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

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fantomena

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Dec 17, 2018
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Well, looks like Im gonna have to use my second last Nintendo Switch voucher on Astral Chain. Extremy good reviews everywhere.
 
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Li Kao

It’s a strange world. Let’s keep it that way.
Jan 28, 2019
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Yeah, two solid meta for Astral Chain and Control.
The two first big end of summer games. We are back in business.
 
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Im curious: how many games do you guys have currently installed on Steam?
I always have around 30 games installed. Sometimes a couple more, sometimes a couple less.

Since you are talking a lot about Hitman 2. Are the elusive targets from Hitman 1 always available now in Hitman 2 or are they also timed exclusive. I think I read about it somewhere and I haven't checked it myself
They are still time-limited.

So far, just a few elusive targets are actually "new", the rest have been repeats of targets from the previous game, sometimes with changes (they are calling them "legacy").

If they are following the same method they did with the previous game, after they post the last target, they should start repeating them.
So, unless you already played those elusive targets (and either completed them, or failed them), you should be able to play them again in the future.
To clarify: this means if you previously played them, or not, in HITMAN 2. If you played them in the previous game, but not in HITMAN 2, you will be able to play them again when they come back in HITMAN 2, since these are seperate games that don't share historic data/stats.

Same thing as the rest of the time-limited content, the seasonal events. There were already a couple of seasonal events from the first game that came back for the second (a Christmas, and a Winter event), and I'm sure when the same time comes this year/next year, they will be available again. These, unlike elusive targets, and not "one try" only, you can play them as much times as you want, while the event runs.
 
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Ascheroth

Chilling in the Megastructure
Nov 12, 2018
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I saw some Oninaki reviews and realized I haven't bought a single Tokyo RPG Factory game yet and have almost forgotten about Setsuna and the other one. Huh. I kinda still want to give Setsuna a try, but then I see it's now 3 years old and still has a historical low of "only" 16€ and wonder if I ever will tbh.
 

BO7AMMOOD

Lucas isn't sure what to do anymore
Apr 18, 2019
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derExperte

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Dec 9, 2018
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Bigben going all hands on 🥚


Time to put them on ignore then, I usually grabbed a WRC here and there when on sale but overall not a huge loss. Strange though that Timmy didn't announce this during the Gamescom show. Either the deal wasn't done yet or someone realized that those games aren't really heavy hitters and since they had little else it would've been a bad look.

PS Chaosbane is now at 24% Mostly Negative, what was the last hit Bigben had?
 

BO7AMMOOD

Lucas isn't sure what to do anymore
Apr 18, 2019
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I saw some Oninaki reviews and realized I haven't bought a single Tokyo RPG Factory game yet and have almost forgotten about Setsuna and the other one. Huh. I kinda still want to give Setsuna a try, but then I see it's now 3 years old and still has a historical low of "only" 16€ and wonder if I ever will tbh.
Yeah they're definitely overpriced imo. It also doesn't help that everything I've seen of them seems to be so bland (except for Oninaki, which looks the most interesting one so far). Honestly I don't think I'd look at them twice if Square's name wasn't attached :shrugblob:
 
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yuraya

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May 4, 2019
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Control with an 82 on metacritic

Too bad Sony doesn't own Remedy. You know with their singleplayer marketing machine it would have been a 92 as a PS4 exclusive.

Anyways Spencer needs to get this EGS moneyhat into PC gamepass asap just like he did Metro. The service is perfect for these 8hr long singleplayer games that I most likely won't even buy next year when they do come to Steam.

Also get Quantum Break in their as well kthnxs Phil. Still haven't played that one.

Weird how QB is in the win10 store but not on gamepass.
 

Line

meh
Dec 21, 2018
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I saw some Oninaki reviews and realized I haven't bought a single Tokyo RPG Factory game yet and have almost forgotten about Setsuna and the other one. Huh. I kinda still want to give Setsuna a try, but then I see it's now 3 years old and still has a historical low of "only" 16€ and wonder if I ever will tbh.
Their games are just barely okay, nice stories, but the gameplay is extremely shallow and repetitive (and so are the environments, they have zero budget and it shows).
Oninaki suffers from the same issues, it seems very engaging, but the combat is bad Falcom gameplay from the early 2000'.

It think their games would work better with a low price tag, you can forgive budget issues for 20 bucks, not for fucking 50.
 

Kuro

"Oh yeah? Aren't you gonna punish me?"
Dec 22, 2018
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Im curious: how many games do you guys have currently installed on Steam?
18.

 
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lashman

lashman

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Time to put them on ignore then, I usually grabbed a WRC here and there when on sale but overall not a huge loss. Strange though that Timmy didn't announce this during the Gamescom show. Either the deal wasn't done yet or someone realized that those games aren't really heavy hitters and since they had little else it would've been a bad look.
apparently the deal was made SO LATE that all the influencers and reviewers got steam keys for the game (WRC 8)!
 

MJunioR

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Mar 13, 2019
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apparently the deal was made SO LATE that all the influencers and reviewers got steam keys for the game (WRC 8)!
I can't help but imagine Epic denying Bigben first offer and then BB almost begging for a moneyhat, causing the official exclusivity announcement to be so late.

I mean, what was the last Bigben hit? Handball 17?
 
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EdwardTivrusky

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Dec 8, 2018
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Also, haven't BigBen been on a purchasing spree lately? They probably really needed the cash after all those acquisitions.
 
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lashman

lashman

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I can't help but imagine Epic denying Bigben first offer and then BB almost begging for a moneyhat, causing the official exclusivity announcement to be so late.

I mean, what was the last Bigben hit? Handball 17?
they don't really have any ... all 3 of those games are like 500th+ wishlisted on steam or something
 
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I posted this on the EGS thread, since it seemed the appropriate place, but since you are discussing BigBen, and my post was about them, here's what I posted:

I don’t care about BigBen, or Paranoia in particular, but the passivity from Valve regarding this kind of crap pisses me off.

I mean, a while back, they were banning indie developers left and right, for the minimal thing.
There were games that were removed from Steam, and the developers banned from posting further games, because they posted a single review of their own game.

That, for Valve, is a bannable offense. It wouldn’t matter if the developer recognized their error and apologized, or deleted that fake review, they would be banned from doing business on Steam. No appeals, you were banned, and that was the end of it.

But, having developers and publishers publicizing their products on Steam, with false releases dates, when they are not launching on Steam in those dates, if at all (because they have exclusivity agreements), is apparently fine. As is having them using these pages for customer support of their… EGS releases.

I mean, it was known at least since earlier this month that WRC 8 was exclusive to the EGS. The official website and trailer had the EGS logo.
If you check Steam, the game still has a September 2019 release date:



This is the same publisher that did the same thing with The Sinking City, and even has a post in the main store page advertising the EGS release:



Operencia was another example. The game even had a beta test running on Steam, and then… released as a EGS exclusive.
Despite that, until the game was released on the EGS, that game was always showing at the top, or near the top, of my Upcoming list of games on Steam (despite no longer being on my wishlist, and I choosing to ignore it).

Deep Silver and Ubisoft had pre-orders for games, only to remove them at the last minute.
Again, that is fine for Valve.

The difference in treatment between some indie developers, and others, in this case the ones that took an EGS deal, is perplexing.
Why don’t they have the balls to do something about it, and ban some of these developers/publishers from the store, like they did for lesser things to other developers?

Make a post advertising direct sales for your game? Get banned (or, at the very least, have that post deleted).
Mention other websites where the game is sold? You probably get your post deleted as well.
Post about your game launching on EGS? It's fine.
 

PC-tan

Low Tier Weeb
Jan 19, 2019
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Yep just like Nintendo, being a PS exclusive gives you bonus points.
Ya, I do not see how (I think it was IGN) Fire Emblem Three Houses got a 9 out of 10 from some reviews. The game is good and is for sure a 8/10 but it's definitely not a 9/10, some of that has to do with performance issues but it just feels like the new stuff that they added (while nice) did prevent me from getting further along in the story (so FE3H has sort of similar issue with P5 of pacing).

Time to put them on ignore then, I usually grabbed a WRC here and there when on sale but overall not a huge loss. Strange though that Timmy didn't announce this during the Gamescom show. Either the deal wasn't done yet or someone realized that those games aren't really heavy hitters and since they had little else it would've been a bad look.

PS Chaosbane is now at 24% Mostly Negative, what was the last hit Bigben had?
2 out of those 3 games I have heard about and at least for me there is nothing that really drew me to those games (I don't know about the non racing game/be game though). The racing game was "leaked"(?) saying that it would be on EGS on its official website and this was maybe a week or two ago. So I'm guessing that Tim is more interested in getting this publisher on board then they are about to the actual games. I don't know much about Bee simulator and for all I know there is a big crowd of people looking forward to buying the game (it's like one of those House Flipper, PC building simulator games, which do actually seem to be popular).

Has there been a connection with some publishers having a majority of there catalogue on EGS? Or do they only have some of their games on there?
 

PC-tan

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I posted this on the EGS thread, since it seemed the appropriate place, but since you are discussing BigBen, and my post was about them, here's what I posted:

I don’t care about BigBen, or Paranoia in particular, but the passivity from Valve regarding this kind of crap pisses me off.

I mean, a while back, they were banning indie developers left and right, for the minimal thing.
There were games that were removed from Steam, and the developers banned from posting further games, because they posted a single review of their own game.

That, for Valve, is a bannable offense. It wouldn’t matter if the developer recognized their error and apologized, or deleted that fake review, they would be banned from doing business on Steam. No appeals, you were banned, and that was the end of it.

But, having developers and publishers publicizing their products on Steam, with false releases dates, when they are not launching on Steam in those dates, if at all (because they have exclusivity agreements), is apparently fine. As is having them using these pages for customer support of their… EGS releases.

I mean, it was known at least since earlier this month that WRC 8 was exclusive to the EGS. The official website and trailer had the EGS logo.
If you check Steam, the game still has a September 2019 release date:



This is the same publisher that did the same thing with The Sinking City, and even has a post in the main store page advertising the EGS release:



Operencia was another example. The game even had a beta test running on Steam, and then… released as a EGS exclusive.
Despite that, until the game was released on the EGS, that game was always showing at the top, or near the top, of my Upcoming list of games on Steam (despite no longer being on my wishlist, and I choosing to ignore it).

Deep Silver and Ubisoft had pre-orders for games, only to remove them at the last minute.
Again, that is fine for Valve.

The difference in treatment between some indie developers, and others, in this case the ones that took an EGS deal, is perplexing.
Why don’t they have the balls to do something about it, and ban some of these developers/publishers from the store, like they did for lesser things to other developers?

Make a post advertising direct sales for your game? Get banned (or, at the very least, have that post deleted).
Mention other websites where the game is sold? You probably get your post deleted as well.
Post about your game launching on EGS? It's fine.
What about the backlash Valve would get? In the review thing I can see that being an issue since reviews are very important on Steam and that's used to choose what gets more recommend vs what doesn't show up on your feed. Also once the year is over the game will eventually end up on Steam. But if they got banned that would mean that EGS would be there only choice and they would not longer be able to release on Steam at all.

Is it mainly indie devs (self published) or is it publishers that are pulling the game out at the last second? If it's publishers then I'm sure that there would be no issues with some punishment for them but if it's a self published indie then there could be more of an issue there (so far we don't really know what long term sales of an indie game on EGS looks like, or if EGS will even accept their next upcoming game, so that dev would be put in a rough spot and I would imagine that at this point even the N/S is having issue with indie games so devs won't be making as much money as they could a few years ago).

I do believe that something should be done but I don't know about banning people, maybe Valve can relate in some way since they are pretty much never true on their word when it comes to release dates.


One possible solution is that Valve will temporary stop allowing said game to be wishlisted, the game will also have it's discussion board locked, and it will be "taken off" Steam, you can still search for the game but it will not be recommend or shown anywhere else. The devs/publisher must also make a posting (news) stating the situation and when the game will be releasing on Steam. Also the dev/publisher must make this announcement within a timely manner so maybe more than 3 months ahead of it's release?

This can be tricky because it sounds like sometimes even the dev team don't know that these deals are being made by their publisher.
 
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EdwardTivrusky

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I'm glad Valve are taking a measured approach to this publically and isn't going for quick, badly thought out or inappropriate reactions. They will react and i'm sure they're looking at things behind the scenes but i don't want to see them getting into a shitting match with EGS, it's just fuel for trolls.

Of course they may well make the wrong reaction but eh, 'Valve Time' is a thing. Let them keep to it :)
 

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In the review thing I can see that being an issue since reviews are very important on Steam and that's used to choose what gets more recommend vs what doesn't show up on your feed.
Again, it was a single review. That is very important on Steam, because it's used for the recommendation system and store placement. Fine.
But the examples I posted weren't far more "serious" on that front?
Games that are getting recommended, and store placement/promotion, at the expense of other games, when they aren't launching on Steam?

To complement, here's an example:
I have BigBen on my Steam ignore list.
On my "popular upcoming" tab, what is sitting there? Paranoia: Happiness is Mandatory.
I never wishlisted the game, I have the publisher on ignore, and yet, near the top, there it sits.
Yes, it has a small line saying "excluded by ignored developer/publisher/franchise", yet, there it is displaying, on my main Steam store page.

Isn't that a lot more serious than a single review?
Here you have a developer, getting free publicity, for a game that isn't launching on Steam. The visibility and slot that is being taken by these games, is at the expense of other games.

You ask about the backlash Valve would get.
I mean, whatever they do, or not do, gets them backlash.
Shouldn't they do something to dissuade this abuse?
 

Mivey

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Sep 20, 2018
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I don't think Valve will ever react, why should they? Steam has seen a huge increase in revenue from Chinese customers, that's a market where they don't need to fear EGS, as EGS isn't available in China, and likely won't be in the near future.

This stuff isn't hurting Steam half as much as little Timmy would wish it did.
 

r3n4ud

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Oct 17, 2018
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How big is Remnant: From the Ases in terms of harddrive space?
If you’re thinking about picking it up, be warned that there are plenty of bugs to be sorted out. Personally, I restarted when I was three hours in because achievements weren’t unlocking and now it looks like I have to reroll the campaign because of a bug that will not let me advance in the game after five hours.

However, the game is damn fun and a couple of devs are active in the OT on Era. They’re working on the bugs and looks like the game will have a bright future with the plans they have for it. In the meantime though, if you’re willing to take a chance and hope you don’t run into any issues, I say pick it up!
 
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EdwardTivrusky

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I'd be thinking of filtering ignored items from a user's results. Make it a toggle to keep people happy. Also maybe have a tag "On Other Services First." that people can filter out too. Valve have an argument for aiding discoverability for games and allowing people to filter out items that aren't available due to exclusivity for one's that are on it's service is a no-brainer adding flexibility.

As FunctionJCB says, they're goiing to get backlash regardless of what they do but i'd rather see them take the high-road on this one and let people make their own choice as to what they want to interact with.
 
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yuraya

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I think its too late for Valve to do something at this point. They had to put their foot down day 0 to really deter devs from doing a lot of this dumb shit. Doing something now would only create a big PR mess that would only benefit EGS.

What they should have done from the beginning imo was implement that Xbox one 2013 indie parity rule or wtvr it was called. The one where if devs don't release a game on Xbox one at launch with other platfomrs then they can't release it later. That would have stopped all moneyhats from EGS I think or would have skyrocketed the EGS prices for devs to agree to all this.

It screwed Xbox over back back then but only because they weren't in position of power over the PS4 since all sales restarted with console gens. Also there was so much bad pr for MS that year it had no chance of working.
 

EdwardTivrusky

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What's Ashen like? I watched some gameplay videos and it had a fantastic style yet the lantern mechanic seemed like it would start annoying me but aside from that i've heard next to nothing about it.
 

BAN PUNCHER

CUNT OF PERSONALITY
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Linus from Linus Tech Tips finally hits the big time by having one of his videos commented on by Big Money Salvia.



(_ )_ )::::::: D ~~BOUNCED ON MY BOYS DEAD MAC TO THIS VIDEO
 
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Mivey

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I think its too late for Valve to do something at this point. They had to put their foot down day 0 to really deter devs from doing a lot of this dumb shit. Doing something now would only create a big PR mess that would only benefit EGS.

What they should have done from the beginning imo was implement that Xbox one 2013 indie parity rule or wtvr it was called. The one where if devs don't release a game on Xbox one at launch with other platfomrs then they can't release it later. That would have stopped all moneyhats from EGS I think or would have skyrocketed the EGS prices for devs to agree to all this.
Again, why would Valve care? Steam hasn't felt any significant hit from EGS actions, neither in sheer revenue or customers, or number of new games released or anything. Microsoft wanted to use that rule to make their new console more attractive with respect to the competition, it's understandable, if pretty misguided.
I could see Valve adding rules that prevent something like the Metro situation, where if you have been on pre-order for a certain while, you can't just switch to another store before release, or risk that Valve ask for all the money back + prevent the pub from releasing a new game for a certain while.
 

Nabs

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Oct 23, 2018
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Kao the Kangaroo: Round 2 got a patch and Steam cards
  • Added original US English voiceovers
  • Added language selection to the launcher
  • Fixed DPI scaling - screen no longer crops when the DPI is high on certain devices
  • Corrected controller dead zones for better diagonal movement
  • Steam Cards added
 

Cordelia

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Jun 10, 2019
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Steam - December 9th
Do we have number for how much Ashen sold in EGS? This game disappeared from any discussion a month after release.
What's Ashen like? I watched some gameplay videos and it had a fantastic style yet the lantern mechanic seemed like it would start annoying me but aside from that i've heard next to nothing about it.
It's souls.
 
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