> ...in favour of tightening the online service to make future development easier.
I really doubt that there is a single technical reason behind the decision, it's more likely that it has been enforced by Sony business peeps.
I really doubt that there is a single technical reason behind the decision, it's more likely that it has been enforced by Sony business peeps.
> look at steam charts, the player count did not take any obvious hit
> the actual impact won't be fully visible until May 30th or June 4th since that's when they will start blocking access to the game for players who didn't link their accounts
Helldivers is PvE game-as-a-service and it's model works best when network effects are strong. Basically a lot of people are playing such games because their friends are playing it. And the most opinionated and active people are the ones who bring their friends into the game.
So even if relatively small percent of active playerbase will leave the game they'll likely to take some of their friends with them, etc.
Suuurrree, there are rumours about Xbox (https://insider-gaming.com/sony-helldivers-2-on-xbox/) but I’m gonna go out a limb here and say there’s sweet duck all chance in hell of that happening now.
PSN accounts are subject to their own, malleable ToS whereas they are somewhat limited in their reprisals against a steam account, beyond simple bans.