I’ll never understand people jumping to play unfinished games. There’s no way most of those 100k people are actually going to participate in the ea feedback / qa process, so all they’re achieving by playing early is spoiling the game for themselves with an inferior version. It’s not like this is made by an inexperienced studio that might keep it in ea indefinitely neither, you literally just need to wait a year to play it when it’s released. /r
The first game was amazing. This one really doesn’t feel unfinished as-is though. There’s likely to be tons of balance changes, and I’m sure there will be bug fixes and more performance optimization updates to come… It’s still super fun, why wait
When I was younger and had more time to not worry about merely existing, I used to enjoy chasing the updates and trying to find every glitch and exploit and do as much silly shit as possible before patches went live.
Guess the first one was even worse than this one at this stage of development, but nobody knew about the game yet. I’m still waiting for the finished product (as I did with the first one), I don’t want to spoil me.
Some art will probably be replaced too. I remember Charon in the original hades had his generic robed character portrait replaced with a better one. Zagreus even complimented him on his new look when it was added to the game, which was a nice touch.
Yes, it’s unfinished, but my experience with the original Hades is that Supergiant knows how to make sure their product is at a certain level of polish before making EA available. I haven’t played much, but they seemed to hit the mark again.
You’re getting downvoted but I agree. The first game is one of my most played on Steam and I was invited to the technical test for the second. But I probably won’t be buying it any time soon. I absolutely hate the trend of buying unfinished products. While this developer is most likely not taking advantage, so many others do. Why should we pay money to beta test your game???
I’ve purchased a fair number of early access games from indie developers.
For me the benefit is that it’s often cheaper during EA, so I get it at a discount, and it already feels like a complete game worth the price I’m paying. I know they are actively working on adding more to it, and having more things added to the game for me to explore extends its lifespan for me. So I get more enjoyment out of it than I would waiting for 1.0, at a cheaper price.
For small developers it gives them the funds to continue development, and feedback that helps with game balance.
Because they get to play it early. That’s it. I played BG3 early and still had a lot of fun replaying Act 1 when it came out.
The studio gets a number of things, as well. While direct feedback is small, that is still valuable as they could never test that many hardware and software variants. They also get automated data from the software phoning home on crashes if that’s enabled. And they get an influx of cash in the last few months of development as their sales spike gets a bit flattened. It’s a winning strategy if you don’t have the funds for a huge marketing blitz to drive initial sales.
I understand the sentiment and I generally agree with you but I think I can make a case for Hades as an exception.
I picked up the first one in ea because I was thirsty for a new roguelike and some friends raved about it enough to me, and it was already a great game. The changes that came over the period I played were additive in the sense that they just opened more options in a game that already felt complete to me (mostly anyways, but more on that in a sec). But to defend it I can’t just say “oh well it felt like a finished game” there also needs to be a tangible benefit to playing it in early access. And there was! The early access versions of the game included meta banter between the narrator and Zagreus, little jokes about new things appearing or things that should be there but aren’t, references to the fact that pieces of the story’s scaffold were still being set up. It sounds small but it was just more of the wonderful character charm that oozes from every corner of that game and I actually kind of missed it a little bit once the full release came. Anyways I haven’t picked up Hades 2 yet (been making more of an effort to clear my backlog lately), but I’m thinking about it. And as far as the ostensible “point” of early access—community feedback and income to support development—Supergiant has given me ample reason to trust that they’ll make it worth it for me as a player if I don’t want to wait for the polished final product.
A Supergiant game in Early Access is more finished than most fully-released triple-A titles.
Plus, as with the first Hades, they work the continued development into the narrative of the game.
What made you think I want people to quit having fun? If anything it would be more fun to play once it’s finished, and it’s not like there’s a shortage of games to play in the meanwhile.
Edit: I just want people to give more thought into the games they play than “whatever’s on top of steam today”. Just because it became available now doesn’t mean you have to play it right away.
I understand your point but you can also be satisfied with an early access game for what it had when you played regardless of later improvements. Valheim is a great example of this: you’ll be hard pressed to find someone that wasn’t satisfied with it, despite being unfinished.
There’s no way most of those 100k people are actually going to participate in the ea feedback / qa process
On first launch it asks if you’re willing to have your play data submitted. So even if people don’t actively send feedback they are still providing data about what systems/weapons/upgrades they engage with more or less, how successful their run is with any given weapon or upgrade, how frequently they win or lose in a given fight, etc.
That was just part of it. The entire tech sector massively retracted after the boom it saw during COVID, which is also responsible for the sudden enshittification of so many different products/services all at once.
Yup. They can’t take out interest-free loans to pay off their almost-interest-free loans. So now they’re scrambling to save money and build value the old fashioned way.
People with lots of money want even more money. Less employees means less money that has to be paid out which means more money in the short term. Makes line go up for a while. Makes suits happy.
The only thing happening in the industry is the same thing happening in every industry and most of the first world:
The wealthy owners and executive leader roles have learned that COVID, COVID supply lines, interest rates, ‘consumer sentiment’, and inflation, are all very easy scapegoats that both the public and investors will easily buy as reasons for lowering product quality and availability, while also firing employees, squeezing the non-fired ones to death, and raising prices. This has lead to almost 2 straight years of corporations showing record profits (even adjusting for the inflation that they are largely responsible for in the first place).
This downward spiral will continue until some force with nearly as much power pushes back.
This is typically and ideally a representative government in the form of regulation or taxation. But the US government has suffered decades of regulatory capture and congressional gridlock.
So the only other potential option is a large amount of highly populated unions. Which have to fight against nearly 100 years of media and political demonization and nearly 150 years of ‘american independent attitude’.
The perfect modern system has all 3 parties; unions, government, and corporations, equally strong and antagonistic. Just as the perfect modern government would have the executive, legislative, and judicial branches equally strong and antagonistic. Neither could be much farther from the case here.
Stronger bigger unions. Weaker smaller corporations. And a government that actually functions. All are necessary to fix our current shit show.
It already happened, at least on Mediatonic (Fall Guys), a subsidiary. They axed lots of game designers, the UI/UX designer, some other people and even the person who made all the promo art
I’ve been loving BattleBit Remastered lately. It’s cheap, fun as hell, and the very small dev team has been very active and responsive. I bought 3 more copies to give to friends so we could squad up.
Dotage just released, it's a relaxing boardgame / city builder made by a single guy over the span of 9 years. It's very addicting in that "one more turn" way, if you're into these types of resource management games.
Factorio and Rimworld have kept me entertained several thousand houers each. Hands down the best value for money on steam. Even beat out free to play games ;)
Haven’t touched factorio but played Rimworld. If you value your time don’t buy rimworld, it is the most addictive game I’ve ever played. It’s a great game don’t get me wrong but I don’t think I’ve ever sat down and played it for less than 3 hrs. You just get sucked in like a void.
The competition! lol! Activision is going to put out 2 games this year. Whatever will we play now that these 2 games are owned by a platform holder?
You are correct though that there are a million cool ass games you can play right now and put your money in the pockets of people who make THINGS instead of people who make value for shareholders.
Not to detract from your argument (I agree completely), but indie game devs not only make actual games, but they tend to pour passion into them rather than a formula.
If you’re into metroidvanias (platformers where you gain abilities over the course of the game, expanding gameplay and allowing you to access new areas in earlier zones) there are lots of really good indie titles. Hollow Knight is the reference, both Ori games are awesome. Dead Cells is also worth a try if you’re into fast-paced action games, though it’s more of a platformer rogue-lite.
I’m really enjoying Valheim lately. It’s similar to Minecraft in a lot of ways, but leans a little more into RPG elements with leveled skills. There’s a bit more of a story, heavier focus on combat, and NPCs to interact with (though I haven’t reached that point myself).
I just finished playing Cocoon. It was short-but-sweet - it took me two evenings to finish, so probably in the 5-7 hours range - but it was one of the most interesting and engaging puzzle games I've played in a long time. What's especially fascinating to me is that its controls are so simple - everything is done with one analogue stick / WASD and a single interact button - and it's a very linear game, yet it still feels so engaging to play. It's from the lead designer of Limbo and Inside, so it has pedigree.
I played it via Game Pass (ha...) so it's hard for me to say what the value proposition is like. It certainly isn't going to give you the most time for your money, and it doesn't really have much in the way of narrative or themes, at least beyond abstract ones. But it has a gorgeous aesthetic and some fantastic puzzles.
yeah, it had solo. you’d case the area by yourself while 3 bots stayed behind, until alarms triggered. you could also configure who the bots were and what their loadout was
It does, but as far as I know PD3 still requires an online connection for single player. I've read issues of people lagging in single player, that's crazy.
same way they monetized Payday 2 since it was already pretty live-service-esque in it’s monetization, at least on PC. if they wanted to, they could have just added a battlepass with limited cosmetics alongside the steam marketplace cosmetics of Payday 2
The fact that the same user reinstalling the game counts as 2 installs makes this doubly absurd. The decision is already baffling by itself but the idea that you could take a financial hit for an install that didn't net you any additional income is... Jesus.
Witcher 3 did it really well by having the “end of the world” stuff being centered around Ciri, and Geralt is just kind of along for the ride and isn’t really entirely sure what is happening, and his impact on whether she succeeds is rooted in whether he supports her as a father figure. Most of the game is Geralt not really having any idea that this end of the world stuff is happening to Ciri at all, until near the end.
On the other hand, it would be nice to have an RPG with lower stakes. Like I’ve always imagined a modern-day RPG where you have to do things like scrounge through your couch for change to buy a soda. The mundane RPG.
I feel that. I’ve been playing satisfactory since way before 1.0 released, and my head canon was “Boring Interplanetary Camp Job”. but when 1.0 came out suddenly I have to sAvE tHe WoRLd too. gah.
It’s one of the great things about Deep Rock Galactic, in so many ways there’s very little story other than deep lore, and the Dwarves aren’t saving the world, they’re getting drunk and doing their dayjobs.
I didn’t really have any kind of urgency based on the story, but I do think the story fell short of being a good story.
Spoiler warning: Satisfactory endgame and story
spoilerThey built up so much with the aliens talking to the pioneer and Ada acting as a translator, then towards the end it just stops happening. Then you build a ship and the story is done. Most anticlimactic ending for such a huge game
Funnily enough The Witcher 3 is one of the games I always think of for the trope of not following the plot. Often I think of the ludonarrative dissonance specifically between Gestalt’s paternal drive to find and protect Ciri Vs Gwent.
For large scale, AAA open world games, I mostly think of Breath of the Wild, which transparently sets itself up as being about taking as long as you need to get strong enough to save the world and Red Dead Redemption 2, which doesn’t care about the stakes of the world.
I sometimes can’t wrap my head around the fact that Witcher 3, BotW and RDR2 were each two years apart. I don’t feel any open world game has occupied the cultural space those games did since.
I wrote a short dnd campaign (4 or 5 sessions) with the main NPC who framed the adventure being a self important egomaniac, and the only world they saved was his world-sized ego. Making that NPC trusted by the players and breaking that trust by seeing the actual stakes of the adventure was a pretty neat idea, and it would have been a good start to my dming.
Unfortunately i ate the “save the world” pill and binned that idea for a shitty campaign about saving the world and it died the classic death of all campaigns: scheduling.
I think I might eventually run that game when I get back into DMing or start with a new group.
Are you DMing online or in the real world? I got to play a single campaign (well part of one) of Traveller until the DM didn’t have time for us anymore (because he was getting back into his actual job of being a military officer - go figure) and to say that I enjoyed it immensely was an understatement. I had a great time both learning how these games work and trying to find the limits of what’s possible. I’d love to do this again sometime.
I can only tolerate in person games, or hybrid games in the case where we live close enough to meet up only once in a while. But could play mote consistently online
Well, if you ever change your mind or need one additional player online on a short notice, even for a single session (perhaps for a specific NPC that you would normally play yourself), consider sending me a message.
If someone complains about buying a finished game and not getting more of it later, they’re idiots and there’s nothing you can do but ignore them.
Publishers that do ultra-early access/roadmaps/live services with promises of content/bug fixes/trust me we’re making the rest of the game later, are clearly to blame for the mess too. They’re the ones poisoning the well.
But plenty of games release in a final state and that’s okay. They have to be firm about it though.
It’s a tough line to walk. You want to create reasonable hype and you have an idea where you want to go, but as you correctly point out, it’s really easy to over promise and under deliver.
How fast do they think internet connections are? If the higher quality assets were that big compared to the 300 GB install no way they’re going to finish loading or fit in the memory while you’re playing the game
This article speaks right out of my soul, when comparing Starfield and Cyberpunk 2077 2.0.
The quest qualtiy itself is comparable, but the delivery of Starfield makes it solely my job to create immersion (which I can and will do), while Cyberpunk 2077 2.0 grabs me by my balls and drags me into the world.
Spoiler for a small quest in CyberpunkWhen the barkeeper leans slightly forward, looks carefully right and left to make sure no one is listening and then tells me he suspects his wife sees someone else, I smell his parfume and I notice he relaxes his hurting back by stemming his arms onto the desk, because he is doing a double shift. Having Silverhand commenting on every step of the quest and turning it into a noir detctive story, making fun of me, added more immersion to a “follow person, report back”-mission. That I then can just call the quest giver on the phone, as a normal being would feels life like.
A similar quest in Starfield:
I talked to the barkeeper in Starfield from the wrong angle and he only turned his head and it was very uncanny valley, because over the whole conversation I was questioning how he can still talk with a broken neck.
I talked to the barkeeper in Starfield from the wrong angle and he only turned his head and it was very uncanny valley, because over the whole conversation I was questioning how he can still talk with a broken neck.
They might have fixed it by now but a certain little fortune teller has a very similar issue in an elevator in cyberpunk.
After helping him out I had a certain Ripperdoc showing which arm he operates with by raising it. Only his arm rotated backwards as if his elbow was turned around 180 degrees, arm clipping through his biceps.
But at least in Cyberpunk I’ve got the feeling that a bug like this is an honest oversight, whereas Starfield gives me the feeling that Creation Engine (2.0 these days?) should have have been killed, burned and buried after Skyrim. Each game since (and including) Oblivion I’ve felt like I’m looking at limitations I already noticed in the previous game built with Creation Engine or NetImmerse/GameBryo.
I haven’t played starfield and don’t intend to but I played cyberpunk on launch thanks to a covid scare and even on launch it was a good game to me. Had it’s problems but I got 300 hours out of it before the year ended.
Questgiver: “Hello, I don’t know you stranger, and I don’t trust outsiders. Can I help you? Oh, you want a quest? This evil company in Neon does bad shit and I need you to inject this virus and make sure it doesn’t get back to me. Also, the mayor here is evil AF. Don’t say that out loud, he has ears everywhere. I trust you stranger with my life. Have 8000 creds for picking up my mail, and 2000 creds and a unique purple gun for blowing up half of the city.”
Unity had made their plans clear. Whether they backtrack a bit now or not doesn’t matter. We know what direction they are heading: squeeze more money out of indie devs
That's correct. Even with this backtrack, it's a safe bet that they'll likely re-introduce this same policy with different wording once they believe their consumers have calmed down.
The controlling shares of Unity are held by a trifecta of private equity and venture capital organizations. That’s why this is happening. It’s a classical presentation of the (short-term) profit über alles enshitification cycle.
The insider transaction history for Unity Software Inc shows a clear trend: over the past year, there have been 49 insider sells and no insider buys. This could be a red flag for potential investors, as it suggests that those with the most intimate knowledge of the company's operations and prospects are choosing to sell their shares
Or it just means they see it as compensation and are selling for taxes and expenses, not because they are worried about the long term direction of the company.
Ehh, the top folks at Google were all selling their maximum-permitted amount every window they got for a decade and the stock held up.
You typically don’t need to buy shares as an insider, the company just prints more gambling slips – er, I’m sorry, non-transferrable stock options – and hands them out.
Yes, but it doesn’t rise to the level of “insider trading,” which means using internal-only information to make trading decisions. If they sell these stocks regularly, on a schedule, in the same quantity, it’s not insider trading.
And that’s exactly what they’re doing, you can see their trades, and they’re consistent for about the same amount. So they’re not trading because of changes going on internally, they’re trading based on a schedule, probably because they need cash flow for some reason. My guess is taxes for their stock compensation.
I suspect Valve is truly refurbishing these, rather than blindly reselling returned units with a refurb label (as we sometimes see from certain retailers). Good for them!
Portable, Windows-free gaming just got more affordable. I love it.
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