Honestly, I like the weekly missions. Back in GO, when there was more discussion about the lack of willingness of players to learn/play new maps, this is one of the solutions I proposed. Its a good, non-invasive way to incentivize playing new and different maps.
Like can we make this a more vocal opinion that Triple-A studios/publishers are like legally required to offer a version… Or what is your take on that, especially if you have a similar opinion with a deviation in execution. let me know why if you dont agree too!...
Physical copies are kinda besides the point in terms of ownership and preservation. Just because you own the disk, doesn’t mean you have access to the software on it. DRM, as well as the laws that make it viable, have been around since well before media was sold digitally. Physical copies of the Crew are no more playable now than digital. If you want to be able to keep your games, you need to buy DRM-free, whether that limits you to digital-only or not.
On the other hand, if you want to actually own your games, we need to massively rework copyright law. The fact that a company can sell you a software licence, but add dozens of arbitrary restrictions on when, how and why you can use it is absurd, nonetheless the fact that its always non-transferable and revokable by the company for any reason. None of that should be legal.
With recent big game releases, it’s become obvious that a game is either a resounding success, or complete shit. There doesn’t seem to be any middle ground....
From what I’ve heard, its mostly people expecting the game to be more dynamic - more akin to Skyrim’s varied gameplay systems or Fallout: NV’s story and quests. They’re going in expecting something with heavy RPG focus and getting something more action focused.
Never played the Civ series before, but I’m totally into strategy games. Recently got 200 hours into Pennon and Battle and kinda burned out now. The Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era which I’m hyped for isn’t out yet, and there’s nothing else in the strategy genre grabbing me. Was about to jump into Civ 7 but saw the...
Looks like the general consensus is that its not terrible, but is unfinished and not at all worth the price.
If you’re looking to get into Civ, I’d probably recommend either five for a more complete, and polished game, or six for a weirder and more experimental game.
Honestly, in a lot of ways, I think this video is a miss. In both this video and to a lesser extent the last, he put a lot of the blame on Valve, but also provides a higher standard to Valve than the other companies covered. So much of this video boils down to “Valve uses lootboxes too,” and “Valve needs to do something about this.” without addressing Valve’s position as a market player nor providing any solution for Valve to actually tackle the casino problem. He even says in the video that Valve previously issued takedowns but nothing changed and many of the casinos didn’t even respond to the cease and desist. No other course of action is suggested, and frankly, I don’t see any from Valve that wouldn’t punish victums and unrelated users far more than the casinos.
This isn’t to say Valve is blameless, but Valve is fairly tame for their direct involvement with lootboxes and is competiting directly against companies that use them far more agressively - exactly the reason Coffee previously gave the casinos and those involved with them leniency, and encouraged looking further up the chain. In the same way, I’d say the actual solution here would be for governments to ban underage gambling and enforce those laws - because the more Valve trys to crack down on this or even just avoid it, the more of an advantage the worse players in the space have. Ubisoft and EA have already been attempting to dislodge Steam for years, and its not because they think they can be more moral than Steam.
I think the issue of lootboxes and shady third-party casinos, while intertwined, are very separate, almost parallel issues. Coffee reads them as largely being the same issue which leads to a lot of the messiness of this video, and makes the video harder to discuss.
I think in terms of dealing with the 3rd party casinos, Valve is pretty powerless, and feel Coffee’s arguments for their intervention are very hand-wavey. That is the biggest issue I have with this video. As I outlined in a comment on his last video, most options they have punish victums and unrelated users more than casinos. Even if Valve goes all-out and disables all item trading and marketing, casinos still walk away with all their profits and are incentived to try and scam their users out of every penny before that happens, while normal users and traders are left without ways to get skins they want (at least outside of gambling through Valve) or are left with a bunch of dead inventory they don’t want. If anything, this kinda highlights what I meant by Valve being less agressive on the gambling, as they provide many fairly priced ways to be involved with the skin ecosystem without ever having to open a lootbox or a casino.
In terms of Valve regulating lootboxes on their platform, and specifically CS2 crates, I think theres more merit to the argument, but I still think it’s not realistic to ask Valve to regulate themselves and assume they’ll be able to compete both on the game and platform level, with those who are not. Valve’s momentum does play a bit part in their success, but so too does their featureset to players and friendliness to developers and publishes.
On the game front, if Valve removes lootboxes or adds barries to entry, they will still be forced to directly complete with games that don’t. Even assuming players don’t want lootboxes (although the unfortunate reality of the market is that many do) Valve is still put in a position where their budget is determined by what they can morally earn while their competition uses whatever manipulate, deceptive, or immoral methods they want.
On the platform side, it might be easier, but it could also put them in an even worse position as they rely on other developers and publishes, including the shady ones like EA and Unisoft, to fill their storefront. Part of the reason Steam has the userbase where other platforms don’t is because they have the most complete selection of games. On the other hand, if Steam starts to threaten Publisher’s incomes such as by requiring age verification on gambling, this will likely be far more in incentive to leave than their 30% split ever was. At least the 30% cost covered infrastructure, payment processing and first level support whereas if companies are blocked from their gambling addict audience, they likely will lose a significant part of their revenue outright.
compared to getting every government in the world to agree, implement, and enforce regulations
You don’t necessary need every country nor do you need particularly extreme measures to have an impact. Same as with privacy regulations and a lot of other forms of monitization on the internet, you just need a few bigger blocks to massively increase the costs and risk. If, for example, the EU started requiring age verification to access lootboxes, that would immediately add a significant new cost to adding lootboxes. Notably, for exactly the sorts of live-service games these lootboxes are most common in, data collection and anti-cheat also tend to be key elements of the game and it’s design and monitization - both of which conflict with the ability to ignore user location or age. The developer can’t claim they thought the user was in the US, if the anti-cheat reported that they were using a VPN and were actually logging in from the EU, for example. Obviously there are workarounds for this sort of thing, but again more costs and compexity that eat into profits, and more risk for making mistakes.
It’s not his place to provide a solution: he is a journalist exposing a problem. Do you have such expectations for all journalists talking about any topic?
It wouldn’t be his place to provide a solution if he was arguing that the practice is a problem and prehaps pushing for further study. It is his place because throughout the video, he tries to argue that solving the problem is not only possible, but easy - and yet, despite supposedly being easy, his best solution is to basically propose that the industry self-regulate. That is the main issue I have with this video.
Valve could shut down the entire gambling market today and nothing would change to their market position.
And how would they do this without screwing over normal users and victums of the casinos in the process? They can’t get money from these casinos, nor collect casino records to redistribute scammed money. All they can do is disable trading or their marketplace, effectively seizing the poker chips (or metals balls, following Coffee’s pachinko comparison) but doing nothing about the money casinos have taken from victims nor preventing the casinos from either walking away or re-investing in a new casino. To prevent new ones from popping up, you could disable all trading and marketing, but now you’re punishing 132 million users for the acts of a couple thousand.
They could have some sort of account-level check to make sure that minors don’t spend their steam gift cards on CS skins
They could, but A) this is just one game on their platform, and B) this would leave them directly competiting against those who don’t regulate themselves and can make and reinvest significantly more. This is exactly the situation that Coffee argued was systematic and needed to be adressed further up the chain previously.
they’d rather use the gambling loophole of “akshually, it’s not gambling as defined by law”. Then they lie through their teeth by saying that they “don’t have any data” supporting the claim that the gambling aspect of the game has profited them by leading to more interest in their games, which is bullshit.
Again, exactly like their competition. The recent talk of Balatro’s PEGI rating being a prime example, with the industry self-regulation body declaring that virtual slot machines and loot boxes aren’t gambling but featuring poker hands was.
PC players, and Lemmy users in particular, have a huge double standard for Valve.
This is the problem I have with this video. Valve is being held to a different standard, and told to self-regulate while others in this very series are having blame redirected away from them because its unreasonable to expect them to self-regulate.
You can’t do anything about the money the casinos have already made, but you can stop them by making further money.
Valve makes literally billions and can invest to their heart’s content. They are not a small indie dev.
So if I understand this right, and I don’t think I am, you’re arguing that valve should just disable the entire CS skin trading and marketing system, current victims and other users be damned, and should stop expecting to make money on their products because they have enough money as it is? That sounds like a ridiculous argument, so please clairify what I’m misunderstanding here.
Edit: fixed typos, and changed phrasing to sound less combative
And saying Valve is morally earning money while the competition does not, its not a fair thing to say.
This was arguing in the hypothetical that Valve stopped acting immoraly. I’m not trying to argue that Valve is in the right here. I’m arguing that they are a player in this game as well, along with their competition, and so shouldn’t be singled out as the ones required to change or to enforce new laws.
Valve could give gamblers 2 weeks to take their skins off the sites and then block API access to these casinos
This just gives the casinos warning so they can pull the rug more cleanly, and have more time to spin up a replacement casino.
or just shut down the API completely.
Then this punishes every other user for the actions of a tiny, tiny minority. Even ignoring users using the open market for legitimate and fair buisness, said market provides a way to obtain skins without relying on Valve to set prices or distribute skins. As such, unless Valve also removes their own lootboxes at the same time, it means that users can only interact with skins through gambling.
The one solution that would address all of this at once and wouldn’t substantially affect unrelated users would be governments implementing laws against unregulated gambling. Unlike Valve, they can address the whole industry at once, and aren’t punished for trying to enforce said laws.
A) Valve should not stop casinos from profiting off vulnerable people, because they have already made money off those people and it would somehow be unfair to stop now, which to me sounds ridiculous.
My argument isn’t that Valve shouldn’t ban them if they have the means. Its that Valve cannot effectively ban them without penalising unrelated users just as much or more. The body that does have the means to do so without putting random users in the crossfire is the government.
You are using this as an argumentation that the government should ban them instead of Valve, but the end tesult would be the same. The casinos would walk away with the money, and the victims would be left to cry over it.
In a lot of these cases, even under current law, the government could be fining the individuals running these casinos. As they are run with effectively no oversight, many are blatently rigged, rely on false advertising, or use shoddy, under-the-table finances. That was what the first big crackdown was over - not the existance of these casinos, but the revelation of how rigged they were. As exemplified by the mob tactics being used by these casinos, they haven’t changed. Depending on the location, laws could also be implemented in ways that do go into effect in more aggressive ways, upto and including fining casinos for past actions if its really needed (and to be clear, I wouldn’t be opposed to fines like this being applied against Valve either.)
B) Poor Valve could not compete with their competition if they didn’t have the money they are gaining from their gambling-adjacent market, which to me sounds even more ridiculous. When Epic attempted to pry open the market using one of the biggest and most successful games ever as a leverage, they largely failed because the Steam user base was too entrenched. Steam is literally printing money right now and they don’t need the CS skin money to compete with anyone.
When talking about CS, we’re talking about an individual product, and one that is competing with other products where lootboxes and other manipulative tactics are already the norm. As you said, this isn’t about Steam. Valve is still a buisness, and their products are still a part of the market. They’re not going to just spend money to run a game they lose money on. Even if they do stop selling lootboxes, that doesn’t fix much because you’ve got thousands of other companies also trying to hook the same addicts on their gambling products. Instead, you need to impose limitations industry-wide, to ensure one product can’t get ahead by just being more abusive. Since we obviously aren’t going to have Valve, EA, Ubisoft, Epic, ect. all come together and agree to stop putting gambling in their games, we need a higher power to do so, that being the government.
What competition has such a rich gambling scene though. No other game I am aware of (Maybe TF2 but, still valve)
Most mobile games? Apex? Overwatch? Keep in mind, a lot of the CS gambling happens off-platform and Valve doesn’t collect any direct revenue from it, which is why Valve can’t directly intervene in a lot of it.
Age verification on the marketplace transactions is the more likely scenario, and again, no other game I know of has as much of a gambling community so I don’t really get why other publishers would leave if it doesn’t effect them.
This argument is specifically in the context of lootboxes as gambling on Steam. Think how much people will spend in lootboxes on your average free to play game. If they aren’t allowed to do this on Steam, games like Apex, CoD, PUBG, War Thunder, ect. won’t stay on Steam.
Ultimately, I think you’re missing the point of coffeezillas video, which is that a lot of people who were in the skin gambling community are actively or, started in it, as a minor. You are here trying to find all of these excuses for valve not to be held accountable for facilitating gambling to a minor.
This is exactly my point about Coffee’s argument being muddled in this video, making it hard to discuss. There are three parallel problem here that the video combines into one: third-party casinos, CS lootboxes, and lootboxes in the industry in general.
In terms of Valve shutting down illegal/third party casinos, they don’t have the means to impact this without also shutting down the entire market for everyone, innocent or guilty. Why should I, as someone who has never even bought a lootbox, nonetheless run an illegal casino be punished for their actions. Even then, casino owners aren’t held responsible, they’re just stopped. On the other hand, with government intervention, no one is caught in the crossfire and casino owners could actually be held responsible for their actions with fines or worse. Why wouldn’t this be the better option?
In terms of Valve selling lootboxes themselves, yes its immoral, but as Coffee said about the casinos, they’re competiting with other products doing the same and you can’t reasonably expect one side to just role over and accept their loss. Instead, you need to change the system so neither side can use tactics like this. Instead of asking Valve to regulate themselves, and expecting their competition to do the same, you change the law (or just actually enforce it) to ensure that noone gets away with it.
But why not just have the people who can pay reparations, can punish those running illegal casinos, and can do it without catching others in the crossfire do it?
At the same time, GOG hasn’t been able to pull many, and Itch has much better indie coverage, including for the higher-end indies, due to its much smaller royalty fee. I’d say they’re pretty even overall, with Itch catering to Indies and GOG to old games.
Its unfortunately a pretty common thing, especially for gatcha games. Look at the whole Limbus Company debacle from a few years back, for example, where people protested outside the studio because the summer skins weren’t sexy enough (for a game that hadn’t previously sexualized characters heavily) and got an unrelated artist fired because she was a feminist and thus was surely the one who made the decision.
With gatcha games, its a bit of a perfect storm with the extreme investment expected in these games, the monetization of characters, an industry that leans into this, and the fact that these games tend to be made in and marketed towards east-Asian regions where generally, sexuality is more accepted but sexism also more common and played largely by young, immature men.
Edit: Notably also, a lot of the men getting super invested in games like this are also vulnerable, which means a lot are likely to also end up in groups like the incel “movement” as well as being more likely to be swept up in any existing toxic culture around the games themselves.
One thing I have struggled with lately is finding good games to play. I bounce around from game to game trying to enjoy it but it just doesn’t scratch the itch like it used to. For example, one of my favorites was old school RuneScape, but it hasn’t really been giving me the same enjoyment that it used to. So then I would...
Honestly, by online gaming standards, I’ve found Dota pretty tame. Prehaps its just because I stick to more casual modes and have a high behaviour score, but I rarely see much more than a “GGEZ” at the end of a game, or players tipping mistakes. I think its been at least a month since the last time I saw someone hack, intentionally teamkill, or throw. Obviously, its still a competitve online game (toxicity isn’t rare), but the only other online game I can think of where I experienced less toxicity was Deep Rock Galactic.
Its possible I’ve just been lucky enough to avoid that part of the playerbase. Then again, my perception my also be skewed from spending so much time in Dead By Daylight, War Thunder, Minecraft and Counter Strike. At least in Dota, it takes some effort to kill more than a couple teammates.
In general, I agree, but I think you underestimate the benifits it provides. While ray-tracing doesn’t add much to more static or simple scenes, it can make a huge difference with more complex or dynamic scenes. Half Life 2 is honestly probably the ideal game to demonstrate this due to its heavy reliance on physics. Current lighting and reflection systems, for all their advancements and advantages, struggle to convincingly handle objects moving in the scene and interacting with each other. Add in a flickering torch or similar and things tend to go even further off the rails. This is why in a lot of games, interactive objects end up standing out in an otherwise well-rendered enviroment. Good raytracing fixes this and can go a really long way to creating a unified, but dynamic look to an enviroment. All that is just on the player’s side too, theres even more boons for developers.
That said, I still don’t plan to be playing many RTX or ray-traced games any time soon. As you said, its still a nightmare performance wise, and I personally start getting motion sick at the framerates it runs at. Once hardware catches up more seriously, I think it will be a really useful tool.
They usually are free to play with predatory monetization mechanics. That was especially back in 2016 when thanks to these games, the mobile gaming revenue outpaced PC and console gaming revenue.
Users who expect low prices - This partly because of the history of mobile games being smaller and/or ad-funded but also because the vast majority of people playing games on their phone are looking for a low barrier to entry, time waster, not specifically a game.
Lack of regulation or enforcement - other gambling heavy fields tend to be at least somewhat regulated, but mobile games are very light on regulation, and even lighter on enforcement. This allows them to falsely advertise their games and how they function (both in terms of misleading ads, and lying about chance based events and purchases in-game).
Monopolistic middlemen - On other platforms, theres more direct competition (IE, Sony and Microsoft’s generally more direct competition) or companies that prioritize long-term growth and stability (IE Steam or Itch.io). Apple and Google, on the other hand, largely compete on brand perception and hardware specs. These means that their app stores, where they make most of their money, have zero competitors. Seeing as they have no reason to make the stores better, they can instead promote whatever makes them the most money; that being exactly these manipulate, sketchy, virtual slot machines.
Quit World of Warcraft recently Because I couldn’t justify the subscription anymore. It’s been really hard to find a game to put time into and keep my attention. I tried OverWatch 2 but that game is hot fecal matter. Stardew Valley is fun for a little while, all my friends quit though And that’s who I played with. Team...
Dota does too but its fairly hidden and requires unanimous agreement. That said, Dota is far less snowbally, so unlike League or Deadlock, it rarely makes sense to forfet very early.
There is an Avatar TTRPG and it faces similar problems to making a new game based on the series, and handles it similarly to what you’re suggesting.
The TTRPG divides the setting into Eras, Kyoshi era with the nations still being established, Roku era with established nations, The Hundred Years War era taking place during the war but before Ang wakes, The Aang era, after the show and its sequel comics, and the Kora era taking place after TLoK and its comic trilogy. Notably, none take place during the events of the main series. This means that the can create new stories that better fit the medium and don’t break cannon, and at the same time, you can still interact with significant characters and tie your story into the cannon such as making a quest resulting from the reprocusions of, or a prerequisite for events in the main canon.
Edit: clearly none of us read the article:
It’ll put players in the role of an “all-new, never-before-seen Avatar” and take place thousands of years in the past.
At the same time, the goal of dark patterns to to make people spend more money. Given that revenue is very likely one of the key things Google wants (and thus promotes) out of apps, its also entirely expected that the apps people find are largely those who try and get the most money from users, which requires dark patterns.
Other than the mob vote changes, Im not really a fan. More regular, small updates feels like it makes it harder to make the large, sweeping changes many areas of the game need, as well as adding a lot of extra work for modders to keep things up to date.
It feels like new games are just more of the same, with no real meaning. However I recently started playing “Return of the Obra Dihn” and love open ended deduction in it. It feels like I’m actually figuring things out by myself without being handheld through it. Are there any other games that don’t coddle the player that...
I personally found the Inscryption scratched the same itch, albient in a different way. Its a very different game, being a sort-of narrative driven, Slay the Spire inspired card game. I won’t go into too much detail, given that spoilers, mechanical or narrative, take away a lot from the game, but I found that Inscryption did a great job of juggling a bunch of different mechanics to ensure I constantly had new tools to master, while also encouraging more lateral exploration through its plethora of secrets, and drip feeding story fragments to be peiced together as I progressed.
As a viewer or as a player? As a player, I’d be interested interested in joining for Dota, and maybe CS2. As a viewer, Dota, CS2, or maybe some of the classics that are easier to understand on a surface level like Age of Empires or Smash Melee. That said, it’d obviously depend on specifics; as much as I love any excuse to play more Dota, for example, I only have one consistent teammate and tend to rely on randoms for other lanes.
Theres a whole plethora of ranked, competitve Minecraft games, ranging from time trial type survival challenges, to parkour, to classics like Survival Games (battle royale) and Spleef. Alternatively, for something more casual, just use a whole variety of minigames.
Given the significant changes between trailer and gameplay, as well as the delays, I’m guessing the hero got reworked and simplified a lot during development. In his current state, he seems far too simple given the dev time. Still interested to see how he plays around though.
Considering that its already been effectively announced unofficially, and whats been leaked is in a very unfinished state, I expect they’ll wait until its more polished before putting any real marketing weight behind it. They may even be extra late, considering the rocky launch of CS2, with it still lacking much of the content from CS:GO.
Hello all! My buddy and I finally finished up Baldur’s Gate 3 this week and we are not left with a giant co-op game shaped whole in our hearts. It was such an incredible experience and it was truly even more fun running through it together. We are excited to hop into another game, but we have no idea what to play. We’ve...
PlateUp can be fun in 2 player co-op. If you’ve played Overcooked, its basically a clone of that, but turned into a roguelike. Its not the longest or deepest, but its still solid, and the price is very fair IMO, esspecially if you get it on sale.
As per title. Most computer games these days are made with such unnecessary padding that I want to murder the devs or myself by the end. See, for example, Hyrule Warriors, the 100% 1000 Hour Nightmare, the Review....
At least personally, its a lot of the shorter, gameplay-focused games that always leave me wanting more, or wanting to further improve, without having some unbeatable new-game++++++++ mode or anything overly RNG based.
A couple games I’ve 100%ed that still have significant bonus/optional content outside the main plotline include:
Inscription - Willingly played through the story twice and spent nearly as many hours on the bonus new-game+ mode. Super solid gameplay, that while well explored in the base game, leaves plenty of room to further experiment and perfect your strategy.
Just Cause 3 - while there is a ton of bonus content, its not overly hidden, and the core gameplay is solid enough that challenges feel fun and rewarding, while travelling around gathering collectables is satisfying in a chill, podcast-listening, but not unengaging way.
Hotline Miami - after completing the game, I wanted to go back and get a A+ on every level because the gameplay was fun and I felt I still had more room to grow. “The puzzle” wasn’t as fun, and I did use a guide, but I was just happy for any reason to play through the game again.
Wolfenstein the New Order - again, just a solid gameplay loop that made me want to keep playing, with bonus objectives that worked as an objective rather than a chore. Also, unlike later ID shooters, it doesn’t have the “beat the whole game without dying” achievement, which just feels too punishing over mistakes that may be minor or downright unfair.
The vehicle challenges were definately the weakest part, but on average, I still enjoyed them. In particular, a lot of the wingsuit courses and land races were fun, and actually took advantage of the game’s strongest elements.
I like both, but as others have said, the apm focus in RTS games really puts a cap on my enjoyment of the genre. In theory, I should love the genre, and I usually like the single player Campaigns or skirmishes against bots, but as soon as apm becomes a significant factor, I lose interest. Maybe I should learn some with a pause function, so I can see how I feel about those.
Honestly, even those are pretty overkill to make a competing storefront. All you’d have to do is to offer lower prices and/or take a smaller percentage while matching at least a fraction of Steam’s functionality (unlike Epic) or actively working to screw over customers (also unlike Epic). If a store sold games consistantly 5% cheaper than Steam, even without controller options, good support, a built-in forum, explicit Linux support, ect., I’m confident it would be reasonably successful. Just look at Humble and Fanatical. While they do (mostly) sell Steam keys, their prices are arguably what made them a success, not the features you get after redeaming the Steam keys.
Even beside that, the ideas you provided are all pretty minor. If you’re willing to throw more significant amounts of money at the platform, like many before have, you can go a lot further than that even. For example, seeing as Steam’s discovery algorithm is one of the bigger benifits Steam provides, you could one-up them by providing off-platform marketing for games launching on your platform. This would be a way to bring devlopers and players alike to use your platform without screwing over either. Similarly, you could take a page out of Epic’s book and do giveaways regularly. Alternatively, you could use a less generous system such as “buy anything and get x game free” or “every $10 spent gives you a chance to win x game bundle” to make it more sustainable, and/or allow you to market specific underperforming games. It isn’t that hard to come up with ideas that would allow a competitor to do well. You just have to do that rather than putting all your resources into trying to take games away from players, and harvest their data.
Are there any good casual/low-stress mobile games that aren’t filled with microtransactions? For example: easy puzzle games, match-3 games, low-difficulty adventure games, or clicker-style games....
I’d personally say its like a 7 or 8/10. Its probably the most mechanically varied and deep PvE focused survival game, but at the same time, it does really feel incomplete. Building lacks options, end-game content is often finicky or tideous, and performance issues can make the game near unplayable in enemy-dense regions.
I know in previous posts, you’ve talked about leaderboards and comparing stats to friends. For those who might be embarrassed by their stats or who would be anxious comparing stats, is ir possible to hide these menus and/or play the game without them? In particular, is it possible to play with other social features still enabled?
Honestly, I think the original. I know its inferior to most of the other games in most ways, but I’ve found a lot of the modern Zelda games feel pretty shallow and formulaec. Not to say they’re bad, but none of them really feel like they stand out to me either - they’re just good games. The original on the other hand, feels very different from a lot of the games since then. The world is kept a lot more foreign and hostile both in terms of aggressive enemies and in terms of tutorialization. Its makes the exploration so much more rewarding, and when you do find a new item, that much more special.
That said, worth noting that these launchers and complex storefronts aren’t really needed either, which is part of why I don’t have an issue with Steam. If you have a good game, you can just sell it on your own website like Minecraft, League of Legends, or Tarkov. Steam’s biggest (or at least most universal) utility for developers is just that it provides very cheap, very effective marketing.
I’ve intentionally held off on spoilers so far, but Im really hoping once finished, Sons of the Forest will be a nice step up from The Forest. The original was so great in so many ways, but also had so many massive incongruities - esspecially with the content so focused around violence and the enviroment that had absolutely nothing to do with the plot.
Arr matey! What be the finest pirate-themed games ye have plundered? Personally, I’ve sailed the treacherous seas of Sea of Thieves and danced with shadows in Shadows Gambit. But I be yearnin’ for more pirate adventures. What be yer recommendations, me hearties?...
Its not quite a pirate game, but if you’re willing to expand your seach to include a nautical mystery game aboard a trading ship in 1807, than Return of the Obra Dinn is worth a look.
Counter-Strike 2: Mission Possible update (store.steampowered.com) angielski
I want a law for PC games to be offered in physical versions again angielski
Like can we make this a more vocal opinion that Triple-A studios/publishers are like legally required to offer a version… Or what is your take on that, especially if you have a similar opinion with a deviation in execution. let me know why if you dont agree too!...
Gaming has a polarization problem angielski
With recent big game releases, it’s become obvious that a game is either a resounding success, or complete shit. There doesn’t seem to be any middle ground....
Balatro: Friends of Jimbo (Pack 4) - Official Reveal Trailer (www.youtube.com) angielski
This trailer also announces Balatro is coming to Xbox Game Pass today
Is Civilization 7 not fun? angielski
Never played the Civ series before, but I’m totally into strategy games. Recently got 200 hours into Pennon and Battle and kinda burned out now. The Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era which I’m hyped for isn’t out yet, and there’s nothing else in the strategy genre grabbing me. Was about to jump into Civ 7 but saw the...
Coffeezilla does a third part of his CS:GO gambling expose...where he squarely puts the blame on Valve (www.youtube.com) angielski
Valve refused to comment for the video.
GOG reportedly suffering from staff turnover and poor management: “Current business model is likely running out of steam” (gameworldobserver.com) angielski
What games have you sunk the most time into? angielski
I was looking at my playtime for some games and realized I have over 450 hours in PlanetSide 2....
Steam News - Your 2024 Steam Replay is here (store.steampowered.com) angielski
Access at store.steampowered.com/replay/
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What are your favorite 1000+ hour games? angielski
One thing I have struggled with lately is finding good games to play. I bounce around from game to game trying to enjoy it but it just doesn’t scratch the itch like it used to. For example, one of my favorites was old school RuneScape, but it hasn’t really been giving me the same enjoyment that it used to. So then I would...
Half-Life 2 is currently 100% off for its 20th anniversary, plus a major update (store.steampowered.com) angielski
Bonus: it also seems that the episodes have been rolled into the base game. Full details of the anniversary update....
Half-Life 2 RTX | Half-Life 2 20th Anniversary Tribute Video (www.youtube.com) angielski
Why are most mobile games trash? (fedia.io) angielski
They usually are free to play with predatory monetization mechanics. That was especially back in 2016 when thanks to these games, the mobile gaming revenue outpaced PC and console gaming revenue.
Deadlocked is one of the funnest games I've played in a while angielski
Quit World of Warcraft recently Because I couldn’t justify the subscription anymore. It’s been really hard to find a game to put time into and keep my attention. I tried OverWatch 2 but that game is hot fecal matter. Stardew Valley is fun for a little while, all my friends quit though And that’s who I played with. Team...
Avatar: The Last Airbender Is Getting a AAA RPG With Saber Interactive and Paramount Game Studios - EXCLUSIVE (www.ign.com) angielski
Better late than never?
DarkPattern.games - a website that rates mobile games for their "dark patterns" (www.darkpattern.games) angielski
The future of Minecraft’s development (www.minecraft.net) angielski
Any good games that break the mold angielski
It feels like new games are just more of the same, with no real meaning. However I recently started playing “Return of the Obra Dihn” and love open ended deduction in it. It feels like I’m actually figuring things out by myself without being handheld through it. Are there any other games that don’t coddle the player that...
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Gearbox founder says Epic Games Store hopes were “misplaced or overly optimistic” (arstechnica.com) angielski
Dota 2 - Introducing The Ringmaster (and TI 2024 compendium) (www.dota2.com) angielski
Can anyone suggest some good co-op games for two people? angielski
Hello all! My buddy and I finally finished up Baldur’s Gate 3 this week and we are not left with a giant co-op game shaped whole in our hearts. It was such an incredible experience and it was truly even more fun running through it together. We are excited to hop into another game, but we have no idea what to play. We’ve...
What’s a game you can 100% without hating by the end? angielski
As per title. Most computer games these days are made with such unnecessary padding that I want to murder the devs or myself by the end. See, for example, Hyrule Warriors, the 100% 1000 Hour Nightmare, the Review....
Do you prefer RTS or Turn based tactics angielski
Personally, I’m more an RTS guy playing games such as command and conquer, AOE 3 (first aoe game I played) and supreme commander....
Steam Is Run By Fewer Than 80 Staff, Lawsuit Docs Reveal (insider-gaming.com) angielski
Are there any good casual/low-stress mobile games that aren't filled with microtransactions? angielski
Are there any good casual/low-stress mobile games that aren’t filled with microtransactions? For example: easy puzzle games, match-3 games, low-difficulty adventure games, or clicker-style games....
After 10 years in early access, 7 Days To Die finally has a release date for version 1.0 (www.rockpapershotgun.com) angielski
My RuneScape-inspired fitness RPG, WalkScape, has a new Closed Beta wave starting one June 1st! (i.postimg.cc) angielski
https://i.postimg.cc/8zW6cm7M/vasta-tavern.gif...
Legend of Zelda angielski
What is your favourite LOZ game? My fave is twilight princess as it was the first zelda game I played. Being it on the Wii....
Steam is a ticking time bomb (www.spacebar.news) angielski
Sons of the Forest 1.0 - Exclusive Trailer (www.youtube.com) angielski
Recommendations for Pirate Games? angielski
Arr matey! What be the finest pirate-themed games ye have plundered? Personally, I’ve sailed the treacherous seas of Sea of Thieves and danced with shadows in Shadows Gambit. But I be yearnin’ for more pirate adventures. What be yer recommendations, me hearties?...