Looks like Arrowhead might be moving forward with PSN despite “internal discussions”.

  • lobut@lemmy.ca
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    7 months ago

    The accounts are so important that you’re willing to lose sales in that many countries?!

    • yukichigai@kbin.social
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      7 months ago

      While 177 countries sounds like a lot, it’s not where the majority of players are. PSN operates in the top 15 countries by GDP and the top 4 by population.

      Of course there’s still the question of why they work in so few countries when literally none of their competitors (that I know of) have those limitations.

      • Riven@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        7 months ago

        It’s because it’s a Japanese company. I’m not saying this out of racism but because they’re known for being archaic in how they do certain things. Like game modding and work schedules. Their public transit is top fucking notch though.

          • Carighan Maconar@lemmy.world
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            7 months ago

            I think the mistake was ever thinking that one company is “good” while the other is “bad”. Companies are just different flavors of bad once they grow above a size of, well, once they are companies.

        • Potatos_are_not_friends@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          Their public transit is top fucking notch though.

          I’ve been to Japan a few times. Only Tokyo is super accurate with time. Go to any other Japanese city and it’s no different from any other city in the world. Late trains. Buses that are 10 mins late or not even showing.

          Can we kill this narrative that Japan is hyper efficient with public transportation?

          • Riven@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            7 months ago

            That wasn’t in response to my racist comment but in response to the archaic comment. They’re as much archaic in procedure and bureaucracy as they are advanced in tech.

      • 100@fedia.io
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        7 months ago

        some huge countries on that list, philippines, pakistan, nigeria, egypt

        pretty embarassing

          • maynarkh@feddit.nl
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            7 months ago

            They are also EU countries. I am not even sure it’s perfectly legal to sell stuff in the EU and not sell to residents of specific countries.

            No harm no foul until somebody makes a report I guess.

            • BakedGoods
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              7 months ago

              I am not even sure it’s perfectly legal to sell stuff in the EU and not sell to residents of specific countries.

              It is very much not legal. The EU is a single market and goods (digital or not) must be able to move freely.

              • maynarkh@feddit.nl
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                7 months ago

                I am not sure whether they can get by saying “we sell to Latvians, just not in Latvia”. I mean regional pricing is still a thing here. I’m too tired to look it up now.

                • BakedGoods
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                  7 months ago

                  No regional pricing in the EU. There were lawsuits over that a couple of years ago.

                  EDIT: To be more clear, developers could use regional pricing in the EU but Valve is not allowed to block someone from say Sweden from buying something from Poland.

                  • maynarkh@feddit.nl
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                    7 months ago

                    That sounds nice! Do you know which lawsuits were that? I’m interested in reading up on that. How does that work with different VAT rates?

      • Potatos_are_not_friends@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        This is accurate. I work at a international company. We will tell a bunch of countries to go fuck themselves since combined, they make like 1% of sales.

        I’m not saying it’s right or wrong. I’m just saying it’s a thing many companies do.

        • lepinkainen@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          I have knowledge on mobile gaming, they do this too.

          It doesn’t pay to manage some shitty off brand Android phone’s compatibility issues when your whole country spends less in a month than a half dozen midwestern moms in an evening on the game.

      • vodka@lemm.ee
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        7 months ago

        PSN (PlayStation Network) is available in 73 countries.

        It was PSNow (PlayStation Now, their game steaming service) that was only in 19 countries. PSNow was merged into PlayStation Plus as the Premium level package, and is in 30 or so countries.

          • vodka@lemm.ee
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            7 months ago

            That is definitely strange, but might be an overreaction by Valve and not done by Arrowhead.

            Edit: Seems it was indeed done by Valve.

    • Chozo@fedia.io
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      7 months ago

      To be fair, the game wasn’t supposed to be sold in those countries to begin with. Sony and Valve screwed up the region settings.

      • Stovetop@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        But it was, so who is going to take responsibility for it? Is Sony going to back down from the requirement? Is Valve going to refund all those users?

        • Chozo@fedia.io
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          7 months ago

          Honestly, I think Sony is going to be more stubborn than Valve. I saw in another thread where some people were getting approved for their Steam refunds even after passing the 2-hour refund window, so it looks like Valve may already be the first to cave.

          Sony’s probably going to continue digging their heels in, though.

        • MufinMcFlufin@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          From what I’ve heard Valve is already refunding most everyone who asks for a refund given this controversy.