If you check this list and this list, many games on Steam will actually launch without Steam running. I don’t think I can say the same for a lot of other platforms, excluding GOG and itch, of course.

I don’t disagree with you about why it exists and that it’s bad, but the fact remains that it does exist and Remedy and Epic, as companies, need to face that when making these decisions and factor that into sales projections accordingly. They should have known what they were getting into, and forcing people into using Epic isn’t really the answer to the lock-in problem anyway.

Edit: Turns out a bunch of other platforms have DRM-free games too, TIL.

Respectfully, using Epic means using yet another platform. I have games spread across Steam, GOG, itch, Amazon, Ubisoft, and probably at least one more. If I buy a game on Epic, chances are I’ll forget about it, so I don’t bother.

This isn’t to mention that the one game I do have on Epic, GTA V, has 3 different launchers when used through Epic (when it wants to actually open). It doesn’t do anything Steam doesn’t and doesn’t do many of the things Steam does. I don’t even really love Steam either, because it crashes constantly on Debian for me, but I already have 500+ games there and it’s got ~20 years on Epic. I’m also a Linux user, so Proton is essentially one of the only ways I can reliably play most of my library.

Platform lock-in should be a consideration for companies, even though it sucks, because it’s an objective reflection of the reality of the games industry. Remedy knew that they would have fewer players going Epic-exclusive but seemed to underestimate to what degree that might hurt sales; this past couple of years have been sort of bad for the average person, so maybe they used previous sales data that didn’t really account for lower levels of consumer spending.

The game wouldn’t have been a massive success even with 30% more money than what they ended up earning. They didn’t want to pay the fee so they didn’t, that’s their choice and they were free to make it; the result isn’t Valve’s fault, they weren’t involved at all. When it’s on GOG or Steam, maybe I’ll buy it on sale, but at this point there’s no reason to lock myself into another janky platform. I did this with Control: the GOG version of Control is great and I don’t have to use Epic.

In terms of description, what should we call a toy that is a digital product? If I said to a friend, “I played a paper doll toy on my PC yesterday,” I would just get a ton of follow-up questions.

Or what about, “I work at a development studio that makes toys for release on Steam”? Confusing. Are games that force a retry (like Prince of Persia: Sands of Time) toys or interactive fiction because losing isn’t really an option? And does a definitive answer actually matter? Would it even be respected by an audience? Is doing the dishes a game?

I think there’s room for movement within genre and media, especially when it comes to something interactive.

Ah, I dunno. That game was boring. Don’t get me wrong, I played many hours of it, but I did so with the understanding something interesting would come of it story-wise and nothing ever did.

Last pre-order I made was Fallout 4, because it was a birthday present for my ex and her birthday was before the game came out. It’s just not worth it otherwise.

Would love to see a Dark Cloud 3. Not PlayStation exclusive though.

My time to shine! My wife is notoriously picky about games. You didn’t specify local or online co-op but most of these have local if not online since we prefer to only need one copy.

• Apico
• Death Road to Canada
• Door Kickers: Action Squad
• Dysmantle
• Lego Harry Potter Years 1-4 (some of the Lego games around this time are also fun)
• Mother Russia Bleeds
• Nine Parchments
• Party Hard
• Riptide GP: Renegade
• Road Redemption
• Slipstream
• Super Mega Baseball (any of them)
• Textorcist: The Story of Ray Bibbia (I use the keyboard to type, she moves the character around with her controller)
• Traveller’s Rest
• Trine
• Unravel 1 & 2
• Vampire Survivors
• Wizard of Legend

I dunno, that’s why they added the “Funny” button and I see people use that all the time. Even the nearly-useless “Was this review helpful?” section on Amazon has some use to a customer making a purchasing decision.

If ML can be used to further help the issue, what’s the problem? At least “AI” is being used for something that’s actually trying to solve a practical issue in an attempt to improve the platform and not as an immediate way to extract maximum profit with minimum effort.

You could argue that Valve loves to automate its customer service to save money, and that would be valid and true, but I think improving the platform experience by trying to reduce (if not eliminate) unhelpful reviews is good.

Gotta love some shit icing on the shit cake.

I liked the Palia beta and the Chinese New Year event. The world seems a bit dead sometimes though, and the quests can be boring. I haven’t played in a while, I lost interest. I’ll have to revisit it sometime.

I (and many other PC gamers) will never buy a PS5 simply to play a sequel. I would sooner watch a let’s play or just not engage with it at all.

Damn, I really liked Kingsway. I hope it’ll be saved and people will still get to play it.