Community MetaSteam | October 2021 - Guardians of Ashes: Maiden of Empires

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Digoman

Lurking in the Shadows
Dec 21, 2018
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I will also make the wild guess that the EGS backend don't have these tools to track player engagement - not that it really matters for them :p

----

Okay... I'm going to need a nice relaxing game now. Between Ender Lilies (thought I did cheat on it) and Ghostrunner (very good) I think I did the "die and try again" a little too much these past few days.

Now to stare at my Steam Library for a few hours trying to decide what to play....
 

rybrad

Junior Member
Apr 22, 2019
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I will also make the wild guess that the EGS backend don't have these tools to track player engagement - not that it really matters for them :p

----

Okay... I'm going to need a nice relaxing game now. Between Ender Lilies (thought I did cheat on it) and Ghostrunner (very good) I think I did the "die and try again" a little too much these past few days.

Now to stare at my Steam Library for a few hours trying to decide what to play....
What games are you considering playing? We can all weigh in with different opinions to make it harder to decide.
 

Digoman

Lurking in the Shadows
Dec 21, 2018
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What games are you considering playing? We can all weigh in with different opinions to make it harder to decide.
Just as I wrote that I realized The Last Campfire released today (and I already bought before they fix the good regional price over here) so it will probably be that. Or maybe Bear's Restaurant.

I would have made more sense to pick something older to reduce my backlog.... but then again I probably wouldn't have a big backlog if I were more logical :p
 
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Bonfires Down

Junior Member
Nov 18, 2019
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I’m sorry, I already talked about this topic months ago, but bear with me.
Let’s say I have a neet friend that really must find a job (totally not me). Could he, in his forties, learn a programmation language and have even a slim chance to find a job ?
Bonus question, which language to target in priority ?

Sorry again.
My impression is that IT/programming is perhaps the safest bet there is in today's job market. Sure, someone in their forties who only just learned programming might not be the highest priority for employers, especially if you have been unemployed a long time. But I think there is enough demand out there to find something and then work your way up. As long as you actually find programming fun, I think you'll do fine.

Javascript and C# are the most common and in demand from what I understand.
 

Ascheroth

Chilling in the Megastructure
Nov 12, 2018
5,333
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With the Sora Smash announcement, I reaaaallly got in the mood to finally get through the KH games. It really sucks that they won't be on Steam for another 6 months at least... I guess I'll have to grab them on Xbox or play my old PS3 copy (although people seemed to mention online that this was a pretty buggy version).

All this to say: screw EGS exclusives.
Honestly I'm also getting a Kingdom Hearts itch. But also tbh with its current price I wouldn't have bought it on Steam either, exclusivity or not. Hopefully Square will do some decent discounts once they hit Steam (...unlikely though) or other sites will have discounts that drop the price into at least "decent" territory (a bit more likely, depending on what you consider "decent").
 

Anteater

Hentai Specialist
Sep 20, 2018
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I just want to play birth by sleep, I still remember what KH2 was about even after a decade.

 
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Le Pertti

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Oct 10, 2018
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Anteater

Hentai Specialist
Sep 20, 2018
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I see Jim Ryan wrote some dumb shit :rolleyes:


Then use ppsspp at least.
I thought about it, but does it have camera movement? I think I might've tried it and noticed the psp doesn't have a right stick, so I didn't play it. I didn't actually figure out if that's the case but I dropped it after 1minute lol.
 

beep boop

MetaMember
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Wok

Wok
Oct 30, 2018
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What about Luna? :toucan:

Luna will have integration with Twitch.
Amazon has partnered with Ubisoft to create a gaming channel exclusive to Luna, which will give subscribers access to Ubisoft's titles the same day they release.
It is set to launch as Amazon's competitor to other cloud gaming platforms like Stadia, Xbox Cloud Gaming, PlayStation Now and GeForce Now.
 
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Mivey

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Sep 20, 2018
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But, but, Fortnite userbase...
Yeah, I'm not so sure about this. Having a userbase that pays for small microtransactions (the case in both Twitch and Fortnite) doesn't translate to a) users being interested in PC gaming, b) users being interested in spending 60$ for a new game or c) even if a) and b) hold, those users probably already have an ecosystem they are used to (like Steam) and awkwardly integrating PC Gaming into the existing service might not be super compelling.

Like, I'm not saying it's impossible, but as Epic has shown, this is far more challenging then analysts make it out to be. Especially when people can just wait a while and get your "exlusive" games on Steam anyway. You need to provide services even more compelling than the existing PC Gaming landscape. Just existing and having exclusives isn't enough.
 

Mor

Me llamo Willy y no hice la mili, pero vendo Chili
Sep 7, 2018
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But, but, Fortnite userbase...
Fortnite userbase doesn't invest as much money as the regular Amazon consumer.

In any case, I don't think it's a launcher, coming from Twitch system it sounded more like a social hub than anything else, but what do I know, right? in the meantime, Amazon's new world did 900kccu peak and they workers knew if they didn't release on Steam, it wouldn't be this viable, so.... yeah.... let me doubt about that Amazon launcher (which btw would make sense to be Luna but with a portion of native ports instead of cloud)
 

Ge0force

Excluding exclusives
Jan 12, 2019
4,129
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Belgium
Imagine Amazon becoming a major player in PC games distribution :sick:

Anyway, the same kind of articles appeared when Discord opened their store and look how that turned out.
I just hope that Amazon won't start money hatting 3rd games as well...
 
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kafiend

MetaMember
Dec 6, 2018
549
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Isn't Twitch about getting viewers of content to pay for viewing the content? Why the fuck would you want to get those people to buy and (in theory) play games and by extension not be watching/paying for content?
 

Ruvon

Chaotic writer
May 15, 2019
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cabinetdechaologie.wordpress.com
Isn't Twitch about getting viewers of content to pay for viewing the content? Why the fuck would you want to get those people to buy and (in theory) play games and by extension not be watching/paying for content?
Maybe because they just got 900k people playing at the same time ?

I mean I do see your point and I guess you're right in a way. But they also want to provide the games that people gonna pay to watch other people play.
 
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thekeats1999

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Dec 10, 2018
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The main point that Epic and Amazon seem to have missed is that it took valve a hell of a long time to earn the consumer trust and get to where they are now. I remember the response when Steam first launched as a patching system for Half Life 2. Most people hated the system. Yet valve plugged away at it, modifying and adapting it. Giving us features we wanted (and sometimes didn't). Working with developers and publishers to use regional pricing, showing that we aren't all pirates and that maybe if you made them affordable in those regions people would buy those games instead of copying them. (Shame that one has been majorly undermined by publisher greed again). It has taken years and years to get to this point.

Yet Epic (and presumably Amazon based on these leaks), Ubisoft, EA, Activision all seem to think that if you break away from steam the consumer will automatically follow. And yet it hasn't worked out that way for any of them. EA is back. There is still hope that Ubisoft will return in a similar way to EA (with their game pass equivalent in tow). I can see Activision returning at somepoint with everything that isn't an annual shooter (I want to say Call of Duty, they all merge into one for me) but maybe with a detour via EGS exclusivity. Epic is the oddest one of the lot. It is easier to buy most of their games on Steam than it is EGS.

It just reminds me of the whole MCU vs DCEU. Marvel slowly built an audience for themselves over 10 years and culminated in Infinity War/Endgame and some of the biggest cinematic takings in a long time. Warner Brothers thought they could do that in 4 years across three films that culminated in Justice League (the Snyder cut is pretty good though and frankly Zack Snyder is better suited to long form story telling like a tv mini series instead of movies, but that is a rant for another time).

It's like the old Gaben meme, These Things Take Time...
 

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Mindware, a small Japanese company, has been working on indie games and re-releases of classic titles for the past 30+ years.

In recent years, they have been working on a series of re-releases of old (and I do mean old) Japanese indie games from the early 80's.
What's cool about their releases, aside from being available on Steam, is that besides including various versions and ports of each title, they also include "arranged" versions, essentially brand new versions of the games, with gameplay improvements and QOL features.

Their next release will be Hover Attack, a 1984 game that was one of the main inspirations for games like Bangai-O (which will include 3 versions of the game: 2 old ports, and a brand new "arranged" version):


---

Those who enjoy old PC and arcade titles may want to check some of their other releases, like:


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(with arranged versions of the game soundtracked by Yuzo Koshiro, and featuring graphics by Hiroshi Ono (an artist that worked on several Namco classics, including Dig Dug, Xevious, Galaga, Pacman, and many more)

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Line

meh
Dec 21, 2018
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The main point that Epic and Amazon seem to have missed is that it took valve a hell of a long time to earn the consumer trust and get to where they are now. I remember the response when Steam first launched as a patching system for Half Life 2. Most people hated the system. Yet valve plugged away at it, modifying and adapting it. Giving us features we wanted (and sometimes didn't). Working with developers and publishers to use regional pricing, showing that we aren't all pirates and that maybe if you made them affordable in those regions people would buy those games instead of copying them. (Shame that one has been majorly undermined by publisher greed again). It has taken years and years to get to this point.

Yet Epic (and presumably Amazon based on these leaks), Ubisoft, EA, Activision all seem to think that if you break away from steam the consumer will automatically follow. And yet it hasn't worked out that way for any of them. EA is back. There is still hope that Ubisoft will return in a similar way to EA (with their game pass equivalent in tow). I can see Activision returning at somepoint with everything that isn't an annual shooter (I want to say Call of Duty, they all merge into one for me) but maybe with a detour via EGS exclusivity. Epic is the oddest one of the lot. It is easier to buy most of their games on Steam than it is EGS.

It just reminds me of the whole MCU vs DCEU. Marvel slowly built an audience for themselves over 10 years and culminated in Infinity War/Endgame and some of the biggest cinematic takings in a long time. Warner Brothers thought they could do that in 4 years across three films that culminated in Justice League (the Snyder cut is pretty good though and frankly Zack Snyder is better suited to long form story telling like a tv mini series instead of movies, but that is a rant for another time).

It's like the old Gaben meme, These Things Take Time...
There's also the fact that the stores don't appear in a vacuum beyond even their quality, tools and polish: if you've been a PC gamer for a long time you've seen Steam competitors from way back like Direct2Drive, Microsoft failing with GFWL despite having EVERYTHING, and a quadrillion others, from Twitch to Discord to Kartridge.
All of them failed, some are still alive but rotting corpses like the Bethesda store waiting for a bullet, so why should you trust ANYONE coming to the market with their lofty goals and free candy to bring people over?
The only people getting excited for "competition" are the ones that are more interested in the free hand of capitalism than gaming.
 

Mivey

MetaMember
Sep 20, 2018
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It's like the old Gaben meme, These Things Take Time...
The only one of these I can see stick around is the EGS, just because Epic will have no other choice but try to make it a success once their Fortnite success vanes and money starts becoming tight again.
Ubisoft and others can always return to Steam without much fanfare. And who knows what Amazon really wants here. I doubt their recent MMO would have been a big success if it didn't launch on Steam.
 

Alexandros

MetaMember
Nov 4, 2018
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I just hope that Amazon won't start money hatting 3rd games as well...
They will probably try and they will definitely lose, just like everyone else before them. All of these shitty companies know only one path to dominance and that is to have Yakuza-style money battles between them until someone wins. They have absolutely no idea how to handle a united and energized audience that votes with its wallet or a competitor that doesn't participate in their dumb shit and focuses on catering to customers first.
 

derExperte

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Dec 9, 2018
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The main point that Epic and Amazon seem to have missed is that it took valve a hell of a long time to earn the consumer trust and get to where they are now.
Amazon knows all about the long con though, for a very long time they lost or at least didn't earn all that much money while slowly but deliberately choking the competition. Then one fine day the profits started rolling in and Jeff became god emperor of 1%-town. Vidya games are its own beast but man, if Amazon went all in I'd be scared, not gonna lie.

Speaking of, while I defended donating and spending money for subs on Twitch that upcoming boost-feature sounds like a nightmare for everyone but the biggest streamers. And even they ain't happy.
 

prudis

anime occult member
Sep 19, 2018
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The Kingdom of Beer and Porn
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People really don't give Valve enough credit, nor do they understand why Steam is so popular.
This is it!!!
If you remember all the discussion from the time the EGS, Discord Store and other appeared ... it was obvious (i listened to quite a batch of podcasts back then) that majority of jurnous play on consoles and only see Steam as a placethey enter the free key from publisher and press play.

Nothing more .. and thus they absolutely dont understand why people flock to Steam at all .... and blame it on some vile fanboyism
 

Alextended

Segata's Disciple
Jan 28, 2019
5,710
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Huh, I didn't see that coming. I wonder what happened, his parting letter just focuses on the new generation @ Sega/Yakuza moving on etc., not what he's about to do (which Daisuke Sato does hint at in his own message). Retiring maybe, he's 56. Bloomberg had ran an article that NetEase games was poaching him.
 
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fantomena

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Dec 17, 2018
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For me personally, as someone who has been mainly playing on PC for the last 10 years and still played on PC during the PS2-PS3 gens even though I was mainly playing on consoles, my main thing with PC gaming comes down to trust and reliability. I don't trust and don't see Epic, Amazon, EA, Microsoft as trustworthy and reliable when it comes to the health of PC gaming, which is why I always try to not use EGS, Origin/EA Desktop App, Game Pass/Xbox App/Windows Store and try to mainly use Steam and in some instances GOG. Valve and somewhat CDPR (their last instances with DRM stuff on GOG and their treatment of that Chinese dev has put GOG in a negative light for me) has my trust with PC gaming, the others do not.

Like, all my shit towards game pass is not only about lack of ownership and technical issues, I don't trust MS with PC gaming so I buy their games on Steam as I actually trust Valve to put my interest first in case some shit was to go down with MS and PC gaming.
 
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Ruvon

Chaotic writer
May 15, 2019
707
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France
cabinetdechaologie.wordpress.com
GoG has pulled off Hitman from the store.


Dear Community,

Thank you for your patience and for giving us the time to investigate the release of HITMAN GOTY on GOG. As promised, we’re getting back to you with updates.

We're still in dialogue with IO Interactive about this release. Today we have removed HITMAN GOTY from GOG’s catalog – we shouldn’t have released it in its current form, as you’ve pointed out.

We’d like to apologise for the confusion and anger generated by this situation. We’ve let you down and we’d like to thank you for bringing this topic to us – while it was honest to the bone, it shows how passionate you are towards GOG.

We appreciate your feedback and will continue our efforts to improve our communication with you
 

TrishaKit

Dancer
Aug 11, 2021
160
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I just want to play birth by sleep, I still remember what KH2 was about even after a decade.

You haven't played BBS???
Dude, you're missing out. I think BBS feels the closest to KH2 from all the KH games I've played, if significantly more limited in terms of combat abilities. It has a lot of balancing issues, but it makes up for this with a really wild hyper shonen story. Terra's route is sooooo good
GoG has pulled off Hitman from the store.

That's...actually really cool of GoG. Here's hoping they can get a version of the game with its features intact offline.
 
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fantomena

MetaMember
Dec 17, 2018
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Anteater

Hentai Specialist
Sep 20, 2018
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You haven't played BBS???
Dude, you're missing out. I think BBS feels the closest to KH2 from all the KH games I've played, if significantly more limited in terms of combat abilities. It has a lot of balancing issues, but it makes up for this with a really wild hyper shonen story. Terra's route is sooooo good
Nope, I wanted to but it came out on PSP which I didn't have, I know they released it on PS3 (I think?) but it was towards the end of the life span (and I know it'll get re-released on PS4 and better so I didn't buy it), but after buying a PC, I never bought the ps4, now they have this dumb EGS thing, SE really didn't want me to play the game.
 

TrishaKit

Dancer
Aug 11, 2021
160
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Nope, I wanted to but it came out on PSP which I didn't have, I know they released it on PS3 (I think?) but it was towards the end of the life span (and I know it'll get re-released on PS4 and better so I didn't buy it), but after buying a PC, I never bought the ps4, now they have this dumb EGS thing, SE really didn't want me to play the game.
Well its been a little over half a year since KH released on Epic, so hopefully this'll change soon so you can continue the series. Just hope the exclusivity doesn't last a full year >.<
The ports are pretty good so you don't need to worry too much about that, though I need to check to see if they ever fixed the shadows. The shadows in the port didn't work right sometimes. Very minor but, y'know.
 

Digoman

Lurking in the Shadows
Dec 21, 2018
854
2,390
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But, but, Fortnite userbase...
To be honest, I think it's probably easier to make the average Twitch user to spend money buying games than a Fortnite one.

At least it sounds more reasonable for someone to alternate between watching and playing than for them to leave a game like Fortnite that is designed to take all your time.

But it all depends on how you approach the current market. Epic’s “tatic” of putting customers as the least important thing to worry about and to actually try to enrage them when possible didn’t give them the best results, but as shitty as Amazon is, I think there is a good chance they would at least try to make it sound like a better deal for us.

I would say that there is also a big potential for cross-promotion with chat-icons and whatever tied to games purchases, but what do I know…. I thought that was also obvious with in-game Fortnite items and I can’t remember if Epic did that even once (maybe Borderlands 3?).

Direct “influencer” access would also probably really help.

But again, that all depends on not treating your potential clients like shit.

Still, Valve has some big advantages, including having one of the billionaires that is the least fond of the taste of his foot in his mouth.

And speaking of treating customers like shit:
GoG has pulled off Hitman from the store.

Good for them for backing down... but since they treated their most loyal customers like "evil review bombers" they have to do a lot of work the regain trust after this one.

And who would have thought: tying single game progression to being online is against the whole no DRM thing.... even if a lot of people argued that it wasn't “technically” DRM.
 
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lashman

lashman

Dead & Forgotten
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Digoman

Lurking in the Shadows
Dec 21, 2018
854
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Can also be read as:
"We are so sorry that we were asses to our community We are going to do better next time... pinky swear. And this has nothing to do with the fact that the game sold like crap".
 
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