Community MetaSteam | May 2024 - Wake up samurai, we gonna get this Persian kitty home

[rickyson33]

I was meaning to write something about this too. Something is going wrong at Paradox and if I was a shareholder I'd be concerned.

The problems actually started a couple of years ago. Most people know that this company carpet bombs their games with DLCs but in the last 2-3 years they've tweaked their strategy a bit. Nowadays each game only gets one major expansion DLC per year alongside a few other cosmetic and unimportant DLCs. What has happened is that each of their main games has had a DLC release that has been received very poorly by the community. It happened for Crusader Kings, Hearts of Iron, Stellaris, Vicky and possibly more. Something is going wrong with the development pipeline of their internal studios if they are managing to piss off all their communities.

Then we have the publishing side of things...

Last year they released Lamplighter's League which flopped completely and sank the dev studio Harebrained Schemes. Then came the Star Trek 4X game which sank as well and they abandoned it within months. Then came Cities Skylines 2 and everyone knows what kind of ongoing shitshow that is. Then Millennia which is another 4X with mixed reviews and low player numbers and finally their 3D Factorio clone called Foundry which seems to be doing ok in early access.

For unreleased games, they fired the developers of Prison Architect 2 after delaying it at least twice and have now handed the project over to a new studio 6 months before release. Also, they had a Sims clone called Life by You that was supposed to launch into early access on June 4th and yesterday that got delayed indefinitely as well.

So almost everything seems to be going wrong for the company but I get the feeling that they are fairly complacent about the situation because they (correctly?) believe that they have a captive audience for their games. They brushed off all the criticism of their bad DLCs for their internally developed games and went on to release more and nothing ever came of it. Likewise, I'm certain that Skylines 2 sold a ton of copies (as in, cleared 100 million dollars or more in revenue on Steam) and so all their mea culpas feel hollow. That's why they thought they could start releasing paid DLC for it before having to walk back that decision.

Something is definitely up with this company.



I was just wondering where you were. Hadn't seen you post anything in some time. Always looking forward to your game recommendations for hidden gems and stuff man.

there's also Vampire Bloodlines 2 on the publishing side of things which has certainly had a messy development

at least Age of Wonders 4 seems like it turned out okay(although I haven't personally played it or anything, but it seems mostly positively received)

Europa Universalis 5 seems to be in development at the moment(not officially announced but the Paradox Tinto studio that works on that series has been doing weekly development diaries for a while for something that is very clearly that) so i'm interested in seeing how that one turns out

 

[manchego obfuscator]

New game from the Norco devs, demo available now

 

[spindoctor]

there's also Vampire Bloodlines 2 on the publishing side of things which has certainly had a messy development

Yeah I forgot about Bloodlines 2. That game is fucked in every possible way it can be. Absolutely zero faith that the Chinese Room can make it a good game given their track record of never having made anything even remotely close to being good.

 

[Knurek]

I need to know the prices!

$110 if you buy all of them.

 

[PC-tan]

https://yt3.ggpht.com/v_r3rJBqLDtzPuOzF9jm7ii25GjA08N463lxjYOkJ7UK_2CSkWyswlq-uMmU__GhPCzsbz_Tb1z9xw=s1552-rw-nd-v1

I just wanted to share that I passed my discrete structures (Computer Science) class!!!!!!! I'm so happy I thought I was going to fail it. It's been well over 6+ years now that I had to do anything remotely close to algebra and I remember at one point here it was recommended to talk Calculus 3 with the class (I dropped Calc 3 in Spring 2018)


I basically had to be taught simple math tricks to pass the class. What's completing the square, what's adding zero to both sides, how do you do a quadratic equation again.... Stuff like that and more.


I dislike subsets. I got a lot of help and was studying some 15-20 hours a week at times for the class.

I'm proud

 

[Panda Pedinte]

https://yt3.ggpht.com/v_r3rJBqLDtzPuOzF9jm7ii25GjA08N463lxjYOkJ7UK_2CSkWyswlq-uMmU__GhPCzsbz_Tb1z9xw=s1552-rw-nd-v1

I just wanted to share that I passed my discrete structures (Computer Science) class!!!!!!! I'm so happy I thought I was going to fail it. It's been well over 6+ years now that I had to do anything remotely close to algebra and I remember at one point here it was recommended to talk Calculus 3 with the class (I dropped Calc 3 in Spring 2018)


I basically had to be taught simple math tricks to pass the class. What's completing the square, what's adding zero to both sides, how do you do a quadratic equation again.... Stuff like that and more.


I dislike subsets. I got a lot of help and was studying some 15-20 hours a week at times for the class.

I'm proud

Congrats!

 

[yuraya]

Damn some reviews have Hellblade 2 at 5-6 hours long.

That is like 1 year of dev time for every 1 hour of gameplay. Not to even mention all the cinematics where player doesn't have control.

The linear narrative AAA game is unsustainable. The dev time and costs are ridiculous unless you are making a long RPG. Or at the very least something similar to the new God of War games. But these type of action arthouse games are gonna go extinct.

 

[Lashley]

2023 Video Game Market Report. PC 22% (+8.4% YoY), Mobile 49% (-2.1% YoY), Console 28% (+0.3% YoY). 90% of new game revenue in 2023 from 43 titles

more at link. https://newzoo.com/resources/blog/last-looks-the-global-games-market-in-2023 revenue per region is also at the link if you want the full report you can sign up for it here https://newzoo.com/resources/trend-reports/newzoo-global-games-market-report-2023-free-version

www.resetera.com

PC Gaming ain't dying after all ya'll

 

[lashman]

PC Gaming ain't dying after all ya'll

it's been dead since 1998, this isn't news

 

[Ascheroth]

it's been dead since 1998, this isn't news

I mean you can't kill what's already dead, so maybe dying early was the winning strategy after all

 

[lashman]

I mean you can't kill what's already dead, so maybe dying early was the winning strategy after all

 

[Durante]

I mean you can't kill what's already dead, so maybe dying early was the winning strategy after all

But remember, with strange aeons even death may die.

 

[Arc]

New Details on Valve's New Game 'Deadlock'

Insider Gaming has been given new details on Valve's new game named Deadlock, which is believed to be released sometime in 2025.

insider-gaming.com

However, Insider Gaming has been provided further information on the game, including gameplay footage, which has been shared with us under the condition that it does not go public. We can confirm that claims from GabeFollower are legitimate and that the game is named Deadlock and is currently in the alpha stage. Officially, the game is described as an “early development build with lots of experimental gameplay features and art assets.”

As already leaked, the game is a 6v6 third-person hero-based shooter. Heroes include magicians, robots, creatures, humans, and more. There are currently 19 different heroes, each with different abilities and playstyles that you’d come to expect from a MOBA including ranged, healers, tanks, assassins, etc.

Players have described the game to me as being very similar to DOTA in terms of its gameplay loop and mechanics. This includes killing enemies and creeps to get the in-game currency of “souls,” which allows you to buy items to make your hero stronger. According to sources, both creeps and enemies will spawn a soul upon death, which floats up and away when they die. You collect the most souls by shooting at them (souls that float away still provide a small amount of souls currency). As for the creeps, they are spawned randomly throughout the map, including a larger AI boss in the middle of the map. Some players also outlined that there is also “spirit urns”, which players can deposit in the middle of the map to give the whole team more souls (the spirit urn carrier is visible to all players on the minimap).

Sounds like Dota 3. That's fine and all, but I don't think it'll be my cup of tea. I played Dota for thousands of hours and don't think I could handle any sort of MOBA again.

XDefiant is first time that Ubisoft didn't put game on Epic Store.

Hyper Scape was Uplay exclusives for a few months before they dumped it on EGS and it died before it could ever come to Steam.