Funny how many gamers fall for their good cop bad cop ploy. Fuck both of them.

Except Arrowhead isn’t some sony-owned subsidiary studio, whose every statement is little more than puppetry.

They are an independently owned company, in a publishing deal with Sony.

By sabotaging the product like this, Sony is straight up stabbing them in the back as a business partner.

Sony can survive botching a game. Arrowhead might not. They’re being polite, but if I was at Arrowhead, I would be fucking livid with Sony right now.

They’re supposed sponsor, a rich entity with more than enough capital, is literally trying to steal their lunch because it wants even more.

They signed a contract with Sony saying they’d require PSN to play the game. They knew this would be a requirement. It’s not like PSN suddenly isn’t available worldwide. They were fine with the deal until players got upset and now they want out of the deal to save face.

And?

They don’t want out, they want sony to wise the fuck up and get with the program.

All I’m saying is, this isn’t some planned-in-advance good cop bad cop routine.

Agreeing to terms isn’t the same as watching your business partner mismanage the customer base to the point your lunch goes up in flames.

Sony is the publisher. Launching the game in countries that don’t even have PSN is 100% on them. Sony is taking action that makes no fucking sense in context, no matter what Arrowhead agreed to.

Lay with dogs, get flees. I don’t pity Arrowhead for signing an anti-consumer contract with an anti-consumer company for money and then realized it hurt their image with consumers. This is the consequences of actions. Maybe their next game will be self published. That was always an option. They didn’t pick that. They picked this.

That’s all well and good, but then you take issue with the companies involved for completely different, industry spanning, reasons.

That’s not a retort to what I was saying.

Yes, you’re right. Arrowhead aren’t playing good cop. They deeply regret their decision. As they should. They ruined an amazing game by giving control of it over to Sony. I still agree with the OP. Fuck Arrowhead for ruining an awesome game by giving Sony control.