Trion launching its own "Steam", to discover hardcore lesser known games

[Falconeer]

Uh... what?

Trion unveils its Glyph digital games platform for discovering hardcore digital PC games

The games will be DRM-free, and in the words of our beloved Hartsman:

“It’s a user-facing hub where people can get games,” Hartsman said. “Once people are in our system, they can participate in our global loyalty program.”

And:

Trion will seek out a limited number of games that will likely appeal to its gamers. The winners will benefit from millions of dollars a year in marketing and promotion. Their games will become more discoverable, which is becoming increasingly important as the world is flooded with free-to-play games.

Not sure what games are out there to discover that aren't already getting some spotlight on Steam Greenlight. And if they mean Asian games, boy, they can't even localize Archeage so I hope that's not what they are really going for (although that's actually what I hope they are going for).

[satael]

They should have announced a strong lineup of (exclusive or atleast having exclusive features when played through the platform) games to go with the platform since as it stands now it's just another shop to compete with a multitude of others with the added (annoyance) feature of trying to sell you virtual currency/goods. 

[Teleku]

Steam early access level of Indy bullshit is the lowest level of gaming Im willing to go.  I don't even want to think about what sort of games can't even meet the bar to make it onto steam in early access form, and they are offering a whole platform to give me exactly that. Uhhhh....

[Kail]

Steam early access level of Indy bullshit is the lowest level of gaming Im willing to go.  I don't even want to think about what sort of games can't even meet the bar to make it onto steam in early access form, and they are offering a whole platform to give me exactly that. Uhhhh....

It sounds like they're aiming for the opposite effect.  As steam becomes less and less regulated, Glyph is (I think?) supposed to provide a curated, high quality library only.  Like what Gog.com is turning in to.

[Sky]

Millions in advertising?

[satael]

Millions in advertising?

I guess they have the money after all those layoffs last summer (and axing End of Nations) 

[Senses]

I'm all for Steam having some competition but I don't see Trion being the ones to do it.  None of their own games on that list do anything for me as is.

[tazelbain]

It will be interesting to see how loyality model vs discounting model in online marketplace plays out.

[kildorn]

Steam early access level of Indy bullshit is the lowest level of gaming Im willing to go.  I don't even want to think about what sort of games can't even meet the bar to make it onto steam in early access form, and they are offering a whole platform to give me exactly that. Uhhhh....

It sounds like they're aiming for the opposite effect.  As steam becomes less and less regulated, Glyph is (I think?) supposed to provide a curated, high quality library only.  Like what Gog.com is turning in to.

But if I can get the same game on Steam, it's a hard sell to get me to go to a more exclusive platform. They're going to need one hell of a loyalty program.

[Rendakor]

I don't really see the appeal. Rift is the only thing in Trion's catalog I've ever had any interest in, and I don't need another storefront client running whenever I want to play games.

[LC]

Another terrible idea from Trion. They should use it as a slogan. "The bad idea guys."

They seem to be doing poorly in public opinion as well. I can't say it's undeserved.

[Draegan]

It doesn't help that everything since Rift has been shit. I mean Defiance was a fucking total joke. It's hilarious how bad it was. They haven't done anything else other than announce stuff.

Rift is still a good game though.

[Malakili]

Yeah, Rift seemed like the herald of a new legit developer/publisher.  But since then it has just been garbage.  Defiance was a joke.  End of Nations never happened.  I guess they are hypothetically suppoesd to be publishing Arche Age in NA, which I think also might never happen.

[Sky]

They also made some really terrible decisions developing Rift and it could've been a MUCH better game. The writing was on the wall.

And I do agree with Draegan, despite all the bad decision making, they started with a good enough core game that it's still one of the better mmos, mechanically speaking.

[Chimpy]

They also made some really terrible decisions developing Rift and it could've been a MUCH better game. The writing was on the wall.

And I do agree with Draegan, despite all the bad decision making, they started with a good enough core game that it's still one of the better mmos, mechanically speaking.

Shit, their decision making was "let's listen to the 70% of our testing playerbase who are active subscribers to Vanguard, because they KNOW what the MMO market in general needs/wants" Those assholes almost all had never even played an MMO that was not EQ1 or Vanguard. That and their writers were terrible. Like wannabe Metzen terrible. When they added that terrible intro video with the big flying pink text I gave up trying to give them constructive feedback.

[Sky]

There were three points where I got pretty pissed they didn't listen to feedback.

1. PVP control points - they tried a really shitty watered down version. I had proposed a radical control system akin to Planetside where a faction could nab territory in contested zones, which would spawn new quest hubs for them and you could only run those if your faction had control. Deemed not worth it because people wanted their pills when they wanted them, and not a dynamic gaming experience. Also, needed three pvp factions. I was regularly participating in and enjoying the open world combat before the whiners got the alpha server turned into a PVE server. This almost never happens, it's like my enjoyment of grouping in TOR.

2. Steampunk. The Defiant faction could have been really cool and this was when steampunk was ascendant (pun intended). Their factions and lore in general is terribad. The weakest part of the game. Could probably jam level design as 2a, not good.

3. All classes, all roles. I guess this is sort of finally going in now? Retarded to not have four roles (dps/tank/heal/utility) available to all classes, and have four role slots open from the time you hit the first dungeon that requires the trinity. This would allow people to pick class for flavor without being restricted from playing with pretty much anyone else. All you need is 4 warm bodies and you can do a dungeon, just pick the proper role configurations and go.

While 1) could've made this a standout title as a PVP-focused game that was interesting even for non-PVP, I can see why they left that off. But 2) and 3) killed this game's potential before it hit the gate.

[Draegan]

The problem with Rift is that it was a really shitty game after 3 years of dev time. Hartsman came in and the game went dark. They had 1 year to make the game it was at release. I know what they had and the amount of work they did to turn it around and produce the product they did was pretty fantastic.

That being said, the development direction of the game was a mix of good and shit. I loved what they did with world design, even design and quest design. This fucking instant adventures are awesome for leveling. Fuck questing.

The shit was class development. They just made it more and more vertical rather than horizontal. They kept adding tiers onto their talent trees. They should of embraced the whole idea of souls and added more columns and then connected those columns with other souls so you can branch into other souls without starting from the bottom of the tree.

They also couldn't balance or fix classes for shit either.

[Sky]

I agree with the lack of horizontal class design for sure. And the way they seemed hell bent on removing the really fun synergies that we found between souls.

And if any game could've ditched mainstream questing for dynamic content...

Ah, well. It still doesn't explain Glyph.

[Chimpy]

Aion had the pvp objectives spawning faction in charge only dungeons with a third faction being a enemy of both sides AI race. It worked fine as long as you had population parity.

But as it was obvious from my suggestions about UI/QoL interface stuff that they had no one who had ever played Aion nor were they interested in stealing good features from there.

[UnSub]

Another terrible idea from Trion. They should use it as a slogan. "The bad idea guys."

They seem to be doing poorly in public opinion as well. I can't say it's undeserved.

To survive as a video games studio these days means either having a super blockbuster hit that fills up bank accounts with infinite++ money or generating other revenue streams that let you subsidise your games development time. Trion's gone for the Steam-like approach rather than the Unreal-tech product licencing approach.

And no, it isn't going to work for Trion because those indie developers want their game on Steam.

[palmer_eldritch]

They've done a terrible job in terms of community relations with ArcheAge fans. They announced in January 2013 that they were publishing the game in the West, which was when it was actually released in Korea (after six years of development and testing). So you had your early-adopters getting excited, evangelizing for the game, planning guilds etc as you'd expect.

Since then it's been almost silence from Trion - there's talk of an announcement this week but as I write this there's still no hint of a launch date or beta date, and almost no news about progress at all. ArcheAge fans have tried to raise the game in Trion's dev chats for other games but obviously they don't get a response there. The result is that the ArcheAge "community" such as it is has got the impression that Trion treats them with contempt and basically hates Trion.

You could make an argument that the fans are being unreasonable, Trion doesn't owe them anything etc. But whether the fans are right or wrong, it's ridiculous that Trion hasn't even attempted to build good relations with them. Community relations doesn't have to mean giving people everything they want - managing expectations can also be part of it (and people actually respond fairly well to being told bad news if they think you're being straight with them).

By contrast, look at the work SOE are doing to build good relations with EQ Next fans - not just talking about Landmark but also talking about EQ Next itself, even though it won't actually be playable for God knows how long.

Your early adopters might be a small part of the eventual player-base but they're still important because they'll do a lot of marketing for you and not only do it for free but if you help them out a bit they'll actually feel like you're doing them a favour!

[Pennilenko]

By contrast, look at the work SOE are doing to build good relations with EQ Next fans - not just talking about Landmark but also talking about EQ Next itself, even though it won't actually be playable for God knows how long.
Your early adopters might be a small part of the eventual player-base but they're still important because they'll do a lot of marketing for you and not only do it for free but if you help them out a bit they'll actually feel like you're doing them a favour!

SOE has done such a good job building early adopter relationships that those people will cut you if you bad mouth Landmark.

[satael]

They've done a terrible job in terms of community relations with ArcheAge fans. They announced in January 2013 that they were publishing the game in the West, which was when it was actually released in Korea (after six years of development and testing). So you had your early-adopters getting excited, evangelizing for the game, planning guilds etc as you'd expect.

The fact that the Russian version of AA is out and Trion still hasn't announced a release date does raise some concern (atleast for me) on how well they can manage it nevermind create something original after Defiance's less-than-stellar success.
It's also hard to see why someone would choose Trion's platform over Steam unless they charge (the customer and the game developer) significantly less for their service (and for drm-free stuff GOG.com or Humble Bundle store seem like better choices if you feel strongly about things like that).

[Malakili]

I heard something about the AA team in Korea only working with one localization team at a time and that was causing the delay.  I know nothing about how this sort of thing works in game development, so maybe someone else can say whether or not that is plausible. 

Either way, Trion just seems to be another developer pumping out mediocrity these days, and a new platform for selling games certainly doesn't strike me as the thing that is going to turn them around.

I think it's somewhat funny that after the relative disaster that was Champions Online (a game that I personally actually had a lot of fun with against all odds), Cryptic seems to be one of the few devs that has made stuff people around here care about.  Neverwinter got some decent buzz, even if it wasn't a long term hit.  Star Trek Online still has a thread at the top of these forums.

Meanwhile Rift has floated into obscurity.

[satael]

I heard something about the AA team in Korea only working with one localization team at a time and that was causing the delay.  I know nothing about how this sort of thing works in game development, so maybe someone else can say whether or not that is plausible. 

I hear the same thing but you'd think they'd be announcing a timetable now that the Russian version is out (and they have a rough estimate on how long it's going to take based on how many resources they are willing to dedicate to it and on how long the Russian version took to launch). If it takes too long all the people really interested in AA will play the Russian version to boredom since there are some English translations for it.

[LC]

Shit, their decision making was "let's listen to the 70% of our testing playerbase who are active subscribers to Vanguard, because they KNOW what the MMO market in general needs/wants" Those assholes almost all had never even played an MMO that was not EQ1 or Vanguard. That and their writers were terrible. Like wannabe Metzen terrible. When they added that terrible intro video with the big flying pink text I gave up trying to give them constructive feedback.

I have heard that a lot of their employees are members of FoH. That's probably the last place I would look for talent to build any mmo.

[Chimpy]

A lot of their devs were former Sigil employees too. My old guild leader from WoW was one of those.

[schild]

I *love* Hartsman, but I feel like he should be smarter than "YEA, LET'S COMPETE WITH STEAM."

[Lantyssa]

I suppose the question is if it was something he initiated.  And if so, even a guy as smart as Hartsman can make a call we disagree with.

[KallDrexx]

I feel like trying to compete with Steam isnt' a terrible idea.  I do think that a heavily curated store that isn't moving towards a focus of Indie spam (that isn't EA) would be a good thing.

What is a terrible idea is Trion unveiling a store with no third party games, meaning not one person is going to give a shit about this unless they already are playing one of their games, in which case they already know about the game and don't give a shit about a storefront showing them games they already play....

[Kail]

I have to imagine this is more a "target of opportunity" thing than them thinking they can legitimately take down Steam or Origin.  They've already (I assume) got a billing system in place for people to play their MMOs, they've got a few thousand eyeballs they can throw ads at for free every time they load up the launcher, so why not try to sell them copies of The Stanley Parable or whatever.  They're not footing the bill for developing the games, and much of the work in setting up the store is likely already done.  If they can keep their costs low, they don't need to sell millions of copies of any of these games to make a bit of a profit.

[ezrast]

Gog, Humble Store, Green Man, and even GamersGate are all competing with Steam in their own ways and seem to be doing okay. Which still doesn't mean "Us too!" is a good idea. It's a better idea than Defiance though.

[Hawkbit]

Primarily because each one of those serve a niche market.  Trion's program doesn't really do that, unless they plan on doing something silly such as preventing their games from being distributed on Steam.

Gog does the old games thing.
Humble does the charity thing.
GMG does the super cheap warehouse deals thing. 
Gamersgate does the, well, I don't know what they do.  Overseas?

Trion's program will be viewed by the masses in the same light as Origin and Uplay. 

[satael]

Gog, Humble Store, Green Man, and even GamersGate are all competing with Steam in their own ways and seem to be doing okay. Which still doesn't mean "Us too!" is a good idea. It's a better idea than Defiance though.

I think Defiance was a great idea...it's the execution of that idea where Trion dropped the ball. Hopefully it doesn't kill off any interest in a mmo-tvseries tie-in (where both are launched and done at the same time and not just one being based on the other) since I think it has the potential to make both media better (ie. better stories and characters for mmo, more and better background stuff for tvseries)

[Nija]

GMG, at least in my experiences with them, sells me shit cheaply and more often than not the deliverable is a steam cd key.

I think whatever they come up with will be comparable to the Stardock steam-competitor. I can't even remember its name, but I used it for space pirates and zombies in alpha/beta and it was fucking terrible.

That's probably as good as anything Trion makes is going to get. Stardock.