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ivanafterall, do games w Half-Life is not dead, as new Steam record shows Valve we all still care

Seems like kind of a weird gesture given that Alyx was released only three years ago. By Valve standards, that's still considered hot off the presses.

rich,

And Alyx is incredible

I’ve only had a select few genuine “holy fuck” moments during gaming where I have genuinely been stunned. One being Mario 64 in 1996, the other being Half Life Alyx.

It’s a shame it’s in a medium that restricts how many people can actually play the thing. The VR-less mod does the game a huge disservice.

nanoUFO,
@nanoUFO@sh.itjust.works avatar

I’m going to guess most people into half life aren’t going to sink $1000 into computer upgrades and a VR headset.

ElectroLisa,
@ElectroLisa@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

Half-Life: Alyx doesn’t require a NASA PC, and you can play it on cheaper headsets like Quest 2, or even older used ones like Rift S or HTC Vive

julianh,

Yeah I used my $600 PC and a ~$300 Windows mixed reality headset. Far from ideal tbf but still a mind-blowing experience.

sanpedropeddler,

It requires a fairly good PC. I played it on my budget rig with a used rift s. I was very glad I don’t get motion sick easily because it was very often well below 60fps.

ElectroLisa,
@ElectroLisa@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

My PC has an RX 580 and it works fine for me, I’d say that’s a budget GPU

Thepolack,

Are you telling me a new Half Life game came out three years ago and I missed it?

AdmiralShat,

VR only

Master,
@Master@sh.itjust.works avatar

There is a non-vr mod for it.

gk99,

It’s not worth playing non-VR. To be blunt, all of the game elements other than graphics really kinda suck from a traditional gameplay perspective and are forgiven or ignored because of what VR adds. The levels are claustrophobic, the weapon and enemy variety is horrid, the AI was handicapped to make it easier to shoot in VR, there isn’t even a jump button or melee attack in a franchise known as a boomer shooter with a crowbar-wielding protagonist. It’s not a traditional Half-Life game and trying to play it as one will likely lead to disappointment.

The reverse isn’t true, playing the VR mods for the rest of the franchise is a blast and there are plenty of amazing VR conversions for other games, so I find it saddening this is the direction Valve took for Alyx.

sanpedropeddler,

Its definitely not what you usually get in a half life game but I wouldn’t say its not worth playing without vr. If you’re willing to live with the differences then you can still enjoy it.

julianh,

My impression from participating was that it was more for fun rather than trying to make a statement. It was cool to see multiple full servers.

JusticeForPorygon, do games w Baldur’s Gate 3 boss says gamers don’t want mass subscriptions
@JusticeForPorygon@lemmy.world avatar

Only reason I never got into World of Warcraft

ryathal,

Honestly I don’t regret paying a subscription for WoW. Maybe it’s different now, but when I played it felt fair. You got reliable servers, frequent updates,somewhat reasonable balance changes, and seasonal events. You didn’t get any loot box bullshit, just playing the game regularly generally got you the rewards with minimal effort.

Sure expansions also cost extra, but that was $30 and about 1 every 2 years.

For a game that ate all your free time, it didn’t hit your wallet that hard.

Katana314,

Yeah, it kind of just keeps the agreement honest.

“We need ideas to find a way to monetize our active playerbase!”
“We already are. They pay us money each month. In turn, we continue to make sure the game is fun and has stuff that keeps them interested.”
“Aha! Carry on.”

ryathal,

The subscription also helped with spamming. There was plenty in wow, but it was nothing compared to f2p ganes that I’ve tried.

Blackmist,

If only they’d carried on with that idea.

TwilightVulpine,

I used to hate subscription games with a passion, but seeing what followed, in-app purchases, lootboxes and FOMO-driven battlepasses, turns out subscriptions were the lesser evil.

denast,

Unfortunately it works the same way as with StarCitizen, you’re aware it’s a ripoff, but if you want to play this particular type of a game, pay up or leave.

With MMORPGs specifically, here are the options:

  • Free to Play. Enormous cash shop, often pay to win. Usually these games actually require the most money to play on high level, or waste your time by slowing down the grind and having an optional “premium” sub, which effectively makes it a sub MMO.

  • Buy to Play. Much less predatory, rarely pay to win, but often with huge cash shop. Get ready to see tons of cool cosmetics that are only available through micro transactions, and the base game often receives scrapes from the table. Still, some of these games like TESO effectively force you to pay a sub by introducing a mechanic (like bottomless reagent bag) that make the game without them miserable on high level.

  • Pay to play. Most obvious predator, nobody needs this much money to develop a game that already charges almost full price for base game and for all new DLCs, but also usually has the most tame cash shop. WoW for instance has a tiniest (comparing to games like TESO) cash shop with 20-ish mounts and pets nobody cares about.

This creates effectively a pick-your-Devil situation with these games. No good monetization, pick whatever feels least predatory for you

BrownianMotion, do piracy w Legendary PC developer says Denuvo is “a punishment to the consumer”
@BrownianMotion@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

Release a DEMO, like the old days. So we can DECIDE FOR OURSELVES!!

Its a simple fucking technique. We only pirate to try, if its shit - then fuck you. If its good - then you have a purchase.

Alimentar,

That’s the problem though. They want you to commit to a purchase and hope that you forget about your 2h grace window

isVeryLoud,

You can return games on Steam tbh, enough of a demo for me if you’re a Steam user.

I think you can also return physical copies? Depends.

Cethin,

Two hours really isn’t enough for a lot of games. Some games you can’t even get through the tutorial in two hours.

PosadistInevitablity,
@PosadistInevitablity@hexbear.net avatar

I mean I just pirate it and play the pirated version lmfao.

No sense in paying money at that point

vacuumflower,

Actually yes.

In my childhood it wasn’t very easy to find a licensed copy (TBF, even pirate copy sometimes), but demos would be distributed with magazines etc.

And after playing a demo which you like a licensed honestly bought copy becomes emotionally much better than piracy.

It was a working mechanism. For games which are not crap anyway.

domint, do gaming w Lies of P already has a million players, and it’s just a demo
@domint@feddit.de avatar

the demo also has a platinum status on protondb, so should run without any fiddeling on the steamdeck.

Wxnzxn, do games w ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) The Sims 4 just got surprise incest, and it's not even the first time
@Wxnzxn@lemmy.ml avatar

Just another case of a small, unknown competitor trying to gain market share with the supreme life simulator sandbox CK3, smh frfr

Viking_Hippie,
Black616Angel, (edited ) do gaming w Steam indie hit goes against industry trends, removes all monetization

Yeah that’s right! Games like stardew valley, factorio, Terraria, Binding of Isaac, Hades and others could really learn from those brave heroes and finally remove the Battle pass and all the other payed content!

Edit: /s… Duh!

tuskytiger,

deleted_by_author

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  • FriendlyBeagleDog,

    Those titles don’t, the person you’re responding to is being sarcastic because the article sorta implies that removing the microtransactions from an indie title is somehow novel.

    WhyAUsername_1,

    Hades had battle pass?

    Tau,

    That’s the joke

    WhyAUsername_1,

    I feel like an idiot… c/woosh I guess, to myself… 😂😂

    shift_four,

    No, none of these did. That’s the joke.

    Questy, (edited ) do games w Last Epoch - Meet Diablo 4 and Path of Exile's biggest rival, an ARPG designed and built by Redditors
    @Questy@lemmy.world avatar

    I always marvel at how Grim Dawn isn’t in the conversation. It’s easily top tier, has no microtransactions, is single player offline, but also supports co-op multiplayer. It features a full cosmetic system that is entirely in-game with no cash shop nonsense. There are so many skills and builds with an outstanding itemization system. Robust crafting system. Repeatable end game challenge content.

    Also, it is just recieving another huge free patch, and another full expansion has just been announced.

    It took me forever to actually try it, I thought it was going to be janky indie stuff etc. I’m closing on 3000 hours and still dropping back in with new build themes and ideas. I paid $35 for that 3000 hours in a Steam sale.

    But yea, Last Epoch is ok I guess.

    Edit: a word

    Edit 2: just to add since I saw a comment about multiplayer, there is a community run seasonal ladder League as well. Grim League, for those interested.

    hogart,
    @hogart@feddit.nu avatar

    Yeah so many people have missed out on Grim Dawn. It’s a bit sad it doesn’t have multiplayer but in the grand scale of things its what a lot of people wanted with D4. Let me play Singleplayer offline! This game does it. And boy does it do it well.

    Caligvla,
    @Caligvla@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

    It’s a bit sad it doesn’t have multiplayer

    What do you mean? Grim Dawn does have multiplayer.

    hogart,
    @hogart@feddit.nu avatar

    Only almost.

    PM_ME_FEET_PICS,

    O. It’s has full fleged multi-player

    hogart,
    @hogart@feddit.nu avatar

    How do you go about the multiplayer part? Any private servers or how does it work?

    PM_ME_FEET_PICS,

    You select multi-player and join a game or you can host a game. It’s the same multi-player format as Divinity Original Sin.

    hogart,
    @hogart@feddit.nu avatar

    Uhm. Now I feel dumb :) Last I played you had to enter an ip adress for the game you wanted to join?

    PM_ME_FEET_PICS,

    Yes. That is the Lan option only though.

    Multi-player let’s you join open games or host your own game.

    There is a little circle that you can select to change which you want to do before hitting multi-player.

    hogart,
    @hogart@feddit.nu avatar

    Mind. Blown.

    Minnels,

    I played all current dlcs and the base game on separate occasions alone and with my friends and the game never really clicks for me. I don’t know what it is but it never got as fun as many other arpgs for me. Doubt that I will look at this new expansion as it feels I could have more fun spending my time with another game instead. Kind of weird as I have over a hundred hours and like the game genre but… Yeah.

    MonkCanatella,

    It’s just old. People talked about it back when it came out. POE I think gets recognized because it’s free to play (with DLC/MTX). I’ve played every ARPG under the sun and Last Epoch is one of the best I’ve ever played. It feels like the real successor to Diablo II

    fushuan,

    The biggest difference is that PoE gets huge expansions every 3-4 months with new content while Grim Dawn only mostly gets numeric patches. Yeah there’s a new expansion on the horizon, but it’s been a good while…

    borlax, do gaming w Cyberpunk 2077 and The Witcher studio CD Projekt laying off 100 staff
    @borlax@lemmy.borlax.com avatar

    So the half-cocked product release strategy doesn’t work and its time to punish labor for the mistakes of executives.

    elscallr,
    @elscallr@kbin.social avatar

    "punish labor" 😂

    They'll find new jobs. Companies have no loyalty to employees and employees have no loyalty to companies. Nobody is in it for love. They got paychecks, now they'll find someone else to give them paychecks. It's transactional.

    entropicdrift,
    !deleted5697 avatar

    deleted_by_author

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  • elscallr,
    @elscallr@kbin.social avatar

    I've been laid off. It sucks, but you find a new job, and in the tech world that usually comes with a pay bump.

    entropicdrift,
    !deleted5697 avatar

    deleted_by_author

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  • elscallr, (edited )
    @elscallr@kbin.social avatar

    Well that's the thing, I don't really consider it injustice. I consider it as something that sucks, but things that suck happen. It's just kind of part of life. You get past it. I guess that's my view.

    Like a farmer experiencing a drought. That's not injustice, it just sucks.

    entropicdrift,
    !deleted5697 avatar

    deleted_by_author

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  • elscallr,
    @elscallr@kbin.social avatar

    It's exactly that. There's no one person, no group of people, that can control a market. It's a force, an abstract concept at this point. Any thoughts that it can be controlled is hubris or naivety.

    entropicdrift,
    !deleted5697 avatar

    deleted_by_author

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  • elscallr,
    @elscallr@kbin.social avatar

    What's your ideal situation? They create make work jobs? Give the development and production teams some brooms and fire the custodial staff instead? Their job is done. Time to find new ones.

    entropicdrift,
    !deleted5697 avatar

    deleted_by_author

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  • elscallr,
    @elscallr@kbin.social avatar

    You ever seen a camel? It's a horse that's been designed by a committee. Democratically run things don't accomplish shit because you can never get groups of people to agree on anything.

    elscallr,
    @elscallr@kbin.social avatar

    You ever seen a camel? It's a horse that's been designed by a committee. Democratically run things don't accomplish shit because you can never get groups of people to agree on anything.

    entropicdrift,
    !deleted5697 avatar

    deleted_by_author

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  • elscallr,
    @elscallr@kbin.social avatar

    No reason to be that way, we were having a nice conversation.

    entropicdrift,
    !deleted5697 avatar

    deleted_by_author

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  • elscallr,
    @elscallr@kbin.social avatar

    I'm sorry, I took this the wrong way:

    Go figure! People with different personal priorities existing! What a world!

    Friendship,
    @Friendship@kbin.social avatar

    Camels are pretty dang well designed creatures so I'd say the committee did pretty great there. And the alternative is being at the whims of a single person or a small group none of whom have any incentive to care about anything other than the enrichment of their own personal finances. It's a literal autocracy.

    Governance structures where the workers own and have a say in the means of production are bound to have their own issues to be sure, but it beats out the current model.

    elscallr,
    @elscallr@kbin.social avatar

    They might be good at being camels, but they're terrible horses. And if you've ever tried to lead a group of more than a handful of people, you'd know they can never agree on shit. Someone has to make the call.

    Robaque,

    Nice

    Aosih,

    If there’s no money and no work to be done, the natural outcome are layoffs. What alternative is there? That the company continues to pay all the staff from the management’s pockets? That’s not exactly a great scenario for the workers either, since there’s no prospect for growth, and everyone will still be out of a job once the company inevitably fails. If you see management making bad decisions, start searching, don’t wait for the layoffs.

    LunchEnjoyer, do games w Legendary Half-Life YouTuber plans class-action lawsuit against Ubisoft for killing The Crew
    @LunchEnjoyer@lemmy.world avatar

    Don’t forget we have to get comfortable not owning our games guys… This is Ubisoft showing us how that works…

    HawlSera, do games w Baldur’s Gate 3 boss says gamers don’t want mass subscriptions

    Here’s an idea, I give you money for a game, I download it off the store front, I keep it forever.

    “You only have a licen…”

    Shut the fuck up, if buying isn’t owning, piracy isn’t stealing.

    Xer0,

    Fucking BASED.

    Ffkhrocks, do games w Cities Skylines 2 dev stuck to launch date despite “potential kicking”

    ‘Despite the technical problems outlined in our own review of Cities Skylines 2, Colossal Order says the game is “ready enough to be released.”’

    Next time they’re at a restaurant someone should bring them undercooked chicken that looks done on the outside but is raw in the center. When they complain? “The chicken was ready enough to serve”

    Rubanski,

    A better comparison would be a raw steak when the customer asked for medium well.

    glimse,

    Quite the hyperbolic comparison you’ve got there

    CynicRaven,

    Hey dude, Colossal Order and Paradox gave them salmonella, how could you be so callous!

    chunkystyles,

    Imperfect game is as bad as potentially fatal food poisoning, obviously.

    NAS89,

    my dad died from playing Cyberpunk on release RIP in peace

    Montagge,
    @Montagge@kbin.social avatar

    Hey guys the chicken is going to be undercooked depending on your tableware so don't order it yet if you think your chicken will end up undercooked.
    I'M GONNA ORDER THE CHICKEN! WHY IS THIS CHICKEN UNDERCOOKED? WHY WASN'T I WARNED?

    echodot,

    It’s not quite the same thing though is it.

    It’s a bit like developing a microwave meal and it turns out that it only really cooks in 2 minutes if you have an ultra powerful microwave then putting out a press release that says I know it says it’ll cook in 2 minutes on the packaging but unless you have a really powerful microwave add a few minutes to it.

    The responsibility is still on the players to have reasonable expectations of the game depending on the hardware that they have.

    Also it’s 100% my fault for pre-ordering the damn thing, I don’t know why I did that. But that’s on me because if I really wanted to I could have refunded it.

    _haha_oh_wow_, do games w Meta Quest 3 demand allegedly 5 million units below expected level
    @_haha_oh_wow_@sh.itjust.works avatar

    Meta is just short for metastasis because they’re cancer.

    Nakoichi, do piracy w Legendary PC developer says Denuvo is “a punishment to the consumer”
    @Nakoichi@hexbear.net avatar

    Abolish intellectual property (and private property in general)

    anarchrist, (edited )

    There was a big high wall there that tried to stop me.

    The sign was painted, said ‘Private Property.’

    But on the backside, it didn’t say nothing.

    This land was made for you and me.

    Trebach, (edited )

    And the sign said anybody caught trespassing
    Would be shot on sight.
    So I jumped over the fence and I yelled at the house,
    "Hey, what gives you the right
    To put up a fence to keep me out
    Or to keep mother nature in?"
    If God was here he'd tell you to your face
    "Man, you're some kind of sinner!"

    Kyrgizion, do games w MW2 remastered multiplayer mod shut down by Activision day before launch

    I haven’t forked over any $$ to Activision in over a decade, I see no reason to ever change my stance. I don’t feel like I’m missing out either, I simply cannot understand why this franchise ever got as popular as it is, let alone why it remains so popular today. A fool and his money…

    JCreazy,

    I haven’t bought a video game in years. It’s just been garbage after garbage. The market is saturated with so much shit that I don’t even care to play games anymore.

    SpacetimeMachine,

    I mean, some of the best games of all time (imo) have released in the last 3 years. Not sure what you’re on about with all games being garbage nowadays

    JCreazy,

    Sorry, when I say good games I mean games that I find to be good. There have been games that are popular that I have no interest in. I also find games to be too expensive.

    ampersandrew,
    @ampersandrew@lemmy.world avatar

    Try some unpopular games.

    TORFdot0,

    Actually RDR2 came out nearly 6 years ago.

    unconfirmedsourcesDOTgov,

    If you don’t play games why are you in this community? What do you think your perspective adds to this conversation?

    JCreazy,

    It’s not that I don’t play games

    UndercoverUlrikHD, do games w Total War Warhammer 3 devs will remove Steam users starting boycotts
    @UndercoverUlrikHD@programming.dev avatar

    Each time I check the r/totalwar subreddit, there seem to be another PR fuckup from CA. It’s really sad considering they were peaking just a few years ago with TWW2. Stopped maintaining my mods due to it.

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