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STEAM | July 2016 - Post Sale Hauls, Post Sale Blues

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A

Anno

Member
r3n4ud said:
Pc gamers aren't highly looked upon over on the ol' gaming side lol
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Yeah but I liked when we were just ignored, or maybe called port beggers or flippant PCMR jokes. Now it's just like 10 threads arguing the same nonsense. It's weird.
 
R

r3n4ud

Member
Anno said:
Yeah but I liked when we were just ignored, or maybe called port beggers or flippant PCMR jokes. Now it's just like 10 threads arguing the same nonsense. It's weird.
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Oh for sure. The pc threads are troll infested and I just don't bother going into them anymore. Not worth arguing with them when you point out the flaws in their arguments.
 
L

Lomax

Member
freshVeggie said:
Wow, that the dev even felt the need to say that as the very first thing in the game info is crazy. Would be neat to see the gamut of thoughts about bundles from indie devs with experience in those.
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Owners: 4,734 ± 1,748
Players in the last 2 weeks: 1,018 ± 995 (21.51%)
Players total: 4,058 ± 1,618 (85.71%)

I'm sure those 5k buyers are happy it hasn't been bundled in the year since it was released. Kinda sad really. Game looks interesting but it looks like a bundle game. Maybe if it had come out five years sooner.
 
D

Deques

Member
derExperte said:
The Disgaea TF2 items are available (but not tradeable) now. Start TF2 to get them.



Assuming they are two people. If you know what I mean. Having some doubts. Anyway, worst thread of the week during one of the worst weeks GAF ever had, my ignore list would be beyond the limit without GAF Gold.
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I have the game as a gift, will I still be getting the tf2 items if I redeem it now?
 
T

TheLetdown

Member
derExperte said:
Assuming they are two people. If you know what I mean. Having some doubts. Anyway, worst thread of the week during one of the worst weeks GAF ever had, my ignore list would be beyond the limit without GAF Gold.
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This really has been a tough GAF week.

morningbus said:
I feel like that openness thread might be the perfect place for me to argue about GOG's account wall.
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I honestly think it is. Qualifying the definition of "open" for GOG but not for other platforms is outright arbitrary and capricious.
 
A

Amzin

Member
Lomax said:
No, look at his numbers. The slant towards games with lower discounts was drastic. The average game at 66% off made half what it did last year. There was a significant year on year shift. What you're describing is the console market. PC has been a long tale market, and signs of that changing is not a good thing.
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It's incredibly dangerous to make assumptions based on numbers in a vacuum like that. He largely tries to avoid making conclusions but still makes a couple that absolutely cannot be verified, and people are taking his data and making even bigger, more impossible to prove conclusions.

40K units of 66% off games sold vs 70K units... what can we conclude from that? That fewer games at 66% off were sold this year. There's nothing else we can actually take from that data. The quality of games at 66% could be different, the majority of games in the 66% discount range could have been ones that had been at steep discounts recently elsewhere or previously, could be older games with an established user base already, maybe fewer games were 66% off because of price reductions so 50% off was actually a better deal this time, etc. There's no cause and effect, no correlation, that we can draw from that limited data. It just is data. The most important part, that most people seem to be ignoring, is the 40%+ increase in revenue over last year. That's HUGE. Any company would be thrilled to have that much increase. Again, can't draw too many conclusions from it, but it's certainly a good sign for PC gamers in general.

The top 50-60 games sold during this Steam sale, according to Steam Spy, were almost all "big" titles. Most Steam sales have been this way (if not all of them) and many of those titles are discounted pretty slimly almost every time. Don't forget all the criticisms people post about how CoD13 is in the top 5 with a 10% discount, or whatever the topic of the day is.

PC market and the console market were the SAME market for years. The advent of digital allowed for divergence, and there has been some, but a heavy amount of PC game sales (especially for bigger games) are still front-loaded to this day. Long tail is more prominent in PC gaming compared to consoles, but it is not what developers aim for, and it is not the way the majority shop and purchase.
 
L

Lomax

Member
Amzin said:
It's incredibly dangerous to make assumptions based on numbers in a vacuum like that. He largely tries to avoid making conclusions but still makes a couple that absolutely cannot be verified, and people are taking his data and making even bigger, more impossible to prove conclusions.

40K units of 66% off games sold vs 70K units... what can we conclude from that? That fewer games at 66% off were sold this year. There's nothing else we can actually take from that data. The quality of games at 66% could be different, the majority of games in the 66% discount range could have been ones that had been at steep discounts recently elsewhere or previously, could be older games with an established user base already, maybe fewer games were 66% off because of price reductions so 50% off was actually a better deal this time, etc. There's no cause and effect, no correlation, that we can draw from that limited data. It just is data. The most important part, that most people seem to be ignoring, is the 40%+ increase in revenue over last year. That's HUGE. Any company would be thrilled to have that much increase. Again, can't draw too many conclusions from it, but it's certainly a good sign for PC gamers in general.

The top 50-60 games sold during this Steam sale, according to Steam Spy, were almost all "big" titles. Most Steam sales have been this way (if not all of them) and many of those titles are discounted pretty slimly almost every time. Don't forget all the criticisms people post about how CoD13 is in the top 5 with a 10% discount, or whatever the topic of the day is.

PC market and the console market were the SAME market for years. The advent of digital allowed for divergence, and there has been some, but a heavy amount of PC game sales (especially for bigger games) are still front-loaded to this day. Long tail is more prominent in PC gaming compared to consoles, but it is not what developers aim for, and it is not the way the majority shop and purchase.
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40% sales increase on 35% user increase isn't huge, it's barely above expectations. And it wasn't just 66% off that decreased, it was everything 50% or more. A decrease in a year when the total had a 40% increase is an even more drastic change. A higher percentage went to newer, more expensive, less discounted games than ever before. It's bad enough that there will never be another Cook Serve Delicious type steam sale success again; catelog sales should have benefited from the single price (no more waiting) but these numbers don't reflect that.

When pc and console were the "same" as you put it, every year we heard about how pc gaming was dead. No one says that now. Yes, all this is signs of the market maturing, but the console market has degenerated into a AAA arms race that isn't healthy. Signs of the pc market heading in the same direction are discouraging.

Edit: a 40% revenue increase on only 12% sales volume increase certainly justifies the new sales format on the whole of course. People bought more expensive games on the whole. But the trend has got to be a bit disheartening for those not in that top 100. But there's always bundle scraps to be had I guess.
 
G

Grief.exe

Member
Wow Banished sold almost 80,000 copies during the Summer Sale. The game and engine were written by only one person.

He netted around $350,000 during the sale period. Nicely done.
 
D

dex3108

Member
Grief.exe said:
If you look at Steam Spy numbers, you can see why Valve logically moved in the direction they did.

People wonder why they don't support their fans by releasing Half-Life 3, but in reality they are supporting a plurality, if not a majority, of their fan base by releasing games like Dota and CS.

Looking at SteamSpy, Half-Life 2 is approaching 10 million sales, with the rest of the Half-Life series around 5 million each. While CS:GO is approaching 23 million and quickly growing with DOTA 2 bringing in millions more users.

With the way their management structure works, you have to justify what you are working on to the company in order to get convince people to provide more resources. There is no logical justification for Half-Life 3 outside of nostalgia and emotional arguments unfortunately.
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Then they should release comic and finish damn story.
 
S

Speevy

Banned
Soulflarz said:
lolyes
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Well the reason I ask is that i have such a weird CPU and it's listed at 3.1 Ghz even though it overclocks much higher.

I can't afford a new CPU/MB combo right now, which is what you normally do to eliminate a bottleneck like that.

Doom looks pretty good, but I'll have to go to my mother's house to download it since this place has horrendous bandwidth caps.
 
D

dex3108

Member
Arthea said:
imagine meltdowns if they did that! do you want internets to end or something with suggestion like this?
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Still better then silence in my opinion. We would close Half-Life book, have reason to hate Valve even more and never expect nothing from Valve ever again. :D
 
S

Sober

Member
Lomax said:
Funny how once they announce the free upgrade path for the Skyrim remaster they stop giving the legendary edition the discount it's been getting for years.
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Let's be honest here (and I've repeated myself a few times already in a few other Steam sale related threads), does anyone complaining about this at this point actually wants to buy Skyrim Legendary actually going to play it or are they really just buying it in future anticipation of Skyrim SE being a +1 to their library for free?

It's been almost five years since Skyrim came out. Most people who bought Legendary Edition or the game + DLC in that period actually wanted to play the game and/or mod it. Bethesda is greedy, sure, but what's to stop you from waiting until Skyrim SE comes out and goes on sale in a year or two for 50% off?

If Skyrim SE/remastered weren't a thing I'd imagine for most people that Skyrim from 2011 would be sitting in your games list unplayed for a long time now. I think even retailers like GMG have realized this too. The majority of the audience has already gotten their copies one way or another. Right now it's just open season on people thinking they're gonna buy it to get a free SE that they might not even play come this fall.
 
A

Annubis

Member
venomenon said:
Could somebody recommend me a basic RPG with a heavy focus on turn-based combat (turn-based tactics is fine too)?
I'm thinking of something like Epic Battle Fantasy, Lethal RPG or Knights of Pen and Paper, so no fancy story or elaborate character/equipment system is needed, just very basic stuff.
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The Chosen.
 
D

dex3108

Member
Game key reseller G2A moves to legitimise its business

G2A has moved to legitimise its business by adding security measures designed to verify those who sell game keys on the platform.

G2A has been roundly criticised for providing a platform for fraudsters to sell game keys bought with stolen credit cards.

Earlier this week, G2A announced plans to give developers royalties on third-party auctions following a high-profile row with Punch Club publisher TinyBuild.

Now, it has continued its bid to repair its reputation by adding front-end verification steps as part of a new process for new sellers to sell products on the marketplace.
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L

Lomax

Member
Sober said:
Let's be honest here (and I've repeated myself a few times already in a few other Steam sale related threads), does anyone complaining about this at this point actually wants to buy Skyrim Legendary actually going to play it or are they really just buying it in future anticipation of Skyrim SE being a +1 to their library for free?

It's been almost five years since Skyrim came out. Most people who bought Legendary Edition or the game + DLC in that period actually wanted to play the game and/or mod it. Bethesda is greedy, sure, but what's to stop you from waiting until Skyrim SE comes out and goes on sale in a year or two for 50% off?

If Skyrim SE/remastered weren't a thing I'd imagine for most people that Skyrim from 2011 would be sitting in your games list unplayed for a long time now. I think even retailers like GMG have realized this too. The majority of the audience has already gotten their copies one way or another. Right now it's just open season on people thinking they're gonna buy it to get a free SE that they might not even play come this fall.
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If the dlc had been available for $8-10 (total) I would have bought it to get the free version this fall, even though I've never gotten around to playing Skyrim. So yeah, I'll wait and buy the new version when it's that cheap. But still, Bethesda has made a conscious decision to not discount it like they did in the past.
 
A

Amzin

Member
Lomax said:
40% sales increase on 35% user increase isn't huge, it's barely above expectations. And it wasn't just 66% off that decreased, it was everything 50% or more. A decrease in a year when the total had a 40% increase is an even more drastic change. A higher percentage went to newer, more expensive, less discounted games than ever before. It's bad enough that there will never be another Cook Serve Delicious type steam sale success again; catelog sales should have benefited from the single price (no more waiting) but these numbers don't reflect that.

When pc and console were the "same" as you put it, every year we heard about how pc gaming was dead. No one says that now. Yes, all this is signs of the market maturing, but the console market has degenerated into a AAA arms race that isn't healthy. Signs of the pc market heading in the same direction are discouraging.

Edit: a 40% revenue increase on only 12% sales volume increase certainly justifies the new sales format on the whole of course. People bought more expensive games on the whole. But the trend has got to be a bit disheartening for those not in that top 100. But there's always bundle scraps to be had I guess.
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We don't know anything about those 35% increased users either, though. He makes the caveat in the article that a large number are probably being brought onto Steam by F2P games (dota, Warframe, dunno what else is big right now but I know there's more) which you rightly wouldn't expect to spend much as heavy F2P players tend not to buy many other games, if any.

You point out that it's not just 66% off but anything 50% off or more that saw fewer sale numbers, but 66% was just a reference point. The same arguments can be made for any of those. What seems more likely, that there are a large number of complicated mitigating factors affecting those numbers, or that people don't like buying games at higher discounts anymore?

I can guess, based on what we're seeing (but only a guess), that the reason games at those discount rates saw fewer sales is they just weren't games people were looking for. I bought ~15 games this sale, I don't think a single one of them was above a 50% discount, but they all felt like pretty good deals. And that's as someone who has bought from Nuuvem, tons of bundles, every Steam sale ever, etc.

It kinda sucks that not many indie games were at the top of the charts this sale, but that's always the case. There's no indication that the non-AAA market is suffering for these sale changes, though. Smaller companies benefit just as much, if not more, from higher revenue than the big ones.
 
L

Large Professor

Member
I just finished Momodora: Reverie under the Moonlight. It's a very good metroidvania, with some of the most beautiful pixel art I've ever seen, but some small issues prevent it from being one of my favorites in the genre (I still recommend it though). The difficulty isn't properly balanced: your character gets more and more powerful but the enemies barely become stronger. After the first one or two hours, they don't pose a real threat anymore. The same is true with the bosses as you accumulate "cheesy" items. The end boss was super easy, whereas some mid game boss had me retry >20 times.
Also, the latter part of the game
especially after you open the sealed door
is a bit dull. It feels rushed. It's a shame considering how incredible the beginning of the game is.
 
L

LurkerPrime

Member
[Rumour] Rocket League may be getting a crate system (a la TF2/CSGO).
spindoctor said:
As far as I remember, the first island you're on is a tutorial and the second island (Antigua?) was reused from Risen 2. Once you're past those the actual game starts up where you have to choose between three islands to go to (depending on your choice of faction). These three islands are the meat of the game and each of them felt about as big and as good as the entire map of Risen 1. So if you haven't made your faction choice yet, keep going.

Also, Risen 3 was released almost a year before Witcher 3. There was nothing there to mimic. Not to mention Piranha Bytes have been doing the open world RPGs for a long time now.

The combat in PB games has always been a sticking point for folks but I've never really understood why it's disliked so much. It was actually broken in Gothic 3 where enemies could literally stun lock you to death, but otherwise it has always been a case of giving due respect to enemies. It's not DMC where you hack and slash your way through like it's nothing. If some enemy is too hard you walk away and come back later. Another trait of PB combat is that the power curve is never flat. You start out rather weak but you get stronger over time and by the end you are severely overpowered for the game world. This is done by design and not an accident. People don't like level scaling in RPGs but when this developer actually makes parts of the world dangerous to go to at lower levels they get shit for it being too hard.

In the end, one needs a certain kind of aptitude to play Piranha Bytes games. Risen 3 is not a game that I can recommend to someone who doesn't already know whether they like (or can tolerate) PB games. Every time they release a new game I wonder if this will be the one that can garner mainstream appeal but they never manage to reach that. Their games are generally getting better in terms of polish and production values but they just cannot seem to reach that glass ceiling where any of their titles break out.
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The map stuff explains a lot about Risen 3.

For mainstream success, they'd have to polish the dialog, transitions, and gameplay immensely. Today's games are all about immersion, and to Risen 3, that is a foreign concept; it feels like an RPG from 15 years ago in that respect, filled with jarring transitions and half-explained goals, a world, and gameplay. Basically, it feels very much like a game, rather than a place. The dialog especially needs to decide if it is to be fully in-world or just fun, because the anachronistic elements really drain the my enjoyment out of it.

Also, the the protag pushed down a giant tree in the second prologue. I really wish he could display such strength anywhere else.
 
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