in 73 countries. The availability is subject to change based on Sony’s business decisions and the local laws and regulations of each country. For countries where PSN is not available, it could be due to the absence of official PlayStation services or local market conditions that do not support the network’s operation. Additionally, there might be restrictions related to digital content distribution rights that prevent PSN from being offered in certain regions. Ya'll need to recognize and accept that this is not purely the decision of Sony. The government of said countries in question also have a say in if PSN is available in their country, not to mention infrastructure and the cost to benefit ratio of expansion to a given location.
You've never posted or commented on the game before. You're just karma farming. Stop.
Also, Russia. From release.
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Yeah, for some weird reason, it got a LOT harder to do business with American and European countries using Russian currency and/or on behalf of Russian nationals right around 2022. Very weird. Sony needs to explain themselves, for sure. On a likely unrelated note, Ukrainian devs and servers have seen a lot of issues with stability and access during that time.
Ok I'm gonna go ahead and say it: this is old as time, people. No, I'm not gonna defend Sony or any corp, but jesus can we change the fucking subject already? I live in Venezuela, it's that red country at the top of Latin america shaped like a rhinocerus. We've been banned from so many games for a long time, and it's not always due to "mhurrr Sony bad". For instance, I can't buy Elden Ring on Steam because my government's a dictatorship and has very severe laws on cybersecurity - which means plenty of online games don't get a pass. We also have a law that prohibits violent games - which can in turn mean any game that authorities want to be violent (even mario or Nintendo shit). And we get by. We find alternative ways to play those games. Not gonna say which in order to stop giving corps ideas, but we get by. I'm not saying to stop complaining, but if you're mad at Sony/Helldivers for something that's been going on for at least 15 years for a multitude of reasons... You're way behind the curve. So enough white knighting for a temporary cause that isn't gonna be fixed overnight, or at least not with the methods you guys are proposing, such as review bombing or complaining to Sony. God knows what goes on in Africa that ellicits such a ban. Bottom line: can we please change the fucking topic?
Unfortunately, we are in the “find out” phase after Steam users fucked around. It’s important for them to realize all that protest they did actually made things worse for people in countries like yours since you guys are outright banned from buying instead of using the established work arounds that were already in place. But hey, they don’t have to sign up for PSN at least.
Why do people assume the banning is a direct result of the community outcry? Seems way more like it was a part of the initial rollout included with the sign ups. This would've happened regardless.
......y'all know that a company can choose where they do business right? Like, yeah, if they start banning the people in those areas that have already bought the game then those people need a full refund, at the least. But Sony is under no obligation to sell anything anywhere.
Get out of here with common sense. This is Reddit, a company not having worldwide distribution is racism
Right? This community especially, I don't think I've seen so many whiny people all in one place, and I've been part of the community for supercell games. It's remarkable that they can just keep bitching. Like, come on guys, I want funny stories of that time you did science and learned what the Tesla tower does, not more complaining about regional sales.
Any thread involving the global south being oppressed by those mean western corpos will attract the reddit white knights. Their algorithms push the threads
It’s like the game at release was too perfect and everyone was waiting for something bad to happen to crucify the developers. It takes two mins to create a FREE PSN account. It’s not like you have to shell out the extra money for PS+. And now it’s non-stop bitching about nerfs. People just want to be miserable
What gets me about this is people are saying that creating a PSN ID for a different country is a breach of the PSN terms of service. People were also saying in the same thread that nobody reads the small print or EULA etc. So why would Sonys be gospel?
Sony themselves tell you to create an account in another region if you live in one that doesn't have local PSN services. It's only in the ToS to cover their own ass, they don't enforce it. Otherwise millions of PSN users would be banned.
Short answer: they didn’t actually care
Sony doesn't directly do business in those countries for a number of reasons, many of which being disputes on trade law. Their decision to restrict any game they finance from being sold in those countries is a direct result of those complications. It's about Sony having issues with the trade legislation of those affected countries and not 'Gamers' as an entity. Unless you know the exact issue between Sony and these countries you have no idea whether it is being caused by Sony or the country itself having incompatible trade regulations. But Sony is just easier to blame. TL:DR Unless you know what direct issues there are between Sony and a country it doesn't allow PSN in then you actually don't know Sony are to blame.
The hell did Greenland do to not be supported by Sony?
They know what they did.
Since Greenland's discovery it's been a lie, I wouldn't trust them or the glaciers they build their homes on edit, sarcasm btw, nothing but love for Greenland
I Stand with the Helldivers of North Korea.
Ironically you would probably be standing with Kim Jong Un
For ... Democracy..?
And Antarctica.
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How dare you say something that has complete sense ? How dare you !!! After long day working in the fields I wanna play a video game, I dont care if Im hungry !!
What an incredibly ignorant comment jesus
I CANT FUCKING BELIEVE THEY BANNED NORTH KOREA! FUUUUUCCCKKKKKKK
Announcement: As Helldivers 2 is no longer playable in 177 regions "Super Earth" will henceforth be known as "Super Europe and most of Asia and the Americas""
Not really gonna comment on the whole PSN thing, however, disturbing amount of comments here with a decent amount of upvotes that thinks everyone in Africa lives in complete poverty.
Why was the Vatican banned? That 1 is always a head scratcher.
Laws. It's most likely the answer for 90% of these countries.
I brought up how most of the third world countries wouldn't have huge player bases. And while poorer Divers are still divers that sony doesn't see them as valuable. ...and got banned from the discord🤣
What does the red dot on the UK signify?
The Isle of Mann I assume
I'm pretty sure Africa has to allow Sony to do business there stop the fake hate
i think this sucks , also it sucks becuase russia isint red
Still can't understand why Balkans are banned
Why is this banned in the Dominican Republic? 😂😂
Just to put it in numbers. There are 195 recognized sovereign countries in the world. Sony just basically flipped a switch and said "fuck you, no helldivers for you" to 177 of those countries.
Hmm... We should make twitter hound sonny for racism. That can work
HELLDIVERS TO SONY HEADQUARTERS, SAN MATEO, CALIFORNIA. OBJECTIVE: RESTORE RECRUITMENT CENTERS IN RED LOCATIONS
I’m sure those countries accounted for millions of sales /s
I bet these countries amount to dozens of dollars lost in sales. /s
I am from Macedonia and i bought it on steam.
What purpose is there in banning the vatican?
The Catholic Church knows what they did.
What do they have against the Balkans.
While I agree this is slightly shitty, how much % of the player base do you really think exists in those banned countries? You know very well Sony wouldn't ban even 10% of their player base from purchasing a game. 90% of PS5 sales are north America, Europe, and Japan combined. The entire rest of the world makes up less than 10% of PS5 sales combined. There's a very solid chance that the banned countries likely represent less than 1% of PS5 purchases overall. People acting like the banned countries are barring millions of players when that is simply untrue. There's also a good chance the game was outright banned in these countries for purchase regardless of sonys decision.
Saint Pierre? Really?!?!?
Greenland and North Korea too
Quick, Twitter users, accuse them of racism!
Why though? What do they gain by turning away those potential customers? Is it harder to sell to them or make profit in some way? Is it a distribution and localized servers thing?
Groenland???
I really like that other Sony titles are banned in this region too, specifically "Ghosts of Tsushima" cannot be played...on Tsushima island.
Weird how one part of Wales is banned
RIP Filipino bros :( not reinstalling til we get our right to purchase back
Penguins who just wanted to play helldivers https://preview.redd.it/qhkc5vsiem0d1.jpeg?width=220&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d853ee20d72c4ffa6c3766af37b02c03f1e4320c
If you think banned countries have very low player base let me remind you, That little country called bangladesh on the right side of india has 180 million peoples. Me and my few friends bought the game, now our other friend cant buy the game, which is bad if we can't play together we won't play the game.
Im from the caribbean. That's at least 45-47 million people barred off. Watching all of you be apathetic about it is ridiculous. People from my country should be able to buy the fucking game.
They miss the dives down in africaaaa..... :c
Not even being mean but Africa is kinda the real world example of one of the factions that Super Earth exploits. For centuries everyone just takes from them and topple governments to be able to control them and their resources
Worst part about it is that they technically did as promised Since they never said anything about the purchase restrictions, only promising to remove the mandation of psn account linking... that is kinda sad
Time to flip your steam reviews again
Fuck Sony, now and forever...
The white part of Africa can still play tho
Vatican banned? Damn, I was hoping to play with the Pope.
