Community MetaSteam | April 2024 - Definitely there's no rest for the wicked.

[Le Pertti]

For awhile I only played old games, and I quite liked that. But since I started running the GOTY voting I have more and more gone back to playing new games. So I actually thinking about going back to just old games. There is certain peace in not rushing or feeling I need to keep up.

 

[lashman]

 

[Lashley]

I love replaying older games, and PC is by far the best platform for doing that.

My friend who got the gaming laptop last week was overjoyed yesterday when I helped him get old games like NFS Most Wanted (2005) and Simpsons Hit & Run lol

 

[Derrick01]

I'll keep saying it, GaaS is the biggest threat this industry has ever faced because it just traps everyone into playing 1 game for most of their lives. That's going to collapse this industry at some point as there just won't be enough money to support anything outside of those few games.

I know this is boomer talk and I don't really care anymore because most of gen z really is screwed (in many ways beyond gaming, like how they have no ability to really do anything themselves and operate PCs worse than the actual baby boomer generation). I can't imagine being so culturally stagnant that I only play or read or watch 1 thing over and over for my entire life. And it's even worse that that 1 thing is probably something like fortnite which is a cultural black hole designed solely to buy mtx.

 

[fokkusu]

Does anyone know to fix this? I have ublock turned off

For me the Firefox Enhanced Tracking Protection causes this.

 

[STHX]

I'll keep saying it, GaaS is the biggest threat this industry has ever faced because it just traps everyone into playing 1 game for most of their lives. That's going to collapse this industry at some point as there just won't be enough money to support anything outside of those few games.

GTAO will be the most interesting case as T2 will obviously want everyone to move to GTAVI's O2, so what will happen to GTAV's? Minecraft and Roblox are beyond generations at this point but GTAVI is PS5 and Series only with a completely new map, and there is nothing implying it will be compatible with the old GTAO, and if it doesn't what will happen to all those players that "live" it daily?

 

[Lashley]

For me the Firefox Enhanced Tracking Protection causes this.

I've disabled that too though

 

[Kyougar]

I'll keep saying it, GaaS is the biggest threat this industry has ever faced because it just traps everyone into playing 1 game for most of their lives. That's going to collapse this industry at some point as there just won't be enough money to support anything outside of those few games.

The AAA Industry? Maybe. They need to adapt.
But when I look at indie and AA games, I don't see ANY impact from GaaS games being played.
Most GaaS games are not on Steam and it's healthier than ever.

I know this is boomer talk and I don't really care anymore because most of gen z really is screwed (in many ways beyond gaming, like how they have no ability to really do anything themselves and operate PCs worse than the actual baby boomer generation). I can't imagine being so culturally stagnant that I only play or read or watch 1 thing over and over for my entire life. And it's even worse that that 1 thing is probably something like fortnite which is a cultural black hole designed solely to buy mtx.

The mistake in your understanding of GaaS games is, that the people who play those games are playing the games like they were 5, 10, or 20 years ago. They are not.
Many of those GaaS games are more innovative than the cooky cutter Ubisoft open world or Sony cinematic action games.

 

[Derrick01]

The mistake in your understanding of GaaS games is, that the people who play those games are playing the games like they were 5, 10, or 20 years ago. They are not.
Many of those GaaS games are more innovative than the cooky cutter Ubisoft open world or Sony cinematic action games.

This isn't true at all come on now. There's not even any real story or content in any of those games it's just doing the same thing over and over but now goku is in it or some other popular IP. It's the most vapid thing in gaming and it wouldn't be an issue if they played a variety of things but it's all they ever do. You have teenagers who have literally spent their entire lives only playing 1 game and have no desire to ever do anything different. How is that healthy? It's not healthy for the kid, it's not healthy for our industry or culture in general.

 

[lashman]

 

[PC-tan]

hmmm, what do you mean?

The Runa store description says the game has social links. It says it in the image describing the game.

 

[lashman]

The Runa store description says the game has social links. It says it in the image describing the game.

ahhhh, lol

 

[PC-tan]

Is this that whole, we have Oxenfree at home?



For heirloom

 

[Durante]

The AAA Industry? Maybe. They need to adapt.
But when I look at indie and AA games, I don't see ANY impact from GaaS games being played.
Most GaaS games are not on Steam and it's healthier than ever.

Yeah. I've completely stopped playing any GaaS games for various reasons, but so far I don't see it "ruining gaming" in any way.
Indies obviously, but even AAA gaming really, at least the subset of it I'm interested in. E.g. Elden Ring and even Dragon's Dogma 2 (despite the MTX panic) seem entirely unaffected in their design by GaaS.

 

[Kyougar]

This isn't true at all come on now. There's not even any real story or content in any of those games it's just doing the same thing over and over but now goku is in it or some other popular IP. It's the most vapid thing in gaming and it wouldn't be an issue if they played a variety of things but it's all they ever do. You have teenagers who have literally spent their entire lives only playing 1 game and have no desire to ever do anything different. How is that healthy? It's not healthy for the kid, it's not healthy for our industry or culture in general.

Your argument (as comically misunderstanding of those games you have) basically boils down to "Dungeons and Dragons turns our kids into Satanists"

Not only are you somehow just seeing the whole GaaS market as basically Fortnite, you have also no understanding on what goes on in 99.9% of the GaaS games.
Minecraft is not the same game as ~15 years ago
World of Warcraft is not the same game as ~20 years ago
Factorio is not the same game as ~10 years ago
Terraria is not the same game as ~10 years ago
Stardew Valley is not the same game as ~10 years ago
Counter Strike is not the same game as ~25 years ago
Fortnite is not the same game as ~6 years ago
World of Tanks is not the same game as ~10 years ago
League of Legends is not the same game as ~15 years ago

You know what has 5-10 year old game mechanics?
Spiderman
Last of Us
Horizon
Ass Creed

that is mostly a consequence of 5-8 year long development cycles and no real gameplay innovation between sequels.

 

[lashman]

 

[thekeats1999]

The publishers only have themselves to blame. In a cost of living crisis they are blindly rushing ahead with all games are $70 and fucking over different regional markets. So I am not going to blame some kid for not wanting to spend $70 up front on a game. Frankly I am not spending $70 on a single game.

Also I would imagine that a lot of the kids playing right now won't stay gamers when they hit Uni/Work and start alcohol/drugs/dating. Or at least at a diminshed rate.

I would argue this is nothing new and just the trend growing. For years now there are people who only buy FIFA or CoD. To say these people are hurting the industry is a bit like saying pirates are hurting the industry. Some are but the vast majority couldn't care less about the greater scope of gaming.

My only issue with Games as a Service/Live Service games is that their predatory nature needs to be curbed (and this coming from some one who enjoys a couple of F2P titles).

 

[Kyougar]

The publishers only have themselves to blame. In a cost of living crisis they are blindly rushing ahead with all games are $70 and fucking over different regional markets. So I am not going to blame some kid for not wanting to spend $70 up front on a game. Frankly I am not spending $70 on a single game.

Case in Pojnt:

 

[「Echo」]

For me it's mostly old games because I just don't often have the free cash in this modern economy for $70 games. $70 + Limited/Deluxe/Ultimate Edition, + Season passes and DLC.

It's just too much. So I have to wait for sales... I don't really mind it though.

 

[Derrick01]

Your argument (as comically misunderstanding of those games you have) basically boils down to "Dungeons and Dragons turns our kids into Satanists"

Not only are you somehow just seeing the whole GaaS market as basically Fortnite, you have also no understanding on what goes on in 99.9% of the GaaS games.
Minecraft is not the same game as ~15 years ago
World of Warcraft is not the same game as ~20 years ago
Factorio is not the same game as ~10 years ago
Terraria is not the same game as ~10 years ago
Stardew Valley is not the same game as ~10 years ago
Counter Strike is not the same game as ~25 years ago
Fortnite is not the same game as ~6 years ago
World of Tanks is not the same game as ~10 years ago
League of Legends is not the same game as ~15 years ago

You know what has 5-10 year old game mechanics?
Spiderman
Last of Us
Horizon
Ass Creed

that is mostly a consequence of 5-8 year long development cycles and no real gameplay innovation between sequels.

those games you look down on win awards and inspire countless other creators including ones outside of gaming. Well, some do at least. No one is inspired by the games you listed except greedy execs who think they can steal that success away for one of their own games. They have no worth outside of how much money they can vacuum up from clueless kids. Kids who spend their entire lives never growing because they only experience 1 thing for eternity.

The publishers only have themselves to blame. In a cost of living crisis they are blindly rushing ahead with all games are $70 and fucking over different regional markets. So I am not going to blame some kid for not wanting to spend $70 up front on a game. Frankly I am not spending $70 on a single game.

Also I would imagine that a lot of the kids playing right now won't stay gamers when they hit Uni/Work and start alcohol/drugs/dating. Or at least at a diminshed rate.

I would argue this is nothing new and just the trend growing. For years now there are people who only buy FIFA or CoD. To say these people are hurting the industry is a bit like saying pirates are hurting the industry. Some are but the vast majority couldn't care less about the greater scope of gaming.

My only issue with Games as a Service/Live Service games is that their predatory nature needs to be curbed (and this coming from some one who enjoys a couple of F2P titles).

The money argument doesn't make any sense because these kids are somehow dumping untold billions of dollars a year into these games. They have money or the ability to get money from their parents, they just dump them into the same f2p crap they spend their entire lives in.

 

[yuraya]

The craziest thing to me is how people spent so much time playing just 1 or 2 games for so many years.

I kinda understand MMORPGs as I've been there. But this new age of COD, FIFA, BattleRoyale, Roblox, MOBAs etc. These games just don't have any more than 100-150hrs of content in them. At least imo they don't.

I've played most of the popular stuff over the years like CSGO, TF2, Warframe, Warzone. Even a little Fortnite. Eventually I just had enough and quit because all of these games get stupid repetitive.

I think the most time I ever spent on a game out of all these in the past decade was Hearthstone. And Hearthstone was extremely predatory. But even with Hearthstone once you reached ranked here n there and played a few weeks...there is not much there anymore.

I just don't see how people keep going and going. Like how do you not move on to other games? After you win your BR and get your chicken dinner several times...why do you keep playing?

Its depressing how much these new age young gamers miss out on by falling down these rabbit holes.

The only pure singleplayer games to make it in these lists is Starfield and Hogwarts if you don't count Nintendo.

And you know games like Hogwarts will not be made again with WB focusing on GaaS, Mobile and F2P moving forward. At least not for a while.

Elder Scrolls 6 is probably at risk of having some weird multiplayer or GaaS mechanics as well. It wouldn't surprise me if Microsoft pressures Bethesda to do some dumb shit to make it less risky in recovering money. Hopefully its hands off with that one.

Looks like Nintendo is the only platform in the coming years that will have properly budgeted singleplayer games that can be safely made without much risk or industry pressure for growth + other unsustainable stuff.

Problem is development time. Even for Nintendo It will probably a long while before we see a Zelda game with the budget of BOTW and TOTG. Pokemon could go the way of Palworld too in the future because of community/fan pressure. And going in that direction could hurt traditional story content in Pokemon. Not that Pokemon ever had great stories in their games to begin with.

But you really have to appreciate the small risks Nintendo takes in keeping their library diverse. Stuff like Metroid Dread for example.

____


The more you look at the industry today the more sad I get that Gamepass seems to be dying out and not working the way I thought it would.

It was the perfect service to keep these new traditional singleplayer titles alive and funded. Like the Netflix of gaming but only with the benefit of also being sold on Steam and consoles. Without some type of avenue like this I feel like normally budgetted singleplayer games are gonna stagnate and/or die. Game dev gets so expensive we now have 70$ singleplayer games with a bunch of unnecessary microtransactions. And its only gonna get worse n worse.

 

[Kyougar]

those games you look down on win awards and inspire countless other creators including ones outside of gaming. Well, some do at least. No one is inspired by the games you listed except greedy execs who think they can steal that success away for one of their own games. They have no worth outside of how much money they can vacuum up from clueless kids. Kids who spend their entire lives never growing because they only experience 1 thing for eternity.

And with that sentence, I can absolutely dismiss any criticism from you on this subject.

I don't want to come of combative here to you at all, but you are showing that you have no experience with games that are not AAA Media darlings.

No one is/was inspired by Minecraft, Terraria, Factorio, Stardew Valley? They have no worth???
WTF!
I can understand if I just listed Fortnite, Destiny, Valorant, CS2, etc. but I included GaaS from a wide range of gameplay, MAU, definition of GaaS, and sales. That you see any GaaS as just "Fortnite" speaks volumes here.
Either you are trolling or you have no experience with gaming below AAA single-player Media darlings.

 

[Lashley]

And with that sentence, I can absolutely dismiss any criticism from you on this subject.

I don't want to come of combative here to you at all, but you are showing that you have no experience with games that are not AAA Media darlings.

No one is/was inspired by Minecraft, Terraria, Factorio, Stardew Valley? They have no worth???
WTF!
I can understand if I just listed Fortnite, Destiny, Valorant, CS2, etc. but I included GaaS from a wide range of gameplay, MAU, definition of GaaS, and sales. That you see any GaaS as just "Fortnite" speaks volumes here.
Either you are trolling or you have no experience with gaming below AAA single-player Media darlings.

It ain't worth it

 

[fantomena]

Anyone saying gaas games are the same as the day they released must be trolling.

Some gaas games even change massively every 2-3 years.

 

[Le Pertti]

Ah yes Minecraft and stardew definitely didnt inspire generations of people.

 

[Lashley]

"It didn't inspire AAA games only indie trash"

 

[「Echo」]

Random thing I've been thinking about since I got my Steam Deck.

"When I build my next PC (Late 2024 or Early 2025), I should ditch Windows and go with Linux."

So I've been researching modern distros which is something I haven't done since my teenage years. The only thing I'm really worried about is just how old and decrepit the Nvidia driver is on Linux, and I think Red Hat(?) was the only distro looking to re-write it for modern use.

but anyway yeah. Steam deck got me tinkering on Linux again. Something I haven't messed with since High-School. (2 years comp-sci/networking)

 

[Alextended]

I don't think Minecraft and Terraria are your typical gaas or even called themselves such prior to release, just great evergreen games that released early and kept getting updated organically largely due to massive ongoing success, clearly very different beasts from a game made by mega corp with the intention to addict kids into micro transactions, cosmetics, gambling gacha or whatever else. It's disingenuous to equate them with the next BR/hero shooter/battler or whatever hit wannabe. Minecraft is also (or can be) way more creative than most games period, so kids being inspired by it doesn't mean all gaas are like it.

Even popular multiplayer games weren't gaas, they were just games that were popular and kept being played so were ripe for updates, like Counter-Strike. Diablo-likes weren't gaas either, you bought it, you bought the expansion(s) and that was it, it wasn't made as gaas, it was just a game folks loved long time. Again, it's very different to make a great game folks keep going back to enabling potential update paths and different to develop a gaas with the intent of the constant revenue stream that tends to go after rather than simply the intent of making a game people love for how good it is so it's popular/bought for ages.

That said, I don't think LoL (probably past its prime now but saying this because that and other dota likes - which also didn't start off like gaas despite now being a very typical style of game made for that purpose, like Counter-Strike they started off as free mods and are not a new thing like Fortnite so this isn't something new in gaming, either) or whatever addicts would somehow play 10s of others games if it wasn't for it, same as Football Manager or Civilization addicts don't. They just found something that scratches their itch without necessarily being into gaming in general or at all outside that, FM isn't (or wasn't) gaas either.

I'm not saying it's healthy either, as playing WoW endlessly back in the 00s or whatever was probably not healthy for me either, as fondly as I remember it. Neither was being a nerdy kid isolated from a social life and spending time playing many different games on my consoles before I got my first PC though.

And no they also don't change so much from launch as a rule, Fortnite itself that you even agree with criticizing because it's gaas different to the ones you defend clearly and obviously also has changed a fuckton since release as Epic just keep throwing eveyrthing at it and see what sticks, I mean, it just became popular when it copied PUBG back in the day, they don't generally change so much from launch (for many it's just added content, whatever that is, balance changes, etc., not some complete gameplay overhaul, I'd say the same for WoW even if Classic is now different enough to exist the core is the same game).

tl;'dr you're all wrong, you can't stretch gaas to non gaas games to suit your argument nor does that make the next cinematic AAA wannabe objectively better.

 

[Blu]

TriggerHeart EXELICA launches April 26 for PC worldwide, May 2 for Switch

Cosmo Machia will release shoot ’em up game TriggerHeart EXELICA for PC via Steam on April 26 worldwide, followed by Switch on May 2, the developer announced.

www.gematsu.com

 

[freshVeggie]

Alright, gave Spelunky 2 another go after retiring from Spelunky after my 400th Hell run. Took me 30 hours to finish the equivalent of a Hell run. Beating Hundun.
Overall, my thoughts haven't changed drastically from my original review after 60 hours. If anything, I noticed the bad parts more intensely this time around. But it's not undoable. Neither the easy ending (Tiamat), nor the hard ending (Hundun). (Disregard Cosmic Ocean).
Hit boxes still very iffy to just bad. Certain gameplay changes are the opposite of fun (any electrical gear exploding, lava fluid physics being annoying time waster etc.). Just read the original review for my complaints.
Anyhow, it irked me that I ended up being so disappointed in the sequel I was genuinely looking forward to. The first Spelunky is my most-played game of all time. So, it's a little soothing that I beat the game like I wanted at least.
As I said 3½ years ago, there's a ton of content, with so much to explore and adapt over the first game, that if it clicks with you, you're likely set for honestly years. For me sadly, I don't look forward to replaying it, which is my honest indicator. That was never the case for Spelunky.
At the end of the day, overall it's a great game objectively and I'm changing my review to positive and recommend it on that front, even if it didn't captivate me as much and deep as the predecessor.

ORIGINAL REVIEW from 2020
By far the biggest case where I wish there was a middling review choice.
Spelunky 2 is far from a bad game and I'm glad it seemingly clicked with so many players.
But whether it's the intensive muscle memory from the first or egregious design decisions, it simply did not click to the extent as Spelunky 1.

The really infuriating part is, there is so much good stuff here it pains me even more that as a whole I had a much worse time with Spelunky 2.
New biomes, diverging paths, new items, so many secrets, mounts! This is truly a sequel and not just more of the same.

But for all good parts, there are steps back that destroy the so-lauded perfect design of Spelunky 1.
Tech items are now a chore thanks to them igniting easily and resulting in instant end runs.
Hitboxes have been drastically tightened up to the point where it just gets more cheap than challenging.
Longer and more complicated runs don't gel well with the foundation of the core.

Look at the user score and critic reviews though. The vast majority seemingly is perfectly fine with Derek Yu's vision for the game. I don't get the itch to try and try over again, each day as the first did. In the end, that's the only real metric that counts for me personally. That's why I'm shelving Spelunky 2 for now in hopes that throughout the months and years either patches make the game enjoyable for me, or I just change enough.

 

[lashman]

 

[Derrick01]

And with that sentence, I can absolutely dismiss any criticism from you on this subject.

I don't want to come of combative here to you at all, but you are showing that you have no experience with games that are not AAA Media darlings.

No one is/was inspired by Minecraft, Terraria, Factorio, Stardew Valley? They have no worth???
WTF!
I can understand if I just listed Fortnite, Destiny, Valorant, CS2, etc. but I included GaaS from a wide range of gameplay, MAU, definition of GaaS, and sales. That you see any GaaS as just "Fortnite" speaks volumes here.
Either you are trolling or you have no experience with gaming below AAA single-player Media darlings.

You can't accuse me of trolling when you're simultaneously sitting on the typical indie elitist chair looking down on things like the last of us which was consensus goty in the industry (both games were actually) and inspired not only other game makers but hollywood directors and writers too. Like I get it it's cool to hate the big bad AAA games but saying stuff like factorio is bigger or more relevant is completely absurd.

 

[Durante]

TriggerHeart EXELICA launches April 26 for PC worldwide, May 2 for Switch

Cosmo Machia will release shoot ’em up game TriggerHeart EXELICA for PC via Steam on April 26 worldwide, followed by Switch on May 2, the developer announced.

www.gematsu.com

Nice! This is a game I actually own on Xbox 360 of all things, and which I always felt has no business not being on PC.

 

[spindoctor]

those games you look down on win awards and inspire countless other creators including ones outside of gaming. Well, some do at least. No one is inspired by the games you listed except greedy execs who think they can steal that success away for one of their own games. They have no worth outside of how much money they can vacuum up from clueless kids. Kids who spend their entire lives never growing because they only experience 1 thing for eternity.

Sony AAA output is not the pinnacle of gaming. They are not even in the conversation and will never, ever be. It's fascinating that your appeal to authority is that they win awards and get high review scores from game reviewers bloggers. A single Dwarf Fortress or Rimworld or Minecraft has more creativity, passion, depth and complexity than the entirety of Sony's output for the last 2 generations. Sony could spend a billion dollars making a game with their formula and it would still not be as good because it cannot as be good.

If the choice was between those "inspired no one" GAAS games going away and the "inspirational" Sony first party games that have 0.000000000000% creativity then anyone with a functioning brain would let the Sony games go in a heartbeat.

The craziest thing to me is how people spent so much time playing just 1 or 2 games for so many years.

I kinda understand MMORPGs as I've been there. But this new age of COD, FIFA, BattleRoyale, Roblox, MOBAs etc. These games just don't have any more than 100-150hrs of content in them. At least imo they don't.

I've played most of the popular stuff over the years like CSGO, TF2, Warframe, Warzone. Even a little Fortnite. Eventually I just had enough and quit because all of these games get stupid repetitive.

I just don't see how people keep going and going. Like how do you not move on to other games? After you win your BR and get your chicken dinner several times...why do you keep playing?

Its depressing how much these new age young gamers miss out on by falling down these rabbit holes.

Are you similarly confused by people who play football or chess or even darts? What has compelled people to kick around a ball or throw pointy things at a board for centuries? Let me tell you. It's because

a) every time you experience the game it's different and
b) it's actually fun to experience it every time.

Every single game of Dota or Call of Duty plays out differently because there are thousands of variables built into the game design to make it so. And that's not even counting the fact that you will be facing new human opponents in every match who will process and react to circumstances differently. Does anyone remember PUBG? Came out about 8 years ago, made a big splash for a while and then eventually people stopped talking about it because it was superseded by bigger and more polished and more marketed alternatives? Did you know that PUBG is still one of the most played and highest grossing games on Steam? How is that possible for a forgotten game? It's because the combat in that game is unmatched to this day. Every single combat encounter in that game is exhilarating and pumps your adrenaline. The moment to moment gameplay is so fun that people keep going back to it. Pure gameplay carries these games and if you love the gameplay, they will never stop being fun.

I would submit that a game that can get people to voluntarily spend 500 hours of their time playing it because they love the act of playing it is a better designed game than the AAAAA Ubisoft or Sony open world that has 100 hours of """content""" where you're on your knees begging for the experience to be over at the 60 hour mark.

 

[STHX]

The craziest thing to me is how people spent so much time playing just 1 or 2 games for so many years.

I think there are 2 possible answers
The first is how young people use these games as "platforms" to meet with their friends. They play them so they can be part of their "community". The problem is the community warps the way these games are played. Everyone knows one of the easiest way to "trap" a player in a single gaas is the FOMO, Fear Of Missing Out. But with communities FOMO can take an even worse meaning, because it turns into "Fear Of Being Left Behind". When you're part of a community made of every one of your schoolmates being the only one who "hasn't finished the latest battlepass yet", or being the one who "plays bad and causes others to lose" can have severe repercussions on a young individual. If you think that you must keep playing Fortnite otherwise you will be abandoned by your "friends" it's hard to find time to play something else. Yes of course a solution would be "find better friends" but that's something easier said than done, and I say this as the number one antisocial in my high school
The second one is a bit more speculative, but I also feel like some of these guys who only play a single game every day and every week may simply not know better. There is a guy I know who I introduced to PSO2 when the original JP closed beta started (I liked PSO1, I found instructions on how to register in the jp side, was accepted and gave him one of the extra keys all partecipants had). I played the game but let's just say I liked it but it didn't scratch that PSO hitch I wanted. The problem is that my friend was the opposite: PSO2 became a religion for him. Over the years he accumulated more than 10.000 hourse (he actually showed me the in-game stat!) before the western release was even conceptualized. He kept posting every bit of update or news (I did occasionally ply on the JP server too but I dropped off after EP3, yet thanks to him I knew every single EP4 to 6 story beat and every collab the game had over the years). Even after New Genesis came out, and if you played it you know what I mean, he still played that and that alone, collecting every red box, playing every emergency and so one. It didn't matter how many other games I tried to get him to play (including gifting them some too!) he never did, or only did for a bit. Well enough life stories the point I want to make is if someone plays the right game during a specific part of his life that game could end up having a much bigger impact, making that game feel like part of your normal life. The same is true for the opposite too: if you play a bad game in an important moment of your life then you risk swaering off a certain series, if not certain genres, forever. Maybe Fortnite or Roblox was a game like that, making it hard for players to abandon them

I, for one, am thankful I hate other people and interacting with them (aka multiplayer games in general), so I grew up being capable of playing games from multiple genres and from multiple countries (and of varying quality) without prior prejudices. But not everyone is like me

 

[kio]

I really think we need to define what GaaS is because some of the examples being thrown around aren't GaaS at all, at least for me.

The core part is the S in GaaS and why everyone is chasing them, the service. You're continuously paying for that service either by paying a subscription or by engaging with the in-game marketplace, because the main point of the "game" is to incentivize players, by increasingly shady tactics, to spend nonstop, continuously engaging with the built-in economy while being drip-fed gameplay content on a more or less regular basis. If there's no marketplace, battle pass, skinner box types of rewards, etc, if there's no way to continuously monetize the service then it can't be GaaS.

Having said that, and at the risk of being completely wrong as I haven't played a lot of the games mentioned, I don't think you can call Minecraft, Terraria or Stardew Valley and others like them GaaS. Sure, they have been supported throughout the years but, afaik, all of their new content has been free, there's no monetization apart from the initial purchase.

PS: You can make an argument for Paradox games being considered GaaS because of their monetization style of releasing a base game and then monetizing 500 DLC packs but it's a borderline case that lives in the grey area between GaaS and non-GaaS.

 

[spindoctor]

Okay so when Sony sells the award winning The Last of Us over and over three different times over the course of 10 years does that make it a GAAS game?

 

[yuraya]

Are you similarly confused by people who play football or chess or even darts? What has compelled people to kick around a ball or throw pointy things at a board for centuries? Let me tell you. It's because

a) every time you experience the game it's different and
b) it's actually fun to experience it every time.

Every single game of Dota or Call of Duty plays out differently because there are thousands of variables built into the game design to make it so. And that's not even counting the fact that you will be facing new human opponents in every match who will process and react to circumstances differently. Does anyone remember PUBG? Came out about 8 years ago, made a big splash for a while and then eventually people stopped talking about it because it was superseded by bigger and more polished and more marketed alternatives? Did you know that PUBG is still one of the most played and highest grossing games on Steam? How is that possible for a forgotten game? It's because the combat in that game is unmatched to this day. Every single combat encounter in that game is exhilarating and pumps your adrenaline. The moment to moment gameplay is so fun that people keep going back to it. Pure gameplay carries these games and if you love the gameplay, they will never stop being fun.

I would submit that a game that can get people to voluntarily spend 500 hours of their time playing it because they love the act of playing it is a better designed game than the AAAAA Ubisoft or Sony open world that has 100 hours of """content""" where you're on your knees begging for the experience to be over at the 60 hour mark.

I'm not looking down on anyone. I'm just saying I don't see 500hrs of content in any of these modern day GaaS games. And it doesn't matter how many times you update these titles because the gameplay loop is still the same.

Is Counter Strike really a different game today than 20 years ago? You are still just running around shooting people and arming/disarming bombs. Gambling mechanics with dumb skins and pretty looking smoke grenade is all it is in terms of differences. Putting lipstick on a pig doesn't change the game much imo.

Its the same with Warzone. Doesn't matter how many times they update the game you are still running through these copy and pasted fields + houses while opening up worthless weapon crates. And you camp in some corner of the room to flank other players.

I played my share of Call of Duty in the early years via PS3, 360 and PC. Same with the early Battlefield games with friends and everything. I never went more than 50-100hrs on any games and I sure as shit never did it in back to back years. It was too exhausting and repetitive. The games never had staying power back then and I see even less nowadays with how creatively bankrupt the game design is. Its gotten so bad they have to put celebrities and musician skins into the game to make them seem different from year to year. Its lame asf.

I mean Fortnite had to revert the game back to 1.0 because any little change caused drop in playerbase.

Its all too repetitive and I don't see more than 100-150hrs of content in these games. And that is with some type of Battle passes or progression system. Without that I would go even farther and halve the replay value.

I spent 70hrs playing the first season of Halo infinite and I was over the game by the time I leveled up that battle pass. Without it I would have quit the game at like 30hr mark most likely. I played what I wanted and moved on. Never had the urge to play the same one game for the rest of time.

I don't how people do it and do it again the following year with new titles/updates. Its ridiculous and not healthy imo. But wtvr its their time they can do what they want with it. I'm just saying they are missing out when they don't add some variety into their playing time. The young gamers are all clueless and out of touch anyways. They will grow out of it and move on to enjoying other things about the industry as they get older. Hopefully by the time they do the industry doesn't fully crater and disappear because things can go to shit really fast.

 

[Derrick01]

Playing deathmatch over and over for 600 hours doesn't make it a more complex game. It's the opposite, it's so simple and watered down to a repetitive basic element that tugs at people's addiction centers in their brain.

It's mostly why I stopped playing MP games 10 years ago. I had to ask my friends what are we doing just playing the same junk every other night and then switching games to do the same exact thing in a different shooter. Apparently I was the only one in the group who had this epiphany but I couldn't put up with that mind numbing tedium anymore. There's just no value in any of these games besides wasting your time (and money nowadays, mtx weren't really in them back then)

 

[fantomena]

Dwarf Fortress made my 2 brothers (who are btw 2 amazing human beings, so that's a plus) which has been updated for free for 10+ years are one of the most influential games of all time

 

[Kyougar]

I really think we need to define what GaaS is because some of the examples being thrown around aren't GaaS at all, at least for me.

The core part is the S in GaaS and why everyone is chasing them, the service. You're continuously paying for that service either by paying a subscription or by engaging with the in-game marketplace, because the main point of the "game" is to incentivize players, by increasingly shady tactics, to spend nonstop, continuously engaging with the built-in economy while being drip-fed gameplay content on a more or less regular basis. If there's no marketplace, battle pass, skinner box types of rewards, etc, if there's no way to continuously monetize the service then it can't be GaaS.

Having said that, and at the risk of being completely wrong as I haven't played a lot of the games mentioned, I don't think you can call Minecraft, Terraria or Stardew Valley and others like them GaaS. Sure, they have been supported throughout the years but, afaik, all of their new content has been free, there's no monetization apart from the initial purchase.

PS: You can make an argument for Paradox games being considered GaaS because of their monetization style of releasing a base game and then monetizing 500 DLC packs but it's a borderline case that lives in the grey area between GaaS and non-GaaS.

The Argument today is about the reporting that 60% of gamers play games that are 6 years or older

https://kotaku.com/old-games-2023-playtime-data-fortnite-roblox-minecraft-1851382474?

GaaS is just a catch-all for games that are being played for years (in this argument).
And games that are played for years without monetization like Minecraft, Terraria, Factorio, Stardew Valley, etc. are absolutely falling into this argument. It would be stupid to exclude them when talking about games that are played for years.


Other than that, I DO believe that the "Service" in GaaS includes games that have no active monetization. Just because developers are not fleecing us for every patch, doesn't mean that they are not doing a "service" to fans of their games. They are actively changing the games with patches and sometimes even expansions for years.

The craziest thing to me is how people spent so much time playing just 1 or 2 games for so many years.

I kinda understand MMORPGs as I've been there. But this new age of COD, FIFA, BattleRoyale, Roblox, MOBAs etc. These games just don't have any more than 100-150hrs of content in them. At least imo they don't.

I've played most of the popular stuff over the years like CSGO, TF2, Warframe, Warzone. Even a little Fortnite. Eventually I just had enough and quit because all of these games get stupid repetitive.

I think the most time I ever spent on a game out of all these in the past decade was Hearthstone. And Hearthstone was extremely predatory. But even with Hearthstone once you reached ranked here n there and played a few weeks...there is not much there anymore.

For me, the hunt for the next "fix" of meaningful entertainment is a crazy attitude all the same. Constantly on the lookout for the next 10-20 hour "experience", buying hundreds of games a year, etc.
How is that different than playing 5-10 games for hundreds of hours?
Just preference.

I just don't see how people keep going and going. Like how do you not move on to other games? After you win your BR and get your chicken dinner several times...why do you keep playing?

when I play Europa Universalis / Victoria / Hearts of Iron /Crusader Kings - I have hundreds of different countries that play different based on strength, location, size, ideology etc. There are also hundreds and thousands of different achievements you can try to master which are ranging from easy to insane.
when I play Minecraft (GTNH) - I have basically a whole technological and industrial puzzle that I have to master, which is a millionth times different than vanilla Minecraft
when I play Rimworld - basically every new game plays differently with the landscape, neighbours and colonists
when I play Factorio (Pyanadon) - it is also a puzzle to solve on how to finish the game
when I play Civilization - every new game is different
when I play Battletech (Roguetech) - there are thousands of mechs and I can only field a dozen, nearly every new game is different based on what enemies and mechs you find
when I play Path of Exile - every new season change the game drastically

When I want to play something, I don't frantically search for a new game. I play an old game.

 

[thekeats1999]

The money argument doesn't make any sense because these kids are somehow dumping untold billions of dollars a year into these games. They have money or the ability to get money from their parents, they just dump them into the same f2p crap they spend their entire lives in.

Here is the thing, we know whales exist. We know that is what a lot of these games target. So a kid spending $10 - $20 every couple of months on a battle pass is still less than spending $70 every couple of months (or rather their parents).

As for prestige and stories. FFXIV (a bit of a meme now I know) has awards against it. And I would argue they have the best stories out of most if not all of the FF games in the form of Heavensward, Shadowbringers and Endwalker. Plus I can dress up as a Bunny Version of 2B, but that maybe just me wanting to do that... Or how about The Old Republic, a game that is now considered to have effectively KOTOR 3, 4 & 5 in there.

People also seem to forget that Minecraft has plenty of micro-transactions in there. They also sell/rent their own servers I think it's just a lot of PC players stick to the JAVA versions (is this still a thing) for the mods.

Then there are the Forever Games (which is something else that this article targets as I understand it). People also don't seem to realise (or maybe don't care) that when a company releases a free update like Terraria, Stardew Valley, No Mans Sky or the likes of Valheim, V Rising that these will bring sales in.

The problem with the discussion we are having is that we run the risk of Gatekeeping our hobby that we are telling people they are doing the hobby wrong. Hell I think there will be a handful of people who would frown on my current gaming lineup of FFXIV (getting close to 3,000 hours), Stardew Valley (30 hours on my latest playthrough but probably over a 1,000 hours between PC and tablet) and Helldivers 2 (a measly 50 hours but don't see me dropping it any time soon). So 2 live service/Games as a Service and 1 forever game.

But what do I know or care. I enjoy my gaming time whether people think I am doing it right or wrong.

 

[ezodagrom]

SaGa Emerald Beyond is releasing later this month and it's getting a demo tomorrow:

 

[PC-tan]

Video games were a mistake.


Let me go back to Atari HQ and stop it all from taking off.

By the way back in the 80s you had the movie Big with Tom Hanks. It's funny to think that they were just talking about video games back then without really knowing about it. Since video games were a lot simpler back then. I think another world was among one of the earlier games that was a little more story focused? That had visual graphics and QTE?

A book? Little did they know.

 

[yuraya]

Look at the user score and critic reviews though. The vast majority seemingly is perfectly fine with Derek Yu's vision for the game. I don't get the itch to try and try over again, each day as the first did. In the end, that's the only real metric that counts for me personally. That's why I'm shelving Spelunky 2 for now in hopes that throughout the months and years either patches make the game enjoyable for me, or I just change enough.

I loved both but have to give a small edge to the 2nd game. And I put less hrs into it than the first too (170 vs 250).

But the 2nd was brutally difficult and frustrating. And that is kind of what I wanted.

Both games are amazing and its really splitting hairs for me in terms of ranking them. Its like a 9.6 vs 9.8 on a review scale.

A good comparison would be something like Dark Souls vs Dark Souls 2. The first is the better game but the 2nd hits that sweetspot that most games never can.

I should give Spelunky 2 a replay. I installed it when I got my Deck but never got around to it. I would probably even out the hrs with the first if I did heh.

Also I wonder if we ever get Spelunky 3. It would be incredible to see it.

 

[Cacher]

Am I seeing things? Midori (a prominent SEGA and ATLUS leaker) said a Sakura Wars project is in development.

......
...
.
give it to me now
Give it to me now!
GIVE IT TO ME, RIGHT NOW!!!

 

[MegaApple]

Anyone remember the last time you played a Strategy game?

Weird question, but my last RTS play was messing around with AoE2 Definitive in... Sept 2023. And I cant remember the last time I played substantial amount of campaign mode.

 

[Li Kao]

Lol, fucking leakers, it's an illness at this point. A couple of days after quitting, they leak again. The ego trip must be something (I have no issue with leaks, just with weak willed leakers).

---

Is out !

 

[Mor]

Am I seeing things? Midori (a prominent SEGA and ATLUS leaker) said a Sakura Wars project is in development.

......
...
.
give it to me now
Give it to me now!
GIVE IT TO ME, RIGHT NOW!!!

as long as it's not an Apple Arcade title....

 

[Blu]

Shikhondo(食魂徒) - Soul Eater - Shikhondo(食魂徒) - Soul Eater to be unlisted - Steam News

Shikhondo(食魂徒) - Soul Eater is coming with a whole new look, crafted together with publisher CFK.

store.steampowered.com

Shikhonda to be delisted April 18th.

New version to replace old version with new additions.