exactly that was my thought on Borderlands 3.
And after gatting it for free my realisation was that it even is the worst part in the whole series. Not bad, but the story isn't that overwhelming as the stories in BL1 or BL2 had been.
to disagree slightly: there were many different stores and lunchers before Epic even existed. Apart from Steam I have bought games and other digital goods on Gog, Humble and the now- extinct Desura. While totally avoiding the stores from companies as Ubi or Ea because they just suck.
Having an addititional account wasn't the big issue. There were already attemts to integrade several libs into one launcher, and if not you can at least run the start commands for that games out of steam.
What was sucking from the beginning was that arrogance of this sweeny guy, his promises of hot air, and his telling us of being the great saviour for all developers - while we as paying custemers were fed up with this bad launcher that is still missing every user interaction.
In the end not even the developers have profited from the store. Sales are not as promised, and in order to release a game on this platform sweeny blackmails you to give away older titles for free.
Thanks for suggestion. I checked the trailer, but I don't think it's worth for me to try the demo. It's just not my type of game.
I myself addded 3 games to my wishlist after checking out the demos on steam this year. First one was manor lords back in march. then came Pagonia and enshrouded in october.
I am sure that releasing demo versions of games can make a difference. Many studios lack the financial power do do months-long marketing campains. Many players are even bored by such campains are are more impressed when they can get their hands on an upcoming title instead of having to watch the same trailer 50 times on youtube or in commercial TV. Many gamers do even avoid platforms as twitch or tiktok, and can't be reached by avldvertising via this platforms.
I enjoyed a few of them. GtaV, or Borderlands 3 (altough part 2 will be my favorite part forever)
Civ6 was merely only a demo version, and TW:Troy really sucked and helped me save some bucks.
But mostly I just add them in the hope that Tencent will pay a few cents to The developers who created those games in the first place.
But I won't buy anything there. Games that are only sold via this platform don't exist.
Pioneers is a building strategy game in the tradition of the Settlers series, of which I was a great fan until Ubi ruined it.
Foundry is a mix of factory/automation simulation comparable to Factorio or Satisfactory - and minecraft. With a big priority for factories, and decent system requirements.
Both make a great impression for now, although there are no story elements yet, and no enemies.
So it's just building up your economy. Which is okay for a start. I put both on my wishlist, and I will most probably buy into pioneers on start of EA indecember.
I have small doubts on Foundry whether it will be fun in the long term. Because by now it's "minecraft part" consists only of the materials dirt and stone. And since the factorIes themselfes look rather ugly (compared to satisfactory) I would wish for many stuff to build pretty buildings around them.
Microsoft is not only a bad market leader.
It is a bad loser too. Remember the Nokia purchase? They sunk billions into the company too boost their worse mobile OS, and when it failed they shut down the whole company.
Imagine they would to something similar to Nintendo.
One is Gwent, which is mostly competitive but with a fair ecosystem. You gain enough ressources to fastly build up a competitive deck. Since develepment will end this year you will have to learn the rules only once. you can spend money too, but you can't buy any competitive advantage with it, and players mostly do it for cosmetics.
There are single player games out there too which are sold separetely on gog.com Thronebreaker is the better one imho, while Rogue Mage tried to adapt the somewhat popular Rogue mechanics. And then there is the gwent minigame in Witcher 3 which started all this...
The other game is Skylords Reborn which is a free reimplementation of the 2006 game Battleforge. It's a Fantasy RTS with TCG mechanics. Since the developers don't have the copyright for the assets it's totally free, ressources are earned by playing, and after a while you will literally swim in BFPs. Playing is mostly PvE which can be done solo or Co-op. There is a PvP section too, but since it's player base is rahther small you may expect some waiting time for making.
I was hoping to see some weird chairs, or desks, or maybe a wall decoration no one wants at his wall.
You will find way weirder stuff if you visit any ordinary gamer.
No. Just killed too many Tiefling.
First they held my friend Laezael hostage.
Then they got aggro when I tried to read their mind. Then they wanted to imprison me for looting the corses - as if the corpses had any use for their possessions any longer. And in the end they interfered when I wanted to bring Zazza home through the remains of the Tiefling camp. As if they had not learned to that point...
But even though i helped defend the grove (and the few surviving Tieflings) and they showed great gratitude to me for helping them, Karlach was no longer willing to join my team.
I made some heavy mistakes in Act 1 of Baldurs Gate 3 and the game is still continuing, now with fewer options for characters that I can include in my party, because one died permanently, one left and one even refused to join.
I haven't seen OpenTTD mentioned yet: https://www.openttd.org/
If you like it you may also check out OpenRCT - although this one needs original game files from RollerCoasterTycoon (a few bucks on Gog or Steam)