Helldivers 2 has caused over 20k Steam accounts to be banned

[instagib]

If you don’t read the article or do not have showdead on in your profile, you may miss that it is related to players according to the article from Russia or Belarus using VPN’s to bypass restrictions.

“Players in these countries have taken to using VPNs to change their location to be able to access Steam in other parts of the world where the restrictions aren’t in place. (…) Valve has smartened up to this practice and has made it difficult to do and many users are banned once it is discovered.”

[defrost]

Players actively banned in two countries, enforcing the

Helldivers 2 has been delisted in 177 countries, despite the repealed PSN requirement

shitshow that has surrounded the release: https://www.videogamer.com/news/playstation-secretly-locked-...

TBH this is a difficult story for an outside such as myself to get across the current state of play; there are many press articles outlining different aspects of an evolving clusterfuck of release requirements and walkbacks.

[leereeves]

Sony's decision to forbid people in certain countries from playing Helldivers 2 was bad policy, and caused a lot of backlash.

I'm surprised Valve would support Sony's rather unpopular side in this issue. They should be encouraging the use of VPNs to bypass arbitrary and unfair geofencing.

[KronisLV]

I am in the EU and use a VPN with servers in other EU countries and don’t particularly try to hide my location from Steam when it comes to billing, but this still feels kind of worrying. What if they also suddenly decide to purge my account with all of the games I have?

Or, for example, getting an affordable non-region-locked (global) key, or even a key that’s no longer for sale on Steam itself (like the first DIRT Rally game) from gray market sites like G2A.

Revoking any product that they find problematic or refusing to activate it, I could understand. But blocking the whole account? Kind of crazy.

[Silphendio]

AFAIK a steam ban in this case just means that you can't buy stuff or activate keys anymore. You should still be able to play previously purchased games.

[bowsamic]

I assume in this case it's because of sanctions against the countries involved which could cause Valve to be prosecuted rather than because of VPN use in general

[MisterBiggs]

Not sure why Steam is in the headline as the cause when this is really on Sony. Adding region restrictions well after release was a terrible decision on their part and I think Steam being very lenient with refunds was the best they could do given the situation.

[Dylan16807]

Sony added region restrictions.

Valve is banning people for using VPNs.

This is on Valve.

[oefrha]

What? Sony can ban Steam accounts (as in banned people can’t use their Steam accounts any more, not just in Sony games) and those banned by Steam should thank Steam for generous refund policy?

Edit: I have to reiterate: people are banned from accessing Steam games, not this one game or Sony games. The puzzling replies seemingly believing in the latter won’t stop coming.

[xyproto]

Some regions (mainly Russia and Belarus) were not allowed to play the game (not a decision made by Steam) and then some players used VPN and were banned for that (by Steam).

[tiberious726]

Note that these are sanctioned countries

[devwastaken]

Very few services do this. Steam is not forced to comply unless there's an order to do so.

[frenchie14]

Is there an actual source for this? Where is the 20,000 number coming from? There are no references to back up any of the claims in the article

[ga2mer]

This is a clickbait (or fake) news from a user (site has UGC feature) on a Russian news site, which some English-language news media for some reason used without fact checking https://overclockers.ru/blog/Dante/show/160459/Po-rossijskim... (you can translate it via google translate)

[wudangmonk]

What was the logic behind Sony banning the purchase of games?, was Sony compelled by U.S law?. Was this done as a way to try and try to win brownie points and free pr from those reporting on it?.

I can understand valve enforcing the discounted price difference among countries but I don't like the idea of not being able to purchase a game at full price and play it because a company wants to virtue signal. All valve has is its reputation, bad move for them to shake people's confidence in their game collection.

[Kwpolska]

The game requires a PlayStation Network account, and those cannot be created in the banned countries. The controversy was caused by the fact that the PSN requirement and country bans weren't enforced on launch, so people bought a game that then stopped being available to them.

[tomnipotent]

I'm guessing the PSN account requirements is to simplify customer support and moderation, so that all Sony PC games can be managed by the same teams and tools currently used for the PlayStation. This sounds like a reasonable decision all things considered. As for why PSN is not available in all countries, I imagine that's a more complicated situation involving legal and regulatory considerations.

[bilekas]

It sure wasn’t to make a drama so occams razor here, it’s most likely to distributor rights

[nottorp]

So basically it's not safe to play any sort of networked game via your Steam account because you risk losing everything on your account.

Particulars are irrelevant. You paid years ago for a game and Steam will ban your whole account because of another game.

[salawat]

Correct. Not your bits, not your program (from their point of view anyway).

Even relatively simple games tightly integrated with Steam are basically rendered non-functional after getting in the poor graces of the facilitating platform. At that point, your only hope is to learn the way of the Linker, and brush up on Reverse Engineering skills and you might be able to get something working after excising or replacing the library call implementations of the people who banned you.

[tiberious726]

No. It's just not safe to try to skirt international sanctions.

[npteljes]

No, what's not safe is to exchange ownership to a service. The number of accounts banned in this wave, compared to the Monthly Active Users of Steam, comes out to 0.01%, so one banned player for every 10.000. It's a shitshow, but if risk is part of life, especially when using a service, and then going consciously going against the terms of the service.

[alex_f_k]

The source for the news is a clickbait farm with low quality rage-baiting content and no information about its sources (overclockers ru). The Sun but about games, phones and computers

According to user reports, most bans are not due to vpn itself, but cheating in games (mostly cs2), fraud (vpn + stolen card) and bots (I dunno about this one)

So no, it’s not because of helldivers Sony made a stupid decision, can’t deny this part tho

[yayitswei]

> Argentina where titles are often up to 60% cheaper due to the strength of the local currency

I assume they mean the opposite about the Argentine Peso?

[poochkoishi728]

No, they worded it like that to avoid saying something like 'due to the weak-a** currency'.

[codetrotter]

Due to the strength of the local currency being weak, is what they mean and then they omit spelling it out completely.

But yeah weird wording.

[jauntywundrkind]

Semi-related, what's with Sony PSN being so common in games? Ghost of Tsushima, new God of War both have it.

Maybe fixable, but Ghost for example can't multiplayer on Steam Deck because of PSN. PSN not being available in anything but a handful of countries seems massively off-putting.

I'd guess that cross-play has kind of become an expected feature these days, and just using PSN directly is the easiest integration path? Seems wild to me that suddenly this one very restrictive player is suddenly what everyone uses. I do wonder what other factors are leading to everyone not just integrating with PSN, but being PSN primary.

[test6554]

So we are talking about more tech savvy users who use VPNs to violate steam’s rules. Rules like region (b)locking, largely for Russia… and taking advantage of price differences in different countries to get games for less money. Like cheaper prices in Argentina.

This isn’t necessarily about hell divers 2 players. At first I assumed this was about angry users who left negative reviews and got banned for brigading.

I don’t feel too sorry for countries who are banned because of sanctions or people who pretend to be from LCOL countries to save a buck.

[vsuperpower2020]

Funny you said "I don’t feel too sorry for Russians or people who pretend to be from LCOL countries to save a buck." and then decided to change it. At least it was more honest before.

[modeless]

Steam still supports Russia? How do they do payments?

[everyone]

The biggest issue with this game is that it crashes to desktop constantly, maybe a conflict with Discord? and when it crashes it also somehow closes Discord. I havent seen a game actually crash to desktop like that, that often, in a long time. That's shockingly bad imo.

[slackstation]

Couldn't the players who purchased legal copies of the game in territories when it was allowed and now is banned; couldn't they file a class-action lawsuit against Sony?

They bought a game and now cannot play it. Classic breach of contract and expected product that was paid for.

[Ingaz]

Funny thing is that Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia, Litva) are banned too.

What are you doing Sony?

[kmlx]

there’s no PS Store in those countries. that’s why people can’t play it.

https://www.playstation.com/country-selector/index.html

[rcpt]

Recently I've been getting banned all over the place.

Just last week I permanently lost Reddit access (even on new accounts that they can map to me) because I tried to bulk delete my old comments using an app.

A few months before that I lost Blind. I don't know why.

Neither site has been responsive when I ask for what they know about me using GDPR/CCPA

I've used the internet for decades and never been banned from anything before and I don't think my behavior has changed. I assume that sites are just getting real strict for whatever reason.

[gaiagraphia]

Cloudflare and Captchas are becoming far more aggressive in the last couple of months, too. I even failed a Cloudflare check for the first time ever recently, which was a bit of a surprise.

It seems we're sleepwalking into not being able to do much on the internet unless you have a profile paired 1 to 1 with your IRL ID.

I imagine a lot of it is connected with the upcoming US election and escalating conflict between 'east and west' going on at the moment. Though chipping away at enlightenment values in such a a manner is exactly how we lose.

[dgellow]

> Neither site has been responsive when I ask for what they know about me using GDPR/CCPA

Report the issue to your local watchdog

[moneywoes]

is the game that good?

[jakebasile]

I enjoyed it for a time. It's a particularly well executed blend of co-op and third person shooting, like the Starship Troopers game I've wanted for a while. Amusingly, there was an officially licensed Troopers game that came out shortly before Helldivers 2, and it basically went nowhere.

I stopped playing because the developers don't wish for me to continue playing at my preferred difficulty, and lock me out of mission types and progression unless I play at the annoying, stressful high difficulties they prefer.

[hgs3]

It’s ok. I enjoyed Left 4 Dead and Deep Rock Galactic more. The game lacks content compared to those two, but that’s to be expected as its only been out a short while. Its theme feels like a homage to 1997’s Starship Troopers which gives it a strong identity.

[thatguy0900]

The vision and theme and gameplay is excellent. The game is absolutely riddled with bugs, though, and every update adds more. It was a massive surprise success from a small studio and they are really struggling to keep it together, the game is made on a engine that stopped getting support like 8 years ago. It's worth the money now but hopefully in a year it's a lot more solid technically.

[lomase]

Is a worse Deep Rock Galactic.

[sakras]

It's honestly my most enjoyed game of the last few years. The feeling of boarding the Pelican right at the end of the mission never gets old.

[geek_at]

I hate it to be true but when you spend time in competitive online games like Counter Strike you really start to sigh when you read a Cyrillic username.

They usually don't communicate, unless it's insults and God forbid you play with a woman in your team then it's full on sexism mode.

[bitcharmer]

You're getting down voted by people who have never been in a multiplayer game lobby but you're absolute right about Russian players.

[adrianN]

What’s toxic about circumventing geofencing?

[matt3210]

1. Bought the game 2. Drama 3. His country banned 4. VPN to play 5. Stream account banned and all paid games lost

Capitalism