Yeah it's a nonsense. Argentina and Turkey have atrocious economies, with inflation at crazy levels. Turkey's is at 60% and Argentinas is at 143% currently, on a background of years of terrible economic decisions. Their local currencies are effectively trash so it makes absolute sense for Steam to move to dollars if they're going to continue bothering trading in those countries.
Ironic for a company that published indie hits like Terraria and fresh mainstream games like A Tale of 2 Sons.
This does not reflect the whole gaming market but rather the failure of publishers to innovate well and make new things people like. Big publishers are risk averse and it's a common path them as they get bigger, and care more about shareholder value or venture capital. They won't take risks, and can't accept failures so they retrench. It's not a recipe for success as that end of the games market is already dominated by big publishers churning out annual versions of their mass market games.
A publisher like 505 r ally only has two possible futures on this road - go bankrupt as they can't compete or get bought out by a big fish who want their IP.
It doesn't say much abou the games market as it's actually very large, vibrant and varied. A publisher like 505 is not on the vanguard of the games market and like most people I had to look them up to even see which games they had published. This is just yet another company being mismanaged into oblivion and well beyond its hey day.
I think they want to be vendor neutral to reap the benefits regardless of where people bought the game (i.e. not be limited to steam workshop)
I'm more bothered by the Mods being for Console and PC. I worry that PC modding is going to be held back by the inherent limitations of modding on and for consoles.
I think this is the real problem with the gaming industry. Development studios are treated as if they're sources of IP when in fact it's more about the people working for them.
A good dev team is the people who made the games. A team gets bought out by a big publishing giant and it seems they inevitably lose the people who made them great.
That's not to say big publsiher owned studios can't make great games but I'd argue the best games are coming from the indy studies whether that by one man bands like ConcernedApe or big independent studios like CD Projekt Red.
Also CD Projekt Red was highly motivated to fix Cyberpunk as it's a smaller studio, and pretty much their entire future business needed it to be fixed and work. They need and want to make more Cyberpunk games. Microsoft has zero motivation to fix Redfall - it was a commercial failure in a big coroportation; they will just dump it and move on but also be more averse to trying to make new IP.
To be fair I think Polygon have misunderstood the email.
Calling it "second run Stadia PC RPG" implies Microsoft thought it was going to launch as a Stadia exclusive for it's first run. This was back in 2020 when Stadia was still a thing, and trying to sign up exclusives.
That doesn't mean Microsoft underestimated it, but that it thought it'd already have had a run on Stadia which would make it less likely to be an important title for Microsoft.
I dunno, I think it's a game somewhat damned by faint praise. I hear "It's good, not great" a lot and I get it. If you like Skyrim you will like Starfield. But I'd say the big achievement is to scale up a game like Skyrim into such a big playspace.
It's certainly good quality in terms of the look and what they've technically achieved. But the actual gameplay isn't that far away from what they did in Skyrim and Fallout. I get it - if it ain't broke, don't fix it - but to be honest it feels a little dated. And No Man's Sky does alot of the non-RPG elements better.
It's been a strong year for games; and look at Baldur's Gate 3 - that game actually pushed forward narrative game play.
Starfield is huge and interesting, but ultimately a bit samey. I think the "ocean wide, inch deep" is too far and unfair but the basic concept kinda applies in a crude way. Baldur's Gate 3 is smaller in scope but so much richer and varied. Time was Bethesda was the undisputed king of RPGs, but I think CDProject Red supassed them with the story telling in Witcher 3 (and then fell back with Cyberpunk 2077) and now Larian have supassed both with Baldur's Gate 3.
It's a good game, but it's impact is dimmed a bit by what else has come. It'll make a ton of money and probably be around for years, but it doesn't feel the same huge leap forward as when Skyrim came out. But hey, hard act to follow to be fair.
'Today is the end of Steam': Argentina and Turkey floored by new Steam price hikes as high as 2900% (www.pcgamer.com)
505 Games' parent company lays off 30% of its workforce, says gamers really only want sequels so that's what it's going to make (www.pcgamer.com) angielski
Digital Bros joins the chorus of game companies putting people out of work in the name of "operational efficiency."
Cities: Skylines II - Updates on Modding (store.steampowered.com) angielski
MORE MODS FOR EVERYONE...
Redfall can be the next Cyberpunk 2077, if Microsoft wants it to be. (www.pcgamesn.com) angielski
I’m really hoping MS can get this game back on track. It has so much potential.
Microsoft completely misjudged Baldur’s Gate 3 (www.polygon.com) angielski
Starfield user score drops to "mostly positive" on steam (www.pcgamesn.com) angielski