Useless gaming news & chatter

[Rasix]

Holy hell. Colorblindness nightmare.

[Paelos]

I hit 11,470 and got bored.

[HaemishM]

Oh goddamnit. That is fucking addictive.

[Bunk]

yikes.

34,380

[Lucas]

Sigh. 6,590 is my current high score 

[Ironwood]

http://hex.frvr.com/ (browser game)

Say bye to the rest of your day.

 

(http://www.pcgamer.com/hex-frvr-the-perfect-procrastination-puzzle-game/)

Foul.  Should be in the useless distractions thread.  10 yard penalty.

[KallDrexx]

Just came across a game releasing soon called Rebel Galaxy (trailer) by two of the creators of Torchlight.  Half hour gameplay video here

Looks pretty interesting.

[Falconeer]

I've had my eyes on it for a while. Loved the trailer.

[Nebu]

18,250 on that silly block game.  So much comes down to the luck of the block draw.

[Rendakor]

18,250 on that silly block game.  So much comes down to the luck of the block draw.

[Shannow]

Fuck you guys, I was trying to be productive today.

[Nebu]

I'm done... wasted an hour.  I hate you all.

[murdoc]

Just came across a game releasing soon called Rebel Galaxy (trailer) by two of the creators of Torchlight.  Half hour gameplay video here

Looks pretty interesting.

I played this at PAX south last year and for $20 i will definitely pick it up.

Can't fly up or down though - it's more like battleships in space.

[KallDrexx]

Yeah I noticed that from the gameplay but still looked good.

 Pretty blown away it seems to be done by a 2 person team too.

[lamaros]

I got bored and stopped about 25k in, it is too samey.

[Ginaz]

It looks like the owners of Desura, on online retailer in the same vein as GoG and Steam, has filed for bankruptcy.  Apparently they weren't paying developers for the games being sold, either.  I've heard of this site but I've never used them.

http://www.pcgamer.com/desura-and-indie-royale-parent-company-files-for-bankruptcy/

[Yegolev]

I think that is where you would go to buy Project Zomboid.

[Sky]

I think that is where you would go to buy Project Zomboid.

I got it on Steam.

[schild]

huh

*reinstalls deus ex*

http://store.steampowered.com/app/397550/

[Malakili]

I think that is where you would go to buy Project Zomboid.

I got it on Steam.

Yeah, you have been able to get it on Steam for a while now.

[Yegolev]

I haven't bought it anywhere* so fuck you guys.



*I may actually own it.

[Fabricated]

It turns out that Total Biscuit's cancer spread to his liver before being eradicated in the bowel.

http://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1snlj3r

Bowel cancer is completely gone, but the bits he has in the liver are where it can't be removed and there's no real cure. 2-3 years.

[calapine]

Just playing the new Civ Beyond Earth expansion (Rising Tide).

The  loading screen quotes and writing is still as hamfisted as before. And now slightly too topical for my taste as well. Some examples from the new German faction featuring Lena Ebner aka SpaceMerkel.


Refugees and Greek debt crisis and climate change in one:





TTIP:




And this:



Metamodernism actually seems to be a thing. I give them that. But still...this just oozes "written by 20something intern".  

[Yegolev]

Meanwhile, in Opposite Land, someone put a "Reticulating splines..." loading message into our corporate Slack chat.

[Sky]

But still...this just oozes "written by 20something intern".  

That whole project oozes that. The end of my day 1 Civ buying. Probably.

I haven't bought it anywhere* so fuck you guys.



*I may actually own it.

I have the map on my browser hotbar still...keeps tempting me to come back and sneak through some windows. One of my favorite zombie survival games (along with 7 Days to Die, which is apparently patching in dismemberment...).

[Yegolev]

I somehow thought the map was random.

[KallDrexx]

I just found out that Everquest 1 is still pumping out expansions .

Surprised its still profitable to do that

[Kail]

Remember when we were joking about DayZ being too casual, and someone suggested a game where if you die the game uninstalls and you can never play again?

Well...

[Sir T]

Core, the Hard is.

[Kageru]

I just found out that Everquest 1 is still pumping out expansions .

Surprised its still profitable to do that

The game graphics and content expectations are low enough that I'd assume these are pretty cheap to produce. And SOE don't seem to willingly give up any revenue stream.

Since the only way to subscribe to any one of their games is by the "all access" pass I guess old titles also help make that look like better value.

[Draegan]

You mean daybreak.

[Fabricated]

Trigger Warning: Polygon

Mobile Dev: The mobile marketplace is flooded with shit and non-garbage non-F2P games can't make any money!

A mobile game my team and I poured our hearts and souls into is receiving rave reviews from users. The game, Battlestation: Harbinger, was featured by both Apple and Google as one of the best new games in their respective marketplaces.

You may think that congratulations are in order. You might think that my team and I popped some Champagne and headed out on a well-deserved vacation. Unfortunately, that isn't the case. Even with these successes, my company and I are in the red, desperate to bring in more money before we have to lay off our workers and close our doors for good.
The problem with mobile

You see, we have a problem in the mobile gaming sector, thanks to you. You would rather buy a pumpkin spice latte a few times a week and enjoy it for a few minutes than buy a game that you can play as long as you would like. In order for creative games to be made, there needs to be a major culture shift. We need to be willing to spend a few dollars on a quality app, rather than for a few extra lives or other in-game purchases.

Being a mobile game developer for four years has made me realize a lot of things that are wrong with the market. First, only certain games can bring in money for developers. Second, only certain types of players will find it easy to find games suitable for them. Third, classical conditioning makes a lot of players feel entitled to have everything for free and punish developers for asking money.

Even apps that find success in their marketing campaigns cannot make up the money spent on development because people would rather spend $5 on a latte every other day than on the app. Why? Because the most popular games are free-to-play, with a monetization model that lets most players play for free while milking some customers for thousands of dollars.

Most players have become conditioned to feel entitled to free content more and more. The price of a game is not compared to a latte; it is compared to the price of another game.

Essentially, these customers who pay thousands, these "whales," pay for the fun for everyone. Throw out a game with one free episode and the rest to unlock for $5 and you will have a problem on your hands. This model — one that many old-school players find very fair, a try before you buy — is not a model that works well these days. Users see a $5 price tag for more content and they quit the game and go back to sipping their lattes.

Players have a very real power to impact the sales of a game through ratings. With many of our mobile games, we have users blackmail us with ratings. They will rate the game with one star, and then send us a message demanding the game be made free for them in order for them to "correct" their review.

It's extremely frustrating for us. On top of this, there is no way for us to request the removal of these reviews on either Apple or Google's marketplaces, so if we refuse to give in, these negative reviews remain for the lifetime of the game. Unless we have hundreds of reviews already pouring in, these initial negative reviews can be a game-breaker for small companies like mine.

The whole market is heavily focused on the mass-market spectrum, and it all stems from one thing: To make money as a mobile game developer you have to have your game high enough up in the top lists. If your game isn't there, you will not sell enough units to make ends meet. On the surface, that may seem to make sense; these app store lists work on certain algorithms to promote what is already popular. But there is a problem with this: Games that appeal to the masses have a clear advantage over games for niche markets.

Since the difference in income is so huge, it makes the decision for a developer almost binary. Either we make a mass-appealing game — the Clashes of Clans or Candy Crushes — and have a chance to make a living, or we make a niche game and have no chance at all.

"One game developer alone cannot change this, but many together can"

At the end of the day, all these factors make creating good content for mobile devices more and more difficult.

Is it really this black and white? From my experience, yes. We released Battlestation: Harbinger on Aug. 13. Despite being featured by both Google and Apple, the game isn't selling enough to make up for development expenses. A few niche games manage to make a little bit of money to support a small studio, but it is very rare. This all leads to a situation where only a certain type of game is viable to make business-wise; the market is forcing every developer to act in the same way.
This can change

There needs to be a twofold culture shift. The first step is one I already mentioned: Gamers need to learn to vote with their money. This will allow developers to build the great games that everyone wants to see on the expanding mobile platform.

Many serious gamers complain about all the casual games coming out for mobile, but don't support the serious game developers that build the games that they want! Remember when you would fork over $40 for Zelda or Pokémon games on Game Boy? Imagine the amazing games we could play on our phones if we paid developers enough to create them! One such game that you can support is Battlestation.

The other shift needs to be from the developer side. Game developers are fighting against each other, when they should realize that we are allies as well as rivals. While we are rivals in achieving visibility, we are allies against the classical conditioning, the market today and the undervaluing of our hard work.

One game developer alone cannot change this, but many together can. We as game developers did this to ourselves by competing so fiercely against each other that we lowered the price of our work more and more, so much so that now a consumer won't pay even a few dollars for a game. We have created a mess that can only be solved by working together.

As the industry stands, there is no room for creativity anymore, no room for the passion projects. There is only room for those who want to build games that milk their customers without making them angry, because that is the only way we can survive. It is not about making good games right now — the consumer doesn't care enough. I hope that we can come together to enact change in the industry, before the effects become irreversible.

[Goreschach]

Lookit at that butthurt! 

[rattran]

Trigger Warning: Polygon

Mobile Dev: The mobile marketplace is flooded with shit and non-garbage non-F2P games can't make any money!

Cry more noob. If that's the way mobile works, maybe he should develop his niche game for some other market. Or continue being a starving artist subsisting on lattes, clove vape juice, and despair.

[Rendakor]

He's not entirely wrong, but he's pretty whiny about it which makes me less sympathetic. I haven't seen many mobile games that are really on par with modern handheld games, and since I own both of those systems I'm even less inclined to pay for mobile stuff. Square has released some nostalgic stuff but all priced a bit too high for my tastes (FF Tactics for example is $14 on Android, only $10 on PSP/Vita which also has better controls). Also, emulators are a thing.