Community MetaSteam | January 2024 - Let's get this year started!

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AHA-Lambda

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Oct 9, 2018
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Got an impressions piece, and this thread is as good as any I think. I'm playing through Alan Wake 2 currently, and I am genuinely mystified.
I think I'm around the 50%ish mark right now (4-5 chapters done for both Alan and Saga), and while yes I am enjoying it, and will complete it, I am quite astounded that it got such high regard that it has?

If I can sum up the game so far it's that it's intriguing but slow.
The story has me invested to see the end certainly but it's going nowhere fast, that's not necessarily a problem though. It's got some great meta moments if that's your thing, and it's certainly stylish, different and atmospheric.
But it's the core moment-to-moment gameplay itself though that I'm really shocked isn't more under fire from many. It's not bad but there's just so little really here.

Combat isn't everything but for a game that is aping modern REmakes so much there is so surprisingly little of it.
Enemies hit hard and take a good amount to go down, but there just aren't that many encounters. It actually kinda undermines a lot of the tension as I will walk through environments now with expectation that I'll not encounter anything.
Beyond that it's a lot of exploring and puzzling, and the mind palace stuff is a great big nothingburger in particular.

I didn't keep a close eye on AW2 pre release so maybe this was all known but it's really surprised me what the moment to moment gameplay cadence is like.

Again I'm enjoying it, really cos the story and style is carrying it, but I'm really amazed this was considered en masse as GOTY worthy. It's riding around a 7/10 for me at the moment. I can see there are reviews that are saying similar things to me but not many, and after all this is sitting at 89% on OC.

Hate to say it but I'm starting to find the Remedy fandom not my thing, as Control done nothing for me.
 
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Arc

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Sep 19, 2020
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PC gaming is dead.

Now imagine if the game has also released on PS and Switch?


33 million players in less than 1 months.


I'm guessing the 7 million from Xbox is Gamepass? And not copies sold?

Across console and Windows PC, Palworld has welcomed more than 7 million players, and has recently reached a peak of nearly 3 million daily active users on Xbox, making it the most-played game on our platforms at that time.
Sounds that way. Xbox+Windows Store sales are probably nominal.
 

PC-tan

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Jan 19, 2019
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Sounds that way. Xbox+Windows Store sales are probably nominal.
Sounds like Xbox is listening to criticism. It says that they want to speed up the cert processes. Both good and bad can come from that. But it's nice that they are aware of it.


Will Palworld lead to Xbox changing some things? Since the Xbox version was missing stuff that the Steam versions has and it sounds like they want to add features so that the Xbox version can also do the same stuff that the Steam version has. Maybe it didn't have those features initially since it's hard to implement on Xbox in general?


So is the take away that in order to become bigger, Xbox needs to look more into third party games? In a way similar to what Sony still does?
 

Derrick01

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Oct 6, 2018
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PC gaming is dead.

Now imagine if the game has also released on PS and Switch?


33 million players in less than 1 months.


I'm guessing the 7 million from Xbox is Gamepass? And not copies sold?
yeah safe to say the bulk of that is gamepass rentals. Aint no one buying anything on the windows store and xbox has the smallest market share of all the platforms and typically struggles with sales since most of the hardcore owners on the platform just want everything on gamepass (see: The current stink they're raising over the new mana game not being on GP day 1)

As for palworld overall I thought it was slowing down a lot. We've been monitoring the ccu on discord (way...way too damn much IMO) and the peak is dropping roughly 100k a day or so.
 

PC-tan

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Meanwhile @Epic: "Damn, we didn't throw enough cash towards PC Gamer last year. Quick, someone give me the bank account number of PCgamesN!"

Basically, otherwise that was a very random article that just came out of nowhere.
 
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Stone Ocean

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yuraya

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Its funny Microsoft spent all that money on Bethesda and Activision....

but a random early access game like Palworld will probably drive more people to subscribe to GP than Starfield, Diablo, COD and wtvr else they release in the next couple years.

With how big Nintendo is I am surprised they don't go the way of Xbox as well and launch brand new games on their sub while also selling millions of full price titles on top of it. They have the kids market and most parents would probably rather just subscribe to a service than buy games. The die hards will continue buying physical or wtvr. Seeing how Palworld performs on both sides of the aisle it really does feel like Nintendo is missing out on hundreds of millions if not billions in extra revenue every year.

Like that Peach game they are making will probably score like low 80s on metacritic...and millions of casual Nintendo fans will pass on it. But with a subscription I bet millions would pay 15$ (or wtvr) per month to try it out. And with how many 1st party games they release + all the Switch hardware they sell.....they could actually be like the Disney+ of gaming but with a much more consistant content drops that D+ lacks in the streaming world.
 

C-Dub

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Dec 23, 2018
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Its funny Microsoft spent all that money on Bethesda and Activision....

but a random early access game like Palworld will probably drive more people to subscribe to GP than Starfield, Diablo, COD and wtvr else they release in the next couple years.

With how big Nintendo is I am surprised they don't go the way of Xbox as well and launch brand new games on their sub while also selling millions of full price titles on top of it. They have the kids market and most parents would probably rather just subscribe to a service than buy games. The die hards will continue buying physical or wtvr. Seeing how Palworld performs on both sides of the aisle it really does feel like Nintendo is missing out on hundreds of millions if not billions in extra revenue every year.

Like that Peach game they are making will probably score like low 80s on metacritic...and millions of casual Nintendo fans will pass on it. But with a subscription I bet millions would pay 15$ (or wtvr) per month to try it out. And with how many 1st party games they release + all the Switch hardware they sell.....they could actually be like the Disney+ of gaming but with a much more consistant content drops that D+ lacks in the streaming world.
This analysis doesn’t ring true to me. Subscriptions in games have peaked and Palworld is so cheap that people wouldn’t buy a £11.99 a month subscription for their kids to play one £25 game.

I think more recent stories about game subscription services not being analogous to Netflix and D+ because of the way people consume games (one or two at a time, over a very long period) is a more convincing assessment. In short, I think this game is doing serious sales on Xbox.

In the end, the only figure for Xbox we have is 7m. That’s not sales, that’s not GP players - it’s an undefined mix of both.

If the game is shifting anything other than itself, it’s probably affordable Series S consoles. If this game had shipped before Christmas I expect it would’ve been pandemonium getting one.

I don’t think Nintendo putting new games on a Switch subscription is very smart either. They can slap a £50 price tag on a mediocre game and nine times out of ten it’ll make its budget back on day 1.
 
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Stone Ocean

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This been posted?



That near 50% like/dislike ratio...
I'm honestly not sure how to feel about this. On one hand, there's a lot that makes me really wary about the game - the weird melee combat focus for marketing, you added Ventrue to the game for a reason show the social aspects beyond badly voice acted dialogue; the dumb premise; no Malkavians at launch -, on the other hand it looks pretty decent for a game that has been stuck in 5 layers of development hell.

No way in hell I'm paying full price for this but I can fuck with it when they eventually add Malks.
 

yuraya

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I don’t think Nintendo putting new games on a Switch subscription is very smart either. They can slap a £50 price tag on a mediocre game and nine times out of ten it’ll make its budget back on day 1.
It still will tho even with a day 1 tier sub.

Starfield was a platinum seller on steam last year. Hi-fi rush did well too.

I think it would be the same with Nintendo. They sell so much more hardware than Xbox too. They'll make a ton of $$$ with a sub because they still make a lot of low budget overpriced titles. It kind of fits with their strategy. They will be able to reach a large portion of their audience who doesn't want to or unable to spend 50-70$ for the 1st party stuff.
 

STHX

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Sep 20, 2021
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Italy
Can you see all of me?
Walk into my mistery
Step inside and hold on for dear life
Do you remember me?
Capture you or set you free
I am all
I am all
OF MEEEEEE
 

d00d3n

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Jan 26, 2019
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This been posted?



That near 50% like/dislike ratio...
I am not really sure that I will join the negative people on this one. Most criticism seems to be about the dialogue scenes, which frankly were not that great, quite far from the heights of Bloodlines. But this seems to be a dungeon type experience with a combat/stealth focus? Bloodlines had those parts as well, but also the interesting and complex open world areas. Gameplay looked very reminiscent of Dishonored, with the stealth focus, the use of supernatural traversal abilities, and even the weird nosferatu illusion magic version of the void! I quit watching the video in the part that they marked as spoiler heavy, but this showing did not discourage me from the game at all. As someone else said, this looked especially decent considering the development hell situation this game has been through
 
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C-Dub

Makoto Niijima Fan Club President
Dec 23, 2018
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Stellar Blade looked super bland and cynically pandering.

The dudes wear full body armour while the women look like space hookers or scantily-clad children.

Shit’s fuckin’ gross. 🤮

Judas looked cool though.
 

yuraya

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lol @ Action Espionage :steam_cleanseal:

Kojima milking Xbox and Playstation with some interesting promises.

Wouldn't surprise me if he shows up at the next Nintendo Direct to promise some new game for them too. I mean why not. Amazing 40 year career for him.

But yea Death Stranding 2 and Rise of Ronin looked incredible. Would have made for PS5 killers apps imo but both will look incredible on PC at 120+ fps in 2025 and 2026 :sneaky:
 
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