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STEAM | April 2016 - HL3 releasing today. Left 4 Dead 3 and Persona 5 this summer

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S

shortsFortallPeople

Banned
continuing my trend of getting into a game and not discovering a mechanic till later than i should've: I finished the first major area and boss fight and i was wondering when I would finally have access to my Eve powers (basically, magic). Turns out i had access to them all of the time and if I had finished the completely optional and painfully long stages at the shooting range back at the home base I would've discovered this.

Oh well, at least it didn't take me half the game to find out about it like how to access illusory walls in DS2 did.
 
Z

Zeknurn

Member
https://www.thurrott.com/xbox/xbox-one/66802/microsoft-will-announce-new-hardware-e3

In addition to an updated standard controller, the company is exploring new interactions between the PC and the Xbox One to further extend the capabilities already present between the two (game streaming). Seeing as Microsoft wants to make Windows 10 on the desktop and Xbox one a ‘killer combination’, they are looking to leverage the ecosystem to create unique experiences for games that are on other platforms too.

The idea is simple, even for games that are not device exclusive, make unique experiences between the console and the PC that PlayStation cannot emulate easily to help differentiate the console from its competitors.
Click to expand...
 
S

shortsFortallPeople

Banned
I think im going to finally play Arkham Knight as soon as I wrap up Gears of War Judgment.

Did they ever end up releasing any campaign DLC worth a shit? AC had that okayish Robin DLC and Oranges had that Mr Freeze DLC (ugh) but i feel like no one talks about the AK DLC.
 
S

sanhora

Member
Tales of Symphonia just got a random patch out of nowhere? It was last patched 2 months ago. Doesn't seemingly fix any of the bigger issues with the game though.

Hello Tales of Symphonia players! A new update is live featuring a handful of fixes. See below for the full list. And thank you again for your support of Tales of Symphonia!

Cheers,
-Bandai Namco Community Team

Remote Island Ranch did not allow players using Genis to successfully activate the sorcerers ring to change directions during the cart puzzle.
Fixed crash at Welgaia when receiving the Chipped Dagger.
Fixed game becoming unresponsive if game pad was unplugged during movement.
Audio will now save based on the last save slot loaded.
Sound Test should now be present on the main menu at all times if the last game a player loaded was NG+
Blurriness double checked to ensure there were no left over instances of FXAA. Post texture shaders were updated from linear, back to point.
Updated credits.
Various localization and corrupt text fixes throughout the game.
Click to expand...
 
T

TheAutomator

Banned
BernardoOne said:
Nintendo has to step it up and put Ladybaby on Mario Maker too.
tumblr_nr52s0OIro1qb6v6ro3_500.gif
Click to expand...

Incredible gif.
 
Z

zkylon

zkylewd
i don't get how that isn't scary, there's almost twice as many games but the money being moved is still the same (i'm guessing 10% lower can be just a slow year or whatever?) which probably means there's as ton of stuff being sold that no one wants

who cares about top 30, those games are gonna do well regardless of how much shovelware floods the store
 
M

MUnited83

For you.
zkylon said:
i don't get how that isn't scary, there's almost twice as many games but the money being moved is still the same (i'm guessing 10% lower can be just a slow year or whatever?) which probably means there's as ton of stuff being sold that no one wants

who cares about top 30, those games are gonna do well regardless of how much shovelware floods the store
Click to expand...

I don't get how it is scary in the slightest though. Shovelware would never sell, and it will continue to not sell. This is irrelevant.
 
N

Nzyme32

Member
zkylon said:
i don't get how that isn't scary, there's almost twice as many games but the money being moved is still the same (i'm guessing 10% lower can be just a slow year or whatever?) which probably means there's as ton of stuff being sold that no one wants

who cares about top 30, those games are gonna do well regardless of how much shovelware floods the store
Click to expand...

BernardoOne said:
I don't get how it is scary in the slightest though. Shovelware would never sell, and it will continue to not sell. This is irrelevant.
Click to expand...

Yeah. The increase in shovelware / crap games is definitely there, as is the increase in exceptional quality and highly regarded indies that have sold tremendously well.

Salsa said:
you guys are doing a bad job on selling me on this bundle

is it just system shock?
Click to expand...

That's all I bought it for, as well as the one other game in there that seemed like something I would like... already forgotten the name of it, but I think it was the only highly rated one outside of System Shock
 
L

Ludens

Banned
I wonder how many people buying the bundle for SS will actually play the game. Because it's very hard to play, controls are garbage, nothing like SS2.
 
Z

zkylon

zkylewd
BernardoOne said:
I don't get how it is scary in the slightest though. Shovelware would never sell, and it will continue to not sell. This is irrelevant.
Click to expand...
shovelware makes it harder to find the good games, specially if they're not featured or whatever

it doesn't matter if it sells or not, it takes a space on the list that belongs to a non garbage game

the tools provided by valve like curators and the recommended list right now are pretty good at offering you non-shovelware stuff but it's also not a very enjoyable way of browsing the store (recommended list is just useless, curator stuff is not the greatest to navigate with no filters or easy way to turn off games you already have) and as someone that wants to have their games on steam some day to me it's super scary to think that if i'm not stardew valley i'm having to fight for "shelf space" with hundreds of shovelware games
 
T

TheLetdown

Member
zkylon said:
i don't get how that isn't scary, there's almost twice as many games but the money being moved is still the same (i'm guessing 10% lower can be just a slow year or whatever?) which probably means there's as ton of stuff being sold that no one wants

who cares about top 30, those games are gonna do well regardless of how much shovelware floods the store
Click to expand...

Well, it shows that "indie games as a business" is still viable despite market saturation.

The theory of indiepocalypse that the sheer availability of games on the market will force the budget of indies to increase (thus bloating the size of studios) also goes shown up here.

Over 1 million of that total goes to Stardew. 1 man dev. A quarter of a million to Gungeon. Small team there. Another quarter to Hyper Light Drifter. Small crew there, too.

Currently, it seems the same as it ever was. Quality indies get the sales no matter their budget. Shovelware is gonna shovel no matter how much of it exists.
 
R

Rhaknar

The Steam equivalent of the drunk friend who keeps offering to pay your tab all night.
and done with Lords of Shadow 2. DLC was cute, if very short.
 
A

Arthea

Member
how exactly almost twice as many games making the same revenue is nothing to worry about? I get that there are much more bad games, but there are more good ones too.

edited: not to mention much larger steam userbase
 
Z

zkylon

zkylewd
TheLetdown said:
Well, it shows that "indie games as a business" is still viable despite market saturation.

The theory of indiepocalypse that the sheer availability of games on the market will force the budget of indies to increase (thus bloating the size of studios) also goes shown up here.

Over 1 million of that total goes to Stardew. 1 man dev. A quarter of a million to Gungeon. Small team there. Another quarter to Hyper Light Drifter. Small crew there, too.

Currently, it seems the same as it ever was. Quality indies get the sales no matter their budget. Shovelware is gonna shovel no matter how much of it exists.
Click to expand...
i don't really follow other people's paranoia or whatever but to me it's def scary cos i see stardew valley or enter the gungeon and i see megahits and for every one of those there's hundreds that don't make it.

it's like saying that you can make indie games outside of steam cos minecraft exists

i'd much rather have a stable average than a couple huge games because while i'd love to make something awesome like stardew valley i just can't count on it being a megahit and then i see my tiny little game that's nowhere near as huge and i def get scared with the feeling of "if it's not as good as stardew it's gonna tank". mind you, 1 man team or not, stardew valley took forever to make, idk about enter the gungeon or hyper light drifter, but they were on kickstarter, and like, i gotta pay rent, i live in a country that's like have bad regulations for kickstarter stuff, there's no huge connections here to find amazing pixelartists like there is in america, etc.

i'm not saying the whole universe is going down or whatever, but i do feel it's scary
 
S

shortsFortallPeople

Banned
Ludens said:
SS2 is ok, only graphics are outdated, but the game plays great.
Click to expand...

i've tried that weird opening section like 3-4 times over the years going back to downloading the game off of Kazaa when i was a youngin' who couldn't afford a used copy of the game online and, nope, it was always too clunky and chunky for me and I was someone who had no trouble getting into Deus Ex on the PS2 no less.

Arthea said:
how exactly almost twice as many games making the same revenue is nothing to worry about? I get that there are much more bad games, but there are more good ones too.

edited: not to mention much larger steam userbase
Click to expand...

because if they add 1k more games but only 50 or so of them are actually worth your time then you have two possible issues with that bigger number: one, that most folks that are new to the platform might still be going back and purchasing older indie games they missed on and two, that you have a quantity over quality issue where even though more games are coming that doesn't mean they're worth purchasing.

someone will point to user reviews being better but i trust user reviews only as far as I can throw them.
 
K

Knurek

Member
Arthea said:
how exactly almost twice as many games making the same revenue is nothing to worry about? I get that there are much more bad games, but there are more good ones too.

edited: not to mention much larger steam userbase
Click to expand...

Wasn't the data only regarding indie games? Maybe it's just that all those console players jumping ship to PC are just buying AAA titles (especially since they get indies for free on PS+)
 
T

Tellaerin

Member
zkylon said:
shovelware makes it harder to find the good games, specially if they're not featured or whatever

it doesn't matter if it sells or not, it takes a space on the list that belongs to a non garbage game

the tools provided by valve like curators and the recommended list right now are pretty good at offering you non-shovelware stuff but it's also not a very enjoyable way of browsing the store (recommended list is just useless, curator stuff is not the greatest to navigate with no filters or easy way to turn off games you already have) and as someone that wants to have their games on steam some day to me it's super scary to think that if i'm not stardew valley i'm having to fight for "shelf space" with hundreds of shovelware games
Click to expand...

The thing about having more options is that you're getting more bad ones along with the good.

I don't mind that there's more stuff on the virtual shelves, or that it's not heavily curated by Valve themselves. Sure, I have to do a little more work to separate the bad from the good, but I'd rather do that myself than have someone else doing it for me. There's no guarantee that what I'm interested in would align with the tastes of Valve's "gatekeepers", and it's usually not hard to screen out the obvious junk at a glance.

shortsFortallPeople said:
i've tried that weird opening section like 3-4 times over the years going back to downloading the game off of Kazaa when i was a youngin' who couldn't afford a used copy of the game online and, nope, it was always too clunky and chunky for me and I was someone who had no trouble getting into Deus Ex on the PS2 no less.
Click to expand...

The PS2 version of DX gets an unfairly bad rap, IMO. The levels were remixed, yes, but the visuals were better at the time, the transition from keyboard to gamepad worked out well, and in retrospect I think I actually preferred how inventory management was handled in the console version. Also liked the prerendered intro and endings. (Kinda wish someone would mod those into the PC version.)
 
A

Arthea

Member
Knurek said:
Wasn't the data only regarding indie games? Maybe it's just that all those console players jumping ship to PC are just buying AAA titles (especially since they get indies for free on PS+)
Click to expand...

oh, I haven't thought of that, maybe you are onto something here
 
T

TheLetdown

Member
zkylon said:
i don't really follow other people's paranoia or whatever but to me it's def scary cos i see stardew valley or enter the gungeon and i see megahits. for every one of those there's hundreds that don't make it.

it's like saying that you can make indie games outside of steam cos minecraft exists

i'd much rather have a stable average than a couple huge games because while i'd love to make something awesome like stardew valley i just can't count on it being a megahit

i'm not saying the whole universe is going down or whatever, but i do feel it's scary
Click to expand...

That's understandable.

But the fact of indie game development is that it is, by nature, kind of a batshit crazy thing to do. But people do it for the love of it, not the stability.

You kind of have to trust that your talent will shine through, even if it means eating cardboard until the stars align and what you want for the world matches what you made for the world, because you got that shit in you.

The market is irrelevant in that sense. Look at the parallel to writers. It's always been hot/cold. The explosion of free ebooks hasn't changed that fact for the better or worse. In fact, it's at least given people the chance to make some cash from writing where it used to have to choose between starving or giving in for a 9 to 5.
 
T

thesaucetastic

Unconfirmed Member
I just beat A Bird's Story. Didn't really care for it much. It's just a game about an imaginative (?) boy and his bird friend with a broken wing. I feel like I've seen this story several times before. Also the tile system I think was a little annoying because I'd walk into invisible walls all the time. The backdrops and soundtrack were really nice though. I appreciated that it tried to tell its story without dialogue, although just like To The Moon, I don't think there was enough interactivity in the way it was told. Overall I think it's definitely worse than To The Moon.
 
O

Ozium

Member
ModBot said:
Instructions for participants:
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Pneuma: Breath of Life -- MB-827169F291907D50 - Taken by redlacs. 2 entrants total.
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t1461786751z1.png
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hi
 
S

Sch1sm

Member
thesaucetastic said:
I just beat A Bird's Story. Didn't really care for it much. It's just a game about an imaginative (?) boy and his bird friend with a broken wing. I feel like I've seen this story several times before. Also the tile system I think was a little annoying because I'd walk into invisible walls all the time. The backdrops and soundtrack were really nice though. I appreciated that it tried to tell its story without dialogue, although just like To The Moon, I don't think there was enough interactivity in the way it was told. Overall I think it's definitely worse than To The Moon.
Click to expand...

Can agree with this. I was bored through my play through of it last year because of the lack of interactivity. Barely immersive. Struggled to get through the barely an hour it took. I also didn't care for To The Moon all that much, either. Didn't sadden me as much as everyone else. :")
 
Z

zkylon

zkylewd
Tellaerin said:
The thing about having more options is that you're getting more bad ones along with the good.

I don't mind that there's more stuff on the virtual shelves, or that it's not heavily curated by Valve themselves. Sure, I have to do a little more work to separate the bad from the good, but I'd rather do that myself than have someone else doing it for me. There's no guarantee that what I'm interested in would align with the tastes of Valve's "gatekeepers", and it's usually not hard to screen out the obvious junk at a glance.
Click to expand...
nah i don't think having more options is a bad idea but valve doesn't do a great job of
a) removing the "non-options": as in, games that don't work, are people reselling premade games from asset stores and such
b) providing users with better ways to filter/curate the endless lists of games: the recommended list is imo a useless feature and the curator lists that show up are very weird sometimes because they're based on popularity rather than something related directly to you. i've been saying this for a while, how hard would it be for steam to add to your recommended list "games that your friends have liked/have high hour counts on", "games with good ratings of the genres that you generally play", or something. they have the data to do it and it would help a ton. underrail released and i never heard of it until someone told me here. if they had a good recommending system it would go like YOU LOVE FALLOUT YOULL LOVE THIS GAME
c) empowering curators with better tools: this is still mindboggling to me, there's like 7 clicks before you can add a game to ur curator list (why can't you freaking do it from the store page!?). can't remember if you do multiple curator lists, i was really thinking of making a "zky's questionable favorites" list but having to create a group for that is just stupid

TheLetdown said:
That's understandable.

But the fact of indie game development is that it is, by nature, kind of a batshit crazy thing to do. But people do it for the love of it, not the stability.

You kind of have to trust that your talent will shine through, even if it means eating cardboard until the stars align and what you want for the world matches what you made for the world, because you got that shit in you.

The market is irrelevant in that sense. Look at the parallel to writers. It's always been hot/cold. The explosion of free ebooks hasn't changed that fact for the better or worse. In fact, it's at least given people the chance to make some cash from writing where it used to have to choose between starving or giving in for a 9 to 5.
Click to expand...
yea i get that but i think the indie scene is still in a growing phase and it would be nice if it grew into something more stable and with more opportunities.

i don't want to have to choose between starving or 9 to 5, i don't think that's ok and seeing valve is in a position to do something about it i would love if they took the measures to foster a better environment for the indie scene that's such an important part of their business
 
S

Se7enSword

Banned
Bitcoin payment method officially announced for Steam

Today we're announcing a new payment integration with software and gaming giant Valve which will bring bitcoin payments to Steam gamers worldwide.

Founded in 1996, Valve's Steam platform is used by more than 89 million gamers. Steam reaches 237 countries, and its more than 9,000 different games include popular titles like Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Civilization V, XCOM 2, and Fallout 4. Many of the award-winning titles were produced in-house at Valve, including Left 4 Dead, Half-Life, and Portal.

Valve reached out to us because they were looking for a fast, international payment method for Steam users in emerging gaming markets in countries like India, China, and Brazil. While more users are coming online in in these countries, traditional payment options like credit cards often aren't available. As the internet's universal currency, Bitcoin will allow Steam to easily reach gamers in every market around the world – without the high fees or the risk of chargeback fraud that come with card payments.

Whether they're hardcore gamers or first-time players, Steam's players deserve a faster, safer payment method. With Steam's bitcoin integration, customers be able to use any bitcoin wallet to scan, pay, and get back to gaming in seconds without having to provide sensitive financial information.

Bitcoin has a bright future in gaming. We look forward to partnering with more gaming platforms to make bitcoin the most popular payment method for the world's gamers.
Click to expand...
 
M

MUnited83

For you.
Arthea said:
how exactly almost twice as many games making the same revenue is nothing to worry about? I get that there are much more bad games, but there are more good ones too.

edited: not to mention much larger steam userbase
Click to expand...
because there's a lot more of low price shovelware. So yeah, revenue is lower because prices are lower.

zkylon said:
i don't really follow other people's paranoia or whatever but to me it's def scary cos i see stardew valley or enter the gungeon and i see megahits and for every one of those there's hundreds that don't make it.

it's like saying that you can make indie games outside of steam cos minecraft exists

i'd much rather have a stable average than a couple huge games because while i'd love to make something awesome like stardew valley i just can't count on it being a megahit and then i see my tiny little game that's nowhere near as huge and i def get scared with the feeling of "if it's not as good as stardew it's gonna tank". mind you, 1 man team or not, stardew valley took forever to make, idk about enter the gungeon or hyper light drifter, but they were on kickstarter, and like, i gotta pay rent, i live in a country that's like have bad regulations for kickstarter stuff, there's no huge connections here to find amazing pixelartists like there is in america, etc.

i'm not saying the whole universe is going down or whatever, but i do feel it's scary
Click to expand...
Once again, it really isn't scary at all. Its how indie games have always been, but now in a much better position:

- its no longer limited to the 3 or 4 lucky ones a year that get recognition


- there were fucking thousand of games before that didn't get on Steam that sold miserably. Now most can get on Steam and have way more revenue than they would in times they couldnt get on Steam .

The indiepocalypse won't ever happen.
 
T

thesaucetastic

Unconfirmed Member
Sch1sm said:
Can agree with this. I was bored through my play through of it last year because of the lack of interactivity. Barely immersive. Struggled to get through the barely an hour it took. I also didn't care for To The Moon all that much, either. Didn't sadden me as much as everyone else. :")
Click to expand...
Yeah, I wasn't really sad about To The Moon either. I didn't see the twist coming though, so I thought that was pretty well done.
 
Z

zkylon

zkylewd
BernardoOne said:
Once again, it really isn't scary at all. Its how indie games have always been, but now in a much better position:

- its no longer limited to the 3 or 4 lucky ones a year that get recognition


- there were fucking thousand of games before that didn't get on Steam that sold miserably. Now most can get on Steam and have way more revenue than they would in times they couldnt get on Steam .

The indiepocalypse won't ever happen.
Click to expand...

hope that's the case

i'm not a pessimistic person but i feel that these concerns aren't unreasonable and valve could/should do a better job of helping grow a better environment since it's in everyone's best interest i think
 
H

Hektor

Member
AHA-Lambda said:
Fuck sake! O_O

Nioh does not screw around!!
Click to expand...

Really liked what i've played. Only played the first stage so far, mind you, but i'm definitely going to pick it up day 1, unless a PC version is announced with a slight delay or something.

The overall structre is 1:1 souls, but in terms of combat the game is still doing its own thing, similar concept, different execution kind of style.

It's to me surprise not just a lazy clone.
 
A

Arthea

Member
BernardoOne said:
because there's a lot more of low price shovelware. So yeah, revenue is lower because prices are lower.
Click to expand...

come again? Can you tell that prices are lower these days at least to Blow and Murray?
that was a joke, yes
It's even in that chart, the median price is almost the same, so your theory doesn't hold up all that much.
 
R

rainking187

Member
Wow, I just posted the other day saying I was worried I would buy System Shock and then it would get bundled in three weeks. Turns out it was closer to three days before it got bundled. Glad I held off on buying it. Wish the bundle was a little better though, there's really only three or four games in it that I was interested in before the bundle.
 
M

MUnited83

For you.
zkylon said:
hope that's the case

i'm not a pessimistic person but i feel that these concerns aren't unreasonable and valve could/should do a better job of helping grow a better environment since it's in everyone's best interest i think
Click to expand...
I agree that they should continue to expand the discover and explore options as well as making curators matter more. But its also good to remember that even the state it is now it already resukted in more sales, more wishlisting, more page visits than ever before for most devs.


I dont think the current situation is any more dire than the " I can only put my game on Desura or itch.io" days. And guess what, deva that are only published on those serviços seem to be fine and they continue making games. And the moment they get their game on Steam everything multiplies in the hundreds at least.
 
S

SilentMatthew

Member
Gonna jump on the "Steam Client/Presentation is not up to snuff' train by saying Steam Groups usability is awful. Four goddamn years using the thing, scheduling is still awful and basic as fuck. Forever expanding list of games to navigate through, no ability to have reoccurring events, and etc etc.

If they can't be bothered to add a search bar in "Play a Game', them fixing how they present the newest & brightest indie games is probably never gonna happen.
 
AHA-Lambda

AHA-Lambda

Member
Hektor said:
Really liked what i've played. Only played the first stage so far, mind you, but i'm definitely going to pick it up day 1, unless a PC version is announced with a slight delay or something.

The overall structre is 1:1 souls, but in terms of combat the game is still doing its own thing, similar concept, different execution kind of style.

It's to me surprise not just a lazy clone.
Click to expand...

So far I just have no idea what to do, everything kills me in one hit and good luck fighting more than one foe at once D:
 
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