Doesn't include a launcher you just link your account, that said I personally refuse purely on moral grounds. People in many countries cannot play because PSN straight up doesn't support their country.

Also their reasons are lies, I am tired of being lied to and told it's not a big deal. Sure signing up for a Psn is easy and free, but I am tired of being forced to do things as a consumer that I'm told is for my benefit when in reality it is solely for the publisher.

The official reason they want it is because supposedly it helps them ban problematic players, which I don't understand the need for in this game in the first place. Secondly they can already do this through steam. Look up discord screenshots from the Arrowhead community manager by the Discord name spitz. You'll see company responses, I'm too lazy to add them today.

Here is the real reason sony wants this. Tech companies use account metrics for shareholder presentation to show growth. "Sony added 330 million new PSN accounts in 2024 alone, and had 6 billion more transactions on the PlayStation network in 2024" this is a fictional example of how they can spin this crap. Dipshit investors aren't going to understand the underlying reason why this spike happened and Sony will elaborate as little as possible. This could lead to massive growth in sony stock, at the very least it looks good. This is the only real reason sony is so interested, it has nothing to do with security or moderation and everything to do with internal growth metrics of corpo pigs. That's my take at least.