I tried the demo, and I’ve got to say: I was hoping for more of an evolution to the stealth mechanics. This seems to be sticking very closely to what Monaco 1 was.
That’s just not true. They’re seeking profit by attempting to be the best place to spend your money. Epic would love for Valve to charge users monthly for Steam, but they don’t, because it would just drive people away from Steam. They stand to make more money by doing what they’re doing. This is not a public versus private thing. Arguably the negative that comes along with public companies is that there are more short term incentives at the expense of long term profit, but they’re both doing what they do for profit.
Striving for profit is a quality tied to being a company, not being a publicly traded company. Everything they do is in pursuit of making more money. Often times, that means making the best store out there so that we shop with them instead of their competitors, which is how it’s supposed to work.
I was specifically refuting, “They’re the only ones safeguarding the industry,” and how they got to their refund policies matters when it comes to that statement. I was not here to throw a gauntlet down, insult Steam’s honor, and challenge anyone to a duel. I prefer to shop on GOG these days, when possible, but my Steam profile says I have 991 games in my account, and I bought most of those. Valve and Steam have done lasting, measurable good to this industry and medium, but that doesn’t mean they’re safeguarding it or that it’s all good news. As to the thing about ads, I don’t think that model would actually work with the PC gaming audience, and I think Valve prohibiting it is just so that their audience still finds quality products on Steam and spends more money. Valve’s best behaviors and worst behaviors are motivated by profit.
Their refund policies only came about because different governments sued them. Check out either coffeezilla or People Make Games on CS:GO loot boxes, the latter of which has interviews with plenty of the victims of this system that Valve allows to continue because it’s so lucrative for them.
Valve says the data proves “Steam isn’t just a storefront—it provides social community, game discoverability, interactive events, and a deep set of game-enhancing features to attract and retain players who will be checking out new games in the future.”
I think it proves that Steam is the largest storefront on PC and that PC is growing and replacing other platforms.
I don’t think they want to sell the company. I think the family that owns the majority of it is doing everything possible to stay in control of the company called Ubisoft, regardless of how many of their IPs they still have left when the dust settles.
To be fair though, this is about the easiest prediction you could possibly make. I don’t think anyone expects this thing to come in under $400 even in a world where there aren’t tariffs looming in the distance.
That engine is ancient and their game design needs an upgrade. A lot of the quests were so bland in Starfield that I watched the credits to see how many designers they had on them. It was like…6. Thousands of planets, 6 quest designers. If your quest is, “go here, push a button, and come back,” just don’t bother putting the quest in the game.
Likewise, Oblivion’s conversation system probably looked immaculate compared to old Elder Scrolls games at the time, but Starfield is outclassed next to Mass Effect 1 from 2007, not to mention The Witcher 3 or Baldur’s Gate 3. And for how much people like that their towns are filled with NPCs on a schedule, it would be nice if that system led to anything more sophisticated than the thieving tricks people used 20 years ago.
There it is with your two neurons again. But those neurons sure seem to be betraying you if they’re telling you this culture war bullshit was Microsoft’s doing or intention, or that Game Pass isn’t a material factor in this game’s success. For someone who claims to be so smart, that seems very dumb.
Gotcha. Yeah, I’d expect minimum mod support for this one, but if the next Bethesda game switches to Unreal along with this one, I’d expect normal support for modding that they usually provide.