If only steam had a way to mark games as “hey, this game is in beta, expect issues”. I don’t know, making it clear that we were accessing it early or something…
I can’t speak for everyone, but I know I’d be willing to tolerate games being a bit buggy if they up front said “we know this game has issues. You can try it now or you can wait until we fix them”.
Realistically early access launches are just launches. Some games get a boost and surge when they go 1.0, but the vast majority don’t. Using the ea tag may put more people off than the buggyness, and people forget about the game 3 years later when it hits 1.0. I think paradox knew about it and just decided it would reduce sales more then the bug reports would.
Don’t get me wrong I don’t think games with major bugs should be released as a 1.0 product if they are asking a high price. There are great games that started ea and became great, but it was a risk for them when they did that.
I wish the tagging system was expanded to include more details.
While I think it’s helpful to know if a game is “souls like”, i also want to know if the game has a ending, or will be in continual development, or if it’s good as a pick up and put down game…
Problem is when things like Kerbal Space Program 2 happen, and they release a buggy mess and charge full price for it and then abandon the project.
I feel like established publishers (Take 2, Codemasters come to mind) should be specifically excluded from the Early Access program, or perhaps price limits should be imposed on games in the program…
I’m also interested to know whether you think Paradox should make another Sims-style life sim, after nuking Life By You
I’d personally like a “The Sims”-like game.
But while I like the sandbox aspect of that series, I was never that into the actual gameplay.
Being able to make your own structures and interact with them is neat. I like games like that a lot. Dwarf Fortress. Rimworld. Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead.
But the actual gameplay in The Sims in that sandbox world doesn’t really excite me all that much. There’s not a lot of strategy or planning or mechanics to explore the interactions of. Watching your Sims do their thing is neat, and I’d enjoy having that go on while I play a game.
I can imagine a world where I have a lot of control over structures, with NPCs that are sophisticated to an unprecedented degree.
But I don’t have specific ideas as to how to gamify it well. I just know that The Sims hasn’t gotten there.
If what one wants is Sim Dollhouse, I guess it’s okay. I know one woman who really liked one entry in the series, bought a computer just to play it. I guess it’s a neat tool for letting people sorta role-play a life. There may be a solid market for that. But for myself, I’d like to have more mechanics to analyze and play around with. Think Kerbal Space Program or something.
Honestly, I think the bar for games these days is totally warped. People expect these cinematic masterpieces with ultra-realistic graphics in gigantic 3d landscapes with massive autonomy, extensive character creation options, full voice acting, juiced up complex mechanics, and zero bugs, and they want it yesterday. If it costs more than a full tank of gas they’ll say it’s too expensive, and if it isn’t fully patched on day 1 they’ll call it unfinished.
It seems almost obvious that simpler 2D games are a better and more satisfying alternative in this landscape. No wonder AAA studios seem like they’re racing to the bottom.
How are you supposed to get all that and also have a decent story or a sense of cohesion? We need to simplify.
Paradox's games don't really do storytelling in a traditional sense. They're strategy and managememt games. Some of them are pretty damn good at creating stories dynamically through gameplay, or providing a frame upon which you can create your own stories, but they were never intended to be narrative experiences
What’s that meme? Hold on… I can dust it off since it’s still applicable. Oh, right! “I want shorter games with worse graphics made by people who are paid more to work less, and I mean it!”
I don’t need it to be super epic in scope and graphically mind blowing. I just want a tight, focused, well thought out game that isn’t buggy af. And it doesn’t have to be flawless day 1, but there should be some pretty good communication and patches in the first month.
“We need to simplify” indie games are doing just fine. It’s almost like super massive studios take much more money to make games with less replay value.
And who expects cinematic masterpieces? Most gamers skip the cutscenes and all dialog lol
Studios make the games pretty for pre sale hype. Getting people interested without game play.
Agree. The thing with realistic graphics is that it brings in soooo much complexity on a systems level that it becomes the center point everything else revolves around.
Imaging a 2d game vs a 3d game. Alone trough that you have a complete third dimension wich you have to account for.
A whole book full of new bugs are possible now.
And with realistic graphics the brain now expects the rules of the world to be realistic too.
My character looks photorealistic so, of course, the environment needs to look photorealistic too otherwise we go into uncanny valley territory.
So next thing the interaction needs to look realistic too. Think walking trough a forrest and the player character pushing leaves out of his way.
That is just to fucking much you need to test and invest time in to be flexible anymore.
The simple answer here is better art direction. Photorealism is neat but not needed.
With simpler graphics it becomes cheaper to change stuff in development so it becomes more viable to experiment with creative ideas.
You can have more diverse assets because they are, potentially, cheaper/less time consuming to make and they don’t take as much space.
Like 1 photorealistic tree needs as much discspace as 2 trees with half the polygons.
In the and gaming has become a business and people got involved that don’t play games.
For them it is just an investment and no different to a car or a garden hose. And for those people the only viable way to solve a problem is to trow money at it.
Which worked but only for making things grander not making it more interesting. For that you need people that solve problems with creativity.
And you get people who solve problems with creativity when there is less money because you have no other choice but to solve it like that.
That is clearly not the whole picture but a part of it IMHO.
I think at this point, if you are a gaming enthusiasts and are informed about the “scene” there is just no reason to buy AAA(AAAAAAA) games anymore.
And also no need to be angry about it. Just ignore them and talk about the indies that made a change. It is more productive to have that dominate the conversation than what sucks.
Because talking about shit is still advertisement for shit.
the recent avatar game is a great example of actually hitting the mark visually and superficially (probably one of the better looking games I’ve ever played) and the physics and gameplay in the world are pretty damn good. but people complain the story is boring. and yeah it’s not amazing. I don’t think it’s terrible, and it’s a game really built to explore the environment rather than complete missions.
it’s near impossible to get that perfect game that hits every single button possible. I truly think we gamers need to settle down a bit as a whole. Sure buggy messes that are unplayable are not something we should tolerate, but I think we need to stop treating everything that isn’t perfect as a pile of shit
They are part of the studios… point was “the bar” is “fun/interesting”. The vast majority of people that purchase games don’t have a bar as defined by the content I originally replied to.
I completely agree that business ghouls doing business ghoul things make studios make worse games… doesn’t really affect my point though… studios are not making games based on a “bar” set by the consumers as described in the original post…
we’re tired of being sold a shit sandwich that may someday become edible? wow who would have ever predicted this utterly unprecedented turn of events except absolutely fucking everybody.
Ah Paradox is finding their model of releasing unfinished games and getting around to solving it later less appealing!
That is a little disappointing, actually, as Paradox made some damn good games this way. Crusader Kings 2, Hearts of Iron 4 and Stellaris were all made like that.
Look, I get it, but the state of DLC in Paradox games has moved beyond even the memes. I think they took those as inspiration. There’s a fucking monthly pass now!
I deeply enjoy their games, but the DLC bloat confounds me.
I feel guilty about it, but I appreciate the monthly pass. I played EUIV for exactly one month, at a total cost of like $7 (got the base game for free at some point) with all the bells and whistles. It seemed like a good compromise because you’d have to pay it for years at this point to cover the DLC out right, but it is a disgusting level of rent seeking behavior.
Now it bothers me that I’d need to put another $7-$10 into the machine to access those saves, but not as much as if I’d throw down hundreds of dollars on it to own the content for a 10 year old game.
It’s been nice if they had a “perpetual fallback license” approach where you are granted everything you’ve subscribed to for at least 12 months even if you cancel subscription.
That may be true but with that kind of success behind them, one would assume they have the budget to finish their games without needing the support of the crutch that is the Early Access model.
Stellaris is one of my all time favorite games, but the late game really becomes unplayable from lag. I have over 1000 hours in it because I love it’s modding and the immersion possible with it, but the performance is a real problem.
They have tried to address this too, with minor success, but that doesn’t help when the start of each month from 2350 onwards takes seconds to load.
Yeah, hard agree with what they’re saying and like the fact that they’re delaying prison architect 2 in light of that.
Lately and because some early access games have caught my eye, I’ve been thinking about how I don’t have as much time for gaming and want the complete experience right away. If I play a game before it’s fixed or before all the content is out, most likely I’ll never play the game at it’s best because I’ve moved on already.
share vision of a metaverse spanning “Roblox, Minecraft, and Fortnite”
They’ll erode the popularity of all three with this shit. You have a hen that lays golden eggs? We have one too! Let’s smash them at the speed of sound and hope it results in a megachicken that lays eggs double in size.
You know what I liked? That Guy Ritchie King Arthur movie with Charlie Hunnam and Jude Law, where Arthur is raised as a street orphan thug who kind of creates his own little criminal empire.
The idea is to get people into your walled garden and then milk them for everything it’s worth. Roblox does a good job gaming wise… kids spend hours playing many different games but never leave Roblox. So the hunt for the solution that can improve on this, is on. If you can get people to order their groceries from within your walled garden and take a cut… you’re golden.
For sure… but this is like chasing the dream. And in china they have an everything app… so … they keep pooring billions into these bottemless pits.
Edit: I also think most people don’t trust corporations to get them the best deal. So if you ask Amazon to get you product X … they will fuck you on price.
OP bashed the author/article, but it seems to be a fair synopsis of the Verge article its based on.
This was a cool line from the original article:
The upcoming “persistent universe” Epic is building with Disney is an example of the vision. “We announced that we’re working with Disney to build a Disney ecosystem that’s theirs, but it fully interoperates with the Fortnite ecosystem,”
I bought it blind on gog when it was on sale, visual novels aren’t my thing usually, but it did not have the anime look so I thought I gave it a try and drop it after half an hour.
Turns out it was one of the most impressive games I played these last years. What a mindfuck!
And the ending warmed my cold heart!
So I wanted to watch a review on YouTube, and what! The! Fuck! I had no idea how different (and gruesome) this game could get! Soon it’s holiday time, and it’s on my top list of things to do! Let’s see how I can fuck things up!
This was a very interesting game. I didn’t feel exactly satisfied at the end of the game but I almost feel like that’s the point. I’m always down for weird experimental stuff in games even if they aren’t 100% my thing. I’ll still remember those weird games that test the boundaries more than most of the standard AAA slop.
I wish this developer well and can’t wait to see what they do in the future.
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