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[Kriken]

It is probably just a placeholder price. SE doesn't think their fans are this stupid.

 

[Nzyme32]

whatever happened with volvo @ CES?

They are doing this:

 

[jshackles]

My guess is that the queue COULD (as in: I don't know) be of some use for "entry level" Steam users.
But when you have an account full of hundreds or thousands of games, half of them probably bundle trash that you don't even like but you OWN them (and maybe you also have plenty of hours of playtime for idling!), it's just impossible for the queue to come up with proper recommendations.

On the contrary my good Copons! Someone who owns 1,000 games on Steam gives Steam a lot more data about that user (and, potentially, their gaming habits) and should be able to provide a better recommendation for that user, not worse. Especially since for every game you own on Steam (if you own 1,000) there are 7 more waiting to be discovered. Valve really should step up their game and use this data to provide more meaningful recommendations as Cheesecake said. It's an absolute disgrace that games still show up in people's queue that aren't available in their region, for example. Similarly, games marked as "not interested" on Steam don't actually do anything right now other than remove them from your queue. I've had a discovery queue contain 8 early access survival crafting games, despite having dozens if not hundreds of them in my "not interested" list.

The system is working well enough for Valve to be making money, but not well enough for it to be meaningful to a large portion of their userbase. As for dealing with "bundle trash", it's as easy as looking at playtime trends other than total time played. How many times have you started the game in the past few weeks? How long did you play each session? Even having an (optional) popup after random play sessions asking whether or not you enjoyed the game/genre. Tons of possibilities here that are being ignored.

 

[Annubis]

Speaking of data grabbing, anyone else feels like the cards for discovery during the last sale was Steam wanting data?

 

[LurkerPrime]

I don't think Valve cares about curations/recommendations at all. If they did, step zero would be to remove owned games from the recommendations list and stop games from repeating in it, especially owned games since they were already been removed.

Speaking of data grabbing, anyone else feels like the cards for discovery during the last sale was Steam wanting data?

Well the cache catastrophe probably jumbled their data just enough to make it useless.

I completely stopped bothering after I missed that day.

 

[tuxfool]

They are doing this:

Is this real? I thought Volvo was all about safety.

 

[Nzyme32]

Is this real? I thought Volvo was all about safety.

Exactly my first thought. Yes it is real.

 

[Sch1sm]

Speaking of data grabbing, anyone else feels like the cards for discovery during the last sale was Steam wanting data?

For a moment, I did.

But then... my queue never made any sense, so I dunno what "data" it'd be grabbing. Especially considering after a while most people just starting spamming "Next" throughout the whole thing.

 

[ramoisdead]

They are doing this:

I can already tell the Sakura series will be the leading cause of automobile accidents in the future.

 

[Copons]

The other way around. Average discount was worse.

Oh.
That sounds bad then.

And we also lost the dailies in the process!!

On the contrary my good Copons! Someone who owns 1,000 games on Steam gives Steam a lot more data about that user (and, potentially, their gaming habits) and should be able to provide a better recommendation for that user, not worse. Especially since for every game you own on Steam (if you own 1,000) there are 7 more waiting to be discovered. Valve really should step up their game and use this data to provide more meaningful recommendations as Cheesecake said. It's an absolute disgrace that games still show up in people's queue that aren't available in their region, for example. Similarly, games marked as "not interested" on Steam don't actually do anything right now other than remove them from your queue. I've had a discovery queue contain 8 early access survival crafting games, despite having dozens if not hundreds of them in my "not interested" list.

The system is working well enough for Valve to be making money, but not well enough for it to be meaningful to a large portion of their userbase.

Yeah but if half of my 1000 games are bundle trash (or whatever game we don't like lies in our libraries), most of them idled for a long time (YES! I BLAME YOU! ), it would be just fair on Steam part to keep suggesting me bundle trash, as every hint points to the fact that I quite enjoy them.

On the other hand, when it suggests games not available or marked not interested, well that's a bug and should be fixed, but that's not my point.


EDIT

The system is working well enough for Valve to be making money, but not well enough for it to be meaningful to a large portion of their userbase. As for dealing with "bundle trash", it's as easy as looking at playtime trends other than total time played. How many times have you started the game in the past few weeks? How long did you play each session? Even having an (optional) popup after random play sessions asking whether or not you enjoyed the game/genre. Tons of possibilities here that are being ignored.

I definitely agree that it can and should be improved.
But at the same time, I honestly think that our own "bad" customer habits inevitably fucked up the ability to provide us a meaningful insight on our actual gaming habits.

 

[texhnolyze]

Final Fantasy IX is a pretty tough sell at $39.99. Hell, in 2000 I remember that Walmart sold the game new for $39.99 when it launched.

$29.99 (-GMG launch discount/coupon) is usually my upper limit of Final Fantasy port Day 1 purchases on Steam. $40 is an instant "wait until it's discounted".

Yes, $40 is unacceptable for a bare port like IX. Unless they did a lof of remastering other than models, it's automatic wait until it gets a good discount. At least put that waifu filtering for the backgrounds and maybe I'll reconsider it.

 

[Hero Prinny]

With inflation in mind, we're getting quite a deal.

its a 16 year old game, thats not a deal at all.

 

[iosefe]

decided to try and boot up XCOM EW, but it have a start up loop and will have to do a cache verification, meaning i lose the Long War which means i am sad and will proaly lose my save if there is a new version of Long War since i last play

 

[garath]

But you didn't have to check 3 times a day to see if the game you want is on sale, because the game you want is on sale. You checked 3 times a day to see if the games on sale that you want gets a better discount for 8-48 hours.
With the new model, you get the same baseline discount you were getting before, just not the chance of a special discount on top of that. How is that better? Less stressful sure, more remunerative for publishers/developers absolutely, but better for players/consumers? I just don't get it.

You misunderstand. Previously games had a small baseline sale and had a max sale flash price. Valve would ask for two prices. This time they ALL had the publisher chosen max sale price from the get go. The lack of dailies had nothing to do with the average smaller discount.

Previously a game might not even show up in a daily deal and never see that max discount. It was a flawed system.

 

[Messiah]

its a 16 year old game, thats not a deal at all.

Better readjust that sarcasm detector, dood.

 

[Jawmuncher]

Yes, $40 is unacceptable for a bare port like IX. Unless they did a lof of remastering other than models, it's automatic wait until it gets a good discount. At least put that waifu filtering for the backgrounds and maybe I'll reconsider it.

It's not entirely barebones.
Models got a good bump
https://twitter.com/RPGSite/status/686276891930693632

 

[uncredited male]

I can already tell the Sakura series will be the leading cause of automobile accidents in the future.

For some reason I don't think there is a lot of overlap of those demographics.

 

[texhnolyze]

It's not entirely barebones.
Models got a good bump
https://twitter.com/RPGSite/status/686276891930693632

Yes, I've already saw the comparison screens made by a gaffer last week.
But still, not $40 worthy imho. $40 is the price of a true remaster, even Type-0 was only $30. I really hope it's just a placeholder.

 

[Eila]

FFIX has improved models a la OoT 3D and no texture warping present. We also haven't seen battles, to see if they improved the background textures as well.
The pre-rendered backgrounds went through photoshop, but it didn't do much since it was so low res.

 

[MUnited83]

Guys, why are you even entertaining the thought that 40$ is the correct price? Lol, it won't be, calm down.

 

[yuraya]

The only way I see IX being 40$ is if they bundled Episode Duscae with it. Even that would be like 15$ too much imo.

 

[rtcn63]

What if... they came out with a $30 version, but it used the FFVI port's art style.

 

[uncredited male]

This is from the Steam page:

Additional Features
・Achievements
・Seven game boosters including high speed and no encounter modes.
・Autosave
・High-definition movies and character models.

I seriously doubt they did much of anything other than this.

 

[Arthea]

Guys, why are you even entertaining the thought that 40$ is the correct price? Lol, it won't be, calm down.

what if they hired artists and are redoing those backgrounds and that's why a game release date was changed?

Spoiler

I kid, I kid

This is from the Steam page:

I seriously doubt they did much of anything other than this.

They most certainly didn't, or they would mention.

 

[LurkerPrime]

FFIX has improved models a la OoT 3D and no texture warping present. We also haven't seen battles, to see if they improved the background textures as well.
The pre-rendered backgrounds went through photoshop, but it didn't do much since it was so low res.

Yeah... I wouldn't expect any miracles.

 

[The Red Wizard]

That has to be an error for FFIX.

 

[MMBosstones86]

Well I'm bummed that we'll never see flash/daily deals anymore.

I felt totally disconnected from this sale and had little reason to check the site after the first and last day.

Not to mention the comic was hot garbage. Such a let down after the clicker game.

 

[iosefe]

i goofed, i uninstalled when i meant to verify XCOM

on the other hand, i'm gonna start a new Long War run, so i will be drafting names again soon

 

[Eila]

What if... they came out with a $30 version, but it used the FFVI port's art styke.

A demake would be super neat, honestly.

 

[texhnolyze]

Yeah... I wouldn't expect any miracles.

The waifu backgrounds mod is looking good though.
At least there's still hope.

 

[MUnited83]

Well I'm bummed that we'll never see flash/daily deals anymore.

I felt totally disconnected from this sale and had little reason to check the site after the first and last day.

Not to mention the comic was hot garbage. Such a let down after the clicker game.

The worst fucking thing is that they still allow AAA publishers to do "dailies", yet they are not clearly marked as such, and it destroys the argument of "oh now you only have to check the sales once, that's neat"

 

[AHA-Lambda]

I will say this, the discounts are decided by the developers/publishers, so they can choose how to discount it. But there is discussion of the devalue of games and to be wise of your product, but there's a lot of different viewpoints on this topic.

However, my hope is to find some other way to make sales 'fun' for the more hardcore fans. Valve kind of experimented last Winter Sale with the Gem Raffle system and earlier this year with the Clicker minigame thing. Both are not tied into daily deals, are were a bit of fun (I liked the raffle more than the Clicker game, personally), so if they can find other avenues like that, I think most wouldn't mind as much. While I know a sale is a sale and it doesn't need to be 'fun', I think that was one attractive aspect to Valve's storefront, even though the data does show that the sales do a lot better with their new method.

Think this is a more than fair suggestion, even with the dailies the prices have tended upwards for the past few years now anyway, as we've faced much derision for the devaluation of games - and that discussion has not been without merit after all.

 

[freshVeggie]

I decided to buy Dragon's Dogma. And to give a little something away, since it's been a while.

Pretty nice of you. Missed it closely by watching Rumble in the Bronx. A real fun movie but Armour of God II: Operation Condor is still my favorite Jackie Chan movie of all time.

Ubisoft confirms that For Honor will have a full single-player campaign

Interest went up.

Idle Master grows your Steam Trading Card collection in your absence



Idle Master accumulates Steam Trading Cards while you sleep

RIP jashackles inbox/nerves.

 

[jshackles]

I definitely agree that it can and should be improved.
But at the same time, I honestly think that our own "bad" customer habits inevitably fucked up the ability to provide us a meaningful insight on our actual gaming habits.

I would agree with you except that I think you're putting too much emphasis on how well you think it should be working right now.

For example, my son went through his discovery queue on his account several times every day during the sale for the free card. He has about 100 games on his account and doesn't activate or play "bundle trash", only stuff he's interested in (right now, that means 6 hours a day playing Total War Empire and/or Age of Empires 3). He saw the same types of things I did, almost always with the "you're seeing this because it's on sale!" and "you're seeing this because it's popular with other Steam users!" messages. His actual gaming preferences, owned games, and play time had no bearing whatsoever on which games he saw in his discovery queue. I was kind of fascinated by this, because I thought for sure Steam would recommend other Total War games, maybe Age of Mythology, Rise of Nations, Civilization, etc, but didn't. Instead he saw Just Cause 3 (he doesn't own either of the first two), Fallout 4 (again, never having played any of the others). I think the closest thing he saw to Total War Empire and/or Age of Empires 3 was Tropico which I think is a city building game? Nothing like what he's been playing. But he was told it was in his queue because it was on sale.

Also, putting out a graph saying "see, we had a lot more customer engagement this sale, because we gave everyone free trading cards" is also a bit disingenuous, especially when comparing it to the number of discovery queue hits during the Summer Sale.

Valve is really going to have to step up to the plate with their discovery queue, before regular users start to realize that it's nothing more than selective advertising. The Winter Sale would have been a good chance for them to iterate.

 

[Messiah]

Was really hoping Valve would be looking into personalized discounts or earning discounts by participating in the sale or something in that vein.

 

[lashman]

Game Informer Test Chamber - Star Wars Pinball: The Force Awakens

 

[dave is ok]

Tigerdirect cancelled my order. 50 dollars for 16GB of RAM. The dream is dead

 

[ModBot]

This is a scheduled automated repost on behalf of Messiah, who is running this raffle.

None of the keys you submitted were able to be processed
By the way, there were some errors processing your keys...
Error: The key you tried to add for Just Cause 3 failed because it was already in ModBot from another user. If you wish to re-gift a key, please read the help thread under 'I accidentally took a key I didn't want' and follow those instructions before re-adding.

 

[uncredited male]

ModBot ain't got time for this shit.

 

[Dsyndrome]

decided to try and boot up XCOM EW, but it have a start up loop and will have to do a cache verification, meaning i lose the Long War which means i am sad and will proaly lose my save if there is a new version of Long War since i last play

Are old saves incompatible with updates of The Long War?
Edit: Nevermind, saw you're starting over.

The worst fucking thing is that they still allow AAA publishers to do "dailies", yet they are not clearly marked as such, and it destroys the argument of "oh now you only have to check the sales once, that's neat"

Fucking Ubisoft and their stealth deals, glad I actually looked one of the days.

 

[The Dear Leader]

I think whoever actually ends up with that Just Cause 3 key will be dead in 7 days. It's cursed or something.

 

[ModBot]

This is a scheduled automated repost on behalf of Messiah, who is running this raffle.

None of the keys you submitted were able to be processed
By the way, there were some errors processing your keys...
Error: The key you tried to add for Just Cause 3 failed because it was already in ModBot from another user. If you wish to re-gift a key, please read the help thread under 'I accidentally took a key I didn't want' and follow those instructions before re-adding.

 

[Dusk Golem]

Think this is a more than fair suggestion, even with the dailies the prices have tended upwards for the past few years now anyway, as we've faced much derision for the devaluation of games - and that discussion has not been without merit after all.

The discussion among developers are interesting, and there's a lot of fair points from all sides. A lot of game developers are gamers first, so there are arguments for and against things. But one has to make a living, games take time to make and often multiple talents, but also there's such a surplus of them right now in the indie scene one has to be competitive, but that competitive drive shouldn't plummet standards to mobile market standards... I could spend paragraphs describing what's discussed on this topic, but I'll just say it's a very lengthy and intriguing discussion, since there is importance here for the long-term of the indie game scene as opposed to making a quick buck, and the indie 'tide', as it were, will definitely shape the landscape of indie games differently in the next few years, but that also means it's more important now than ever to make measures as a community of developers to take care of the market rather than nosedive things and make it where cheapness both in development and prices are king.

 

[iosefe]

Are old saves incompatible with updates of The Long War?
Edit: Nevermind, saw you're starting over.

i have no idea if saves are compatible, so i figure it's been a long enough time that i'll jsut start over

 

[ModBot]

This is a scheduled automated repost on behalf of Messiah, who is running this raffle.

None of the keys you submitted were able to be processed
By the way, there were some errors processing your keys...
Error: The key you tried to add for Just Cause 3 failed because it was already in ModBot from another user. If you wish to re-gift a key, please read the help thread under 'I accidentally took a key I didn't want' and follow those instructions before re-adding.

 

[Baron von Loathsome]

Modbot, get a hold of yourself.

 

[dave is ok]

The timer is counting up

 

[Kriken]

RIP in peace ModBot

 

[texhnolyze]

Stop it, Modbot.
I command you.

 

[fertygo]

Modbot, are you okay