Edit: Just shut shit down, sell the IP's to Dramatic Labs (who are made up of former OG Telltale people) and let shit continue on with competence (I say, having enjoyed Star Trek: Resurgence).
It’s a tool that makes a survey of Steam games ownership and play times based on public information on Steam Community. It’s useful to game developers and journalists as it allows them to know what is popular.
Oh and Steam Spy has been developed and released before he joined Epic Games.
Steam Spy is a website created by Sergey Galyonkin and launched in April 2015. The site uses an application programming interface (API) to the Steam software distribution service owned by Valve to estimate the number of sales of software titles offered on the service. Estimates are made based on the API polling user profiles from Steam to determine what software titles (primarily video games) they own and using statistics to estimate overall sales. Software developers have reported that Galyonkin’s algorithms can provide sales numbers that are accurate to within 10%, though Galyonkin cautions against using his estimates in financial projections and other business-critical decisions. Due to changes in Steam’s privacy features in April 2018, Galyonkin had anticipated he would need to shut down the service due to the inability to estimate accurate numbers from other sources, but later that month revealed a new algorithm using publicly available data, which, while having a larger number of outliers, he still believes has reasonable accuracy for use. - Wikipedia
What’s this business about Epic changing from a game developer into a ‘platform’ and him no longer being a good fit? Anyone able to explain that a bit?
I have to imagine it is related to the claims that they are gonna retool "Fortnite as a metaverse-inspired ecosystem for creators" and the acquisitions they have made of platforms related to user created content.
This tracks. There was the whole Hyenas debacle and their flagship series has been struggling. There is no need or desire for yearly Total War releases, they are just a waste of time and money. Warhammer 3 has been bungled from the get-go. There were a few bright spots where it seemed like they could turn it around, but now its seemingly in a downward spiral from which I doubt it will recover. RIP. Easy money blown down the drain by a severely mismanaged company.
Imagine relying on free labor to fix your broken ass game, and then having people defend you when called out for making a boring game that relies on free labor for content.
Imagine thinking that what is very probably the most hand-crafted content ever in a 3D game, with one of the broadest variety of choices for anything close to that scale, is a game lacking content.
It's not an opinion. If you ignore straight procedural generation with no human input like no man's sky, Starfield is very probably the biggest 3D game ever made. The fact that it's an absolutely massive game isn't debatable in any way.
Nobody who's played it is making the ridiculous claim that they ran out of content. It's fundamentally not possible for "relying on mods for content" to be in good faith.
BG3 is a top down CRPG. Having 3D assets and being a 3D game with full 3D movement aren't the same thing.
And whether it's more content is debatable. There's more pure story and production, with a lot of branching, but the overall amount of space (not counting Starfield's use of negative space because of the setting) is significantly smaller. And even in terms of total number of quest lines, Starfield has a lot. Which you can get more time out of is all about personal preference. There will be people with 1000 hours in both, easy.
Turn based and action are mutually exclusive. It is not and does not resemble an action game.
The assets are 3D. You do not play in 3D. You do not cast a spell and have the physics of your interaction calculated in real time while 10 other characters are simultaneously acting and having their spells calculated based on the real time movements of all the other characters. You do not hit a jump button and have where you land determined by your speed and direction. The actual gameplay mechanics are all pure dice roll. There are no 3D physics in play.
Your jump must be decided by the vector of your movement when you hit the button. If it is not, there is literally nothing you can do to qualify.
Your actions must be aimed in real time and the outcome determined by the vector of your aim. Hitscan is shit, but it can qualify. If the action (not the vector of the shot) is decided by a dice roll, you unconditionally do not qualify.
There's plenty more. But BG3 is not and does not in any way mechanically resemble a 3D action RPG. It has no common traits. The camera perspective outside of combat isn't relevant.
I think you’re simply misunderstanding what “3D” means. 3D does not mean real-time, dynamic, or anything else. It simply means 3D. BG3 is entirely in 3D. Every single asset is 3D hell the entire explorable world is 3D. So yes, it quite literally is a 3D game. With action. Making it a 3D action game.
Think of what the alternative would be. Is this a 2D action game? Obviously not.
If you’re looking for a 3D real-time action game then yeah, this isn’t that. But that’s not what anyone’s arguing.
Edit: Also… is your argument that a game like Morrowind isn’t in 3D? Just because hits are handled by dice rolls? That’s insane lol.
No, it is not. You do not have a position in 3D space. You have a position on one of a small number of discrete 2D planes. BG3 is a 2D pure CRPG that happens to be decorated with 3D assets. Calling it a 3D game is the exact same unforgivable fraud as calling Metroid Dread one. It is not and does not in any way resemble it.
If you aren't strictly in real time for combat, you unconditionally cannot be or resemble an action game.
To be fully 3D, literally every part of the core gameplay physics must occur in real time. Hits cannot be determined by any other factor but the vector of the attack projected through 3D space into a character's hit box. The existence of a dice roll to determine a hit (not the vector) is an unconditional disqualifier in all contexts. There are no exceptions, and no room for them.
Everything about your description of BG3 is fully unhinged nonsense that should be offensive to any human being with any understanding of what games are. They aren't nitpicks. You're fundamentally destroying the core definition of very basic terms in a way that completely destroys all meaning. It would be less disgusting to be a flat earther.
In BG3 you do have a position in 3D space, what’re you talking about? Have you ever even played the game? My money’s on no.
Metroid Dread is a side scroller in which only one dimension is ever viewable outside of cutscenes. BG3 is a full 3D world with full camera movement, to the point of being an over the shoulder third person game should you choose to play it that way. They’re apples and oranges.
If you aren’t strictly in real time for combat, you unconditionally cannot be or resemble an action game.
If this were true then the term “real-time action” wouldn’t exist, as the term would be redundant. Besides, how do you then define games that have a bit of both, like Chrono Trigger? The whole thing seems a bit silly to me.
Hits cannot be determined by any other factor but the vector of the attack projected through 3D space into a character’s hit box.
So again, by your definition a game like Morrowind wouldn’t be considered a 3D game. That’s completely unhinged lol, nobody would agree with that. Clearly your definition is a bit flawed.
You’re fundamentally destroying the core definition of very basic terms in a way that completely destroys all meaning. It would be less disgusting to be a flat earther.
…I think maybe you need to take a break and go outside or something.
Literally everything about game development is a trade off. It's not possible to make a game at 5% of Starfield's scale as polished as a rockstar game. The difference in scale is too massive.
The scope of Bethesda games is a huge part of the point. Nobody else makes anything similar to what they offer.
UE5 is "the same engine" iterated on in the same way Bethesda's is, there are plenty of games using UE that don't run well, and it would take plenty of custom work to build to Bethesda's scale using it.
The current iteration of Unreal is completely unrecognizable from its original rendition, meanwhile this new version of the Creation Engine literally retains bugs present back in the days of Gamebryo. You simply can’t compare the two. But, in Bethesda’s defense, this isn’t due to incompetence or anything. It’s due to resource allocation and incentive.
There’s a reason most devs have been moving towards Unreal and away from making their own engines, and it’s because making your own proprietary engine takes insane amounts of time and resources - time and resources that devs don’t get any return on mind you. For most, it doesn’t make sense to dedicate loads of time to polishing an engine, when that time could be better spent on your next game - a game that you actually do get a return on.
Unreal is completely different in this regard, as Epic actually does get a return on their investment into the engine, as the engine itself is their product. So they have every incentive to polish Unreal as much as possible. That’s why it’s so insanely polished and indistinguishable from its original rendition. Not because all engines magically improve over time and at the same rate.
I know Todd Howard said that engines are somehow meaningless, and then a bunch of Bethesda fans took that and ran with it as a way to defend any criticism of the Creation Engine, but unfortunately it’s just not that simple.
And to be clear, I want the Creation Engine to succeed. I’ve been modding Bethesda games since 2013 and am still active in the modding community! The engine is rough but makes all of it possible, and the community at this point knows it so well that it’d be devastating to suddenly lose it all. But Bethesda needs to sit down and really dedicate some time to overhauling it, and unfortunately, albeit understandably, I just don’t see that happening.
Internet commenters keep getting dumber and dumber. I figured anyone with two brain cells to rub together would see that human beings can understand nuance and that not everyone likes or dislikes the same things and that the entire game is not 100% objectively bad.
People tend to think on black and white and not grayscale.
If you objectively compare the mechanics, writings and factions to fallout 4, Starfield is almost a direct upgrade from fallout 4 in several aspects. Gunplay, gun customization, rpg check choices that play more role in having a unique experience, factions that arent totally terribly written like it is in FO4, where almost all factions are unlikable or not interesting.
The people who are let down by starfield expected bethesda to not make a bethesda game in simple terms.
Do i think its GOTY material, hell no (im basically at the point of no return point in the game). Its a helluva lot better than FO4, but people treat the game like it killed their first child.
Well, I wouldn't necessarily say the exploration is as good, I think the issues about not having maps and there being a lot of loading screens are valid, but those problems don't automatically make the game horrible, and while the optimization isn't awesome after the recent update and Nvidia driver it looks decent and runs at an almost always locked out 60 FPS on my RTX 3060 with the settings lowered, so if you want the better visuals you can get there, and if you wanna play with smooth frame rate you can make that work, too. Again, not that that excuses it, but it's not irredeemably bad.
I think it's important that people understand what works about the game and what doesn't, whether they come to an end result of liking it or not, I hate to see people shit on it wholesale, and I also hate to see people defend it wholesale as well. It's got problems, but it's got successes, too.
I've actually been really enjoying it. It's a pleasant universe to just get absorbed in.
Sure, it's got a lot of very valid complaints (performance, UX etc.) but they matter less to me the more I get into it. Writing is not groundbreaking, but it gets pretty good. Since very good voice acting from otherwise random NPCs.
Also the first game I've played that lets me use non-binary pronouns as a third option, rather than just Gendered or not. Very cool and I hope to see more games do that.
I'd say the most disappointing thing is how straightforward almost every quest is. They don't do what Obsidian does in games like New Vegas and Outer Worlds where lots of quests have multiple resolutions, some hidden. In this game if it's not in the objective list it's usually not an option. It's the typical Bethesda experience of course, rather than Obsidian's, so it's still nice for what it is.
It's the closest I've personally felt to exploring and interacting with the worlds of Mass Effect 1 and Knights of the Old Republic in a long time. It's got that sense of wander about it for me.
Yeah the straightforward quests are sometimes a little disappointing.
I.e. there’s a tiny side quest where you have to get some rich guys wedding ring back from his fiance. You go to the fiance and that say that they saw the rich guy cheating (having a conversation) with the waiter at their favorite restaurant, and that they shouldn’t have to give the ring back.
I went back to the rich guy to find out if this was true, and to insert myself firmly into their drama, but there was no new dialogue from the rich guy. I just had to pick a dialogue option to either take the ring or let the fiance keep it.
It would have been nice to be able to confirm my suspicions that they were just being friendly with the waiter, not cheating, and maybe get the two back together. But no it was go to person A, get quest, speak to person B, return with ring/update that they are keeping it.
There are some great quests, and lots of cool world building, but the RP portion is sometimes a bit lacking compared to (as you mentioned) New Vegas.
The only game that scratches the space exploration itch Elite doesn't quite scratch (I mean, Elite is very good, but has it's shortcomings when it comes to on-foot stuff). Ship interiors, base building and having actual life on planets, not just some fungoida and bacterium patches, alone are a reason to be excited about Starfield. Also, jetpack combat.
Funny how Elder Scrolls veterans are enjoying the game for what it is while bitter Playstation diehards, wishful thinkers with gigabyte-sized dreams.txt and bandwagon-o'-hate jumpers are complaining about things that never were to be so loud you can clearly hear the "Reeeeeeeeeee...." from Alpha Centauri😏
From Wikipedia, Mediatonic created the international remake of it, which presumably included some kind of licensing fee from the original developer, which this tweet implies is at least partially based on number of sales. Seems like someone involved in contractual obligations at Epic dropped the ball on at least this game.
when they bought out Mediatonic they acquired the publishing rights, which is allegedly when he stopped getting royalty payments here. it also changed what platforms you can get the game on–previously it was available on a few other platforms–but these days you can only get the game on Epic or Steam
To be confirmed, but this sounds a bit like how Disney decided they didn’t need to pay any more royalties to people who wrote Star Wars novelizations and original novels.
Like, “you don’t have a contract with us, you had one with George Lucas before we bought Star Wars, it didn’t transfer.” Very shady, and probably a lot easier to pull when you’re a huge corporation against a small creator.
By that logic, “You don’t have a contract with me, therefore you can’t own my intellectual property,” should also apply, no?
Like, if your intellectual property was given away on the basis of an ongoing royalty payment, and Disney decides not to honour that contract, then they can’t keep the IP.
For those curious, the game was released March 11, 2022.
Making the server support just over a year and a half of running the servers before pulling the plug. That’s not something I’d be spending 60USD (which is what it is on sale for today) on.
Or you can look at it as for what it is rather than some ulterior motive behind it, the emails may have just not been getting to the right person regardless of fault. They’re only replying now because it’s only just now they heard that something was wrong.
Now on the other hand, I generally find it hard to believe that for a business as large as Epic, nobody would follow up on money that’s just been sitting around for over 2 years.
Is there more to the thread? It’s just showing me the one message linked, and it doesn’t say anything there about reaching out to Epic / not hearing back.
No, there was absolutely no claim that it was an innocent mistake, I'm not sure why that was written there. It's just a promise to look into it, no more no less.
So we also don’t know if the developer had reached out to Epic besides this post? Isn’t it possible, then, that this is the first Epic has heard of this as well?
Huh. I guess you're one of those that waits for people to tell you things in the comments, makes weird extrapolations about it, and jumps to conclusions rather than just clicking the OP link and absorbing the information there?
How did you even get that from what I said?
And literally the second tweet the dev made was "they've never sent any replies to me" so he's clearly been trying?
I'm usually more understanding of people missing information, but it took you more time and effort to jump to these conclusions and write a totally incorrect defense of Epic than it would have to just see that the info is right there.
I don’t know if it’s because I don’t have an account on Twitter, but literally the only Tweet it shows me is the one linked, where she says that she hasn’t gotten royalties. It says this:
btw I’ve got no royalty payment for Hatoful Boyfriend from Epic since they acquired Mediatonic back in spring 2021. I don’t think the sales have been zero for two years?🤔
I noticed people in the comments saying that Epic didn’t respond to her, but I didn’t understand why people were saying that – from the only Tweet I can see, shown above, there’s nothing saying that she reached out to / didn’t get a response from Epic.
So, I asked here in this thread if there are more Tweets, thinking that there must be more but Twitter just doesn’t show them to me. Because otherwise it makes no sense to assume that she reached out to Epic / didn’t get a response, based just on the Tweet linked. So, I posted,
Is there more to the thread? It’s just showing me the one message linked, and it doesn’t say anything there about reaching out to Epic / not hearing back.
Then I got a reply, from you, that opened with “No.” I read that as you saying that aren’t any more Tweets, and so I asked why everyone was assuming she’d reached out to Epic / hadn’t gotten a response. Because that’s not a logical assumption to make based on the text contained in the single Tweet linked here.
Now you’re telling me there are more Tweets. I still cannot see them and do not know what they say, though, which is why I was asking in the first place.
(Edit: I see there is now an image of the thread in this post. That was not there when I asked the initial question about if there were most posts.)
twitter.com
Aktywne