What’s that about price parity? I’ve often bought games from 3rd party sellers like Fanatical, to name one, specifically because their prices were lower than Steam’s. What am I missing?
They used to have a price parity clause in their steam distribution agreement. They loosely enforced it, depending on what game and what service. I think they quietly removed it because I read through the agreement recently and didn’t see it but I remember it influencing choices I made for pricing my games on itch.io.
I see, thanks for the clarification. That does sound a bit shitty on their part, especially because when most people are asked “gaming on PC?” they answer “Steam”. Lower prices elsewhere might have given a better chance to other storefronts, although I don’t think that would have made a huge difference, since Steam is THE storefront
Steam wants to keep it that way. Any references to other storefronts in your demo or game aren’t allowed either. So if you’re demo has a list of every place to buy the game, it’s rejected, can only contain steam. Steam is deathly afraid of losing the advantage.
If they’re acting this way it means that either they’ve already seen a decline somewhere (or at least not as big of a growth) thanks to other storefronts (and maybe other companies’ launchers like Rockstar and similar), or anticipate things will get worse in the future. I get it, as a company they want to make more money YoY, but this is definitely an ugly move. Guess I’ll add another reason not to buy from them!
Denying references to other places that directly compete with you seems pretty reasonable to me. You don’t see toaster boxes at Walmart saying it’s also available at Target or whatever
If that is the biggest problem, I wouldn’t keep myself from buying from them. I think Valve is generally a “good behaving” company, probably mostly because they are not on the stock market, and I would expect mostly any other company to do much more shitty and monopolistic things when (or before) it has grown to the size of Valve.
It seems pretty fair to want equal pricing. You’ve been speaking as if Valve is actively killing small storefronts like itch.io and these little guys would be the one to gain from something like this. They might, but not nearly as much as Epic Games would which is the lead in a very similar lawsuit. Epic wants to be able to sell games available on Steam at a lower price to influence people to use their storefront instead. They’re literally giving games away so I think they’d love a chance to try and recoup some of that while still getting to look like the pioneers of cheap.
I honestly don’t think that’s a viable strategy. Retail businesses mostly have the same practices, so one could say that Valve just doesn’t want to start doing game price-matching like Best Buy. The closest I’ve ever seen is a store not having stock of something and a worker there suggesting a different store that might have it. But I’ve never been on Gamestop’s website and seen that Funkopop for sale cheaper at Walmart or Target? An individual working there might tell me because they’re not a corporation.
Given they also have pretty steep sales, I would imagine cheaper pricing could influence sale availability as well - if the game is always $20 cheaper somewhere else maybe the dev doesn’t want to put the game on sale as often/at all. None of that is antitrust though, so why use that as their argument? I guess the case will tell us for sure.
I also think that, probably to a lesser extent, it’s been to help Valve prevent the grey-market key selling. I’m of the opinion that Valve likely doesn’t care too much about you or I selling our Humble Bundle key of a game for $3.74, however they do want to avoid stolen credit card key sales and revoked licenses. I personally don’t think that Itch or Fanatical relates to this, but I do think there’s a general misunderstanding that people conflate Fanatical/Green Man Gaming and grey market sites like G2A and Kinguin. It can’t look good for Valve when a user buys 3rd party and their key is revoked and the user gets mad about it, and boy are there a lot of angry vocal people out there complaining about this very thing.
Frankly, you buy on Steam because you get the Steam Overlay to completely change your controller scheme and use community templates, access to per-game notes, and the Steam Workshop, in addition to whatever other peripheral things like cloud saving. It’s all very user positive so of all things I don’t really understand why this is the move that influences your decision when the other options, save literal indie stores, are decidedly worse.
Itch.io is great, it’s unfortunate that devs who want to sell on Steam can’t advertise to their alternate store listing but it also seems sensible? No business actively advertises the ability to buy somewhere else to give the devs 20% more of the sale. Does anywhere actively promote anything like this? Not as far as I’ve seen, so it seems odd to single out Valve when literally every single business in existence works the same way? And I’m not saying that I personally think it should/shouldn’t, I’m more trying to see if there’s any precedent in existence that would implicate Valve to have to do this in order to not be… “shitty?”
For posterity I just opened up Epic and checked out a few games and there’s no place where the storefront shows the existence of its availability on other stores. The Witcher 3 has no references to GOG Galaxy, Red Dead 2 has no references indicating to buy it on the Rockstar Launcher anywhere. For that matter, nor does Itch.io or Fanatical, ironically neither of these have links to go buy it on Steam instead either.
I’ll happily change my opinion if the arguments in court make sense but as of right now I’m skeptical. Personally when I google a game I discover it from a series of sources and Steam is where I end up choosing to buy it. I choose Steam because it offers the best service. I’ve regretted buying Control during its hostage situation on Epic because it’s caused me nothing but problems (lost saves, validation issues, needing to redownload the game every time instead of pointing to the existing location). Ubisoft and EA only have games that were bought on Humble Bundle and because of it I didn’t have access to Need for Speed: Heat for about 2-3 months while the Origin/EA App transition was happening. “You need to play this game on the EA App!” says Origin. “Sorry, we’re working on getting this game to the new EA App! Check back soon!” says the EA App. A waking nightmare.
I feel like the chances are high that these are the winners if the outcome of a suit is against Valve, not itch.io. Itch will just get drowned out by Humble Bundle and Epic and only indie indie developers will get sales through itch. I also doubt that the point of this suit is to allow devs to put everywhere else the game is available.
From Valve’s perspective I think it’s important to note that their ToS seems to indicate that other developers are allowed to sell on store fronts, but Valve does not get any of the commission despite providing Steam keys. However, since Steam keys are being provided, Valve is still providing quite a large service with cloud saves, forums, everything I mentioned earlier. I actually didn’t know this, so I can also understand Valve not explicitly wanting to give that service away for free and not get anything from it. I mean, that would basically mean that by advertising on the store that the developer can get 20% more if you buy on Itch while still getting a Steam key and access to all of its features…
All told, I am personally of the camp that I think equal sales on storefronts is fair. If Steam has a sale, other store fronts don’t have to have one. Other store fronts are allowed to have sales as long as an equitable sale is had on Steam in “a reasonable amount of time” per the ToS. And it legitimately seems insane to expect one store to advertise an unrelated store just because it’s available at both.
Anyway, these are all just thoughts. I don’t know anything and no one will until the evidence is shown and it’s settled. However, having liked Humble Bundle and the Wolfire team I personally am disappointed to see this suit coming from them. If I’m not mistaken this is literally being funded by Epic Games, they actually are the same case. If you’ve scrolled by the Epic. vs. Valve lawsuit ad on Instagram or Facebook, I’ve seen it quite a bit. That’s this one.
What role do you think the Steam workshop plays in this?
Obviously the people playing the AAA franchises don’t care, but when you see the sheer quantity of workshop content for some games (Cities:Skylines and Space Engineers come to mind for me, no doubt there’s other examples in genres I’m less familiar with), you see how much the modding community has contributed to the commercial success of these games. I’m wondering how this factors in to steam as a whole.
One of steams major profit points is the market place from what I can tell. The workshop less so. Modding might be a factor but a minor one compared to things that make money actively instead of passively.
Windows is trying to both maintain backwards compatibility and lock-in. That’s pretty hard at the best of times, moreso when you didn’t initially have lock-in. If I can get my games working on Linux (i hear it’spossible, but I need time), the only reason I’ll have to use Windows will be work-related.
@Quexotic@GreyEyedGhost for what it’s worth I’ve been working on Linux servers professionally for 15 years and I use a windows desktop and an osx laptop both personally and for work. I can’t think of a particular advantage a Linux client environment would give you. The last thing I want to do in either place is extra work making my local environment functional.
From a completely selfish standpoint, I hope they’ll do something with the neglected IP. Would love to see a new Sierra game, though that might just be the nostalgia speaking :)
Other than that, I recall Microsoft not going to interfere with any unionization attempts due to a neutrality agreement?
In the same vein: I hope they make a new Killer Instinct. PS4 was THE console for fighting games last generation. Microsoft is sitting on IP that would create a lot of hype for a sequel in the fighting game community. The dual sense controller is rumored to have a mushy D-pad while the Xbox controller has a very clicky one. Microsoft could make a real statement about fighting games having a home on the Xbox. To me, it seems like a really obvious strategic decision. The only problem is that fighting games are relatively niche so the weight of that decision isn’t too high.
The only problem is that fighting games are relatively niche so the weight of that decision isn’t too high.
Really? I thought fighting games got quite a bit of press attention, at least whenever a new game releases. Specifically because there aren’t a lot of them around but the interest is still pretty big.
I always saw them as kind of like a prestige thing. It might not be everyone’s favorite genre, but having the best fighting game looks good on your platform as a whole. There’s a certain… pedigree to them because of their arcade roots.
Anyway, I hope you’ll get your wish. It’s always a shame when these kind of titles are just languishing away because some company bought the rights but decides to sit on them.
You might be right. It does seem like we’re entering another golden age of fighting games. But fighting games don’t have nearly the audience of some of the other genres. Most people who buy Mortal Kombat don’t even play online. It’s not like a lot of shooters or MOBAs where it’s a daily ritual for huge numbers of people. The people who are like that, are really like that, but it just isn’t a lot.
The Series S is proving to be a boat anchor holding the platform back. They should cut it loose and release a digital only Series X to fill the space and call it good.
The Series S and X are extremely similar hardware wise. Games really just need to scale to fit the two targets. The real issue is that the games and game makers which MS owns largely use a lot more CPU power, which doesn’t really scale down as easily as GPU power. Having a PC game maker act like a console game maker is the real gap in skillset, not the dual targets.
The S only has 10GB of RAM compared to 16 in the X,
Yes, and the Switch is an ARM based architecture, the 360 was a PowerPC. Architecturally, the S and the X are very similar. Your argument seems to be “The Series S is slower and has less RAM”, which is true, but games should just scale properly. Lower res and lower framerate targets should work. They aren’t working because the game probably doesn’t scale across some critical axis. That’s basically a bug and they should fix it.
I think it bothers people because they think that Series S is “holding back” Series X, which is simply not how it works. Fixing things fixes them everywhere. Series S makes Series X games run faster and better.
I don’t think there are palette limitations, but many games are running on the Series S at SD with FSR upscaling to 1080P. Quality wise they do look acceptable. See Immportals of Aveum as an example
I’m inclined to agree. Many folks saw Elden Ring and its hype/critical acclaim, and they’ll look to AC6 next. Of course, I’m already seeing folks that are playing it and saying its not for them via Steam Reviews. So double edged sword I guess. It’ll bring new players in, but some may have bought solely on the hype, expecting something like Elden Ring but sci fi. Personally, I just like Armored Core and mechs.
I had zero expectations going into AC6, having never played one before and only discovering FromSoft in the past 3 years, but I love this game. I feel like I’m 13 years old playing PS2 Gundam games again
If you’re enjoying it, I would recommend checking out the rest of the series too. They all emulate well enough, except the PS2 games but they have PSP ports that emulate almost perfectly. The PS3 games might still be purchasable.
Honestly the PS1 and PS2 games emulate pretty well on Duckstation and the Nightly builds of PCSX2 (except for AC2, that needs the Stable)
You’ll just need to get used to the clunky tank controls.
You can customize them through the emulator (or Steam) to make the controls a bit more modern. I found a community layout for AC2 when I played in on my Steam Deck that made it feel much more like how AC6 plays.
Oh I played AC2 emulated a while back, but just needed to remap the turning buttons to the shoulders and I was good with the oldgen layout. At least until Silent Line when I needed to dual wield. But hey, I defeated all versions of old Nineball with those, so I’m happy!
Honestly while the aiming and moving controls in the old game were bonkers, imho the jumping and firing controls were better. Only 4 buttons – fire, switch weapon, sword, and jump (which is lateral boost if you do it while walking) fit the game into a standard PS1 pad. Playing ac6 I’m annoyed how much my right thumb has to jump back and forth between the aim stick and the face buttons – if they didn’t have 4 attack actions and 3 boost actions they could’ve fit more on the shoulders and l3/r3 actions.
I didn’t say it in this thread, but since you mentioned it I’ll concur: yeah after a tiny bit of remapping the shoulder buttons and d-pad, I actually got really into the old controls, and other than dual wielding, I actually preferred them over the later 3rd gen style. But both were usable. yeah I’m playing AC6 right now and I’m twisting my right hand into a knot operating the stick and the face buttons at the same time, but this is a kind of problem that every japanese mech game has… Gundam Battle Operation 2, EDF, the 4th and 5th gen of AC too. At this point I’m just used to it.
I’m playing on PC and switched to KB+M in my 2nd session and it’s night and day. Unless you’re using a PS5 controller with the extra buttons on the back, this game is meant for keyboard and mouse.
My kid thought I was nuts: “it’s a fromsoft game! They don’t even know keyboards exist!” but they provided basic keyboard/mouse support and it works amazingly.
Edit: I feel like dual-wielding takes away a lot from AC. The swordplay is too essential to the game, imho. My dream AC game would play more with melee weapons in the left-hand slot but remove dual-wielding. However, otherwise I prefer weapons in AC6 - more oomph and longer cooldowns means there’s more fun cycling through your gear instead of switching to a weapon and emptying it like was often the strategy on AC1, and the AC1 “heavy shoulder guns mean going immobile” and the stunlocking were dumb ideas.
But I assume I’m weird since I skipped all the middle games in the series and jumped from ac2 (which I barely played) straight to ac6 and was mostly an AC1 die-hard. I’m sure I missed a lot of good reasons why dual-wielding is good.
I also played Daemon x Machina and it was boring as hell, and duallies was a big reason.
I’m not switching to KB+M but I am switching to Type B controls after struggling against Balteus for 6 hours today. My hands actually hurt from how hard I was gripping the controller, lol.
Dual wielding was basically the only way to play in late Gen 3 as the games got harder and harder, and the enemy ACs started coming more and more decked out (or in the case of Last Raven, straight up cheating) and is what I’m most used to. First thing I did in 6 was to put on dual rifles. But now after trying out other builds I put a sword back on, they’re really fun and VERY strong in this game.
Yeah we need to become better to calm ourselves on new game releases and ask ourselves if it’s for me. Hype only serves publishers, hence they are so good at creating it.
I've got 500hrs in that game! This is the best news I've heard all year 😆 Signed up for the Pioneer Program immediately, of course without reading the T&C's properly, just like any loyal LYNX employee should! Oh boy, can't wait to "disagree and commit" some more.
i feel like ubisoft has been having really cool ideas for games pretty consistently for the past decade. (in the sense that every game has a cool elevator pitch.) but then, every time, they ruin those ideas by making the most bland and generic open world game with the most boring stories, dialogue, and gameplay systems imaginable. it’s like the creativity behind their games is forbidden to develop past the elevator pitch.
this is particularly noticeable with the assassins creed games i think. super cool ideas for settings, time periods, and main characters, etc. but every time, they find a way to turn the games into the most boring and generic slop imaginable. there’s just so much wasted potential.
Man I had so much hope for infinite, remember when Elizabeth opens a year for that dying horse and they’re accidentally on a rain-soaked street in the 80s?
There should have been more secret tears for you to find throughout the game with all kinds of Easter eggs and shit.
The one you brought up, if I remember correctly, was supposed to be Paris in the 80s, because there’s a movie theater in the frame that says something about Star Wars.
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