The game feels a bit... *hollow* now. A 41% drop in the player base from the beginning of the month has gutted our ability to do major orders. Does this means the major orders are going to get easier now? Or does this mean we're going to start losing the war now? So many casualties of Sony's greed and still nearly 200 countries cannot play, which signals that Sony hasn't actually learned from the ordeal but instead still harbors some deep-seated desire to eventually force a PSN requirement on people anyway. After all, if the game slowly shrinks because most of the planet isn't allowed to buy or play the game, then eventually the community will be small enough to bully again.

Sony doesn't just want our money, they want control. They want that control so badly they're even willing to sacrifice the money they would make by selling the game to most of the people on Earth to get it. Re-opening sales to these places may help to mitigate the problem, but the longer Sony stalls, the more it becomes clear that they're never going to back down completely. They'll always be there waiting for an opportunity to ransom a game for which we already paid in exchange for us finally giving them the user data and control they so badly desire.

I still recommend the game, but just be aware that Sony is making themselves into a villain who remembers the days when they could be evil and visibly pines for those days to return again. The mood of breathless enthusiasm for this game has been wiped away and as long as Sony remains the publisher, I don't think it's ever coming back again. For a live service game, that's death. A slow death, perhaps, but death nonetheless.

The game feels a bit... *hollow* now. A 41% drop in the player base from the beginning of the month has gutted our ability to do major orders. Does this means the major orders are going to get easier now? Or does this mean we're going to start losing the war now? So many casualties of Sony's greed and still nearly 200 countries cannot play, which signals that Sony hasn't actually learned from the ordeal but instead still harbors some deep-seated desire to eventually force a PSN requirement on people anyway. After all, if the game slowly shrinks because most of the planet isn't allowed to buy or play the game, then eventually the community will be small enough to bully again. Sony doesn't just want our money, they want control. They want that control so badly they're even willing to sacrifice the money they would make by selling the game to most of the people on Earth to get it. Re-opening sales to these places may help to mitigate the problem, but the longer Sony stalls, the more it becomes clear that they're never going to back down completely. They'll always be there waiting for an opportunity to ransom a game for which we already paid in exchange for us finally giving them the user data and control they so badly desire. I still recommend the game, but just be aware that Sony is making themselves into a villain who remembers the days when they could be evil and visibly pines for those days to return again. The mood of breathless enthusiasm for this game has been wiped away and as long as Sony remains the publisher, I don't think it's ever coming back again. For a live service game, that's death. A slow death, perhaps, but death nonetheless.