General gaming discussion

TitianGerm

[Deleted User] wrote: »

I actually looked to see if I had missed some news story about the Fortnite thing being about the money but all I can find is a tweet from a possibly disgruntled ex employee. Do you or anyone else have a link to any proof that this is simply about money and that there are no other factors involved or are you simply jumping on the bandwagon to try and prove something about evil corporations? Until there's actual proof of something I'm not going attacking anyone and accusing them of something. I never even defended Sony, I just offered alternates rather than jump on the bandwagon and get angry over a situation that I don't know anything more about than idle speculation.

Anyone who read my comments on the issue would see that I place most of the blame for this on Epic. If they signed an agreement with Sony restricting the transfer of accounts once associated with a PSN account then this entire debacle is 100% Epic fault and issue to resolve. So far their only comment has been "we can't do anything," they have not even offered to transfer unlocks to a separate account or offered their user base any help. I wonder if it was a similar issue with an EA title would gamers be so behind them and instantly blame a third party?

Sony: Lads if you want Fortnite on PlayStation you need to sign this. If you don't sign this we won't allow your game on our platform.

Epic: guess we have to sign so seeing as we want the game on all platforms.

Fred The Red

Fred The Red wrote:

Lol an ex Sony dev The vast majority of everyone who have followed the story and the majority of the game media and journalists

It's nothing but speculation unless of course you have some startling evidence that no one else has access to. So far the there's been nothing saying who is to blame, yes it's most likely a restriction that Sony insisted upon but if Epic agreed to it when releasing their game on PSN then it is their job to fix it it.

TitianGerm wrote:

Sony: Lads if you want Fortnite on PlayStation you need to sign this. If you don't sign this we won't allow your game on our platform.

That is Epic's issue, as I said in the thread if they signed something limiting their player base who played on PS4 to not be able to move accounts then it is 100% Epics issue and they need to hold their hands up and sort it. If you agree to something that is anti consumer then you can't pass the buck when caught later on. If Epic were so concerned with their gamers why are they not offering a solution, why have they not offered to move content to another account for PS4 users who want to play on a Switch?

Everyone seems to see Epic as some poor indie dev who got screwed over by the big bad Sony but so far their idea of helping their user base has been to say "not our problems". Imaging buying a car from a dealership and when a fault is found where it cant go over 40 miles because the dealer made the manufacturer place restrictions on it and then car manufacturer said " oh that's not our problem speak with the garage you bought it from"

Sony have blocked this

Nobody else

It's utterly delusional to think otherwise

Fred The Red

Fred The Red wrote:

Sony have blocked this

I never said they hadn't. I merely stated that in relation to cross play there are facts outside of Sony just saying no, from a ToS perspective which I've worked in there are a number of concerns.

I also said that if Epic agreed to something restricting accounts on the PSN then this is Epic's issue and no one else's. You can't blame a third party for restrictions that you agreed to when signing a contract. Sony didn't spring the whole thing on Epic, they needed to agree to it and as such it it their issue to fix, no one else's.

kunst nugget

You really can't be giving Failsafe guff about being a fanboy if you're willing to defend Sony's anti-consumerist handling of Fortnite on it's platform.

J Mysterio

Slow Gaming News day?

J Mysterio

Steam Summer Sale is on!

J Mysterio

J Mysterio wrote: »

Steam Summer Sale is on!

I just picked up Blood: One Whole Unit for 1.76

I'm not defending it, I pointed out that cross play is way more complicated than simply pressing a button.

In relation to the Fortnite debacle, if Epic agreed an anti consumer deal with Sony then that is their doing. It may be crap if Sony yo stand by it but Epic agreed to this and have not done a thing to help users. Seriously, you can't make a deal and then when it causes issues later just site back and blame the other party. Epic can transfer unlocks and content if they want, they just don't seem to care.

Edited to add: I've no issue with someone being a fan, just not a fan of people deliberately distorting facts to push an agenda.

The whole Fortnite situation is like getting angry at Sony for having exclusive rights to the Yakuza saga for for the past two decades and not placing any blame on Sega for agreeing to it. Epic can fix this, they've chosen to do nothing and play the victim.

J. Marston

Billion dollar companies acting all buddy buddy like all they want is everyone to be friends makes my eyes roll.

At least Sony are transparent in their evil megalomania!

[Deleted User]

[Deleted User] wrote: »

I'm not defending it, I pointed out that cross play is way more complicated than simply pressing a button.

In relation to the Fortnite debacle, if Epic agreed an anti consumer deal with Sony then that is their doing. It may be crap if Sony yo stand by it but Epic agreed to this and have not done a thing to help users. Seriously, you can't make a deal and then when it causes issues later just site back and blame the other party. Epic can transfer unlocks and content if they want, they just don't seem to care.

Edited to add: I've no issue with someone being a fan, just not a fan of people deliberately distorting facts to push an agenda.

The whole Fortnite situation is like getting angry at Sony for having exclusive rights to the Yakuza saga for for the past two decades and not placing any blame on Sega for agreeing to it. Epic can fix this, they've chosen to do nothing and play the victim.

Diliberatly distorting facts to push an agenda? Go way out that

This is the Gaming news thread, and this is news. Good or bad it's to be discussed.

You can log in to an Xbox or a switch with the same Epic account. You cannot on PlayStation.

These are the facts.

Two posters on here, who shall remain anonymous.

Fred The Red

Fred The Red wrote: »

Diliberatly distorting facts to push an agenda? Go way out that

This is the Gaming news thread, and this is news. Good or bad it's to be discussed.

You can log in to an Xbox or a switch with the same Epic account. You cannot on PlayStation.

These are the facts.

So what we are saying is that if a company like Epic makes an anticonsumer deal with Sony then it is fine and they are not responsible when their user base is affected by this decision. They then opt to offer no assistance or solution and instead point fingers and play the victim and that is somehow acceptable to you as it is not poor tiny Epic but evil Sony?

I assume then, that you would have no issue with GameStop stocking consoles that installed software without informing the customer and said software only allowed games purchased from GS to be played on them. And then when it came to light you'd let Sony and MS off the hook as they need to agree to these anticonsumer deals to get their consoles in one of the biggest gaming chains.

I think one of the biggest things that people are forgetting as they champion MS is that not too long ago MS was pushing some of the worst anticonsumers ideas around. But I suppose if you can share your account for a free to play game across platforms then all is forgotten.

Deleted User

Deleted User wrote: »

I think one of the biggest things that people are forgetting as they champion MS is that not too long ago MS was pushing some of the worst anticonsumers ideas around. But I suppose if you can share your account for a free to play game across platforms then all is forgotten.

You are making this into some Xbox v Sony thing. Microsoft or Nintendo have nothing to do with Sonys mishaps in this situation.
Nor am I discussing Microsoft previous failures. It has nothing to do with this story.
Moving on now please.

TitianGerm

[Deleted User] wrote: »

So what we are saying is that if a company like Epic makes an anticonsumer deal with Sony then it is fine and they are not responsible when their user base is affected by this decision. They then opt to offer no assistance or solution and instead point fingers and play the victim and that is somehow acceptable to you as it is not poor tiny Epic but evil Sony?

I assume then, that you would have no issue with GameStop stocking consoles that installed software without informing the customer and said software only allowed games purchased from GS to be played on them. And then when it came to light you'd let Sony and MS off the hook as they need to agree to these anticonsumer deals to get their consoles in one of the biggest gaming chains.

I think one of the biggest things that people are forgetting as they champion MS is that not too long ago MS was pushing some of the worst anticonsumers ideas around. But I suppose if you can share your account for a free to play game across platforms then all is forgotten.

Hang on a moment. Sony is the only one not allowing full crossplay/account access.

Epic didn't have to sign agreements with Microsoft, Google, Apple or Nintendo. Sony is the problem here not Epic.

Sony - Not For The Players.

Fred The Red

Fred The Red wrote: »

You are making this into some Xbox v Sony thing. Microsoft or Nintendo have nothing to do with Sonys mishaps in this situation.
Nor am I discussing Microsoft previous failures. It has nothing to do with this story.
Moving on now please.

No I am offering some perspective. This is not about Sony vs Xbox though it is important to remember that the billion dollar company is never your friend which many gamers are forgetting.

As far as you are concerned a dev, can sign an anticonsumer contract with a company and when it goes tits up that dev can just do nothing and blame the other party and that's okay.

This whole thing reminds me of those people who took out 100% mortgages that they could never afford to pay back and when the economy took a turn they all started crying and blaming the banks. Personal responsibility is something that has over the past number of years slowly eroded to the point where people and companies that agree to ridiculous clauses in contracts now just shrug their shoulders and say "not my issue."

Epic could sort this out for their PS4 userbase who want to play on Switch or Xbox, they just opted not to as doing so is quite a lot of work. Would you be as sympathetic to EA if say FIFA was crossplay on all platform but PS4 but then it turned out that if you played on PS4 you could not transfer data? Would you hold Sony responsible or EA for signing such an agreement as so far your argument has been "Sony bad, everyone else good."

TitianGerm wrote: »

Hang on a moment. Sony is the only one not allowing full crossplay/account access.

Epic didn't have to sign agreements with Microsoft, Google, Apple or Nintendo. Sony is the problem here not Epic.

Sony - Not For The Players.

Epic signed an agreement with all of those companies, Sony may have insisted that content is tied to the PSN account and that makes perfect business sense. Is the issue here cross-play or content not being able to move between platforms? If it is cross-play then as I have outlined before there are a multitude of reasons both financial and not for Sony to say no. It is not quite as simple as just doing it, there are legal ramifications of cross-play that Sony may not be comfortable with. When I worked in ToS one of the games I worked on was going to be crossplay till we realised that there was no way that the platform holders would grant us access to their systems to impose bans on accounts or provide us with the relevant information we required to action tickets in a timely fashion. As such, cross-platform was dropped as we felt that we had a duty of care to the player base that we could not keep up if we were not allowed access to all date.

If the issue is the moving of content, well this is Epics issue and not Sonys. If Epic agreed to a contract with Sony in which content such as unlocks and levels was tied to a PSN account and nontransferable then Epic are fully responsible. You cannot sign something restricting your user base access to features on one console and then blame that other party when it hits the fan.

You can't sign a contract that puts your userbase at a disadvantage and then play the victim. Unless Sony deliberately misled Epic and made them sign a contract that they did not know the ins and outs of.

Sabre0001

Shadowrun Returns Deluxe is free on Humble Bundle for the next day and a bit

Retr0gamer

When ever there's an anti consumer practice it's nothing to do with protecting the customer or violation of ToS or other such nonsense.

Sony want to make money and by restricting account access of Fortnite they are ensuring that any purchases for Fortnite go through PSN hence they make money.

I'm also pretty sure that Epic only limited accounts to PSN as if they didn't Sony would have not allowed their game on PSN at all as it would violate ToS.

I also don't see how you can defend Sony here either. They don't have any obligation to offer crossplay platform accounts or play but what they are doing is still a total dick move.

kunst nugget

Also, this tit for tat nonsense has to stop being part of discussions. Just because other companies have indulged in crappy practices in the past doesn't absolve the crappy practices of the present. Call out companies when they are being crappy to consumers. Outside of the great exclusives, Sony is starting to look a whole lot less for the players...

Retr0gamer

Retr0gamer wrote: »

When ever there's an anti consumer practice it's nothing to do with protecting the customer or violation of ToS or other such nonsense.

Sony want to make money and by restricting account access of Fortnite they are ensuring that any purchases for Fortnite go through PSN hence they make money.

I'm also pretty sure that Epic only limited accounts to PSN as if they didn't Sony would have not allowed their game on PSN at all as it would violate ToS.

I also don't see how you can defend Sony here either. They don't have any obligation to offer crossplay platform accounts or play but what they are doing is still a total dick move.

Having worked in ToS for one of the big publishers I can tell you that a large part of my job was duty of care, much of my day was spent dealing with some pretty horrible stuff and then ensuring that we did everything we could to ensure it never happened again as we found ways to restrict access and what not. As I said because of concerns we raised cross-play was removed from a pretty biggish title as we found that there was no way to properly ensure that we could carry out our duty of care. Not every cog in a corporation is all about the money and in most if a legal team or ToS team raise an issue or even better raise a joint one then it is taken seriously.

Between the ToS team, I worked in and legal, a large number of possibly great initiatives had to be shut down because they opened up a whole slew of issues relating to the user base being protected. Tell you why, why not try to get something past a legal and ToS team which will make the company millions but create a situation where you breach the companies own ToS or ethos. It won't get very far I can tell you that from having worked on a ToS team and liaising with the legal team on a daily basis.

Again, I am not defending Sony (I want to see cross-play for all games across all platforms) I am merely pointing out that if Epic agreed to these anticonsumer restrictions then it is on them. Simply shrugging their shoulders and saying "not our problem" is complete bs. They clearly agreed to this condition with Sony and now when it affects the player base they claim to care so much about they do absolutely nothing but get a few digs in.

People seem to see Epic as some small indie developers taking on the big evil corporations but it's, in reality, a billion dollar company and has been for years. If they make a decision that is anti-consumer in order to make money then they are responsible.

ERG89

When I downloaded Fortnite on Switch I had completely forgotten I made an Epic account on PS4 so just made another.....I suppose I'd be more annoyed if I bought skins or something.
I still would rather PS4 allowed cross platform play with Switch or Xbox mind.

Deleted User

Deleted User wrote: »

<snip>

Again, I am not defending Sony

<snip>

Deleted User

Deleted User wrote: »

Great input as usual.

nix

I dont understand this playstation restriction, im still able to use my epic account on both PC and Playstation. What does the restriction do exactly? Is it live yet?

TitianGerm

nix wrote: »

I dont understand this playstation restriction, im still able to use my epic account on both PC and Playstation. What does the restriction do exactly? Is it live yet?

If you bought Skins etc they will be tied to you PSN ID and you won't be able to use them on any other platform

nix

TitianGerm wrote: »

If you bought Skins etc they will be tied to you PSN ID and you won't be able to use them on any other platform

Right so just dont buy the skins on PS4? Grand, was never gonna be an option anyway.

I honestly cant see why there would be even fuss over that anyway Just dont buy skins on PS

nix

nix wrote: »

I dont understand this playstation restriction, im still able to use my epic account on both PC and Playstation. What does the restriction do exactly? Is it live yet?

You can use them on every platform but Switch and Xbox One. It's cross-play with PC and Mobile devices I believe but not with the other two consoles.

Penn

I don't see the issue either, really. Ultimately, when the majority of people signed up to play Fortnite on PS4, cross-play wasn't a feature, which means people played on PS4 knowing that. Just because cross-play has been introduced for other platforms doesn't mean Sony is suddenly the bad guy for not allowing it, as cross-play is more the exception than the norm, and if Sony started allowing cross-play, there goes one of the PS4's biggest selling points (more PS4 gamers worldwide means more likely your friends are on PS4 means if you want to play online with them, you need to buy a PS4) and people would start arguing for cross-play in every game.

That said, I do think Sony should allow moving your account and non-PS exclusive skins to other platforms, even if they're not going to allow cross-play. Even just as a PR move at this point as it's garnered a lot of negative attention and wouldn't take much to release people's Epic accounts from PS if they want to move it to another system, or flip-flop between the two. It would make very little difference to Sony at this point.

Mr Bloat

Deleted User wrote: »

Having worked in ToS for one of the big publishers I can tell you that a large part of my job was duty of care, much of my day was spent dealing with some pretty horrible stuff and then ensuring that we did everything we could to ensure it never happened again as we found ways to restrict access and what not. As I said because of concerns we raised cross-play was removed from a pretty biggish title as we found that there was no way to properly ensure that we could carry out our duty of care. Not every cog in a corporation is all about the money and in most if a legal team or ToS team raise an issue or even better raise a joint one then it is taken seriously.

Between the ToS team, I worked in and legal, a large number of possibly great initiatives had to be shut down because they opened up a whole slew of issues relating to the user base being protected. Tell you why, why not try to get something past a legal and ToS team which will make the company millions but create a situation where you breach the companies own ToS or ethos. It won't get very far I can tell you that from having worked on a ToS team and liaising with the legal team on a daily basis.

Again, I am not defending Sony (I want to see cross-play for all games across all platforms) I am merely pointing out that if Epic agreed to these anticonsumer restrictions then it is on them. Simply shrugging their shoulders and saying "not our problem" is complete bs. They clearly agreed to this condition with Sony and now when it affects the player base they claim to care so much about they do absolutely nothing but get a few digs in.

People seem to see Epic as some small indie developers taking on the big evil corporations but it's, in reality, a billion dollar company and has been for years. If they make a decision that is anti-consumer in order to make money then they are responsible.

I don't know why I'm getting dragged into this again, I debated you on the Fortnite thread and decided that you would never see past your bias so dropped out but here we go again.
If Sony made Epic sign something to say that Epic accounts were locked to a PS4 profile and they had to stay that way, then surely they also imposed a clause saying that Epic would be in breach of contract if they used a workaround for this? So, Epic wouldn't be able to fix this for people, even if they wanted to.
But let's assume for a while that Epic can fix this. The only way it could be done would be for every Switch user to create a new Epic account, then contact Epic to migrate all the content from the old account to the new one. Users would also have to prove somehow that they own the old account and the new one, or else all the chancers would come pouring out of the woodwork.
When they have this information, then Epic would have to move all purchases and levelling data from the old account to the new. With thousands of users looking for this, it may take days or weeks to migrate everyone over and hopefully Epic don't mix up any accounts on the way.
Job done, right?
No.
What happens to the old account then? If Epic close that account, the user can't play on the PS4 any more. By Sony's rules, that account is still locked to the PSN profile, so you now have two accounts forking in different directions. What happens when the user plays for a few days on the Switch and makes some purchases? What happens if they level up on the PS4 and go back to the Switch to find that those levels haven't been migrated over? Do they contact Epic again to migrate these back and forth between accounts? That's unsustainable.

Even if all of the above were possible, why should the consumer go to all this trouble to get around Sony's BS? Why should Epic absorb the cost and the hassle of it and risk the ire of Sony, who they may have contracts signed with for future ventures?
Even if Epic were being anti consumer by signing that contract in the first place, Sony are doubling down on it by sticking their head in the sand and hoping that it goes away.

Note that I did not mention cross play once in the above - cross play is a different argument altogether. A lot of people don't care about cross play on the Switch, they only want to have their purchases and levels available on the different devices. Sony should release the Epic accounts so that users can simply sign into other devices and continue from where they left off. Then the cross play debate can begin.

gimli2112

It's cross play on the PC and PSN? Is that not just carnage with PSN bodies strewn across the battleground? You wouldn't have a hope against kb&m. This doesn't sound like any kind of fun.