One thing I appreciate about the game is the natural enforcement of rules. Usually, in a game we see strict, coded enforcement: You’re not punished for attacking a teammate, you either physically can’t, or you’re removed from the game when it’s demonstrated to be intentional.

In Arc Raiders, if there’s no witnesses, you CAN get away with murdering another player. It comes with risks, for instance people could hear and deduce the situation. I think having that as a possibility actually makes the friendly interactions feel more positive. It’s more of an intentional choice.

There’s perhaps something interesting to say about game design mechanics there - where something exists in the game but is not actively rewarded or encouraged nor punished.

Yeah, but that doesn’t support indie devs.

Do you seriously pirate indie games? Against AAA there’s at least a sense of inflammatory rebellion. What’s the thought process there?

I’m not uniformly opposed to subscriptions as a concept. That almost goes as far as “paying money for products is anti consumer”.

Even when it comes to a smaller sum, I see the attraction to companies: It’s reliable revenue, which makes business and payment of employees more stable.

That said, it relies on the consumer constantly knowing they have the option of leaving without “lock in” persuasion, and the product being decent value. Obviously, we’ve seen hundreds of anti-consumer subscriptions.

There’s certainly been some industry-wide brain drain, especially when it comes to low-level engineering. When you think about the memory-level mastery people exhibited to get things running on the PlayStation 1, it feels incomparable to today.

Those people enjoyed being pioneers and recognized that was the only way to achieve their dream; but they’re also valued so highly today (picture publishers willing to buy out entire other publishers to get hold of a game engine), chances are they will never have a simple job.

Worse, some MBAs don’t even recognize their value; and wrongly believe they can be easily replaced. There’s probably some ecological comparative example where a great oak is central to the ecosystem of a whole country, and a business developer claims “We can bulldoze that for farmland and import fertilizer, right?”

Is that a frequent concern? I know high spec devices sometimes have issues with ultra framerates or wide monitors, but generally between the Lost Planet and RE Engine Capcom has done pretty well making their own engines.

When I played Trails in the Sky, I felt a lot of my FF7 nostalgia coming back. It got a remake which has been very faithful to the original; while you start combat with some dodges/swings in the overworld, most fights inevitably come back to turn-based.

This might be too pointed a memory, but I remember trying a demo for that game, and somehow having the basic attacks involve cat-like repetitive swatting from the chibi characters put me way off.

I also want to feel really intrigued and connected with a story to play a JRPG. “Generic lore” doesn’t do it for me.

Dead by Daylight.

The idea evolved out of turning horror games into multiplayer. As balance adjustments were made over time, the horror element was depleted and most of it is based around pathing between obstacles as a slower character, against one very powerful melee-based character.

It’s certainly fun and bearable in its current form, but: The objectives based around “escaping the killer” tend to result in lopsided results (eg, one player that hid and escaped feeling proud, while a very good chaser gets few points since they died). The game is not accessible to players intimidated by horror, and some effects even trigger certain phobias or bodily resistances (eg, The Plague causes some empathetic vomiting issues to some people) Plus, some players taking the killer role sometimes associate a bit too much ego to their result (they do badly in matches, and blame the game, stating “I’m Michael Myers, dropping bits of wood and puny flashlights shouldn’t phase me”)

I tried the demo for this game, and it was a lot of fun. Capcom is one of few that can still get those basic creative formulas out well.

I could be biased towards it for being a fresh IP in a world of remakes. It’s still hard to justify a $70/$80/$9000 price tag but I may be ready for this one.

Is this Absolution?

Before the World of Assassination trilogy, I think the tone was often very grim and mocking even on the player’s side, eg “welp, gotta murder for a paycheck, that’s how the world is”

For the newer trilogy, there’s still a lot of grim humor, but it’s usually on the part of targets. They’re painted as VERY savage billionaires deserving everything coming their way, and the guards around them less so.

You also get far more tools to be nonlethal, to the point any kind of gunfire is heavily punished and no speedruns really acknowledge runs where you kill non-targets.

I did kind of have that feel that previous games were too grim about a lot of things; ended up enjoying World of Assassination quite a bit more.

HITMAN! The core story/cutscenes form a very serious, grim premise. But, the actual gameplay, and the writing of the many dozens of NPCs in each level, is filled with humorous charm and tongue-in-cheek Bond-eque silliness. Characters will acknowledge 47’s often paper-thin disguises, make silly remarks about excuses to take off early, or alluding to how horrible it would be if some freak accident occurred. Plus, the mechanics can involve things like dropping banana peels for people to slip on, or luring people with a cartoony explosive rubber duck.

It takes a bit of time to get used to how the game wants you to explore, and stop trying to brute-force it like a stealth game. Quite often, some of the main intended ways of going about a mission involve little to no stealth. It’s a lot of fun and very replayable.

I was surprised how much it’s able to hold its laughter to tell a worthwhile story. It makes sense, because every single line just being pure parody/silliness can get really grating.

Something I always had strong opinions about was cameraman intent. Like, plenty of media has very attractive characters, due to author appeal. But when the media’s cameraman, its writers, and costume designers, are all obviously gooner-brained, that can push the idea that I’m looking at a specific person’s intentionally-advertised sexual fantasy, not just letting my own gaze naturally wander.

So yeah; players can, and will, push their cameras up against characters’ asses. The more a media pushes that intentionally, breaking from any in-media fictional premise (like suggesting that Tracer turns tail, since she enjoys people’s attention on her tight pants) the weirder it sometimes feels.

Sounds like trend-chasing. Rushing a game out to meet a current popular genre generally spells doom.

Pass a law that any government shutdown over a week causes all of Congress to be fired, and I may consider it.

Very happy for all the Layton fans, but in looking at old colleagues I’m sad that Ace Attorney has been left in the dust aside from console remasters.

I sold two lemonades at my street corner.

With a DOUBLED sale rate from yesterday, and a continuous rate of growth from the past two days, I’m already looking to internationalize the business and establish 800 new offices!

(Not mocking you, just investor logic)

Uhoh. I have a slim model, will I be okay?

I picked up People of Note, a rhythm JRPG, in part to be the first to deliver ProtonDB reports. Wasn’t expecting a musical number at the beginning of the game, but does prep me for what I’m in for.

I want to strike the execs who see a halfway interesting project and want the team to get 8,000 more members so they can release by Christmas.

I’d smack them with their secretary as a bludgeon, genuinely tell them to cut funding in half, and point out “CHRISTMAS HAPPENS EVERY YEAR”.

That seems smart.

I do want to allow for more adult-ish games on Steam, but when browsing them, you DO sometimes get review comments stating “Oh, god! This is not at ALL what I expected!” So having a fresh branding plan to subtly prime people makes a lot of sense.

A missed sales window should not be the immediate and direct cause of dropped paychecks. That strikes me as extreme financial insolvency.

But hey, I suppose I’m preaching to the choir there.

Yeah, I mean MGS3 technically isn’t “Solid Snake”.

Cloning aside I’d like for major series like that to be okay with having more protagonists. It’s been one of Ace Attorney’s major issues; even when a new kid came around, he got show-stolen so much by Phoenix.

I feel a lot of first-world privilege out of having all my gaming hardware from before the AI boom started. Around the time sanity lost the election, I decided to get a new GPU because I was worried all economies would turn terrible, and I was basically right.

Shitpost, but I imagine you could analyze a whole period of low inspiration on media vision and growth during periods where people were unable to visit other countries, unable to pay medical bills, and feared armed soldiers raiding their neighborhoods.

Oh, it found its audience, I just mean not all of it was off the same crowd. It thankfully got a visibility boost off the initial “MGS6” expectations, but for other creators they either don’t get that chance or the game isn’t even worth the chance.

One of the big lessons I want to slam in the face of shareholders is that even auteurs don’t matter the way they do in comics, film, or TV. People like Hideo Kojima can do great things, but even Death Stranding got a bit of a release backlash for not feeling like MGS. Games, especially compared to other fields, are really a product of a whole team generating ideas that mesh. Sometimes all it takes is for a little bit of group breakage or brain drain, even just the unknown Engine Programmer departing, for the next project to not feel the same.

One thing that makes it fun is each of the characters they add is based on an actual race-horse. For instance there’s a memetic and weird racer named Gold Ship, based on a horse of the same name that was similarly wacky and unpredictable.

I vaguely remember seeing those coin pusher games at old arcades, and avoiding it because it was incredibly unclear how you were even supposed to play.

I don’t remember any significant issues on PEAK’s release?

Here’s the problem: Out of thousands of corporations, the chances that none of them are headed by genuinely nice CEOs that at least like to balance consumer needs with the drive for price squeezing is pretty low.

Presenting high suspicion, and suspecting that most of them are out to get you, even in Valve’s case, makes sense. But here’s the kicker:

People are pressured to spend. Food, basic luxuries, transport; on some measures they have to, no matter how much they protest it. The scummiest of the companies providing those things know you’ll hate them. So, their version of PR is to make sure you hate all of their competitors equally, absent of logic.

There are plenty of genuine, real, tangible reasons to hate companies that can be described in detail, like Valve inventing the loot box and making a gambling market accessible for kids. But throwing logic aside and saying to hate them for nothing specific is, in some ways, shilling for the worst of big game companies.

I get the impression most devs would rather you didn’t use the refund window as a trial; eg, if you think you’re only 5% interested, they’d rather you don’t buy it with plans to refund.

Refunds still cost them, and some players have received warnings from Steam support for excess refunds even if they follow the hour limits each time.

Fair criticism, though I’m curious if engagement translates directly to hours spent. I wonder if they have any other way to measure.

Maybe one simple thing would be if players take the time to review a game, it presents a boost to “engagement” disregarding their playtime.

I’m reminded of the full page of junk DLC that some anime games get, adding 30+ outfits and little charms for protagonists that already have pretty good default costumes, or even unlock costumes through gameplay. Sometimes they just give you a trivial number of expendable items ingame.

But I imagine some metric tells them to add those things, because some fans exist in this world that will throw money at a franchise beyond reason.

The thing that might be missing from your hard math is addiction. You’re right that most games will be a blaze-past tryout period as you described, but sometimes will have 6 hour stories that you get invested into, while others are roguelikes that actually become compelling for 20+ hours. Which ones will form that addiction is unclear from browsing a store page, so it’s nicer to have complete access to them.

I’m also a little curious what worthwhile subscriptions you have. Most things I used to sub to, like Game Pass, have gone up to $15/$20-month and I decided to leave. Something simpler at $7/mo is a bit more agreeable to me. I spend more than that on some individual Patreons.

What? This isn’t run by Microslop. It’s an indie store called Indie.io - the title is just comparing them to MS Game Pass.

That seems like a somewhat disingenuous way of boiling it down; realistically, most people will never play a significant percent of the games in a subscription. I think stats have shown most game pass players only end up playing 5 or 6 games in the majority of their time.

They also probably want 70 to be the low point if they’re still collecting indies into the program.

There’s a few key games that some people can’t easily give up.

I also think if anyone has any interest in streaming, there’s often software built for specific desk tools they have (like stream decks) that can be hard to find reliable linux drivers for. I did see OBS is native, but that may be only part of it. Plus, many people are just starved for time, and don’t want to take a day to process a backup/reformat/reinstall that they may have to go back on.

I like it. This is what I wanted from Game Pass, minus Microsoft enshittification. Honestly, most of what I played on Game Pass was indies I was curious about, but sometimes only played 2-3 hours of.

That said, it doesn’t seem to be a complete announcement yet; much of the site is still marketing to developers, not gamers.

What games do you play that tend to be downloaded by torrent?

If you can answer without breaking community rules, I’ll consider not reporting the thread…