Community MetaSteam | August 2021 - Openness Is Its Superpower

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kafiend

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Dec 6, 2018
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Bank Holiday weekend here! Woo.What are you doing / playing?
Although I don't do a traditional 9-5 job, so its not as terrible as its sounds, I haven't had a day off in the last few months and the same for another couple months.
However, I always consume TV in bulk over short periods of time so I'm playing catchup of a few seasons of a couple TV shows this weekend.
 

EdwardTivrusky

Good Morning, Weather Hackers!
Dec 8, 2018
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Watching some VTubers and playing Titankin and Beyond the Frame and Minecraft.
Gonna get my haircut later and then buy some food before i go on my Diet & Exercise regime to lose my "Lockdown Belly"... actually that means i'll be tidying the main room so i can setup Ring Fit Adventure too.
 

Li Kao

It’s a strange world. Let’s keep it that way.
Jan 28, 2019
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Bank Holiday weekend here! Woo.

What are you doing / playing?

Going to play some coop stuff today. Got this which looks fun...


Might also pick up It Takes Two.
Dorfromantik / Psychonauts 2
Maybe Control, but I crave something lighter in mood these days

edit
Hdmi cable is a few streets away. So scratch that, time to chain F5.
Brave new world. It's only cool on one end though, delivery man life must feel miserable.
 
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beep boop

MetaMember
Dec 6, 2018
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Playing Chaos Child, nearly at the first ending; god damn it's long

The time to things actually starting to hit the fan is also pretty long.

I liked some things about it, but on the balance there were more that put me off. Maybe I should have sought out the previous entry and played that first or something.
 
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AHA-Lambda

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The time to things actually starting to hit the fan is also pretty long.

I liked some things about it, but on the balance there were more that put me off. Maybe I should have sought out the previous entry and played that first or something.
Yeah I'll echo your comment on it taking a long ass time to get to where the stakes really ramp up. Stein's Gate this ain't in that regard, I thought SG was quite well paced actually.
On the first game though Chaos Head, I think if anything in this regard its much worse.
It's a bit overlong but I'm still enjoying Chaos Child, Chaos Head I just plain didn't like.

I put my thoughts on chaos head in the review thread near the start of the year
Long story short even thought its shorter than Chaos Child its imo really poorly paced with 90%+ of the runtime leaving you very deliberately confused.
Now obviously this is meant to build mystery and tension but when its going on so long with little development its just annoying.
Even when everything is revealed at the very end it relishes in pseduo sci-fi jargon bollocks that made me need a wiki.
Chaos Child hasn't had that effect on me in comparison; its references to Chaos Head are actually quite sparing outside of gigalomaniacs and the original new generation madness (at least from what I've read so far anyway)
Also the protagonist is a massive dickhead.
The Noah version of Chaos Head may be better but that's never been translated on PC from what I know.

FWIW, the common route is one of the longest I ever experienced in a VN, at roughly 40 hours.
Character routes are shorter.
Ah kinda good to know then. I'm on the last chapter of the common route at 28 hrs so far so maybe I'm a faster reader than i thought 😂
I'm going to get the first ending then take a break (check out 12 minutes and psychonauts 2) before coming back for the rest I think.
 
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beep boop

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Speaking of long VNs, I was considering starting Clannad until I read that it’s longer than the entirety of the LotR trilogy. What the frick?

Yeah I'll echo your comment on it taking a long ass time to get to where the stakes really ramp up. Stein's Gate this ain't in that regard, I thought SG was quite well paced actually.
On the first game though Chaos Head, I think if anything in this regard its much worse.
It's a bit overlong but I'm still enjoying Chaos Child, Chaos Head I just plain didn't like.

I put my thoughts on chaos head in the review thread near the start of the year
I gave up after seeing the first ending, which I thought was disappointing and a bit of an asspull. Definitely echo most of your issues based on what I experienced though. The main character was not great and I thought his voice acting was very grating with the amount of screeching going on constantly. I believe I just turned off the sound entirely after a while.
 
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beep boop

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boop beep It's only 60-85 hours, no problem. It's a breeze. It's supposed to be great though.

That's what prompted to look it up. I could not believe what I was seeing! I guess the totality of Higurashi was similar length-wise, but at least that's subdivided into somewhat more manageable chapters with their own openings and conclusions. The art style of Clannad is also not something I'm sure I could handle for that amount of time... Though I suspect I'd stop noticing after hour 30 or something.
 

AHA-Lambda

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Ascheroth

Chilling in the Megastructure
Nov 12, 2018
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That's what I thought I'd pick up instead of Clannad, funny enough :fearful-face:
Until I checked HLTB just now. Guess I'll see keep on looking.
Umineko is also structured like Higurashi, with 8 chapters total. Difference is that you can only buy them in packs of 4 instead of each one individually though.
It's god damn long for sure, and the pacing is very rough at points, but overall I'd still heavily recommend it. There's nothing quite like it.
 

Li Kao

It’s a strange world. Let’s keep it that way.
Jan 28, 2019
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Majikoi?
Little busters?
lololololol
Muv-Luv?
Don't tell me those are long ass VN too :confounded-face:
I was interested in Majikoi slice of life hijinks and Muv-Luv.

Oh, by the way, shipment delivered. New scratching pad included because :cat-heart-blob: kitty !
And, as expected, kitty don't give a shit about the pad but is ALL over the cardboard box it came in. Dat cardboard, se gusta.
 

Tizoc

Retired, but still Enabling
Oct 11, 2018
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Oman
ko-fi.com
for fans of the croc games

Don't tell me those are long ass VN too :confounded-face:
I was interested in Majikoi slice of life hijinks and Muv-Luv.

Oh, by the way, shipment delivered. New scratching pad included because :cat-heart-blob: kitty !
And, as expected, kitty don't give a shit about the pad but is ALL over the cardboard box it came in. Dat cardboard, se gusta.
just play ace attorney if you need a quick and easy VN fix.
 

EdwardTivrusky

Good Morning, Weather Hackers!
Dec 8, 2018
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Nice.
I have my issues with Doom3 mainly the monster closets and less so that a lot of the enemies looked like inflatables rather than creatures and everything was sooo shiny but i enjoyed my time with it.

It was also fun trying to get the "leaked" beta working on my old, underspecced rig. lol.
 
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Tomasety

MetaEyesMember
Jun 8, 2020
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No proof that the refund rate was above average. Little proof that the support was overwhelming either.



322 reviews at the time of the first tweet, out of which 1% at most had abused the refund process.
Take that with a grain of salt: we cannot be sure that this is representative of the sales, maybe abusers don't like to write reviews.



382 reviews now. So a nice boost of sales: at least 60 copies in the most extreme worst case scenario.

For comparison, the game should have sold roughly between 10k (322*30) and 30k (322*100) copies using review multiplier.

If we assume that new customers were more likely to write a positive review to show their support, let us say this leads to a review multiplier of 30 for these new reviews, that would be roughly 2k (60*30) additional copies sold. Maybe less than that, the review multiplier could be lower than usual due to the context.

Overall, I would guess that the press coverage lead to roughly 1k additional sales for a game which must have sold 20k copies, so that would be a 5% increase.

Edit: These people exist too in the review count mentioned above. Not sure if they will really ask for a refund. They are very marginal (4 reviews).


Master Wok, I've been thinking about this specific issue and it reminded me of the game "The Haunted Island, a Frog Detective Game" which has "Overwhelmingly Positive" reviews and is similar to above game in length duration and I don't know if there is a way to obtain or filter only "refunded reviews" to compare both but I suspect the Frog game didn't have any particular issue with refunds rate giving the fact the game can be completed in just 1 hour.

What I mean is that if the game is good enough, the refund rate shouldn't be an issue even if your game is really short.
Obviously there will be always bad actors regardless game quality but I'm a bit cautious with all this situation regarding "EMIKA GAMES" since no proofs were shown.
 

EdwardTivrusky

Good Morning, Weather Hackers!
Dec 8, 2018
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Naruhodon't
It's like if you flatten out your Zune so it's thinner and you can put it into the computer to play music.
 
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Wok

Wok
Oct 30, 2018
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it reminded me of the game "The Haunted Island, a Frog Detective Game" which has "Overwhelmingly Positive" reviews and is similar to above game in length duration and I don't know if there is a way to obtain or filter only "refunded reviews" to compare both but I suspect the Frog game didn't have any particular issue with refunds rate giving the fact the game can be completed in just 1 hour.
After scrolling through reviews at:


I find only 2 reviews with the mention "Product refunded", one positive and one negative.



The total number of reviews is 2186, but roughly half of them are not refundable (most likely copies from Humble Choice).

1056 reviews based on refundable copies, and only 2 cases of "product refunded".

To be compared to the other horror indie game:

333 reviews based on refundable copies, and 4 refunds mentioned in the reviews.

So, by judging number of copies and refunds based on reviews, the refund rate could be 6 times higher than for the frog game.
 
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Yoshi

o_O
Jan 5, 2019
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Weekend PC Game Deals (credit to Neowin)

>>> Fanatical 7% off discount code: PAYDAYAUG21 <<< Thanks ganmo!

Bundles
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Free Events
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The Witcher 3: GOTY Edition$9.99 on Steam
Slap City$9.99 on Steam
Tabletop Simulator $9.99 on Humble Store
The Falconeer$9.99 on Fanatical
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Assassin's Creed - Rogue$6.59 on Steam
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STAR WARS Battlefront II$5.99 on Origin
Steep$5.99 on Humble Store
Rise of the Tomb Raider$5.09 on Fanatical
Delta Force Platinum Pack$4.99 on Steam
Prototype$4.99 on Steam
HellSign$4.99 on Steam
Fran Bow$3.74 on Steam
The Witcher 2 Enhanced Edition$2.99 on Steam
Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak$2.49 on Joybuggy (credit to Tomasety)
Valley$2.24 on Steam
Bulletstorm: Full Clip Edition Duke Nukem Bundle$2.02 on Joybuggy (credit to Tomasety)
Left 4 Dead 2$1.99 on Steam
Will Glow the Wisp$0 on Steam
Automachef$0 on Epic Store
Saints Row: The Third Remastered$0 on Epic Store
CrossCode - $13.99 on GOG
BioShock Infinite Complete Edition - $13.74 on GOG
Warcraft I & II Bundle - $12.74 on GOG
Superliminal - $11.99 on GOG
Kerbal Space Program - $9.99 on GOG
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The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt - $7.99 on GOG
PC Building Simulator - $7.99 on GOG
Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition - $5.99 on GOG
Enter the Gungeon - $5.99 on GOG
Dead Space - $4.99 on GOG
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Beyond Good & Evil - $2.99 on GOG
World in Conflict: Complete Edition - $2.49 on GOG
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Saints Row 2 - $2.49 on GOG
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time - $1.99 on GOG
Thief Gold - $0.97 on GOG
If there's something missing or cheaper, let me know :)
 
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ganmo

My Neighbour Totoro
Dec 10, 2018
351
409
63
What are you doing / playing?
Did not play something yet... but I watched Tomb Raider with Alicia Vikander as Lara Croft. It was okay flix. Neither of the actress which played the role are British but yea this one was OK. I'm guessing this installation of Lara is very much inspired 2013 game. :geek:
If there's something missing or cheaper, let me know :)
If you have subscribed to Fanatical news letters there's coupon giving you additional 7% discount, and it works on bundles too. Does it counts as deal perhaps? :pleasedblob:
 

QFNS

Plays too many card games
Nov 18, 2018
1,190
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I'm curious; how many of you figured out how to proceed in Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night after getting the bad ending? 🤔
I did but I also I was a backerof the game and knew there was more to find. Without that prior knowledge I probably would not have figured it out.
 

Tomasety

MetaEyesMember
Jun 8, 2020
882
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After scrolling through reviews at:


I find only 2 reviews with the mention "Product refunded", one positive and one negative.



The total number of reviews is 2186, but roughly half of them are not refundable (most likely copies from Humble Choice).

1056 reviews based on refundable copies, and only 2 cases of "product refunded".

To be compared to the other horror indie game:

333 reviews based on refundable copies, and 4 refunds mentioned in the reviews.

So, judging number of copies and refunds based on reviews, the refund rate could be 6 times higher than for the frog game.
Thanks for the impressive work Wok as always. Certainly without developers official numbers is still hard to imagine why people would abuse refunds system on Steam on a game that has "very positive" ratings with a low price point and no trading cards.

Something feels off here and maybe the reviews rating isnt telling us exactly the whole picture about the game.
This is a job for Simonc who we need to get on Meta.
 

dex3108

MetaMember
Dec 20, 2018
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So i reached Meridian city in Horizon Zero Dawn and i am doing quests around it and can i ask, are there any quests in this game where NPCs don't ask for your help? Quests that are funny or twisted or anything beside "Aloy save us, my husband, my sister, my brother, friend..."? Also this is first game in a long while where i am noticing hard cuts in NPC dialogues and music. Also machines are bit too aggressive in my opinion, all of them are instant threat as soon as they see you. They could have made at least some of them leave you alone unless you attack them .
I am still kinda enjoying story and lore but boy does this game lacks any meaningful quest rewards or exploration. Nothing says job well done at the end of the quest like loot box you get XD
 

AHA-Lambda

MetaMember
Oct 9, 2018
2,815
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So i reached Meridian city in Horizon Zero Dawn and i am doing quests around it and can i ask, are there any quests in this game where NPCs don't ask for your help? Quests that are funny or twisted or anything beside "Aloy save us, my husband, my sister, my brother, friend..."? Also this is first game in a long while where i am noticing hard cuts in NPC dialogues and music. Also machines are bit too aggressive in my opinion, all of them are instant threat as soon as they see you. They could have made at least some of them leave you alone unless you attack them .
I am still kinda enjoying story and lore but boy does this game lacks any meaningful quest rewards or exploration. Nothing says job well done at the end of the quest like loot box you get XD
Dude the best piece of advice I can give you: if you're not enjoying it drop it.
It certainly doesn't sound like you're getting much out of it
 

dex3108

MetaMember
Dec 20, 2018
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Dude the best piece of advice I can give you: if you're not enjoying it drop it.
It certainly doesn't sound like you're getting much out of it
Nah i like lore and kinda story, i just don't understand how was this game praised as much as it was on release.
 
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Wok

Wok
Oct 30, 2018
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France
Thanks for the impressive work Wok as always. Certainly without developers official numbers is still hard to imagine why people would abuse refunds system on Steam on a game that has "very positive" ratings with a low price point and no trading cards.

Something feels off here and maybe the reviews rating isnt telling us exactly the whole picture about the game.
This is a job for Simonc who we need to get on Meta.
The game had a lot of viewers on Twitch, so maybe the followers of a famous streamer decided to try the game and asked for refund afterwards.


Edit: After looking at responses to reviews, I think the dev attaches too much importance to reviews, which might explain the need for vacations.


Here, they ask the reviewer to write a proper review, despite the review being positive.
:lul:

Here, they answer to a negative review which is actually positive.


And there are many cases where they try to fix issues:


Hence why it is tiring.




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Loosely related, here is a funny dude:
 
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