I left the pc gaming scene about 20 years ago and only came bacj this year. I found my steam credentials from when they were initially seeking players and revived my account (I closed my email on the account back in 2009, so i couldn’t recover).
I’ve mostly been playing vSkyrim, BG 3, and a few emulated Zelda games. I finally ordered a new gaming laptop because Cyberpunk 2077 is hard to rrad on the Deck, even on a 50" tv on hi-res.
All that is just so you all know where I’m coming from, i am both a newb and a veteran!
From a business standpoint, looking ant it form the non-gaming financial point of view, the move to online-only makes very compelling sense.
It fully implements the licensing model, gives them total control over the property, enables them to generate reports that accurately identify trndsvin user populations, pinpoint steady revenue figures, and they can kill the game as soon as it isn’t valuable to them anymore, and they don’t have to worry about losing revenue from sharing, passing the copy to an otherwise paying customer for free, or a significant pirtiin of piracy loss.
Itvis the end state of the “we are mearly licensing it to you until such time as we decide ee want it back” model.
It sucks, and if i can know it is online only before buying, i will pass. All of us should. Revenue is king to them, and if they lose even a little, they will try something else.
Why’d you bring up tem tem specifically? It’s supposed to be “Pokemon but an MMO”. That’s the entire appeal. I had Pokemon loving friends that played it at launch and loved it dearly. It’s sad that it’s died, but if you want a single player version of tem tem, there’s about 22 Pokemon games according to Bulbapedia. Go play one of those.
We all are, but people keep paying them money. It won’t stop until people get their heads out of their asses and stop doing that. Kind of like how microtransactions won’t go away because whales won’t stop shoveling dump trucks of money at mobile games.
It’s easy to avoid the worst offenders. Also “live service” is a very broad term and covers a lot.
One aspect that I really don’t like is when games just seem to hang on too long with updates and/or DLC. Be proud to finish the game and move on to something new (looking at you The Long Dark…)
I liked that No Man’s Sky basically became an online space game with the yearly updates, and look at that, it still has an offline mode! It’s not impossible at all.
It’s mostly just finding some reviews/word of mouth sources that you trust and which align with your tastes.
On the review side of things Second Wind covers a decent spread of indie games. I also occasionally see some new stuff from streamers, but that’s more of a toss up since there’s a lot of sponsored coverage.
Almost everything on my store page is AAA or liveservice trash.
Very little on my Steam page is. This is just one data point but still it suggests their suggestion algorithm somewhat works for this.
Just an observation on that specific thing not a disagreement with the problem. Live service is trash and needs to go away if it’s not an exclusively multiplayer game.
Look at what pirate repackers like fitgirl and dodi are putting out. They have a much lower throughput and often focus on popular indie or small studio titles.
That’s not my experience with steam at all. Only one or two options of the steam store tend to show AAA games over indie games. If you browse by category or using the dynamic recommendation you’ll see plenty of good games.
I’m pretty dialed into indie games. What kind of games do you like? I might be able to recommend some. I get most of my indie recommendations through word of mouth or curators.
The steam store page has an algorithm tuned to your preferences. If you’ve already been playing a lot of live service games, then it assumes you must like them. Once you start showing an interest in other games, you can probably just cruise through your discovery queue.
To skip the algorithm, you can try looking at the steam store web page in a private / incognito window. But if most of the money makers are live service or free-to-play then that may just be the default offering.
I think this may be algorithmic. Like steam gives suggestions based on what you have already purchased, and what other people who purchased the same games also like. Additionally it’ll tell you what your friends are playing if you friend them on steam. This sort of gives everyone a different picture of steam suggestions that is tailored to them. It might be a good idea to find older non-live service games you like, add them to a new profile or wishlist, and then see what new information pops up for you.
You are not logged in. However you can subscribe from another Fediverse account, for example Lemmy or Mastodon. To do this, paste the following into the search field of your instance: [email protected]
Welcome to the largest gaming community on Lemmy! Discussion for all kinds of games. Video games, tabletop games, card games etc.
Rules
1. Submissions have to be related to games
Video games, tabletop, or otherwise. Posts not related to games will be deleted.
This community is focused on games, of all kinds. Any news item or discussion should be related to gaming in some way.
2. No bigotry or harassment, be civil
No bigotry, hardline stance. Try not to get too heated when entering into a discussion or debate.
We are here to talk and discuss about one of our passions, not fight or be exposed to hate. Posts or responses that are hateful will be deleted to keep the atmosphere good. If repeatedly violated, not only will the comment be deleted but a ban will be handed out as well. We judge each case individually.
3. No excessive self-promotion
Try to keep it to 10% self-promotion / 90% other stuff in your post history.
This is to prevent people from posting for the sole purpose of promoting their own website or social media account.
4. Stay on-topic; no memes, funny videos, giveaways, reposts, or low-effort posts
This community is mostly for discussion and news. Remember to search for the thing you’re submitting before posting to see if it’s already been posted.
We want to keep the quality of posts high. Therefore, memes, funny videos, low-effort posts and reposts are not allowed. We prohibit giveaways because we cannot be sure that the person holding the giveaway will actually do what they promise.
5. Mark Spoilers and NSFW
Make sure to mark your stuff or it may be removed.
No one wants to be spoiled. Therefore, always mark spoilers. Similarly mark NSFW, in case anyone is browsing in a public space or at work.
6. No linking to piracy
Don’t share it here, there are other places to find it. Discussion of piracy is fine.
We don’t want us moderators or the admins of lemmy.world to get in trouble for linking to piracy. Therefore, any link to piracy will be removed. Discussion of it is of course allowed.
There are dozens of other very good games for every one live service. Find some you like and play them.
The campaign is still going: https://www.stopkillinggames.com/
Plenty of new popular singleplayer releases: https://steamdb.info/stats/gameratings/2024/?min_price=0.01&min_rating=85&displayOnly=Game&category=2&sort=followers_desc
Edit:
If you want less popular games take these (collected from YouTube, [email protected] , steam etc):
Wild Bastards - roguelike strategy fps
Arco - turn based rpg
Nova Drift - bullet hell roguelike
Scorchlands - city builder
Linkito - puzzle game
SCHİM - casual platformer
Bō - 2d platformer metroidvania
TerraScape - puzzle city builder
Gestalt - retro rpg metroidvania
GHOSTWARE - boomer shooter
Selaco - boomer shooter
Nine Sols - metroidvania
Reus 2 - God game
The Rogue Prince of Persia - roguelite
Galacticare - hospital tycoon
Synergy - puzzle god game
Paper Trail - puzzle
MULLET MADJACK - boomer shooter
Gatekeeper - roguelike
Ingression - 2d portal platformer
ZAU - metroidvania
Laysaria - city builder
Children of the Sun - puzzle sniper
Pepper Grinder - 2d platformer with dragon hills like mechanic
Death of a Wish - 2d spectacle fighter
Thaumaturge - rpg
Penny’s Big Breakaway - 3d platformer
Please, Touch The Artwork 2 - casual
20 Small Mazes - casual puzzle
Islands of Insight - mmo puzzle (can offline)
Banishers - rpg
Oblivion Override - rougelike
Anomaly Agent - roguelike
New Cycle - city builder
If you want AAA/AA games from previous years, I can recommend:
Hellblade 1 - action adventure
Sleeping Dogs - gtalike
Chorus - space dogfighter
Also check out [email protected] , someone posts nice old games every other day there
Edit 2:
Plucky Squire - 2d+3d platformer
Inkulinati - turn based strategy
deleted by creator
Check the edit :)
Didn’t know you could put so many filters to search for games over at steamdb, thanks for the link.
Easy solution don’t buy them. Sail the seas if you must play it.
I left the pc gaming scene about 20 years ago and only came bacj this year. I found my steam credentials from when they were initially seeking players and revived my account (I closed my email on the account back in 2009, so i couldn’t recover).
I’ve mostly been playing vSkyrim, BG 3, and a few emulated Zelda games. I finally ordered a new gaming laptop because Cyberpunk 2077 is hard to rrad on the Deck, even on a 50" tv on hi-res.
All that is just so you all know where I’m coming from, i am both a newb and a veteran!
From a business standpoint, looking ant it form the non-gaming financial point of view, the move to online-only makes very compelling sense.
It fully implements the licensing model, gives them total control over the property, enables them to generate reports that accurately identify trndsvin user populations, pinpoint steady revenue figures, and they can kill the game as soon as it isn’t valuable to them anymore, and they don’t have to worry about losing revenue from sharing, passing the copy to an otherwise paying customer for free, or a significant pirtiin of piracy loss.
Itvis the end state of the “we are mearly licensing it to you until such time as we decide ee want it back” model.
It sucks, and if i can know it is online only before buying, i will pass. All of us should. Revenue is king to them, and if they lose even a little, they will try something else.
You can support games like Inquisitor martyr that shut the servers down, but patched the game first to allow you to pick any season to play offline.
Play niche genres like shmups
yeah, I didn’t get into any live play games, and now I’m going to continue not getting into them.
be the change you want to see.
Step 1: Buy only from GOG
Step 2: ???
Step 3: Profit
Why’d you bring up tem tem specifically? It’s supposed to be “Pokemon but an MMO”. That’s the entire appeal. I had Pokemon loving friends that played it at launch and loved it dearly. It’s sad that it’s died, but if you want a single player version of tem tem, there’s about 22 Pokemon games according to Bulbapedia. Go play one of those.
And even more indie clones like Monster Crown if that’s your thing.
Hell, even Palworld can scratch that itch a bit.
Resident Evil series? Survival Horror games… Boomer Shooters… Pathfinder games… Everything from Larian studios… Totalwar Games…
We all are, but people keep paying them money. It won’t stop until people get their heads out of their asses and stop doing that. Kind of like how microtransactions won’t go away because whales won’t stop shoveling dump trucks of money at mobile games.
It’s easy to avoid the worst offenders. Also “live service” is a very broad term and covers a lot.
One aspect that I really don’t like is when games just seem to hang on too long with updates and/or DLC. Be proud to finish the game and move on to something new (looking at you The Long Dark…)
I liked that No Man’s Sky basically became an online space game with the yearly updates, and look at that, it still has an offline mode! It’s not impossible at all.
Almost every game is a indie game at this time, stop looking for big capital games
deleted by creator
All I find on itch.io is shitty horror games
deleted by creator
Thanks
deleted by creator
Lemmy, friends, YouTube, websearch.
It’s mostly just finding some reviews/word of mouth sources that you trust and which align with your tastes.
On the review side of things Second Wind covers a decent spread of indie games. I also occasionally see some new stuff from streamers, but that’s more of a toss up since there’s a lot of sponsored coverage.
Very little on my Steam page is. This is just one data point but still it suggests their suggestion algorithm somewhat works for this.
Just an observation on that specific thing not a disagreement with the problem. Live service is trash and needs to go away if it’s not an exclusively multiplayer game.
Steam is literally constantly doing showcase events for different genres of small games.
Literally on the front page right now there’s a turn-based RPG showcase. OP seems wilfully ignorant.
Look at what pirate repackers like fitgirl and dodi are putting out. They have a much lower throughput and often focus on popular indie or small studio titles.
That’s not my experience with steam at all. Only one or two options of the steam store tend to show AAA games over indie games. If you browse by category or using the dynamic recommendation you’ll see plenty of good games.
I’m pretty dialed into indie games. What kind of games do you like? I might be able to recommend some. I get most of my indie recommendations through word of mouth or curators.
The steam store page has an algorithm tuned to your preferences. If you’ve already been playing a lot of live service games, then it assumes you must like them. Once you start showing an interest in other games, you can probably just cruise through your discovery queue.
To skip the algorithm, you can try looking at the steam store web page in a private / incognito window. But if most of the money makers are live service or free-to-play then that may just be the default offering.
I think this may be algorithmic. Like steam gives suggestions based on what you have already purchased, and what other people who purchased the same games also like. Additionally it’ll tell you what your friends are playing if you friend them on steam. This sort of gives everyone a different picture of steam suggestions that is tailored to them. It might be a good idea to find older non-live service games you like, add them to a new profile or wishlist, and then see what new information pops up for you.
deleted by creator
If people stop paying for them they will go away
Steam does an indie show case almost every week, to the point it’s almost annoying. Idk how you’ve apparently missed every single one of them
“Live service” is a genre. Clearly, it’s not your genre. So play other genres.