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STEAM announcements & updates 2013 II - ITT we buy $1 games and complain about them

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R

RionaaM

Unconfirmed Member
Grief.exe said:
Hitbox's next game, Spire sounds amazing.

spire-1.jpg


Source: http://hitboxteam.com/mystery-and-mastery
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Sounds intriguing. Probably worth a look down the line.

Glass Rebel said:
For a moment I thought it was Scott Pilgrim and got sad.
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I'd sacrifice a puppy to Gabe for that to come true.
 
S

Salsa

Member
Derrick01 said:
Is it a lot better planned than the main game? Things like better level design, less of a reliance on game breaking powers etc etc.
Click to expand...

hard to tell so far, but the first level is pretty big and has a couple branching paths. Blink is still there at full force and I know that's an issue for you. Too early to tell if they changed anything else of what bothers you so far

but quality-wise it's on par with Dishonored for sure
 
G

Grief.exe

Member
Found an interesting interwview from Klei Entertainment's founder.

I made a thread, but apparently its not that interesting.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?p=54154188#post54154188

It's been a difficult stretch for the AAA game industry, with Electronic Arts, Activision, and Disney all making cuts this month alone. As unwelcome as that news might be, Klei Games founder Jamie Cheng told GamesIndustry International that there's an upside to such moves. The head of the studio behind Shank, Mark of the Ninja, and the upcoming Don't Starve attributed the recent boom in the independent development scene in part to years of struggles at big publishers.
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"With all the changes and layoffs, we're seeing so many new studios come up that are doing these games without the crutch of hundreds of millions of dollars of marketing...I think for sure that the layoffs are fuelling way more development in the small, independent space," Cheng said, noting that he prefers "independent" to "indie" as the latter term carries more potentially inaccurate connotations.
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"I enjoy having the large AAA around because they were hiring and training tons of people, and I can't do that," Cheng said. "We have 30 people and that seems like a lot in the independent space. I can't go out and train a lot of people in development, and that's what they were doing."
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"I feel like last year was when we kinda figured out how to make a game," Cheng said. "We've been bumbling along and every year we've done something and we get better...We finally have a process that I think works."

In some ways, the process has always worked. Cheng said every game the company has released has been profitable, and every one of them continues to make money. It's not like Shank is single-handedly keeping the lights on, but the added cash flow is helpful.
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"The idea of direct-to-consumer digital distribution has been around, but it keeps getting better," Klei said. "And as it gets good enough, you're going to overtake the retail stuff. And that's what's started to happen."

When asked about the potential threats he's worried about for the future, Cheng said he's interested to see what happens with price points for games. He's also curious about the ramifications of the current trends toward preorders and alpha funding.
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Source: http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articl...-can-help-independent-scene-says-klei-founder
 
G

Glass Rebel

Member
Klei <3 I didn't play Eets or the Shank games but Mark of the Ninja was my GOTY and Don't Starve is already a winner in my book. Can't wait for their next game.
 
Nabs

Nabs

Member
Glass Rebel said:
Klei <3 I didn't play Eets or the Shank games but Mark of the Ninja was my GOTY and Don't Starve is already a winner in my book. Can't wait for their next game.
Click to expand...

Another game people need to play. I know you guys all own this shit, it's time to give it a shot.
 
D

drizzle

Axel Hertz
So, going by the numbers, the smart thing to do is release your game, wait 2-4 months and do whatever it takes to be added in a Humble Bundle.

It always amazes me that you're not selling your game for that much money, but the amount of copies you're selling (to people that wouldn't buy it any other way, as demonstrated by the 4 months prior, with Midweek Madness and other promotions) makes everything alright.

Which is something that I always wondered since I was a child about any kind of product that's being sold, as prices in my country never drop.

It always seen better to me to sell 5 times the amount of copies of anything for half the price than 1 copy of something for full price. But that's just me.
 
F

Fare Godmace

Member
Glass Rebel said:
Klei <3 I didn't play Eets or the Shank games but Mark of the Ninja was my GOTY and Don't Starve is already a winner in my book. Can't wait for their next game.
Click to expand...

What.

I had this game in my "Never going to play" category, but Klei hasn't failed me yet so I guess it'll be next on my list to make up for my mistake. Thanks!

My "Never going to play" category is every game I own, amirite guise?
 
Nabs

Nabs

Member
Rocketbirds:HC is zzz worthy. I hope my review helps someone.

RionaaM said:
Oh, you mean Mark of the Ninja? That one is pretty good, yeah. I wish I had the skills to do a ghost playthrough, but sadly I suck at stealth games.
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You gotta believe.
 
1

1-D_FTW

Member
drizzle said:
So, going by the numbers, the smart thing to do is release your game, wait 2-4 months and do whatever it takes to be added in a Humble Bundle.

It always amazes me that you're not selling your game for that much money, but the amount of copies you're selling (to people that wouldn't buy it any other way, as demonstrated by the 4 months prior, with Midweek Madness and other promotions) makes everything alright.

Which is something that I always wondered since I was a child about any kind of product that's being sold, as prices in my country never drop.

It always seen better to me to sell 5 times the amount of copies of anything for half the price than 1 copy of something for full price. But that's just me.
Click to expand...

The smart thing for them would have been to released it. Then had a 50 percent at 4 weeks. And ideally a 66 percent off before the Holiday sales. And 75 percent at the Holidays.

They've never been below 50 percent on Steam. Which is a really stupid. To go onto HB without ever dipping below 50 percent off is just throwing money away.

They had some buzz they would have surely capitalized on had they been aggressive the holiday sale before HB.

But they're not the only one. There were quit a few indies who did this. I forget which game had 0 percent off during the holidays, and then quickly aligned with a bundle not long after that. It was very odd to watch some of these decisions last year.
 
Wok

Wok

Member
zulux21 said:
I wouldn't be surprised if this is because they are doing an actual bundle this week they had 3-4 month between each 5 to 6 to 7 and it's been about 4 months since 7 so a new bundle this week would line up decently.
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I hope Fez is getting bundled on day 1. Hum... But Fez cannot be cross-platform.
 
Nabs

Nabs

Member
1-D_FTW said:
The smart thing for them would have been to released it. Then had a 50 percent at 4 weeks. And ideally a 66 percent off before the Holiday sales. And 75 percent at the Holidays.

They've never been below 50 percent on Steam. Which is a really stupid. To go onto HB without ever dipping below 50 percent off is just throwing money away.

They had some buzz they would have surely capitalized on had they been aggressive the holiday sale before HB.

But they're not the only one. There were quit a few indies who did this. I forget which game had 0 percent off during the holidays, and then quickly aligned with a bundle not long after that. It was very odd to watch some of these decisions last year.
Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure that's Dustforce. They didn't participate in the Summer Sale, but then got into the HB a few months later.
 
1

1-D_FTW

Member
Nabs said:
I'm pretty sure that's Dustforce. They didn't participate in the Summer Sale, but then got into the HB a few months later.
Click to expand...

Yeah. You're right. I thought it was Dustforce that did that, but I guess I compressed the timeline a bit. I was waiting for a deeper discount on it, and then just did the HB when nothing came of it.
 
N

nexen

Member
Fare Godmace said:
What.

I had this game in my "Never going to play" category, but Klei hasn't failed me yet so I guess it'll be next on my list to make up for my mistake. Thanks!

My "Never going to play" category is every game I own, amirite guise?
Click to expand...

Eets isn't very good.
 
F

FloatOn

Member
is steam down or something?

every time I launch it I get the "steam is set to offline" and it gives me the option to go online.

when I do it relaunches and does the same thing. what the hell?

edit: disregard, everything is cool now
 
G

Glass Rebel

Member
Recettear was another one of these mishandled releases that still made a profit but could have made much more if they didn't bundle it during a Steam sale.
 
G

Grief.exe

Member
drizzle said:
So, going by the numbers, the smart thing to do is release your game, wait 2-4 months and do whatever it takes to be added in a Humble Bundle.

It always amazes me that you're not selling your game for that much money, but the amount of copies you're selling (to people that wouldn't buy it any other way, as demonstrated by the 4 months prior, with Midweek Madness and other promotions) makes everything alright.

Which is something that I always wondered since I was a child about any kind of product that's being sold, as prices in my country never drop.

It always seen better to me to sell 5 times the amount of copies of anything for half the price than 1 copy of something for full price. But that's just me.
Click to expand...

The smart thing to do to maximize earnings would be

Release
3 months - 50% off
3 months - 66% off
3 months - 75% off or Humble Bundle, depending on your revenue potential.

I think the reason we don't see companies do this is twofold. Inexperience and needing money right away.

I'm sure the reason Hitbox bundled was they saw the revenue potential and needed the money quickly.
The Humble Bundle is probably relatively liquid, while with Valve you would have to wait months to get a sale slot.

Something like Reccetear would most likely be inexperience, but Hitbox's decision could be attributed to that as well.

Either way, I cant wait for Spire.

and Fez....and Dust..but those are different Indie Devs
 
1

1-D_FTW

Member
Grief.exe said:
The smart thing to do to maximize earnings would be

Release
3 months - 50% off
3 months - 66% off
3 months - 75% off or Humble Bundle, depending on your revenue potential.

I think the reason we don't see companies do this is twofold. Inexperience and needing money right away.

I'm sure the reason Hitbox bundled was they saw the revenue potential and needed the money quickly.
The Humble Bundle is probably relatively liquid, while with Valve you would have to wait months to get a sale slot.

Something like Reccetear would most likely be inexperience, but Hitbox's decision could be attributed to that as well.

Either way, I cant wait for Spire.

and Fez....and Dust..but those are different Indie Devs
Click to expand...

I thought Valve paid out on a monthly schedule? Which means it's absolutely mind boggling why they would have a 0 percent discount during the Summer sale and then a couple months later, do the HB.

It's pretty interesting though. HB 6 cleared a little over 2 million. And they received 178,000. I guess it's meaningless without knowing what their cut was relative to other developers, but it's mildly interesting to me.
 
D

drizzle

Axel Hertz
1-D_FTW said:
It's pretty interesting though. HB 6 cleared a little over 2 million. And they received 178,000. I guess it's meaningless without knowing what their cut was relative to other developers, but it's mildly interesting to me.
Click to expand...

Isn't that after they paid all their bills for the month though?

Isn't 178k profit alone?
 
B

BoosterDuck

Banned
If it hasn't been posted before, here's a new Poker Night 2 trailer that shows the sexy unlocks that are unlockable when you're unlocking in the game.

 
I

IblisGinjo

Member
Gamestop.com is having a digital download PC sale. A few I've noticed...

Alpha Protocol $5.09
Fallout New Vegas: Ultimate Edition $9.99
Kingdoms of Amalur 5.99 (origin)
Viking $5.09
Condemned $5.09
Sid Meier's Pirates! $4.99
 
1

1-D_FTW

Member
drizzle said:
Isn't that after they paid all their bills for the month though?

Isn't 178k profit alone?
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I'm not sure what you mean?

With regards to HB, I'm assuming the revenue bit is what their check was for it. The 178,000 was interesting to me because it's a little under 10 percent of the total revenue brought in. And I think there were 10 games. I just found it interesting because I've never known what chunk ended up going to developers, HB, charities. I guess it's worthless in the sense that maybe they received the highest developer percentage (they were the game that was made BTA afterall).

As for the rest, it just strikes me as odd looking at that chart. The launch seemed okay, then it flatlined at around 10 sales/day until they did the midweek madness. That spike seemed about the same as the second best HB day (so it seems it was significant. Hard to tell since the chart isn't to scale at all).

So why did they skip the summer sale? They bummed along at 10 sales/day all the way through to September. A 66/75 percent sale that summer would have given them a huge spike before their final big payday with HB.

It's just a bizarre chart to me. With such an established baseline of 10/day, how do you possibly justify skipping the Summer sale after seeing what happened at 50 percent off during midweek madness?
 
C

Chance Hale

Member
Smash88 said:
God damnit they took Cryostasis from the store. I never got a chance to get a copy on Steam. I'm a sad panda. :(
Click to expand...

Weird, it's a really good game so I hope it gets put back up. Only issue is the game is the most poorly optimized product I've come across. I have a GTX670 and the game cuts to 20FPS frequently, although it ended up being partially related to a sound bug that I had to download drivers for(and only for this game)
 
Z

zkylon

zkylewd
Tragicomedy said:
Best Steam sale ever had it at $1.99. What a great frigging game!
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yeah I bought my digital copy then too.

I'd go on a gifting rampage if it were $1.99 again but for some reason it's not available in argentina and the only way I could buy it was at my old job.

and yes, AP kicks all kinds of ass
 
M

Megasoum

Banned
Well I got Dark Souls yesterday on GMG, I'm happy. Now I only need Vampire to go on sale and I'll be a happy camper until the june sale.
 
I

iavi

Member
Weirdly enough, the package that was once listed as Naruto in the registry has it's releasestate set to 'released'

http://steamdb.info/sub/26350/

Does that even mean anything?

Lords of Shadow's package was also last updated today, so progress is still being made there. And Mortal Kombat actually has people playing it online, so that can't be far off at all.

Halo hasn't been updated in months, and wasn't all that extensive an entry to begin with. I really doubt it's coming.
 
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