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Yeah I agree with you. A steam deck “app store” to more easily add in plugins or third party launchers would be ideal.
It almost seems essential if SteamOS is going to run on other manufacturers platforms. Decky loader and other similar plugins are part of the way there, but a route for installing a curated selection of Linux based tools and apps seems ideal. It’s certainly easily in their power.
I do wonder though if they don’t want Steam Deck to drift too far from the Windows and Linux apps, but I think it would be in their interest to open up the gyroscope interface in this way on steam deck and make it easier for less technically savy people (or just convenient to bypass the desktop mode). Although the Steam Deck app feels like the windows and Linux apps, it is basically the main interface for the whole OS for most people.
It kind of makes sense - Lenovo are testing the water with one device rather than going all in. It’ll be interesting what happens next year - do they give up or does it sell well and they push on further.
My feeling is SteamOS is so much better in terms of a user interface and experience than the custom interfaces of each manufacturer on Windows that it’ll probably win out, even though native Windows should have an advantage in performance. Microsoft is dropping the ball on making windows work well in this category, and Asus and Lenovo really aren’t great at software. And let’s face it, they’re largely just launchers for Steam on Windows anyway.
I suspect part of it is also going to come down to whether maintaining their own software and paying a license to Microsoft for Windows for each device is felt to be worth it versus SteamOS.
Ubisofts being anti consumer? Surprise surprise!
They’re not happy because they think people seeing other people not playing a game is the cause of the problem. They’re wrong - it is the result of the problem - they make bad games, so people don’t want to pay rip off prices for them.
Ubusift needs steam more than steam needs Ubusift. They tried to leave the platform and dictate to their users via their own store and launchers, and then realised people didn’t follow them.
Steam is no paradise - it’s basically a glorified piece of convenient DRM - but it’s popular and they have no reason to bend to the demands of Ubisoft. Plenty of other devs that make good games that are popular have had the concurrent gamers tally work in their favour - helping people see that a game is growing in popularity or unexpectedly popular.
I suspect best case for Ubisoft is their games are somehow excluded but that’ll end up being worst case because then it’ll look like no one is playing their games. And I doubt Steam will want to open the can of worms of publishers dictating which features are or are not allowed on steam.
Politicians would be better focusing on things that matter like how the Democrats lost the election to Trump and how they’re going to win the midterms.
A crappy paper finding rude words and phrases on steam is not really worthy of anyone’s attention but Valve’s
“Millions” of examples sounds dramatic until you look at how many billions of exchanges have been made in valves forums and comment pages. It needs addressing but it’s not of international or even national importance.
Instead of virtue signalling, Warren should be asking how the Dems managed to allow Biden a free ride through the primaries, held on til the bitter end blocking alternatives and then endorsing Harris blocking any debate.
I’d rather Warren focus on fixing the Democratic Party. A bit of democracy in the Democrat party would be a start.
Nah Todd. The base game was boring, and the expansion sounds mediocre. The buggies aren’t the problem.
They should play The Witcher 3 or Cyberpunk 2077 or Baldurs Gate 3 - they all show what can be done with RPGs now.
Bethesda haven’t evolved enough since Skyrim. Starfield would probably have been seen as a great game 10 years ago. But the best description I’ve seen is that’s its as wide as an ocean but as deep as a puddle.
An expansion on one world doesn’t address the fundamental problem with the game. I don’t see this game having a No Man’s Sky ark. Please move on to Elder Scrolls 6 - it’s been 13 years already and it seems Betheasa have a lot to learn from the competition.
Thats fair enough if it’s not for you. The thing about Stardew is that things build up and its up to you how you do it. Like you don’t have to farm crops if you don’t like it manually; you can fish or scavenge or raise animals etc. And as you progress you can automate some things and explore new areas.
But the core gameplay loop is you doing the stuff, rather than managing others. It’s not micromanagement as you’re not managing anyone, you are doing.
I actually didn’t think it was for me at first to be honest, but I got into it in a few hours. As you upgrade tools and can do more and more for less effort, it has its own satisfaction as you build your farm up. But if you’re not feeling that after a couple of sessions then it’s probably not for you and that’s fine.
The article speculates on why there is a difference. Part of the reason might be that it’s £60 for a remaster of a 23 year old game? I’m not really sure who this game is aimed at; it was always unlikely to be a huge hit on PC. But It’ll probably do better long term when the price comes down and with steam sales etc.
I have a mini PC running linux on my living room, which I use like a more powerful steam deck. There are distros designed to boot into gamescope modes of that’s your thin, so. “steam machine” experience is definitely doable.
Valve should look at bringing back real steam machines because the software is finally there to do it well thanks to Proton.
Just another example of how broken the premium end of the gaming industry is. Ubisoft is an old fashioned publisher, trying to churn out big hit AAA games based on big IP but producing poor quality buggy games, which don’t turn a profit.
We keep hearing how the games industry is “in trouble” but its actually thriving with loads of smaller devs and publishers doing well. The problem is the behemoth publishers like Ubisoft who release games based on financials timelines rather than the games being finished or high quality.
Its not like Ubisoft are short of good IP. What they’re lacking is good quality control and an environment to foster high quality creativity. When you treat gaming like its just a production line to generate money this is what you get. Making AAA games is expensive for sure, but its pointless if you don’t get the quality and the creativity right too - they’re just making expensice games.
We’re seeing the same in the movie industry - big studios producing franchise movies on a financially driven schedule with poor quality and lack of creativity.
Fossify Phone is better. Simple Mobile Tools was sold to ZipoApps which has a history of bloating apps with advertising, telemetry, and charges etc. Fortunately Simple tools were open source and Fossify is the free and open source fork of all the apps in the suite, some even maintained by original makers from Simple Mobile Tools.
So far. Absolute failure rates is chips that are clearly non-functional and returned, so the builder is able to country it. The issue with the Intel chips is an inherent flaw that seems to affect all the chips but only manifests when the chip is pushed beyond a certain point. And up to now people have for example been blaming poorly coded software, while Intel gas been downplaying the issue.
This is an apples and oranges situation - its not about the absolute failure rate of chips which always occurs; this appears to be a fundamental additional issue for Intel’s chips that people may not even realise they have been experiencing.
I suspect the other big consideration is the IP. When they made BG3, the IP had lain dormant for years and D&D wasn’t a priority for Hasbro.
Larian made a hugely successful game and Hasbro sat up and has started talking about how its going to push forward with the IP. The terms for BG4 are probably not as favourable for Larian (maybe they weren’t great for BG3). That may be worse revenue split and may also be much more direction and involvement of the IP holder restricting creativity.
Why would Larian expend all that creative effort again on someone else’s IP? They can chose what they do next and it will get attention as they are the studio behind the biggest game of 2023. Probably makes sense from the studios perspective not to do BG3, and go back to developing their own IP. And the industry is littered with failed studios screwed over by big publishers or IP holders - I think Larian are very sensible to move on.
Unfortunately for many, even in this day and age, there is not much choice. I main linux but also keep Windows on my PC as there are still tines when something will only work in Windows. Usually work related or gaming (VR in particular for me) and in fairness its increasingly rare.
Many other users aren’t motivated to change. For Microsoft, its a bit like boiling a frog - if you turn up the heat slowly the frog just puts up with it. That’s what Microsoft is doing to its customers - a slow constant enshittification, seeing what it can get away with. Try something and it causes outrage? Don’t worry, just undo it and just try again in a few years! Many are already used to no privacy and being sold as a commodity that they don’t even question it happening on their own personal computer.
Another example of enshittification at play. Google stops maintaining and fixing its tech to force users to migrate to its new and “better” tech.
But the new tech is not better -its half baked and being rushed out because google is in an AI arms race deploying broken technology to keep up with its rivals and to keep its share price up. This is to benefit google and its share holders, not users.
Skyrim was fun which is why its endured. Starfield is unfortunately fundamentally a bit boring and feels dated - they didn’t learn from the RPGs that came after Skyrim and moved things forward (Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077 spring to mind).
I doubt it’ll be fixed. Its not like No Man’s Sky -the developers only game and their number one priority. I think well get the usual small DLCs and Bethesda moves on to its next big project.
I hope they learn from Starfield and make the next elder scrolls something special.
I don’t think many outside the tech-money bubble thought this would work. Instead people mourned the loss of Oculus as an innovator when it was bought up.
Look at it now - it has slowed the VR market right down by delivering a low price but low quality experience. That has discouraged other manufacturers from the market.
The high end of the market has been held back as a result - the Valve Index and their like give a better experience but content growth is slow as a result of slow growth. The quest is a decent product but their teams are solving the problems constantly constrained by the cheap price point rather than building the solution and iterating it to the price point.
I think the market will converge on a Vision Pro like device at an affordable price but I think Oculus/Meta has slowed that down as people experience their product and think that’s what VR is. Although in fairness there is also a tech problem - the vision pro shows how expensive it is at the moment to create something close to the ideal in terms of an untethered device without base stations and hand controllers. The realistic way for quality VR at present remains tethered to a PC.
We’ll get there in the end but I think it may have been sooner of Meta hadn’t thrown 100s of billions at buying market share with a lower quality version of what VR needs to be. The mobility is right, but the casual-gaming level of experience is way off, and it’s damaged expectations.
Personally I think the next step may be streaming content from a PC to an untethered device (untethered in terms of cables at least). That would be technically difficult but offloading as much of the graphics and game/program processing as possible may make a lighter device and an added battery may last longer or be lighter. Essentially a halfway house between an Quest and Index - the quest mobility but the index quality (which is already achieved by offloading to the PC). However it may not be feasible due to lag and it’s still a compromise from the ultimate dream. But it’d probably be a good step on from full tethered if its doable.
That or economies of scale do make the Vision Pro or a future version of it affordable over the coming years. Doubt that will be Quest prices though - if people are paying £1k for phones then that seems more realistic for good quality VR imo.
It may be much simpler though - why work on someone else’s IP and make them money, and dance to their turn going forward when you can work on your own?
Divinity Original Sin 2 was also critically acclaimed even if not to BG3 levels, and they own that outright. I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re going to make a new IP - nows the time to take such a risk.
That’s what CD Project Red did after Witcher 3 - and while it was rough initially in the end it’s paid dividends.
Independent IP and publishing only deals is how studies stay independent and can thrive.
At work on Monday I opened the full Outlook app and then the shitty new Outlook Web App also force opens. And the new app really is shit - for example I’d set up a whole bunch of folders with contacts in and shared them with other users; in the Web App those folders are entirely empty. Forcing people to migrate to a worse version of their platform. Fuck microsoft.
I have 365 Outlook installed on my home PC for the rare times I work from home, but I barely use Windows anymore and if needed I’ll just remove Outlook rather than put up with this nonsense.
Judging by your post it seems both sides of this issue are toxic. This seems to just be a microcosm of US identity politics at play, with you just hurling insults and outrage at each other over… not a lot it seems?
A boycott of games that a diversity consultancy was involved in, some low quality journalism from Kotaku, and a lot of outrage on both sides?
The whole thing is a pointless time waste.
Nah, when VR is good it’s incredible. We’re still at the early days - PSVR just isn’t a good enough experience, neither is Meta’s Quest. PC VR is the only good experience but it’s still limited by relatively high PC specs, expensive VR hardware, limitations by tethering and slow growth in AAA content.
But VR is not a flash in the pan; the technology just hasn’t quite reached the sweet spot of quality vs price. It’ll get there.
3D TV was pointless gimick; you’d notice it for 5 mins and then forget you were watching 3D.
They should have delayed the game 6 months to a year. It was a huge mistake launching in the state it was launched, and particularly without mod support as that was a key to Cities 1’s success and longevity.
Now they’re stuck trying to fix performance issues and distracted by the delayed console launch which is also likely to be disastrous.
Why did they do it? Likely so Paradox could bank the sales in the 2023-2024 financial year. This is the problem with companies run to please speculating stockholders who only care about the short term share price moves and it going up all the time.
Yeah it was a huge mistake luanching without mod and custom asset support. It was what made CS1 popular and endure so long, and was a core part of its success.
I played a huge amount of CS1 and I was very excited about CS2. But I’ve lost interest very quickly in CS2.
The whole thing comes across as corporate greed and bad management - a small team pushed to release on an unrealistic schedule. It is also a huge mistake to have spend so much time working on and promising console releases - it’s seemingly just hobbled and compromised the launch of the main platform which is PC. And if it’s in this state on PC it’ll be even worse on console - they could do even more damage to the games reputation and success if they are distracted trying to fix those versions while the released game is in such a bad state.
500k a month to support 19 million person play base doesn’t seem totally unreasonable. They’ve already made £400m+ in early access in the first month - so it’s a drop on the ocean at the moment.
Costs will probably come down - at the moment they’ve been scrambling to keep up with demand which means expensive rapid deployment rather than long term server build out.
And presumably they plan to get the game out of early access so potentially get more players (although may not get many more players in this case as it’s so popular) and more importantly start rolling out DLC content to make more money.
I doubt they need to go the subscription route plus may be too late as they launched without it.
Yeah it’s quite an accomplishment to make the vastness of space feel claustrophobic and small.
Some of the response to the reviews is bizarre - one seems to try to claim that the planets are not boring because they’re realistic and the real world is boring, and that the player is probably just overwhelmed by the awesomeness of it all.
It almost feels like the game Devs have convinced themselves that they’ve been working on the greatest game ever made and when told “no you haven’t” they’re responding by saying “you just don’t get our vision”.
It’s an ok game. I’m actually less bothered by the loading screens and more by the old fashioned story telling. This game would have been amazing if released closer after Skyrim. But it’s been 12 years and we’ve had Witcher 3, Cyberpunk and Baldurs Gate 3 that have changed expectations. All of them are better at evoking a sense of emotional engagement with the game, and actions having meaningful consequences in the plot. Subplots like the bloody baron in Witcher 3, or Judy in cyberpunk have stuck with me in a way characters and events in Skyrim and now Starfield just never have.
Problem is I suspect Bethesda will focus on all the loading screen / sense of scale complaints and not register the more important (imo) issues with the stories, characters and gameplay. Less but better is the real lesson I think.
It’s already not art and just mass market commercial products.
Let’s be honest, the companies allowed inclusion of the DEI and social/political commentary because they didn’t think it mattered not becuase they actually care about such issues. Now they think it might affect the bottom line they don’t want their devs doing it anymore. But they were hardly marketing and selling games based on this stuff.