I haven’t played a live service game since Destiny 2 decided to completely remove all the shit I paid for, then lock everything new behind even more pay walls.
I’ve been playing dozens of games since then. It’s not hard to find games that aren’t live service and likely won’t be touched outside of stability and a couple QoL things here and there.
I’m all for laws requiring all games to be playable offline, and without any sort of bullshit “online activation”. I paid for a game, I want to play the game without having to download shit first. I want to play the game whether my hanky-ass internet connection is stable or even nonexistent today. I want to be able to use the thing I paid for without having to jump through extra hoops, no matter how large or “on the ground” the hoop is. It’s still a hoop.
No, I play on PC. It’s just tough to find new games for me. I use reddit’s gaming suggestions sub, sometimes they’re good. That’s how I first discovered things like Wasteland 2/3, and Deep Rock. But now, it’s challenging to find new games to play… people just play the same things or recommend “the hits” repeatedly. Can’t tell you how many times I have seen the same games recommended on Steam. I’ve started ignoring them now entirely. Idk how to find new games now :\
Google search for good games and read through various results and see if there’s something you haven’t seen. Or in Steam customize your search for what you’re looking for and crawl through the options. If you get off the front page of Steam the entire catalog is available to filter and search.
This just sounds like you’re being kind of lazy, to be honest. You can browse Steam by tons of filters, narrowing down a genre with like a dozen subgenres and tags (including only showing single player/offline games). Then you can sort that list by rating, release date, cost, if they’re on sale and/or offer a demo, etc. If you’re just going to hate on people’s suggestions/recommends, then get to searching the long lists and find something that looks interesting. Steam lets you refund anything under 2 hours, so there isn’t much to lose.
I’ve really been enjoying your updates on this playthrough. There’s a lot I like about AW1, but the gameplay wasn’t my favorite, so it’s like a nice vicarious replay.
Zenless doesn’t even have multiplayer yet, it’s basically a single player game with updates, the only interaction is chatting with someone after adding their id to your friend list.
I vote with my wallet. I don’t buy games that have scummy conditions or requirements. There are too many other choices out there to justify supporting companies who treat their customers poorly.
This is the answer. If you don't like live service don't buy live service games. If the majority have the same opinion there won't be profit in it.
Games publishers are businesses and they want to make money.
Now in reality I think they make more money from those that are buying microtransactions and so long as that makes them more money than selling a plain single player game, it's a no brainer they'll keep making the.
In ten years, when they want to pull the plug on this game, they will cite dwindling users and “exorbitant” per-user maintenance costs.
They don’t want playable legacies. They want something they can leverage for nostalgia marketing in 20 years, and if you break out the original game, they won’t make any money. Production companies want you to buy what they are offering today, because it pays for new yachts.
In ten years, when they want to pull the plug on this game, they will cite dwindling users and “exorbitant” per-user maintenance costs.
TemTem has been accused of exactly this. It’s nonsensical how they won’t allow people who bought the game to play offline. Here’s an example from 7 months ago on reddit where someone said: “they’ve literally said that they will keep TemTem playable one way or another, including if they need to make an offline mode”. The game has under 1k players now according to Steamcharts, about 700 today. It launched with 27k players. It’s virtually unplayable since it’s designed as an MMO fully online, but has barely anyone playing it. But they STILL refuse to develop an offline mode.
In ten years? If I had to guess the average life span of live services games I’d say about 18 months. Heavily skewed by the survivors. The shortest lived one only worked for 13 days. Only the very popular ones survive past 5 years and there are a handful of 10 plus. I know it’s hard to believe, the average gamer is oblivious to how over saturated the videogames market is. Despite executive’s delusions, time and money are actually finite. Not all games can demand all of it, at the same time.
I’m pretty dialed into indie games. What kind of games do you like? I might be able to recommend some. I get most of my indie recommendations through word of mouth or curators.
The steam store page has an algorithm tuned to your preferences. If you’ve already been playing a lot of live service games, then it assumes you must like them. Once you start showing an interest in other games, you can probably just cruise through your discovery queue.
To skip the algorithm, you can try looking at the steam store web page in a private / incognito window. But if most of the money makers are live service or free-to-play then that may just be the default offering.
It’s mostly just finding some reviews/word of mouth sources that you trust and which align with your tastes.
On the review side of things Second Wind covers a decent spread of indie games. I also occasionally see some new stuff from streamers, but that’s more of a toss up since there’s a lot of sponsored coverage.
Almost everything on my store page is AAA or liveservice trash.
Very little on my Steam page is. This is just one data point but still it suggests their suggestion algorithm somewhat works for this.
Just an observation on that specific thing not a disagreement with the problem. Live service is trash and needs to go away if it’s not an exclusively multiplayer game.
Look at what pirate repackers like fitgirl and dodi are putting out. They have a much lower throughput and often focus on popular indie or small studio titles.
That’s not my experience with steam at all. Only one or two options of the steam store tend to show AAA games over indie games. If you browse by category or using the dynamic recommendation you’ll see plenty of good games.
I think this may be algorithmic. Like steam gives suggestions based on what you have already purchased, and what other people who purchased the same games also like. Additionally it’ll tell you what your friends are playing if you friend them on steam. This sort of gives everyone a different picture of steam suggestions that is tailored to them. It might be a good idea to find older non-live service games you like, add them to a new profile or wishlist, and then see what new information pops up for you.
It’s easy to avoid the worst offenders. Also “live service” is a very broad term and covers a lot.
One aspect that I really don’t like is when games just seem to hang on too long with updates and/or DLC. Be proud to finish the game and move on to something new (looking at you The Long Dark…)
I liked that No Man’s Sky basically became an online space game with the yearly updates, and look at that, it still has an offline mode! It’s not impossible at all.
We’re all sick of live service games, and that’s why new (copycat) games are failing so hard. Look at XDefinant, Concord, etc.
Plenty of people have one or two live service games that they like/play, and the sustained success of those titles like Fortnite, Destiny, Apex Legends, Diablo IV is why we keep seeing so many clones and attempts to hit the next gold vein. But the creators of those copycat titles fail to capture the real source of others’ success; great gameplay.
Diablo IV is proof that a strong nostalgia brand is more powerful than a good game like Path of Exile, game spent the first year just fixing itself like everyone bought an alpha access.
I already have to wait a while to see how it performs on Steam Deck. I figured by the time the community figures out if it is or isn’t viable to play on deck (assuming Denuvo or something else doesn’t fuck it over), then most of the bugs will be ironed out.
How does this not belong in this sub? It’s not like it’s explicitly SFW, and OP is doing as they said in the title. These are screenshots from a game, clearly the game has mechanics that are being demoed here.
How does screenshots from a game have no place in c/ games? I’ve just checked the rules and yes it could have an NSFW tag even though no nudity is shown but that is a far cry from “has no place”
Lastly, wtf do anime pics have to do with this? This is game footage.
I’ve just checked the rules and yes it could have an NSFW tag even though no nudity is shown but that is a far cry from “has no place”
Screenshots of a game have a place in this community when they are used to actually discussing the game. Which is the point a lot of these “daily screenshot” posts are missing. There is no discussion here because OP didn’t bother discussing anything, it’s just a random collection of pics. Unless you count “showing that the game has a player-controlled camera” as “demoing game mechanics”.
I would 100% consider this a low-effort post, which is against the rules of c/games.
I'm just downloading it to my Steam Deck as I bought advanced access to the game. I'll let folks know how it goes.
And before anyone jumps on my neck about buying advanced access:
I waited until review scores came out
Even then I was originally planning to wait a few weeks until launch but with Steam refunds, I figured I can play for half an hour to get a good feel of the game
Not only is this Konami's first good game in ages, I dare say this is also the industry's first good game in ages. RE4 was excellent, but the OG was great and Capcom at that point knew how to do well. I cannot say the same for Konami/Bloober.
I'm someone who is lucky enough to have enough disposable income where a purchase like this doesn't really negatively affect me financially.
Nevermind, I did a quick check on YouTube and the game runs absolutely terribly on the Steam Deck... so much for me supporting Konami, got that refund request in order.
I never played Alan Wake through to the end until recently when I got the second one.
Then I played through the first one, followed by Control including the DLCs and then Alan Wake 2. I can’t recommend this enough, it’s an incredible ride.
Yep, they also made me want to rewatch X-Files and Twin Peaks, two obvious inspirations (plus Stephen King particularly The Dark Tower, another kind of house that is the linchpin of universes).
I can also recommend The Lost Room mystery series from 2006. It’s use of magical, but mundane objects and a timeless hotel room also seems to have been a direct inspiration.
Damn, I knew about X-Files and Twin Peaks, but I had no idea about the others. It’s honestly a rabbit hole I’d love to go down if I ever get the time. Adulting sucks :(
Right?! I can’t run it at the moment so I’ll need to upgrade first, but damn literally every frame I’ve see of Alan Wake 2 is just peak Remedy goodness. The not being able to run it part actually kinda works out for me though because I wanna buy it once it hits Steam (although they seem to be taking their sweet ass time, it’s like they hate money or something).
Remedy’s one of the last handfull of studios still making actually good AAA games that aren’t compromised for monetization’s sake, or to appeal to the lowest common denominator.
AW2 is published by Epic, so I wouldn’t hold your breath about it coming to Steam. When you’re about to run it though, I highly recommend it. It’s the only game I’ve bought on EGS, and I’d do it again.
Thank goodness Remedy will be self-publishing going forwards. Control 2 can’t come soon enough.
Like the other poster said, Epic financed and published AW2 and paid good money for exclusivity. I doubt you’ll see it on Steam anytime soon. The only way to play it without Epic Games Launcher and all that is on console.
The game is worth it though. One of my most memorable gaming experiences over the past few years. And if you’re planning on upgrading I’ll tell you it looks absolutely gorgeous. One of the few games where ray tracing actually has a noticeable impact, too, in my opinion.
1 month ago, I know, sorry. I ended up upgrading and AW2 was like 70% of the reason. Can’t do RT and still hit 60 but even without it, what an incredible looking game, and that’s only the beginning. I don’t think I’ve ever played anything like this. It’s your basic (albeit bery solid) survival horror sure but the tone is PITCH FUCKING PERFECT and the story’s interesting in a way very few are. I’m only a few chapters in but it feels like playing through a novel more than a game.
I’m on the non-epic PC version right now (shhh) but I’m 100% buying it once I get the disposable income because even though I hate Epic, god damn Remedy deserves to make money off this.
I’m so glad you’re enjoying it! It’s a damn shame BG3 took the world by storm last year, as I felt AW2 truly deserved more awards, including Game of the Year. BG3 is good and all but at the end of the day it’s just a really well made RPG. AW2 is doing something bold and interesting with the video game medium in a way that deserves to be celebrated. It topped Jacob Geller’s yearly list for a reason, and I think he put it the best in his video:
“Is Alan Wake 2 the best game I’ve played this year? No. But it’s the most excited I’ve been to be playing a video game this year.”
Also it should have won the Game award for best soundtrack and I’ll hear no arguments.
It’s a damn shame it was overshadowed by BG3. Feels like an lesser version of the Titanfall 2 situation. Bought it on discount the other day because I want them to make money from it.
With that said, it’s always insane to me how 99% of the time, paying for a game is a worse experience than pirating it. I bought a single player game that I now cannot play because epic’s servers are down and it’s not letting me use offline mode because I tried to login when it prompted. Can’t even run the exe because the launcher force closes the game. Why tf is this offline game being treated like an always online game?! At least Steam lets you login offline if it knows your credentials from before. I’m actually considering refunding because I can’t guarantee I’ll be online the next time it logs me out.
Epic is just terrible. I wanted to bypass the launcher by using Heroic instead, but it wouldn’t recognize me having the Deluxe edition without actually installing the game through Epic and being logged in through their launcher. Garbage.
Complete and utter trash really. Just a horrible experience all round. I’ve used Epic before and I thought offline was a thing. After I was finally able to login, you can imagine my surprise when I learned that I can NEVER play offline. Logged in correctly, ran the game online fine, closed off everything, unplugged ethernet and tried to play - got hit with that “this game requires an internet connection” dialog.
I was willing to look past an outage since I figured maybe it’s because it was the second or third time launching it and it needed keys or whatever, but online only? We get internet and power issues like crazy here, that’s an actual deal breaker.
Genuinely didn’t wanna but I ended up refunding it. Remedy, if you’re seeing this, hmu when it’s on steam and I can actually play offline. Paid for it once, willing to again :)
Not to mention the fucking notifications for Epic Games Achievements are loud as all fuck and default to “on” every time you open the launcher so you have to manually turn on Do Not Disturb every time you launch the game or your immersion gets ruined every 5 seconds by an Epic Achievement notification ding (and visual on screen popup btw!)
It’s so funny you mentioned it because I was actually worried about that too. Achievement popups in a game like this (even on steam tbh) can really take you out of it. And AW2 has qute a few too sheesh. Not sure if steam offline mode still has em. Good to know I’m not insane though haha
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