They did not have any reason to personally attack the leads except out of spite,
Lol what the honest fuck are you talking about?
They were facing a boycott because it seemed like they fired the original creators to avoid paying the employees.
They could have issued a statement saying that they would still pay the remaining employees and everyone would assume that they still fired the creators out of greed reasons. If the creators actually didn’t do their jobs, then they would want to make it clear that they are the ones actually committed to making a good game and this has nothing to do with greed.
That may not be the case, but at present we simply do not know what the reality of the situation was.
If that description is accurate then there’s nothing unprofessional about that.
What would be unprofessional in that situation is the original devs not doing their jobs and then allowing a fan backlash to grow.
Again, we don’t know the reality of the situation. I think everyone would be curious to hear from other devs at the studio that aren’t part of management or the three who were fired but we haven’t yet.
The author of this article reflexively and illogically defends Steam (like usual):
But at least some of what Kaldaien complains about isn’t necessarily on Steam’s shoulders. It’s well within devs’ powers to provide players with access to older game versions on Steam (KOTOR 2, which I recently replayed, lets you access its pre-Aspyr version via a beta branch, for instance), but many of them elect not to. That strikes me as an issue with individual devs rather than Steam as a whole, and as for Steam Input? Well, again, if there’s a problem there it’s with developers electing to use that API over OS-native ones that’s the issue.
He literally completely misses the modder’s point. Steam itself will not run on the original machine you purchased KOTOR 2 on. You can buy a gaming machine, purchase a game through steam and 6 years later, one random day you’re suddenly no longer able to play your game, simply because Valve has decided that the version of Steam that you bought the game through is no longer ok and now you need to upgrade your hardware and OS to play the same game you’ve been playing for years.
Valve expects that the overwhelming majority of its users will keep up with semi-modern hardware (In this case, a machine capable of running windows 10/SteamOS) which I don’t feel is is an unreasonable ask.
Valve is forcing them to upgrade their software and hardware to keep playing games they already purchased, on the hardware they purchased it on.
However, expecting Valve to retain support for an OS that hit end of life 20 years ago is unreasonable.
It is very reasonable. No one forced Valve to build their business model this way, and they are one of the most profitable companies per employee, ever. It would not be onerous for them to continue supporting a couple of old versions of Windows, they would just have to hire a few more people to do it. Gabe would still be a billionaire.
In my opinion, that’s not on Steam to support their client on a long past EOL operating system.
It is on them since they “sold” you a game. They didn’t have to build a business model that popularized always checking in DRM, that meant that they were deceiving you when they sold you a game, but it was more profitable for them to do so.
Literally every software company built their business model this way. Go open a support case with any software vendor complaining that their product won’t run on Windows 98 and see how many help you out beyond “Buy a computer from this millennium”
No, they didn’t. I can install the software I bought back in the day on the computers I bought it for, using the license key provided. GoG also famously uses a model where GoG does not care what OS you’re using.
You are failing to understand just how much has changed since Windows 98. It’s a completely different environment that requires specialized knowledge to develop for. They can’t just dust off some old source code and re-release the client. The entire back-end has changed. It would be a massive undertaking that would appease about 12 people total.
Lol, I’m a software developer that started by writing legacy windows software, I know exactly how much (little) has changed.
Sure, but I would argue that there are a lot of better things that Valve could be doing with those resources than supporting Windows 98
I don’t care. They have the resources to support it.
Either strip the DRM out and pay whatever you have to to the publishers to do that, or keep supporting the systems you sold your software for.
The idea that Valve is blameless for shitty behaviour because other tech companies also do that shitty behaviour is nonsense. They have been the dominant platform forever, and have had an insane amount of resources available to them.
Literally any game sold that didn’t include always checking in DRM through a particular desktop client. i.e. virtually every single PC game not sold through steam.
No that perspective is what makes me understand that when corporations talk about obsceleting things for security reasons, it’s almost always not actually because of security, because it would be a little less profitable to continue support.
And Valve didnt have to build a business around always checking in DRM if they didn’t want to support old clients, and they have more than enough resources to continue support.
The fact that their games are DRM free means that doesn’t matter one iota. If you buy a game from them on a set of hardware you’ll be able to play it on that hardware forever, regardless of whether their desktop client changes.
Sure if you grab a file from them snd never get a newer, more maintained version, it will play on exactly the hardware and software you had when you bought it…
That’s literally the entire point.
Also, they can still offer the olde versions of the file for download.
Lots. Do you know how much corporate software is still of that vintage?
Literally like half of AutoCAD’s products still use the graphics and windowing APIs from that era as one example. The WinForms API are clunky by modern standards but also relatively trivial for a programmer to pick up and code with.
I mean, there is still an industry of Cobol engineers maintaining mainframe code for banks from the 80s.
Yes, they can have their software continue to support Windows by simply not breaking the version that works for windows, without having to provide full customer support and service for it.
And yes, things break naturally as a function of time.
Why don’t you go ahead and explain the exact mechanism that causes software to change and would cause a computer to interpret it differently over time, without a human intervening and updating it to break it.
Title is tongue in cheek, of course—they probably are gamers. I get that making a game is complex and full of trade-offs, and you can’t please everyone. Still, there are certain design decisions that just feel like they weren’t made by people who play games regularly.
Conversely, Grounded has the best inventory management system of any survival game ever.
To the point that I have a hard time playing others now because they all feel tedious in comparison. It’s hard to imagine someone playing Grounded and then building a survival game that didn’t use hot deposit.
the pinning system with filters is handy for food, but feels clunky outside that one usecase.
The pinning system is an improvement over not having a pinning system that should exist in every game. Food, water, ranged weapons, explosives, healing items, shields, even melee weapons, it makes sense for all of them given that all of them can break.
To be fair, they didn’t gut the original creative team.
Max McGuire was CTO and a programmer on the original game, Ted Gill was President and a Producer on Below Zero.
Charlie Cleveland was current CEO, and the director and lead designer of the original game, so was the head of the origin creative team, and that does seem like a big loss, but no one else from the art, writing, or design teams seem to be leaving, so it’s not really a ‘gutting’ of the original creative team.
My guess (especially given how buggy Subnautica was), is that they were missing their delivery milestones so the publisher wanted to replace the organization heads and move at least Charlie Cleveland back down to a creative role, but they refused and left together.
If this hasn’t remotely been your experience, how do you know rainbow flicking fixes it?
It doesn’t fix it, it’s how you avoid letting get that close to you.
The game is widely known to have multiple bugs affecting gameplay, from lags and desync issues, to crashes and even teams changing colour mid-match. In this case, and this is the second time I’ve seen it, the ball glitched into the ground after randomly bouncing around the pitch following a shot against the post befote finally getting stuck. It couldn’t be interacted with at all.
Well if this is a bug, you should probably make that clearer, because again, have not encountered a single bug.
If gamers are bitching about a game not adding a whole new island, you should ignore them because they’re clearly idiots.
If gamers are bitching about your menu system being navigable by someone with less than a PhD (cough, Risk of Rain 2 on console, cough), and you’re estimating that will take 6 months to fix, then that’s because you (as a company) coded your software badly.
I get that Steam is where everything and everyone is at. And that the user experience and functionality is best there BUT having another player to try an compete with Steam is a good thing, right?...
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!...
The Master Chief Collection is the single reason that I will never ever preorder another game no matter what bonuses it comes with or how confident I am with the developer.
In general though, Microsoft Games is pretty good about not pushing bugs out the door.
I honestly don’t understand the middle reception to Avowed, it’s been truly fantastic so far, and completely rock solid.
Sounds like the author has a skill issue with Stealth.
Mobs are leashed? Cool, that doesn’t matter cause I play the game like a high fantasy battle mage, and don’t run from fights.
Also, mobs are leashed in most games to some extent or another. Avowed is well written, well voice acted, tells an interesting story, and is fun to play through.
Really just feels like people were expecting Skyrim and are upset they got something more focused.
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....
People are complaining about Avowed? What the fuck is wrong with them?
I’ve been too busy loving it to be online reading anything, honestly cannot fathom what their complaints are tho. Avowed has repeatedly impressed me by being more clever and nuanced than I was expecting a game to be, in writing, level design, and combat.
Also, from a mechanistic standpoint I think that mostly has to do with the high cost of entry for games.
At $80-$100 for a full priced game these days, it’s hard to just buy on a whim. The only time you would is when they’re on sale, which happens well after initial release. So initial sales of games are basically entirely driven by reviews and online discourse (which itself has an effect on reviews), and you basically just have a bunch of people all waiting for the signal to buy or not.
I do think that services like Gamepass are a genuinely good way of reducing that effect, because now anyone can try anything on a lark.
It has stealth, it has magic, it has melee combat, it has ranged combat, it has dialogue options for talking your way through stuff, it has multiple ways of solving quest lines…
It’s basically Skyrim, if it was smaller and more focused, with better combat, voice acting, level design, and heads and tails better writing.
EA-backed car culture site winds down, as Need for Speed series is ‘shelved’ | VGC (www.videogameschronicle.com) angielski
Krafton Issue Statement Regarding Subnautica 2 angielski
To Our 12 Million Fellow Subnauts,...
Modder behind the 'Swiss army knife of PC gaming' deletes their 20 year-old Steam account with anti-Valve manifesto: 'By the end of my bitter dealings with Valve… there was zero hope' (www.pcgamer.com) angielski
What are signs that the game devs aren't gamers themselves? angielski
Title is tongue in cheek, of course—they probably are gamers. I get that making a game is complex and full of trade-offs, and you can’t please everyone. Still, there are certain design decisions that just feel like they weren’t made by people who play games regularly.
Subnautica's Original Creators Have Been Removed From Unknown Worlds "Effective Immediately", As Krafton Makes Concerning Leadership Changes (www.thegamer.com) angielski
Kerbal Space Program 2 vibes... I'm suddenly less optimistic on subnautica 2.
Standard Rematch game (spectra.video) angielski
It’s already hard enough without the ball being nailed to the ground.
'Xbox Hardware Is Dead,' Says Founding Team Member, 'It Looks Like Xbox Has No Desire — Or Literally Can't — Ship Hardware Anymore' - IGN (www.ign.com) angielski
Remedy is in control | The Verge (www.theverge.com) angielski
Removed Paywall: www.removepaywall.com/search?url=https%3A%2F%2Fww…
10 years later, no one has replicated Rocket League's mojo (www.pcgamer.com) angielski
Helldivers 2 and Palworld devs wish players understood that 'easy' additions and updates are sometimes really hard: 'That's half a year's work. That takes six months' (www.pcgamer.com) angielski
I'm a console gamer so, Why the hate on the Epic Games Store? angielski
I get that Steam is where everything and everyone is at. And that the user experience and functionality is best there BUT having another player to try an compete with Steam is a good thing, right?...
Apple blocks Fortnite's return to iPhone in US (www.eurogamer.net) angielski
Warhammer 40K: Space Marine 2 Receives Official Mod Support, Fishing Mini-Game Possible (insider-gaming.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!...
Fable delayed to 2026 (www.gamesindustry.biz) angielski
Very likely will be a launch game for MS’s new handheld console....
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....