Valve is trying to escape Microsoft’s monopolistic practices with Linux while out performing their competition in a fair market. I like competition but I don’t get what advantage steam has that their competition doesn’t. Even with the steam deck they’re using standardized hardware and open source software to make a competitive product leaving room for competition to create their own versions.
One can appreciate Valve’s contributions to Linux gaming without idealizing them. The likely reason they went for Linux is that they would have to pay Microsoft to use Windows.
This is true that it is a likely reason. It is also possible that Gabe Newell runs his company in a very deliberate way because he thinks it’s a net benefit to both his company and gaming in general. From what I have heard, which of course may be a flawed understanding of the man, it seems like he has certain principles. I guess the question is whether or not a person believes intent matters or only the end result.
I don’t idealize them, I use the other storefronts (gog epic) potentially more because they often don’t sell games with any form of drm. I just don’t get it because as far as my experience goes they’re all about the same minus more jank on the other two.
I’ve actually spent the most time with Rockstar games launcher thanks to GTA V and RDR2 and that one is a real piece of work tbh.
Steam has a large userbase, which offers a lot of consumer inertia to prefer games on Steam. They also have a policy where game pricing on other platforms cannot undercut Steam.
The main complaint is that this pricing policy coupled with the consumer inertia makes it difficult for other gaming marketplaces to enter the market. You cannot undercut steam unless a publisher wants to not put their game on Steam at all (which would be suicide for anything but the largest titles), so you have to sell at Steam’s price point. Few platforms could match Steams’ established workshop, multiplayer, streaming, and social services; all of which benefit from costs at scale and the established user content.
Imagine trying to convince a user: “Buy your game here instead. It will cost the same as on Steam. No, you won’t have access to the existing Workshop. No, you won’t have in-platform multiplayer with your Steam friends.” Even if you had feature parity, people would prefer Steam since that’s where their existing games and friends are.
Note that the main argument Wolfire is making is that game marketplaces (buy/download the game) and game platforms (online features, mod distribution, social pages) need to be decoupled. By integrating the two, Steam is vertically integrating, amortizing the cost, and then forcing every other marketplace to bear the cost of a platform in their pricing.
If you bought a game and paid for platform services separately, then competition can better exist for both of those roles. Which is good for consumers.
I’m going to be real, the seperatization might be good technically from a consumer standpoint, but mostly will just prove to make consumers lives harder for no reason. One of the major benefits of Steam is that it handles everything, and isn’t something I, or anyone else, would be happy to give up.
I typically try to buy games from gog if available and on epic if not and steam if it’s on sale. The only harm I see is how janky the other storefronts are and how frequently they break or refuse to load and that’s not steams fault. I don’t play a lot of online games but epic and gog are my primary platforms to play on.
I’m not defending steam but I also don’t see how the advantage a platform like steam has is a direct result of any anti consumer practices. Honestly I prefer a storefront over rootkits and heavy handed drm any day not to mention downloading gamepatches directly from the publishers website.
Blame the gray resellers. If the world courts had found those sites illegal, then devs could likely still set regional prices without having 90% of them getting resold to the outside world.
Back then Amiga computers were at their peak, it wasn’t uncommon for a whole game to be on a single 1.44 MB floppy. It was also pretty common that booting from the disk was the only way to launch the game.
I guess it’s good that devs don’t need to optimize as much as they had to, but I also feel like we’ve collectively allowed the laziness to go too far, with 110gb updates and stuff.
I personally would prefer spending my time building new stuff, but I think if I had to, optimizing can also be fun and interesting in its own way.
Yes I too look nostalgically look back on my games having nothing but beep audio because I didn’t have one of three sound cards my chosen game decided to support
I recently finished the game for the first time and was thinking about to get Phantom Liberty extension too. Now I have to wait a bit longer. BTW in the article this part:
To ensure everyone knows it's not kidding, it even threw in a little fire emoji.
The fire emoji. It makes everything believable. xD
What parts are you having trouble with? The game has a serious learning curve but once you’ve got a full campaign under your belt it gets way easier. Try doing a run as a paladin or sorcerer (melee or caster) on explorer mode. Those two classes will be good for combat and dialog making your run easier. Also research how to create a proper character. The earliest levels are the hardest to get through since you’re super weak at those levels.
Skyrim is a first person action adventure game with RPG elements. Baldurs gate is a much more traditional fantasy RPG which I a focused on tactics and D&D core rules and character stories where action stakes a back seat. So it sounds more like you enjoy the action and immersion of Skyrim than the “RPG” side of it.
BG3 is really a love letter to the people that liked the original games and wanted more depth to the systems to try to capture the tabletop experience a little more. Since you described it as “clunky” I’m guessing that the slower tactical aspect is what you’re bouncing off of.
It honestly sounds like its just Not your thing. BG3 is about as modern as a game of this Genre can be. Dont force yourself through something you dont enjoy.
There’s a decent chance you might not be missing anything, it’s just not for you. Minecraft and Terraria are beloved titles that people put thousands of hours into, but I never got into them myself.
A turn-based CRPG is a very old-fashioned thing (the C stands for Computer), and it’s a pretty faithful adaption of a TT (tabletop, so pen-and-paper) RPG, which is even older (though the current ruleset for DnD is pretty new). I can definitely understand how Skyrim appeals to you but something like BG3 doesn’t; they’re fundamentally different games, and Skyrim is much faster-paced
Are you playing with a mouse on a PC? Try it with a controller, it completely changes the game. The PS5 movement system is vastly superior to the PC movement with a mouse.
I have never played a Baldurs game, but I’m planning to play this one when I eventually get a PS5… And I thought it would suck with conventional controllers.
I have it on both PC and PS5 and I greatly prefer it on PS5. My computer loads things faster, and it looks better, but the PS5 version is much more immersive and considerably easier to move around. Inventory management is a lot better on PC though.
Does it? I haven’t tried. When I tried to use a PS4 Pro controller in the past it messed it up and I had to reset it to use it with the console again. Can you use PS5 controllers with a Linux PC?
I don’t own a ps5, so I’m not 100% sure on the ps5 sync, but there shouldn’t be any issue for that as Sony put out a firmware update to make it work well with pc at one point. But for me with my ps5 controller, it works and pairs flawlessly, and the touchpad on the controller works as a mouse on the desktop.
Running around the world is better with a controller, but actually interacting with things is easier with a mouse. You can click the left stick to use a cursor for precise targeting.
For me it’s just being old… I love what I played but only had 1 opportunity to sit down and play it. I realized I love and hate the fact that there is sooooo much to do and think about. For me, my time is limited to an hour tops here and there, so sadly, this type of game just frustrates me because I am always looking at a clock, and I hate that. Wish I was a kid again, so I can actually enjoy all the great games coming out in recent years.
Starfield feels the same, I go back to it for an hour or two and I forget what I’m supposed to be doing. It’s fiddly and I don’t know where some of the menus are.
It follows the DAO formula very closely. Though it also improves on it in some ways. And IMO there is at least one thing that DAO does better, which is that the main player character gets some actual character development.
Apparently any further sales of the game will have a cut going to even the staff that was laid off.
That’s commendable, but overall this is still an unfortunate development. I wonder if microtransactions in big games like apex and genshin are down this year? Is this an overall trend, or are people choosing to spend on one game, foregoing titles like Jumplight Odyssey for bigger spending on one (arguably less deserving) game.
I wonder if microtransactions in big games like apex and genshin are down this year?
In Apex? Yes, and we know this from investor calls. Not sure about Genshin or Honkai, but even Fortnite is making less money. This appears to be an entire economy problem, not a video game problem. Perhaps related to inflation and consumers adapting their spending in response (a potential explanation I offer with no expertise to fall back on).
It’s sad, but I think that the massive explosion of really high-quality smaller games means there’s ultimately less money to go around from buyers, all at the same time as big companies are consolidating funding into a few big-name series.
Anode Heart, Moonstone Island, Spirittea, My Time at Sandrock, Empty Shell, Quasimorph, Fae Farm, Sunkenland, Black Skylands, Techtonica, The Leviathan’s Fantasy, Forever Skies, Ghostlore, Roots of Pacha, Stranded: Alien Dawn, Homestead Arcana, Terra Nil, Sifu, Industries of Titan…
All of those released this year. That’s a LOT of really good small games (and that’s just from the games I got), even if they’re not all technically indie. I personally LOVE space games, as well as colony/group management sims, but Jumplight Odyssey just didn’t feel like my vibe, sadly.
I think that the massive explosion of really high-quality smaller games means there’s ultimately less money to go around from buyers…
I don’t think it’s so much that, as it is getting lost in the crowd. I’ve never heard of this game until just now, and I haven’t heard of half of the games you listed. There’s plenty of money to go around (just look at how well the Steam Deck has done), but nobody will buy your game if people can’t find it.
And that’s why big companies often do well by default; they have massive advertising budgets, so reaching their share of the market is often much easier.
Well that’s annoying. This is the first time I hear about this game and it looks kinda good. I hope the studio can turn around and restart development at some point
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