They're patching it to be playable offline, but only if you've previously downloaded the game.
Why not just leave that version up instead of delisting it? They could even sell it. Would be seen as a success story for preservation instead of another loss, and it's especially baffling because it's a fully avoidable loss.
Do you even have to pay hosting costs, if you put a game on steam or does valve not distribute your game for free?
If I’d have to guess the bigger issues with a game like this would be licensing or that delisting allows some form of tax advantageous asset depreciation.
Valve hosts it for “free” (30 to 15% of every sale), yes.
I’m guessing this game has some phone-home DRM or something, and maybe it’s only required the first time it’s executed after installation ? They could of course just give the game a patch that removes it but I guess they don’t want to anger the line investors and make it go down by working even a second on a “discontinued” game.
Pretty sure hosting costa arent it, the only thing possible woyld be licensing issues for the IP’s otherwsie they could leave it on steam forever and STILL make money off of sales. There are games that do this by making the players host their own servers each match.
Potentially, I don’t exactly know all the rights owners.
But just looking at the roster, I’d assume Arya Stark might be the most complicated. While HBO falls under WB, unsure if ol’ George signed away all rights to the character. And there’s always future deals too, since rights holders can change hands.
GaaS means you have ongoing expenses after launch in a way that normal games do not. The costs are higher, but they keep chasing the much larger reward that only a super small percentage will ever achieve.
Live service games have been failing constantly, so unless the change is happening already I don’t think they’re deterred. That perpetual revenue stream is some exec’s idea of a lottery ticket.
Same here. There’s been a few games I’ve seen on here recently that look interesting, even some “indie” titles, but as soon as I get to the Steam page and it lists online only, I’ve lost all interest.
It’s not going anywhere until people stop playing the games spending ridiculous amounts of money in them.
Fixed that for you. The problem isn’t the casual players, it’s the people spending $500+ worth of skins and battle passes on one game. Those are the reason GaaS are so successful.
If people play, it becomes popular, which attracts more players, which attracts spending. Even if you spend $0, you are still supporting the type of game it is by playing it.
Not to mention the GAAS titles which are competitive in nature. The whales thrive on having a mob of casual players they can crush with their P2W advantage. If the whales were only matched against other whales, they’d win less and play less.
There are a very small number of games where a changing world is a benefit to the game, although sometimes the approach also means skimping on some development before going live.
Helldivers 2 is an example of a game that benefits from the changing world approach of GaaS and it doesn’t have predatory monetization. Playing the game gives enough in game currency to buy optional equipment needed for the changing world even if you only play a few hours a week. Heck, play it more regularly and you can afford most of the thematic warbonds which again and not necessary. The changing world and adding more enemy units keeps the game fresh over time, and the evolving story is like playing a giant semi shared campaign. You play a small part in a shared experience. I don’t think doing the game as a single or coop campaign would have been a better experience.
That said, when they do end the ongoing campaign at some point it would be awesome to have some kind of automated system campaign for people to still do things. It wouldn’t be as focused, but it would extend the game’s life.
MultiVersus was hurt by trying to do SaaS because they added more predatory monetization after the beta where it was bad enough and tried to milk it for everything to the detriment of the gameplay. It is a great example of a game where the SaaS approach was terrible, and that is the case for the vast majority of SaaS games.
We see it most prevalently in games because the gaming industry is massive. But this can also happen to your car… Or your fridge…
Here’s a fun story:
There were these few blind people who volunteered to have cybernetic implants that would help them (partially) see. The company went under, the patent is held by a patent troll, but the people still have those implants in their head… Which have now either shut down or are malfunctioning…
Multiversus was one of the most mismanaged projects I’ve seen. Released in open beta for months, shut down for a year, re-released as literally the same game but worse and with more microtransactions, then quickly died.
I think the mismanagement comes from thinking that any fighting game can keep up with the cadence and business model of League of Legends. You’ll see this again with 2XKO, even if they’ve got a year’s worth of character releases already done ahead of time to give them a head start.
It really sucked because Smash Bros is basically the only other big platform fighter on the market. Multiversus was set up to actually be a viable alternative to smash, it was massively popular at first, and they had such an amazing library of characters to pull from. The game had everything going for it. And they just blew it. So badly.
The beta was fun, although the monetization was bad even back then.
But the official release made all the wrong decisions to amplify the worst parts of gameplay and dial up the monetization. It was like they got all the player feedback backwards.
The Nickelodeon fighter game is still available I believe, but you’re still right in that there’s still basically nothing to hold a candle to Smash Bros.
I bought the first Nickelodeon game a couple months after it released, and the online was already dead, I literally couldn’t find a match. Just went ahead and got a refund on it.
Just looking up what ‘preproduction’ actually means : They are in the planning stages, but they haven’t started ‘making’ the game yet. Cyberpunk (1) development took four years.
Me here just waiting to also not play the next one.
It’s just another flavor of starfield but somehow so much more shittier. Make me a game that doesn’t release looking like it’s a beta release. Then I may be interested.
In fairness is was full jank on release, the initial patches got it to “bethesda jank” where it was fun with the bugs (provided you could actually play it) but still bug ridden.
It got better over time, until just before the “big patch” came in that fully changed how it all worked skills and mechanics wise (gameplay was mostly the same).
Honestly i prefer, pre-“big patch” but the fully patched game is considerably smoother and more coherent.
So, aside from the years of post release development, completely missing features that are never actually coming (looking at you full transit system), it’s actually pretty good.
An absolutely dogshit way of releasing a game, but if you waited for a few years and bought it on discount , it’s actually a really fun game (provided you like that sort of thing).
TBC I’m not justifying anything about this process , it was a major fuckup and many other dev houses would have gone under from the weight of how badly they fucked it up, but they had that witcher money, so.
largely seamless world, fun combat, hand crafted locations, good writing, good story, good and memorable characters, engaging dialogs, multiple ways to finish quests, cool vehicles, and on and on…
oh and forget forcing the player to fast travel everywhere but traveling around in cyberpunk is actually fun so i pretty much never used it in the game despite having the option.
and it looks like no one directed any part of starfield, it’s literally the same as oblivion in terms of how every encounter and dialog unfolds, while starfield actually has direction and variety, well acted and performance captured interactive scenes. here’s a good comparison of two similar quests involving a trade with shady people. just compare how the lines are delivered, how dynamic the scenes are, what happens when threats are involved, whether the scenes have any development, what you can see when the boxes are opened, literally everything.
I started the first one last month and encountered 3 game-breaking-reload-required bugs within the first hour. It still isn’t fixed after all these years.
Edit: I don’t understand why I’m being downvoted for simply sharing my playthrough experience?
Played until I was helping the cops and symping for corpo life. Aren’t we supposed to be punks off the street? The fuck are we helping cops for? CDPR can’t write.
Because the coppers have a vigilante system and pay me for fucking these specific groups of gangers and criminals up. And as Vespasian said: money doesn’t stink.
And it was greedy as hell because when that DLC was announced and released the game was still buggy and unfinished. The game still doesn’t feel complete without the DLC is what I hear from everyone I know and multiple reviews
The game is not only finished and complete, but Phantom Liberty was the best damn DLC I’ve ever played for any game in any genre, since the Shivering Isles for Oblivion.
I love how you’ve personally taken offense to everyone shitting on your precious cyberpunk in this thread. It was broken trash in 2020 and it’s only slightly less trash in 2025 bud. Sorry you have poor taste.
Art is subjective. You don’t get to speak for anyone but yourself. Half the world thinks what you like is shit, but go on about how you know what’s really good.
I know greed when I see it. I know cut content when I see it. A good DLC doesn’t include stuff that should’ve been in the game.
CDPR did good with the witcher series years ago. But after cyberpunk they showed how disgusting they can be. They don’t deserve money. Have fun and enjoy the game but don’t defend it, there’s no point
I’ll defend it if I want. Neither you nor anyone else gets to decide anything for me, so fuck out of here with that attitude. There’s a reason you and the people who share your opinion are getting downvoted so much in this thread. That reason is people think your opinion is shit.
That is me literally saying I’ll defend the game. It’s your words that defending the game is defending “greed”, which is a bullshit, weak ass argument.
Spoken like someone that has played about four or five video games in their entire life. It’s not even an RPG. It’s a shitty first person shooter with pointless skill trees tacked on. Even if you were to classify it as an action RPG, it doesn’t crack the top 20.
It absolutley does. Also cyberpunk actually gives you a lot of freedom on how you aproach combat. Can you play it as mindless shooter. Yup . But you can also play deus ex like that and no one calls it a shitty first person shooter ( even tho thats technicaly the easiest way to finish the game ). And as far as the world and story is concerned its equisite. As far as whetewer its an RPG or not. If mass effect is an RPG than so is cyberpunk i think . Very subjective thing in general . Definietly not a hill im willing to die on.
The game is finished. Maybe not finished to your expectations, but it is definitely finished, and is a damn fine action RPG. And Phantom Liberty is the best damn DLC for any game I’ve ever played since the Shivering Isles for Oblivion.
Calling others opinions lies just because you don’t appreciate what they’re saying is what we in the industry like to call a “bitch ass move”.
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