Aaaand already copyright claimed.

Everyone knows consolidation is always best for consumers.

This is sadly a very common business strategy. Partner with a smaller company, get a bunch of work out of them, stop paying them knowing they're not wealthy enough to sue you, wait for them to be on the edge and then either acquire them for peanuts or just grab up their people and assets. I read a book a few years ago on the history of Commodore and this is pretty much how they built themselves up to the powerhouse they were in the 80s. Bethesda and EA are believed to have acquired a few of their studios this way too.

Big business and ethics are frequently like oil and water. And well, look up Strauss Zelnick, the guy who runs Take-Two now. His ruthlessness is legendary.

I went to request a press key for this and had the option of selecting either Epic or Steam. Wonder if that was a mistake now.

I'm stunned G2A actually offered to come through with the money for this. I guess they thought the good optics were worth more than the payout.

I played some of this at PAX South and it has a ton of potential as a pretty awesome Contra style game. Looking forward to it.

RedEye9 wrote on May 18, 2020, 20:06:
Good features to add, especially that refund feature.
Do you think they got Valve's attention yet.

For implementing features 18 months in that Steam has had for years and still lacking some of the most basic ones even their weakest competitors have? I'm sure Valve's terrified.

Google is an advertising company that happens to make some software and hardware. They spend a pile of money on initiatives like Pixel and Stadia but never give those teams the time or freedom they need to make their products stand out. Instead, advertising focused executives keep interfering and we get stuff like...well, Pixel and Stadia.

Cutter wrote on May 13, 2020, 19:45:
Company exclusives are the very definition of a walled garden.

Yep. When you talk about walled gardens while spending millions to lock games to your platform instead of actually making it competitive, it comes across as hypocritical to put it mildly. But Tim Sweeney is very well known for that (remember a few years ago when he railed on Microsoft for Windows Store exclusives?)

Unless this is a rebranding of a project they already had in development, how can this possibly be any good whatsoever when it was developed in this short a time frame? Even if they started development the day the first case was reported in China, they've only been working on it like 4 and a half months.

Even by Kotaku standards, this article is bad. It's an opinion piece incorrectly marked as news and purposefully distorts financial facts to paint a narrative. Two examples are equating publisher revenue with profit and equating personal net worth with liquidity. Also, the assumption by the writer that anyone is entitled to expect and demand any financial donations from anyone for any cause and stating that these companies aren't doing enough without actually defining what enough is.

This is just rage bait written by someone who has a daily quota of articles to hit and needs SEO keywords in the title (which yes, is well known to be how sites like Kotaku operate.)

Streamed this for 6 hours yesterday, which I wasn't expecting to do for so long.

This game's not for everyone. It's slow, lacking challenge and is heavily focused on the story, being in the world and optionally, collecting stuff. The voice acting is also pretty hit and miss but never gets very bad.

Thing is, the world is incredible to experience and surprisingly huge for a game of this size. What I've played of the story so far (probably about 2/3 of it) has also been very good. I've been interested in this since it was announced because I love anything cyberpunk themed and this didn't disappoint me.

If you're into the occasional game more focused on story and world than action, I definitely recommend checking this out.

I don't back too many game Kickstarters these days (been burned too many times) but Commander '85 looks cool and unique. PlayWay tends to have a Kickstarter for almost every game they publish but they have a pretty good track record so I'll give it at shot for $15.

Beamer wrote on Apr 9, 2020, 08:51:
Some people here just see what they want.

Said by someone who has called me alt-right because I didn't agree with them politically on everything. And who cherry-picked one sentence of my post to respond to because it gave you the ammunition you wanted. Perhaps some introspection is in order.

So many indie devs don't seem to realize that:

a) The vast majority of all video games released lose money (same with music, books and movies.)

b) You can't just put a game out with no marketing and expect it to sell. "Good games sell themselves" isn't true and has never been true.

c) Indie games are still a niche market. Most people with Steam accounts rarely if ever look at indie games at all and fewer still are digging to find the hidden gems.

I say this as someone whose YouTube and live streaming channels are growing far slower than they could be because I love indie games and try to showcase the ones that no one's talking about. But the amount of devs who naively spend years making a game having no concept of the industry realities and then who and blame platforms and the audience for their lack of success (ironically often calling the audience the ones who are entitled) is mind-blowing to me.

Ironically, between easy to use engines that have minimal costs and asset stores, it's arguably become too easy to make games now. This is good because it's democratized the process but it's also bad because the market is getting flooded and unfortunately, a lot of it is junk from people who think they have a lot more talent than that actually do. That does unfortuantely drown out some good stuff but that's not Steam's fault, that's just the reality of an industry that's made it a lot easier for anyone to be a part of it.

I love how articles like this act as if Steam alone is the reason these devs aren't succeeding and not the fact that they're entering into a hyper-competitive market, usually not promoting their titles to a significant degree and that oh yeah, a lot of them are just derivative variations on a theme and not nearly as unique as they think. Try selling an indie game on Switch or PS4 right now. It's not any easier and in fact, is notably more expensive to get on those platforms than Steam.

If you go into making an indie game counting on its success to drive your future, you are making a big mistake. You have about as good odds of winning the lottery as you do hitting it big as an indie developer. That's not Steam's fault, that's the way making any kind of art for a living works.

Then again, this is a Kyle Orland article so I shouldn't be surprised this is the position he's taking. Bashing Steam is the latest trend in the games press.

This comment was edited on Apr 8, 2020, 14:26.

Slick wrote on Mar 18, 2020, 05:57:
You vote with your dollars.

People are, they just aren't voting the way you want. I'd argue that's more of a you problem.

wtf_man wrote on Mar 12, 2020, 17:48:
How about finishing the System Shock remake, that has been delayed and restarted, first?

After 3 years, all we get on Kickstarter is concept art updates and a "alpha demo" for steam users only.

Fsck Nightdive.

I'm not saying Nightdive doesn't have some things to answer for with regards to the System Shock remake but you're acting as if it's the same team developing both of these projects when it's almost certainly not. One is enhancing a 20+ year old point and click, the other is a new project done from scratch in Unreal Engine. They are likely working on several projects at once.

Darks wrote on Mar 10, 2020, 11:51:
Not thrilled at all about the 20 dollar price tag, was hoping it would be more around 15.

It's the first two games, their expansions, the previously PlayStation exclusive missions, all the graphics have been redone, the cinematics have been remastered, the sound and music have been remastered, the UI has been redone in collaboration with the community, the multiplayer has been completely redone, including matchmaking and ranked leaderboards.

And $20 is too much for that? Really?

There's a lot I don't like about Tim Sweeney or the way Epic Games conducts business these days but credit where it's due, good on him for supporting this. While it appears the companies pulling their games definitely have every legal right to do so, I think it's a dumb and short-sighted move.

Yeah, it looks like it's just since Valve implemented the new revenue structure so it's only from October, 2018 onward. Still, for a game that's almost 4 years old, that's a lot of sales for that period on just that platform and the higher rev share comes right when the game's getting a huge second wind because of the Netflix series. Hopefully this allows them to keep the crunch to a minimum for Cyberpunk (which I'll also be getting from GOG, like I did Witcher 3.)