Give credit where credit is due, good move by Sony. PSN login isn't needed on PC.

And HellDivers II is successful because players bought it.  Don't discount the consumer here.  And as can be seen, they forced Sony/Arrowhead to correct the issue.  Score a victory for the consumer.

Does anyone else notice some art imitating life imitating art going on here?

This whole situation seemed really overblown. Oh well Sony should just make it optional but give players cross progression and some rewards for signing up. Just make the rewards really worth it and that will get most of the player base to sign up.

There is still an issue here. It's not fair console players have to pay a subscription to play multiplayer but PC players don't. If Sony is going to continue supporting PC like this the issue is only going to grow.

Idk if that's ever going to change. On PC, the developer/publisher is responsible in providing the servers for their games and only their games. They also aren't paying money towards dev kits or anything like that, so the cost to put your game on PC is free allowing for additional funds to pay for your own online infrastructure. A storefront like Steam is all that it is, a storefront. Valve does offer additional services like anti-cheat but Steam is primarily just a place to put and sell your game on.

Whereas on console, the platform holder is who builds and maintains the online infrastructure for ALL online games that are available on that platform. 

So on PC, Arrowhead and/or Sony front the bill for the servers for Helldivers 2. On PS5, console players front the bill for the servers for Helldivers 2, Call of Duty, Rainbow Six: Siege, NBA 2K, Fall Guys, Monster Hunter, etc. etc. etc. 

It would require a massive, and expensive, undertaking for Xbox, Nintendo, and PlayStation to change how their infrastructure functions that would allow for them to still receive the necessary funding to keep an absurd number of servers up and maintained while still making a profit. They already take losses on console sales, minus Nintendo, so idk how willing they would be to also take losses on server infrastructure. 

Valve was pretty smart in keeping themselves to just be an online store and not also a networking hub for all multiplayer games on Steam.

This is why GAAS. They want recurring revenue to cover for recurring cost.

Completely, as I'm sure that a lot of the players of HD2 on PC via Steam play(ed) Apex as well, which requires an EA account. But all those suggestions seem like seems like the good compromise. "Here's some free stuff for doing it." But the key is that if it was like it from the start (as in no issues) then there might never have been an issue and people that didn't have a PS account and bought it wouldn't have even carried on playing and just refunded.

It's the fact it was removed then added later as a forced thing was just stupid and how it was handled sounded like some idiot executive was oddly more concerned over consumer data than profit. You know, useless data of fake emails and burner accounts.

Yes, agreed. Blame MS for that though, they started it. Sony would have been stupid to not follow suit whether we like it or not.

That or game costs go up. Again. And people are very against that even though in the modern gaming era where game costs are more expensive than ever. With massive teams to fund, server costs etc, seems the best way of maintaining those costs is subbed online.

MS, Nintendo and Sony do add a lot of features for this price though, free games, cloud storage, share play (only PS right?) which PC does not have.

My friend recently booted up the PS4 version of Last Of Us that was free on PS+ and imported his PS3 saves from like a decade ago.

That's a bit disingenuous lol. From the Genesis to the Dreamcast, Sega offered a paid online subscription service for online games. Not many but that continued with what was the Dreamcast 2.0. The original Xbox. And it was much cheaper than what Sega offered as well. 

Yeah pretty much. Console players do get more features for that sub service. PC only gets free multiplayer and free cloud storage. Steam does have Remote Play but not all games offer that feature. 

I have no doubt we're going to be in for another price increase in games in the not too distant future.

Then Sega are to blame yet we are still paying. Sega might have done it and failed, MS did it and succeeded. Sony saw the money that could be made and decided they wanted in too. This also had an effect on MS as both were competing meant MS made their service better, added free games, actually making F2P games free, blah blah. Insert Nintendo.

Cheaper is still paid. If Sony did a free online again, no games, no sharing, whatever, I'd probably take the option.

I think Sony will stick with per gen, easier that way but not every company has copied them yet. Publishers are slowly increasing costs based on game or popularity. Tekken 8 was £70 (god knows why looking at the now battle pass it has), SF6 was £55, Elden Ring was £50, FIFA 23 was £60, EA Sports FC was £70... and they no longer had to pay the FIFA licence fee.

I heard rumours that 2K are looking to release GTA at a larger cost. Stupid, as if they release at £60 they'd sell tonnes more but not like that game isn't going to sell.