Community MetaSteam | August 2019 - The Darqest Place Can Shine With A Mecha-President

[bobnowhere]

So, games are given away for free, constantly bundled, day one on gamepasses that are given away for peanuts or free, launch pricing is ambitious at times (see ther Telling Lies price difference, maybe PC gaming can't bear the launch price?) and most importantly there is glut of fantastic games launching. No wonder individual sales are down. Ain't competition a wonderful thing.

 

[prudis]

oh mekabolt is out

 

[Ruvon]

If it is just 3-4 hours, I will youtube it. I am playing games because of the gameplay, repeated gameplay. I have hundreds of hours into Paradox 4x games, X3, Sengoku Rance (someone make a fucking SFW clone of that game! The gameplay could be 1:1 just add enough modes and stories into it.) Civilization games, XCOM, Rimworld, Stardew, Factorio, and of course thousands of hours into Minecraft.

I mostly play the same games you quote, but sometimes I play some "smaller" games too ; I understand your point, but even though I don't calculate strictly the ratio price / time, I accept without blinking a 2-3 hours long game for 3-4 bucks. And there's some on the market. Good ones, even.

But same game for 15 ? Forget it, or it has to be VERY good before I even consider.

I often play point&click games on Itch.io, some are 1 hour long, but some of them are very good experiences I don't regret playing, that sometimes led me to more ambitious games by the same team that I'll buy.

(last example : Chook & Sosig: Walk the Plank by Armor Games Studios)

I'd say it's all about the fun you get playing, not the lenght or the price. And it's different for everyone.

So, games are given away for free, constantly bundled, day one on gamepasses that are given away for peanuts or free, launch pricing is ambitious at times (see ther Telling Lies price difference, maybe PC gaming can't bear the launch price?) and most importantly there is glut of fantastic games launching. No wonder individual sales are down. Ain't competition a wonderful thing.

Competition should eventually lead to the sad but unavoidable death of many indies. And that's a thing we know for a long time : there's no room for everyone.

As said in this article : 33 Reasons Why Indie Games Fail

According to GameAnalytics, 95% of indie games are not profitable, and 80% of indie games operate at a loss. That’s pretty simple math. Your indie game has a 5% chance of being profitable.

And this article is 2 or 3 years old.

I don't know if the flooding of new games will slow down, it should because it's not sustainable, but it's the case for years now and it's still growing, so it contradicts the math and I don't know what to expect.

 

[fantomena]

Decided to start up LiS 2 today.

Just finished episode 1. Damn those onion cutting ninjas. So sad for those dudes.

episode 1 spoiler

also, Brody or whatever the name of the guy they drove with, is the best

 

[TioChuck]

oh mekabolt is out

 

[beep boop]

Got an invite for MCC. So happy! I know what I'll be doing tomorrow

Let me know if you've got anything you'd like to know and I'll get back to you. AFAIK you can openly talk about the beta and even stream it.

 

[Eferis]

cut

Look at all those games. Only in this list I can find at least 4 games I really want to play and I'll be getting at launch (Blasphemous, Minoria, Creature in the Well and Greedfall) plus Gears 5 through Gamepass. That's what I can afford in terms of money and more than I can afford in terms of time. It doesn't leave much space for other games, even if I'm positive other interesting games will be out during the month.

And then they wonder why so many games sell so poorly.

 

[lashman]

Decided to start up LiS 2 today.

Just finished episode 1. Damn those onion cutting ninjas. So sad for those dudes.

episode 1 spoiler

also, Brody or whatever the name of the guy they drove with, is the best

it's sooooo fucking good ... i love that game so fucking much!!!

Got an invite for MCC. So happy!

reported, warned, ignored, blocked, banned!!! fuck you, i hate you so much!!!

j/k, lol .... sooooo fucking jelly, though

 

[NarohDethan]

Steam :: DARQ :: Thank You For Your Support & Surprise Announcement

Thank you! The amount of support DARQ has received from the community has been incredible. I didn't expect my blog post (Why I turned down exclusivity deal from the Epic Store) to result in so much good will and support. Please know that I don't take any of it for granted and I'm truly grateful...

steamcommunity.com

DARQ is getting free DLC in the future due to the surprise success of the game. Where you at journalists?

Writing an article titled ‘is free DLC bad for the industry?’

 

[Dandy]

I'm the opposite, I don't really want to spend hundreds of hours in the same game. I like complete narrative experiences, whether they're a short 2 hour RPGMaker game or an 80 hour RPG epic (though those need to damn well justify that length), I just need games to have an "end"

I feel the same way! I can spend 83 hours in Divinity Original Sin 2, or 3 hours in Draugen and I'm happy either way! But for whatever reason, I've lost all interest in games that you play forever.

 

[PC-tan]

Err, I played Life is Strange !
...
The first episode...

Same and yet I currently have all of the Life is Strange games in my Steam library. I think I only got as far as episode 3 of LiS, what I find funny is how SE had a bundle where you could get episode 1 for $1 USD on Humble bundle and later on would just make that episode free anyway

Writing an article titled ‘is free DLC bad for the industry?’

I mean it must, if we give gamers something positive for a change they will demand more of it, and we all know just how entitled gamers can be

 

[Knurek]

I feel the same way! I can spend 83 hours in Divinity Original Sin 2, or 3 hours in Draugen and I'm happy either way! But for whatever reason, I've lost all interest in games that you play forever.

I know that the game will end at one point, but those 80 hours are just for the easiest 15% of the songs, each played only once.
At this point it's as big of a timesink as DOTA or Football Manager or Paradox games are.

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Or rather

 

[BernardoOne]

But isn't it weird that

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the game seems to imply that travelling in time and messing with the timeline is wrong (which leads to the storm) so the solution to everything is to.... Time travel to prevent everything from happening by letting Chloe die.
So... Time travel bad, except when time travel good?

That's why Bae>Bay

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bay ending makes no sense whatsoever with the defined rules of the universe. Max already went to a time where the event that gave her the powers never happened. Yet, she still had them and the storm was still coming. You can't save the Bay.

 

[Wildebeet]

Compare Steam today to Steam in 2014...and I can probably make an argument that every indie game releasing nowadays is 5-10$ more expensive than it should be.

Basically...is your indie game bigger or better than Hollow Knight? If not then you shouldn't be pricing it higher than 15$

This has been an interesting subject to me as far as what games are really worth. We think that there are pricing tiers, like AAA $60, mid-tier $30, indie $10-20. But I'm interested in what people would think their super favorites are really worth. Like when I think of Hollow Knight, in retrospect I'd pay $100 for that game (I kickstarted for $15). Or at the AAA (I hate that AAA term btw) tier, like GTA5, I feel like it's worth more than $60 (paid $30 on sale). Factorio pledges to never go on sale, and TBH I don't even know what it sells for now, but I can be sure if it's under $100 it's worth it (I think I paid $15 for alpha access forever ago).

Everybody has a ton of games like that, but they do pretty quickly run into the reality that I can't buy games at $100 apiece for long. I'd be back in the NES days where I got a couple games per year.

But then I still wonder, what do people think games are worth up front so that you'll actually go for it and try the game, and then in hindsight years later, what are they worth to you if you had to either part with the game or the money?

 

[YourFriendMaynard]

What was that BDSM tweet it had a picture of a demon fighting space marines?


So the google search for this tweet was expectedly fascinating and I never want to do that again jesus

 

[Tizoc]

Steam Community :: Error

steamcommunity.com

My 50+ screenshots from my enslaved playthru.

 

[beep boop]

This has been an interesting subject to me as far as what games are really worth. We think that there are pricing tiers, like AAA $60, mid-tier $30, indie $10-20. But I'm interested in what people would think their super favorites are really worth. Like when I think of Hollow Knight, in retrospect I'd pay $100 for that game (I kickstarted for $15). Or at the AAA (I hate that AAA term btw) tier, like GTA5, I feel like it's worth more than $60 (paid $30 on sale). Factorio pledges to never go on sale, and TBH I don't even know what it sells for now, but I can be sure if it's under $100 it's worth it (I think I paid $15 for alpha access forever ago).

Everybody has a ton of games like that, but they do pretty quickly run into the reality that I can't buy games at $100 apiece for long. I'd be back in the NES days where I got a couple games per year.

But then I still wonder, what do people think games are worth up front so that you'll actually go for it and try the game, and then in hindsight years later, what are they worth to you if you had to either part with the game or the money?

I think €10-20 is a solid price for a smaller game. I feel like Hollow Knight and Stardew Valkey really underpriced themselves though, but that may well have been part of the strategy. €30 is also absolutely fine depending on the context, especially if it's larger in scope. I think I paid that for the Witness at launch. For me to drop €40, I probably have some kind of affinity with the genre or series, but anything higher than that I'll probably wait for a discount. I need to have had hands-on time with the game to understand if I'd be willing to pay that much. For example, as much as I love Zelda, I was skeptical about paying €45 for A Link Between Worlds. Then I tried a store demo and I walked out with the game. Unfortunately, demos are rare nowadays. I definitely don't see myself ever paying as much as €100 for a game. I'll wait for a sale. The most I've paid for a game over the last five or so years was €65 for Breath of the Wild, a series I have a really strong affinity for. There's no other series I would do that with. Even with the new Link's Awakening, I'll be waiting for its price to drop, because I already played that (on GB). It's good, but not €50 good in my eyes. But maybe I could be swayed by a demo. Who knows.

Whether or not I'm happy with the price after playing a game primarily depends on if I liked it. I've played long games to completion and would have rather not in retrospect. I paid €20 for GTA5 (good value!) but regretted it, because as soon as I started playing it I remembered that I don't like the gameplay of this series. But I've felt pretty good about the €15 or so I paid for a short three-hour game like Abzu. I think I could've stretched to €20 but not much more for that game. Generally, I don't really regret or appreciate the price I paid for a game but the time I spent on it or that I purchased it at all.

Over time, I also grew to prefer short games. It's a big plus in my book when a game is respectful of my time and doesn't stretch itself thin to fill some sort of perceived minimum length. When games are long for no good reason and make you do busywork instead of being open about their narrow scope (of ideas), I check out almost instantly. That is the worst. Doesn't matter if I got it for a real good price or not.

 

[Dragon1893]

I didn't know that a remastered TWD collection is on the way. I only played up until the end of season 2.
Might start over to play the whole thing.

 

[Wok]

I believe that Hollow Knight's 15€ pricing is spot on: 15€ is the price which people are willing to pay on day one for a game which they did not know prior to the release, and about which they read good reviews, and then the game snowballs because it benefits from word-of-mouth. When you think about it, even at that 15€ price, it took a really long time for many people to accept to pay for it, because we all have large backlogs, or expect to see the game eventually appear in a Humble Monthly bundle.

In hindsight, I would have found it fair to sell the game for 20€-25€, but then people may wait for a deep sale, and the game misses its release timing. With Silksong, the price could be set to 20€-25€, because it is a sequel of an acclaimed game.

 

[Le Pertti]

I agree with Wok , the price for Hollow Knight was just right, I bought it at full price instead of waiting for a sale. Sure playing it and realising how damn good it was the price felt too low BUT I wouldn't have bought it if it was more expensive.

 

[Panda Pedinte]

I believe that Hollow Knight's 15€ pricing is spot on: 15€ is the price which people are willing to pay on day one for a game which they did not know prior to the release, and about which they read good reviews, and then the game snowballs because it benefits from word-of-mouth. When you think about it, even at that 15€ price, it took a really long time for many people to accept to pay for it, because we all have large backlogs, or expect to see the game eventually appear in a Humble Monthly bundle.

In hindsight, I would have found it fair to sell the game for 20€-25€, but then people may wait for a deep sale, and the game misses its release timing. With Silksong, the price could be set to 20€-25€, because it is a sequel of an acclaimed game.

At least for me price is an important factor when deciding to buy a game or not. Like what happened with HK, I did not know about it but I started reading positive word of mouth about the game I saw the price and bought it on impulse.

Having a reasonable price was part of the reason I bought it, now with more and more games setting crap regional prices I have to think a lot about buying it because if you price your game +R$100 for my country it's better be an amazing game or I'll find it hard to justify buying a game around that price.

 

[Line]

I played a bunch of Shantae: half genie hero.
And it's trash, like all the others that are not Shantae and the the Pirate's Curse.

They try to jam Metroidvania elements in Megaman, and it doesn't work.
The levels are disconnected (quite literally, you TP to them), uninteresting, way too long... and you are always, always at the mercy of the level's gimmick: wait for the conveyor belt, wait for the wind, etc, it's wait, wait WAIT. You need the gimmick to open the way, or to stop for you to go forward.
And don't you dare die (or fall in a pit, you know, not something likely in long platforming segments with instadeath) or you restart from the beginning of the section which can be massive.
But don't forget, Metroidvania! So come back in those awful levels later on, and spam the warp dance until you're where you need to be! Maybe. Do you remember? Because fuck you, maps are overrated in a corridor. Just run back the entire level.

But hey, new items! Which only mean you start weak as shit, the first boss kills you in seconds, and when you respawn... you have half a heart and no magic! Fun.
Of course after that, spend your money, find items, and if you ever reach 100%... you can't be hurt anymore by anything.
Good balance there, really.

I just don't understand how they managed to only make one good Shantae game, and all the others are complete failures of game design, and in completely different ways!
Risky's Revenge was also terrible, but this one was made from one gigantic interconnected world. Gigantic being the word, as the backtracking was out of control. It only made the massive sections even worse, with just as many respawing ennemies to grind you down rather than challenging encounters.

Talk about a waste of a cool world and characters. They work much better with a more focused game... like the good one, that is a Metroidvania, with actual interactions between the characters, rather than just 5sec in a cut scenes every level.
Not hyped for Shantae 5, weirdly enough.

 

[derExperte]

My next week:

+ Two Point Hospital DLC

Mostly looking forward to Man of Medan and Astral Chain (Switch) though. Maybe even Control, depends on how, uh, things, uh, work out.

Also got this bad boy on its way but I don't expect whippersnappingmillenials to know anything about REAL movies without purple CGI dudes.

 

[Ruvon]

Sad letter from Kickstarted game Strenght of the Sword ULTIMATE. Looks like dev didn't go well....

Don't know if the game is actually good.

I've been trying to write this for 4 hours now... there is nothing funny or exciting or good about what I am about to say...

Here it goes...

...

Ok. We're not going to be able to do half the platforms we set out to do. It's just going to be PC(win)/PS4/XB1

So...we've failed at Vita, WiiU, Mac and Linux...I am sorry. I will issue refunds to those of you who have no interest in any of the existing platforms as soon as we get any revenue from the releases.

Here's what happened: Back in the long long ago, when we were making the campaign, we knew we couldn't possibly hit a 100k, so we had a little "joke" stretch-goal for it.


But then we got all swept up in the amazing support we were receiving...we let our stupidity get the better of us again(a flaw in our team we were WELL AWARE OF ...ffs...it's even in the Kickstarter video opening..."More passion than common sense") ...and completely disregarding the fact that:

-WE ARE TWO PEOPLE(workload challenge)...

-WORKING WITH A HOME BREW ENGINE(technical challenge)...

-ADDING MULTIPLAYER(both a game design challenge AND a technical challenge) COMBINED WITH CUSTOMIZATION (a game balancing challenge and a significant AI upgrade)

I started adding stuff, Georgi started promising more platforms...we completely derailed our plan.

-MULTI-PLATFORM DEVELOPMENT (exacerbating workload problems)

-ADDING HOUSES (more workload)

-ADDING SKINS (asset creation not a problem...but integrating entitlements on all platforms and stuff...workload increase)

-ADDING EVEN MORE GEAR then the stretch-goal originally planned (workload, game design, balance, AI)

-MOST OF ALL...TESTING and DEBUGGING...that sh*t takes over 50% of development time when you're making a game...but when you're testing more and more stuff, on several platforms simultaneously....it has become more like 90%

And the absolute worst part is- we were, HONESTLY, giddy with excitement and feeling invincible at that moment.

We started falling so far behind...running out of funds...lost our publisher due to the delays...personal and health issues started...stress mounted up to unbelievable levels...team relationships started deteriorating...depression mounted up...misery all around.

But we pushed on. Thinking "we finish this, or we die"...but that "finishline" kept moving further and further...and problems never seemed to end....to be honest...this project pretty much broke us as a team.

And here is where we are now. Me and Georgi will most probably NOT be working together in the future. He has a wife and kids...and they've been through a lot...because of us...because of our stupidity, arrogance and sheer stubbornness.

So, we're releasing the game on these 3 platforms. And Georgi will be moving on to a stable, less stressful job.

Me...I will do the Dark God's DLC if the game forms at least a small following...and then I hope to move onto a new project...probably a 2d oldschool beat em' up, or shoot em' up...on Unity or Unreal4...or I'll take a break and teach animation and art again for a year...or I don't know...life is a mess right now...

We are both really sorry for the way this all turned out. We will do our best to make things right before this is all over.

Please forgive us. This was not the plan.

-----Lyubo

 

[Deleted member 113]

My next week:

Totally shameless reminder, for those who are buying Knights and Bikes (who costs $19.99), that I have a copy for sale in our Buy/Sale/Trade section, that costs a little more, but grants you immediate access to the game, and 2 kickstarter exclusive DLCs.

Also got this bad boy on its way but I don't expect whippersnappingmillenials to know anything about REAL movies without purple CGI dudes.

Awesome buy!
It's the only Indicator boxset I currently don't own, but I'll be buying it soon.

Speaking of Indicator (whose releases are quality stuff; IMO, they are the best label around, in terms of the quality of their releases), I'm sure you are aware, but they have their only sale this year going until tomorrow night at their website: Lime Wood Media Ltd

I ended up spending far more money than I wanted, but I had some blanks to fill.

I bought:

 

[derExperte]

Speaking of Indicator (whose releases are quality stuff; IMO, they are the best label around, in terms of the quality of their releases), I'm sure you are aware, but they have their only sale this year going until tomorrow night at their website: Lime Wood Media Ltd

Gee thanks, I could've lived a happy life not knowing about that one. Just yesterday ordered an unhealthy amount of Arrow BDs thanks to Zavvi having a 2for1 sale. Oh well, free shipping when over 200GBP? Challenge accepted.

 

[Li Kao]

Damn. Are there streaming sites for classic movies ? I seem to remember something like that some years ago.
I have been priced out of buying physical for several years now unfortunately.

 

[Cordelia]

Solid State Drive Drive, invented by Sony.

 

[Deleted member 113]

Oh well, free shipping when over 200GBP? Challenge accepted.

Yeah, I took that challenge myself, and... won.
It used to be 100GBP, but sadly, it appears they had a big number of lost packages for bigger orders, so they had to start using registered mail for bigger packages.
On the plus side, if you haven't used them before, they send their items packed awesomely well (big box, bubblewrap, ...).
Never had a single damaged item.

Damn. Are there streaming sites for classic movies ? I seem to remember something like that some years ago.

Depends on the country. But in most countries, no.
It's one of the reasons why I have, and continue to purchase physical items. Besides better image quality, and knowing I can watch the movies when I want (streaming platforms keep removing titles without warning), sadly most digital platforms only cover the usual stuff (super-hero movies and big franchises from the last 10 years, and apparently, outside of the 2000's, not much before that exists, and good luck wanting to watch a 50's/60's film).

 

[Knurek]

I didn't know that a remastered TWD collection is on the way. I only played up until the end of season 2.
Might start over to play the whole thing.

This is a Steam thread, if you want to discuss TWD, head on over to the EGS one.

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Solid State Drive Drive, invented by Sony.

This can't be real, can it?

 

[MJunioR]

This can't be real, can it?

This is pretty much the equivalent to that 'leaked' NX from some years ago. I hope so, at least, because this is fucking ugly.

 

[Cordelia]

This is a Steam thread, if you want to discuss TWD, head on over to the EGS one.

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This can't be real, can it?

The design is real, the render is not. It's dev kit btw not commercial unit.

 

[Alextended]

Solid State Drive Drive, invented by Sony.

Disk Drive just to differentiate it as something new (that it isn't)

I doubt that's real, even for a dev kit it's super tacky.

 

[Deleted member 113]

Disk Drive

I doubt that's real, even for a dev kit it's super tacky.

What, you mean you don't dig that "LETSGODIGITAL" bit.

Or the middle space, where apparently you can please a shoe or foot?

 

[lashman]

This can't be real, can it?

it is ... but it's the devkit

 

[low-G]

it is ... but it's the devkit

There's no way they slapped that garbage text on the dev kit. This is an artistic mock up by someone who doesn't even know what a SSD is based on the leaked design.

 

[texhnolyze]

Solid State Drive Drive, invented by Sony.

It's a.... projector?

 

[Dragon1893]

This is a Steam thread, if you want to discuss TWD, head on over to the EGS one.

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This can't be real, can it?

I actually forgot it's on EGS, I still assume that every game will be on steam...

 

[Cordelia]

https://nl.letsgodigital.org/uploads/2019/08/sony-interactive-entertainment.pdf

 

[lashman]

There's no way they slapped that garbage text on the dev kit. This is an artistic mock up by someone who doesn't even know what a SSD is based on the leaked design.

yes, yes, of course ... but i mean just the shape itself ... as evidenced by the post above

 

[Cordelia]

PC when

 

[Rosenkrantz]

What, Sony wants to bring retro-futurist sensibilities to the table? That thing looks like a device from the Scott's Blade Runner.

 

[MJunioR]

PC when

If there's a thing that Square JP doesn't disappoint is on the visuals. Dunno if I will pick FF7 on PS4 but damn sure is tempting.

 

[Cordelia]

If there's a thing that Square JP doesn't disappoint is on the visuals. Dunno if I will pick FF7 on PS4 but damn sure is tempting.

I have a Pro so I can play there but from what I saw it looks really similar to FFXV which means that it'll run like shite.

 

[Dragon1893]

I have a Pro so I can play there but from what I saw it looks really similar to FFXV which means that it'll run like shite.

FF7 runs on UE4, XV used SE's Luminous.

 

[BlackRainbowFT]

It's a.... projector?

I'd say that the design is closer to one of those Hi-Fi LCD car stereo thingamajigs... I don't know what they're called.

 

[gabbo]

Solid State Drive Drive, invented by Sony.

Sony going all out on futuristic space toilet design

 

[BO7AMMOOD]

I have a Pro so I can play there but from what I saw it looks really similar to FFXV which means that it'll run like shite.

Same here. Last time I've bought a multiplatform on the PS4 was Final Fantasy XV, which I then completely neglected until it released on Steam where I bought it day 1 and played it. Never been tempted since then to grab a multiplatform title until I've seen the last few trailers for this remake (Not even with Death Stranding, and I used to worship Kojima!). The waiting game will be unbearable for me with this game

 

[Cordelia]

Same here. Last time I've bought a multiplatform on the PS4 was Final Fantasy XV, which I then completely neglected until it released on Steam where I bought it day 1 and played it. Never been tempted since then to grab a multiplatform title until I've seen the last few trailers for this remake (Not even with Death Stranding, and I used to worship Kojima!). The waiting game will be unbearable for me with this game

It'll be timed exclusive lol. Sony must have paid SE for FF7R.

 

[Kuro]

I know I'm in the minority but I like how the Playstation V devkit looks like.