IMO, “it’s this game, but with X” is innovation. It’s certainly more innovative than “it’s this game, again, with absolutely nothing new” like Ubisoft basically does with every sequel to every IP they handle.
Absolutely. I think most of us are excited for incremental evolution.
And conversely a lack of that is the chief source of my frustration with games. Bethesda is another dev that comes to mind with the loading screen debacle that was Starfield.
Starfield was just weird. Like, I expected the load screens and all the other GameBryo/Creation jank. But that’s not what made it disappointing. It was just… Boring. I couldn’t get immersed in the world because nothing about it was interesting once you scratched deeper than the surface. Even the twist ending/NG+ system which is actually kind of a neat idea wasn’t done well (like you might have to go through the entire, boring-ass game up to 7 times before you even see a difference).
I don’t know anything about the NG+ system because I steered way clear of Starfield, but it sounds like somebody at Bethesda saw people playing Skyrim over and over and thought “How can we monetize that”, hence the grind you’re alluding to. They expected you to encounter it organically because of course the game was such hot shit everyone was gonna play it forever. Oops.
Call me a cynic if you want but these are the guys who invented paid cosmetics.
I honestly did not expect Starfield to have actual flyable spaceships and vehicles. That was a pleasant surprise, so Bethesda evidently has not stagnated completely. The problem is Starfield has issues with many other game elements (like loading screens, mediocre worldbuilding, etc). Also the fact that it was simply a game in a different genre than previous Bethesda games didn’t help. People expected a handcrafted open world a la Fallout 4 but got a kind-of-procedurally generated sandbox.
I actually was thinking about this the other day with soulslikes as I make my way through Bloodborne. This is an entire genre that isn’t even new. They’re Metroidvanias (or whatever you would classify the OG Castlevania as other than just “side scrolling platformer”)! The only real difference is that you don’t get tools as like weapons/accessories to reach new areas, you just get a boring ass key that opens a door, you open a door from only one side, or a trigger automatically opens a new path when you defeat a boss. 🤣
Is it your first playthrough of Bloodborne? If so I’m so jelly. I’d do anything to play that game for the first time again!! Don’t forget to do the dlc :)
while metroidvania is an apt comparison souls-like games and specifically dark souls games feel a lot like classic dungeon crawlers ( but with real time combat instead of grids. Which in the case of fromsoftwares earlier games kingsfield, makes a lot of sense.
I honestly don’t know why they don’t simply make those a subscription service at this point. They change nothing but the stats to try and reflect real life in most iterations. Sports games are the one type of game that because of how they already do them would be perfect for the love service bullshit, and yet, inexplicably, they are the one genre that has next to no live service games. I can literally only think of one of the FIFA games which is free 2 play and live service.
I’ve thought about this before, I think it’s because the devs/publishers want to have their cake and eat it. They release a new game every year at full price for that up front cash then they nickle and dime you all year and then reset with a new full price game.
I’m pretty sure the amount of money EA makes from FIFA or Activision makes from COD would go down dramatically if they just had a single live service game.
These kind of games run on a shit ton of licensing deals, from player likeness, club branding and music. Bet it is much more advantageous for the studios in these licensing deals to just create single releases. With a subscription service the IP holders will demand a deal based on playtime.
For sure. And I’d say most of us who like roguelikes and DRG both would just enjoy a good, faithful treatment of it that understands the genre. I don’t expect innovation within a genre, I just want a solid implementation.
And too much innovation will alienate people anyway. People want something new but at the same time want something familiar. If it’s too out there people can’t relate with it, especially before the purchase, and feel it’s too risky to spend time and money on. And for the people who do try it you still need to convince them to push through the beginning stages of the game. Since very innovative gameplay comes with a steep learning curve and not just skill wise since it breaks conventions there is also a cultural (in the gaming sense) learning curve.
[ For years we’ve seen an encouraging pattern. Hit new releases are excellent at generating new first-time purchasers, and we’ve tried to build many platform features to encourage those new users to stick around, find more great games, and play with friends. To gather data illustrating the effectiveness of that approach, we went all the way back to 2023 and identified the biggest 20 releases of that year. We looked at every new first-time purchaser generated by those products (that is, an account making a purchase, or redeeming a Steam key, for the first time) for a total of 1.7 million new users. Then we followed that cohort of new users. The stats below represent what those players did from January 2024 through early March 2025.
…
That cohort of players has gone on to spend $20 million on in-game transactions across hundreds of other games—plus another $73 million on premium games and DLC across thousands more products. ]
So they are not average gamers, more like new blood in steam, and the numbers are for money they spent additional after the reason they came to steam.
That seems like a lot, but that’s <$12/user in microtransactions and ~$43/user in games. That’s like… 2 microtransaction purchases and a couple indie games each.
Less than 20 dollars per user on “microtransactions” which the article goes on to define as “in-game transactions”. And 73 dollars on direct steam purchases of games/DLC which very well could just be a single newly released game.
So… one “battle pass” or two or three cosmetics for a live game and a new game or a season pass or two of DLC for an older one?
just did the math, I’ve averaged about $165/yr on steam, with very little (though not none) microtransactions. like maybe less than $50 total in 15 years.
I think I probably have a similar average on my 18 yr old account, except the only microtransactions on my account are credits from selling any hats, skins and duplicate weapons I unlocked for free in TF2 and CS 😅
The 1.7 million customers who originated from a top 2023 release
This wording is a bit strange, are they tracking the new steam accounts that signed up to buy a specific 2023 title (like Baldur’s Gate 3, Hogwarts Legacy, or Starfield)?
If so it says more about the specific demographic attracted to that unknown title than it does about Steam in general.
To gather data illustrating the effectiveness of that approach, we went all the way back to 2023 and identified the biggest 20 releases of that year. We looked at every new first-time purchaser generated by those products (that is, an account making a purchase, or redeeming a Steam key, for the first time) for a total of 1.7 million new users.
Yeah, that’s a bit strange. Not everyone starts their account by a big game. My current steam account is quite old and first games were the ones I could afford back then as a student: indie titles, freebies, maybe one big game at some point. My previous account was only for HL / CS.
I realise i must be an edge case but i think my steam account of 10+ years is positive money wise. Got thousands of hours in the same few games and sold my old €100 CS inventory for about €500 PayPal when the market boomed.
The amount of money I’ve spent on my system to play those few games at more fps tho, lets not calculate.
Lmao. I mostly play the free games. I also have the heroic launcher and I’m signed into gog, epic and prime on it and so far, they’ve given me 85 free games. I have a lifetime supply of games.
20 million divided by 1.7 is about $11 per person, which isnt really that high.
I also think theres a distinction to be made between microtransactions in f2p titles and microtransactions in AAA premium titles. I logged something like 4000 hours in Mechwarrior online and I bought mech packs because I wanted to support the devs.
I feel like a lot of the microtransaction revenue is DLC as well. But like someone else said, there are the rare games that are free to play and don’t have super predatory mtx like Path of Exile or The Finals.
You’re kidding, right? They’re the only ones safeguarding the industry and making it so you’re not watching ads once every 3 minutes to get a few more coins in your PC games.
They provide one of the best distribution networks in the PC industry, and they constantly stand on the side of the players vs corporate interests.
Their refund policies only came about because different governments sued them. Check out either coffeezilla or People Make Games on CS:GO loot boxes, the latter of which has interviews with plenty of the victims of this system that Valve allows to continue because it’s so lucrative for them.
I was specifically refuting, “They’re the only ones safeguarding the industry,” and how they got to their refund policies matters when it comes to that statement. I was not here to throw a gauntlet down, insult Steam’s honor, and challenge anyone to a duel. I prefer to shop on GOG these days, when possible, but my Steam profile says I have 991 games in my account, and I bought most of those. Valve and Steam have done lasting, measurable good to this industry and medium, but that doesn’t mean they’re safeguarding it or that it’s all good news. As to the thing about ads, I don’t think that model would actually work with the PC gaming audience, and I think Valve prohibiting it is just so that their audience still finds quality products on Steam and spends more money. Valve’s best behaviors and worst behaviors are motivated by profit.
Valve’s best behaviors and worst behaviors are motivated by profit.
That’s where I disagree. Valve is not a publicly traded company. It is not beholden to shareholders to strive for profit above all else, and it shows in Valve’s leadership.
Just because they are private doesn’t mean Gabe doesn’t like to make a ton of money. Dude owns tons of yacths and would like to own more. I love Valve and think they are the biggest ethical company in gaming. But they’re still a massive corporate monopoly. No one is perfect, and they did do things that hurt people. No need to be publicly traded to also be evil. Trust but verify.
Striving for profit is a quality tied to being a company, not being a publicly traded company. Everything they do is in pursuit of making more money. Often times, that means making the best store out there so that we shop with them instead of their competitors, which is how it’s supposed to work.
Everything they do is in pursuit of making more money.
That’s where I’m saying you are wrong.
Publicly traded companies are beholden to their shareholders, and MUST strive to make money above all else. Privately held companies can put that profit motive behind other more important motives. Sure, does Valve want to make money? Absolutely - we’ve all got to make a living.
But is that their ONLY goal at the expense of everything else? Also, clearly not - or we’d have ads on every steam store page, we’d be paying monthly for steam, and you’ve seen all the shady, shitty things that all the other wanna-be steam competitors have done. So clearly valve does not value profit above everything.
That’s just not true. They’re seeking profit by attempting to be the best place to spend your money. Epic would love for Valve to charge users monthly for Steam, but they don’t, because it would just drive people away from Steam. They stand to make more money by doing what they’re doing. This is not a public versus private thing. Arguably the negative that comes along with public companies is that there are more short term incentives at the expense of long term profit, but they’re both doing what they do for profit.
I was talking about the people buying the microtransactions. I should have made that clear, I thought it could be deduced, given Valve aren't exactly ruining the game industry by stat tracking 1.7 million users, but I can see how it was confused.
I don’t think microtransactions are inherently bad, they are just used in the most greedy, money-grabbing ways.
There are some free-to-play games that don’t restrict your access to any gameplay at all as a free player, which can only be subsidized by microtransactions. If it’s just cosmetics, and they’re priced fairly, I wouldn’t feel any concern over it.
I say this as someone who will put 100 hours into a f2p game and maybe spend $10-20 on a skin or two. I feel that it’s fair to spend that much after reaping so many hours of play.
If it's free to play, then some cosmetic mtx are fine, the problem is how egregious they have become. They are not designed as a way to support a game, they are designed to suck as much money as they can from you. Which is why I disagree with supporting them at all anymore.
Games should be a one-off purchase, with no extra added bullshit.
Valve says the data proves “Steam isn’t just a storefront—it provides social community, game discoverability, interactive events, and a deep set of game-enhancing features to attract and retain players who will be checking out new games in the future.”
I think it proves that Steam is the largest storefront on PC and that PC is growing and replacing other platforms.
I haven’t seen an interactive event on Steam for, like, a decade. Unless they’re counting sales as interactive events. 🤔
They used to have, like, gamified events where you’re earning things (like maybe trading cards or badges or other Steam profile items) by playing a small little browser game inside the store page. Those were always fun.
one example of a steam onteractive event was when valve was actively giving viewers who were watching the game awards through steam a raffle to get a free one.
Just wanted to point out that wiki.gg is out there as a replacement. There’s even a wiki.gg Redirect plugin for Firefox that takes you to the right place, if you hit a Fandom link.
Relative to a fandom wiki: I guess? Although you are inherently going to have the same content theft problems where the vast majority of modern wikis are just ripped from the game guides that games media are still paid to prepare.
Relative to an official wiki with developer backing? No, it is not a replacement.
Also: I would generally be very wary of any of the plugins to redirect you since they have VERY broad permissions to… hijack your browser traffic. If you are keeping up to date and monitoring them you are probably fine but that feels like a great example in waiting to find out a bad actor pushed some code last week…
For anyone looking for a wonderful example of this, check out the RuneScape wiki. It’s hosted by a company that is partnered with the game maker, and is fully maintained by the community. It is the single most expansive and in-depth wiki I have ever seen. It is truly the gold standard for what a wiki should aspire to be.
It has everything you could need to play the game, all the way down to automatic calculators (with built in character lookup functionality, using the game’s high score leaderboard system) to tell you things like how many of [x] resource you’ll need to get [y] experience, or what your estimated return on investment will be for turning [x] resource into [y] product.
The game has over 250 quests, (and not just basic fetch or kill quests like most MMO’s have) and the wiki has in-depth walkthroughs (including in-game screenshots) for every single one.
You can even open the wiki directly from the game. There’s a “Wiki” button on the chat box, so you can search the wiki directly via chat, and it opens in your desktop browser.
It took many years and plenty of iteration to make it there. It feels like a fever dream remembering the days Sal’s realm and tip.it were king. Remember when the game map wasn’t even in game, they just had a image linked at the top of the webpage?
Fandom is icky. A few years ago, my mom was getting scammed by some conspiracy guy from LinkedIn who offered her a “job.”
These dudes set up their own fandom wiki to try to make their bullshit seem real. I can’t remember the name of the people involved but one guy was claiming that he was owed 300 trillion dollars by the government. (Can’t remember the exact number but it was astronomically high. More money than exists kinda high)
A lot of devs of “wiki games” have been doing this lately.
Digital Extremes/Warframe did it a month or two back. And a lot of people have speculated that wiki.warframe.com/…/WARFRAME_Wiki:Stakeholder_Ana… and the old fandom equivalent “explains” it but that is inherently tinfoil and biased speculation.
Very nice to see. Might start playing again to 100% it (yet again) now that there’s an actual useful wiki for it. Always love to see pure media wiki usage. I wish we could just scrub Fandom’s one now.
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