Steam Megathread: Stop being boomers! *adds 10 boomer shooters to cart*

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Steam Megathread: Stop being boomers! *adds 10 boomer shooters to cart*

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Sab669: Sep 24, 2009

RPATDO_LAMD posted:

It's Tim Sweeney and his investors losing money.

Gotta spend money to [theoretically] make money!

# ? May 19, 2022 12:05

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# ? May 30, 2024 10:27

Mokinokaro: Sep 11, 2001; At the end of everything, hold onto anything; Fun Shoe

If Epic didn't have the Fortnite cash cow they'd be in bad shape I suspect.

# ? May 19, 2022 12:22

lih: May 15, 2013; Just a friendly reminder of what it looks like.

We'll do punctuation later.

they also wouldn't be splashing cash around for EGS exclusives if they didn't have Fortnite money in the first place

# ? May 19, 2022 12:25

kirbysuperstar: Nov 11, 2012; Let the fools who stand before us be destroyed by the power you and I possess.

Mokinokaro posted:

If Epic didn't have the Fortnite cash cow they'd be in bad shape I suspect.

They'd be getting by on UE license money if nothing else, but also

lih posted:

they also wouldn't be splashing cash around for EGS exclusives if they didn't have Fortnite money in the first place

# ? May 19, 2022 12:28

Jagged Jim: Sep 26, 2013; I... I can only look though the window...

Mokinokaro posted:

If Epic didn't have the Fortnite cash cow they'd be in bad shape I suspect.

Eh, they might not have all the money like they do now but they do still own the game engine that's the backbone of like 2/3rds of the games industry. So while they probably couldn't afford to piss away vast sums of money on the EGS vanity project they're in no danger of going under without $Fortnite.

# ? May 19, 2022 12:41

Sab669: Sep 24, 2009

Is there any estimate of what the breakdown is between Unreal & Fortnite? Would actually be very interesting to see.

# ? May 19, 2022 12:59

Ghostlight: Sep 25, 2009; maybe for one second you can pause; try to step into another person's perspective, and understand that a watermelon is cursing me

The documents released during their court battle with Apple showed that in 2018 and 2019 the Unreal Engine made them $220m, which was double their revenue from all their games except for Fortnite, which alone made $9.5b

# ? May 19, 2022 13:08

sebmojo: Oct 23, 2010; Legit Cyberpunk

Mokinokaro posted:

If Epic didn't have the Fortnite cash cow they'd be in bad shape I suspect.

if epic didn't have the $9 billion dollars fortnite made in the last two years they would be $9 billion dollars poorer, yes

# ? May 19, 2022 13:12

Saint Freak: Apr 16, 2007; Regretting is an insult to oneself; Buglord

Little Johnny stole his mom's CC to help Naruto win the fort nite fort fights and I get free games out of the deal. It's a win/win.

# ? May 19, 2022 13:15

MMF Freeway: Sep 15, 2010; Later!

sebmojo posted:

if epic didn't have the $9 billion dollars fortnite made in the last two years they would be $9 billion dollars poorer, yes

Is that a real number? It seems really low...

# ? May 19, 2022 13:38

MMF Freeway: Sep 15, 2010; Later!

Also I think the devs that do the Epic deal with early access games absolutely make out like bandits. Unexplored 2 spent all its EA time as an Epic exclusive, and now that its finished it gets to do a big launch on all platforms with a polished, complete game. I imagine Epic's terms aren't as sweet if your game is EA but still

# ? May 19, 2022 13:46

Mokinokaro: Sep 11, 2001; At the end of everything, hold onto anything; Fun Shoe

Jagged Jim posted:

Eh, they might not have all the money like they do now but they do still own the game engine that's the backbone of like 2/3rds of the games industry. So while they probably couldn't afford to piss away vast sums of money on the EGS vanity project they're in no danger of going under without $Fortnite.

Ghostlight posted:

The documents released during their court battle with Apple showed that in 2018 and 2019 the Unreal Engine made them $220m, which was double their revenue from all their games except for Fortnite, which alone made $9.5b

There's no way they could throw around money like they do without Fortnite which they kind of stumbled into in the first place.

I don't blame devs at all for taking the deal though. It kept the lights on at IOI to give us Hitman 3 for one. I'm sure there are a ton of indie studios that wouldn't be alive without it either.

I just wish they'd show some care about the actual shop/client. They manage to be even lazier than Valve on that front.

# ? May 19, 2022 13:57

TeaJay: Oct 9, 2012

Mokinokaro posted:

I just wish they'd show some care about the actual shop/client. They manage to be even lazier than Valve on that front.

This is what puzzles me the most. All that money and resources and they can't be arsed to make the launcher/shop UI even remotely as good as Steam's, which is lightyears ahead in comparison in every aspect.

# ? May 19, 2022 14:08

Saoshyant: Oct 26, 2010

TeaJay posted:

This is what puzzles me the most. All that money and resources and they can't be arsed to make the launcher/shop UI even remotely as good as Steam's, which is lightyears ahead in comparison in every aspect.

Buddy, you don't understand the technological complexity of adding a cart to an online store. You just don't. This is a process that takes years, hundreds of meetings, and several million dollars of investment put in to get the results and move those Kanban boards around.

And I wish I was the one being paid to add that cart feature.

# ? May 19, 2022 14:16

goferchan: Feb 8, 2004; It's 2006. I am taking 276 yeti furs from the goodies hoard.

MMF Freeway posted:

Also I think the devs that do the Epic deal with early access games absolutely make out like bandits. Unexplored 2 spent all its EA time as an Epic exclusive, and now that its finished it gets to do a big launch on all platforms with a polished, complete game. I imagine Epic's terms aren't as sweet if your game is EA but still

I guess it all depends on how successful the "big launch on all platforms" is-- like I said, this worked out really well for Hades, but I'm curious to see if that was the exception to the norm. A big successful Steam launch is really valuable and has a ripple effect that can drive sales for a long time after the game comes out. In addition to the organic word of mouth, you get increased visibility by landing in the top charts, players see other players on their friends list playing the game, etc etc.

All we can really do is speculate without knowing what the exclusivity payout is like, but splitting your sales and your marketing budget between two different platform launches a year apart definitely does hold the risk of diminishing your launch impact (even if all those sales add up to the same total # you would have made by consolidating on one platform!) which can have a real effect on the lifetime popularity of the game.

# ? May 19, 2022 14:20

No Wave: Sep 18, 2005; HA! HA! NICE! WHAT A TOOL!

MMF Freeway posted:

Is that a real number? It seems really low...

...compared to what? That's 90 million people spending $100 each. It is almost unbelievably high.

# ? May 19, 2022 15:08

MMF Freeway: Sep 15, 2010; Later!

I guess my brain has just been warped by all the big videogame industry news lately to where 4.5 billion a year doesn't seem that high for the most popular game in the world (I realize it is)

# ? May 19, 2022 15:23

ultrafilter: Aug 23, 2007; It's okay if you have any questions.

Just for comparison, the total worldwide revenue for recorded music in 2021 was $26 billion.

# ? May 19, 2022 15:46

Cowcaster: Aug 7, 2002

maybe another way to put it in perspective, avengers endgame grossed like, $3 billion total worldwide

# ? May 19, 2022 15:49

deep dish peat moss: Jul 27, 2006

Crossposting this from the roguelikes thread. I started playing this game again recently and was blown away by how much it improved:

I want to call attention to this game because it's cool, it's almost 2 years into EA now and has improved a lot, it's doing something that AFAIK no other game is attempting (run-based JRPG roguelite), and it was kind of wonky when it first came out so it never got much attention or sales.

Time Break Chronicles
$15

https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/256826342/movie480_vp9.webm?t=1616002945

Run-based roguelite with metaprogression
JRPG 6-character-party combat
Has a (not particularly strong, but not awful) narrative - you play as a scientist who got sucked into a strange rift that has been sucking in powerful people from throughout time and space, you develop a town in the void between missions, and go on missions (which are roguelite runs Slay The Spire style, in a targeted biome/with a targeted enemy to kill, and an endless mode that unlocks when you fully clear a biome)
Literally 45+ characters from throughout time and space (There are a total of 100 planned/coming in future acts) - there's a huge amount of variety here and it's the real draw of the game. Viking, Persian Immortal, Boxer, Lizardman, Dark Knight, Supersolider, General, Wild West Sherriff, Pirate, Biker, Punk Rocker, Barbarian, Skeleton Knight, Fire Mage, Star Fox, etc. Every character has a unique set of attacks and abilities based on their theme plus two relic slots to give them new abilities/passives. Their skillsets are based around making them actually feel like what they are - it's kind of subtle but it does a great job of actually making different characters feel completely unique in combat, which is something JRPGs aren't great at in general.
Characters don't 'level up' in the traditional sense, but they earn skill points which can be spent improving any of their 8 unique skills (your main PC character gets an enormous list of swappable skils). Since there's no 'leveling' to inflate stats all of the fights are challenging and well-balanced. Skill points are metaprogression and carry over between runs.
At launch it was glacially paced and fights took forever, but the devs added a speed toggle in combat that lets you go at up to 4x speed. They also fixed a lot of balance issues and added a ton of content.
There's an alternate mode added like a year back that ignores all the metaprogression and storyline stuff and is just quick, individually encapsulated runs. For a long time this was the only mode I played but it has taken a back seat to developing the main metaprogression-based mode - it's playable (and fun) on its own, but it can get a little tedious having to re-level all your characters' skills and bind their relics and stuff on each run. It also doesn't have bosses/biomes from Act 2 and 3 included currently afaik (but the act 2 and 3 characters are included)

I have some nitpicks too but they're nothing game breaking. For example, relics (equipment) have to be 'bound' to a character and then can't be swapped to another character, so if you want an existing relic on a new character you have to get a new copy of it. There's also kind of an overload of different town metaprogression upgrades that are unlocked at a time where you still don't have a clear picture on what characters are available or what they can do, so it's hard to pick and choose what to upgrade because you don't know yet what you'll be doing with your party comps. The metaprogression itself is fairly slow until you unlock a specific item, and the metaprogression upgrades are surprisingly large and add a lot to your power scaling.

deep dish peat moss fucked around with this message at 16:28 on May 19, 2022

# ? May 19, 2022 16:20

StrixNebulosa: Feb 14, 2012; You cheated not only the game, but yourself.
But most of all, you cheated BABA

deep dish peat moss posted:

Crossposting this from the roguelikes thread. I started playing this game again recently and was blown away by how much it improved:

I want to call attention to this game because it's cool, it's almost 2 years into EA now and has improved a lot, it's doing something that AFAIK no other game is attempting (run-based JRPG roguelite), and it was kind of wonky when it first came out so it never got much attention or sales.

Time Break Chronicles
$15

https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steam/apps/256826342/movie480_vp9.webm?t=1616002945

Run-based roguelite with metaprogression

JRPG 6-character-party combat

Has a (not particularly strong, but not awful) narrative - you play as a scientist who got sucked into a strange rift that has been sucking in powerful people from throughout time and space, you develop a town in the void between missions, and go on missions (which are roguelite runs Slay The Spire style, in a targeted biome/with a targeted enemy to kill, and an endless mode that unlocks when you fully clear a biome)

Literally 45+ characters from throughout time and space (There are a total of 100 planned/coming in future acts) - there's a huge amount of variety here and it's the real draw of the game. Viking, Persian Immortal, Boxer, Lizardman, Dark Knight, Supersolider, General, Wild West Sherriff, Pirate, Biker, Punk Rocker, Barbarian, Skeleton Knight, Fire Mage, Star Fox, etc. Every character has a unique set of attacks and abilities based on their theme plus two relic slots to give them new abilities/passives. Their skillsets are based around making them actually feel like what they are - it's kind of subtle but it does a great job of actually making different characters feel completely unique in combat, which is something JRPGs aren't great at in general.

Characters don't 'level up' in the traditional sense, but they earn skill points which can be spent improving any of their 8 unique skills (your main PC character gets an enormous list of swappable skils). Since there's no 'leveling' to inflate stats all of the fights are challenging and well-balanced. Skill points are metaprogression and carry over between runs.

At launch it was glacially paced and fights took forever, but the devs added a speed toggle in combat that lets you go at up to 4x speed. They also fixed a lot of balance issues and added a ton of combat.

There's an alternate mode added like a year back that ignores all the metaprogression and storyline stuff and is just quick, individually encapsulated runs. For a long time this was the only mode I played but it has taken a back seat to developing the main metaprogression-based mode - it's playable (and fun) on its own, but it can get a little tedious having to re-level all your characters' skills and bind their relics and stuff on each run.

I have some nitpicks too but they're nothing game breaking. For example, relics (equipment) have to be 'bound' to a character and then can't be swapped to another character, so if you want an existing relic on a new character you have to get a new copy of it. There's also kind of an overload of different town metaprogression upgrades that are unlocked at a time where you still don't have a clear picture on what characters are available or what they can do, so it's hard to pick and choose what to upgrade because you don't know yet what you'll be doing with your party comps. The metaprogression itself is fairly slow until you unlock a specific item, and the metaprogression upgrades are surprisingly large and add a lot to your power scaling.

Seconding this post to say that I have 112 minutes in this game from March 11, 2021 and I really, really liked what I was seeing so I uninstalled to wait until it's complete. Hearing it's getting even better is exciting, and I may take it for another spin soon!

# ? May 19, 2022 16:23

haldolium: Oct 22, 2016

Mokinokaro posted:

If Epic didn't have the Fortnite cash cow they'd be in bad shape I suspect.

they would be very fine still. maybe not suing every other rear end company but very much fine

they gave ue3 away for free long time before fortnite to challenge unity and they were successful with it

# ? May 19, 2022 16:24

pentyne: Nov 7, 2012

The entire EGS strategy is to burn billions in cash to achieve a 30% market share then stop doing things that lose them money.

That's literally it, and their projections for achieving that are wildly optimistic.

# ? May 19, 2022 19:19

Tiny Timbs: Sep 6, 2008

I got a bunch of free poo poo off EGS and have completely forgotten that I have any of it. I'm skeptical their launcher will have much staying power because there's not much of a reason to use it when you're not getting a great deal.

# ? May 19, 2022 19:21

DoubleT2172: Sep 24, 2007

pentyne posted:

The entire EGS strategy is to burn billions in cash to achieve a 30% market share then stop doing things that lose them money.

That's literally it, and their projections for achieving that are wildly optimistic.

I'm all here for it as long as they keep throwing free games at me. They did get money out of me when Snowrunner came out so it has made them a little money off of me

# ? May 19, 2022 20:03

Macichne Leainig: Jul 26, 2012; by VG

I can't argue with free but I ain't gonna give them money especially while free games keep coming.

# ? May 19, 2022 20:19

RPATDO_LAMD: Mar 22, 2013; 🐘🪠🍆

i simply buy games from whoever has the lowest price
the "storefront features" barely matter since I don't use the storefront to decide which games I want to buy

# ? May 19, 2022 20:30

Antigravitas: Dec 8, 2019; Die Rettung fuer die Landwirte:

Looked at Old World.

# ? May 19, 2022 20:37

boloney: May 29, 2021

All of a sudden, my Steam Link app won't launch from my laptop. I double-click it and nothing happens. I've tried restarting and reinstalling and running it as administrator. Googling "steam link won't open" or "steam link won't launch" just gives me results for games that won't launch from within Steam Link

Thoughts?

# ? May 19, 2022 20:39

Jack Trades: Nov 30, 2010

If it's a game with modding support then a Steam copy will often save you a bunch of effort with the Workshop.

PCVR games require SteamVR more often than not.

When buying a coop game on like GOG or EGS you need to make sure that there's either crossplay available or that all your friends buy on the same store.

And that's just the reasons I can come up with off the top of my head for why store selection matters.

# ? May 19, 2022 20:43

Waste of Breath: Dec 30, 2021; I only know🧠 one1️⃣ thing🪨: I😡 want😤 to 🔪kill☠️� 😈Chaos😱� I need🥵 to. [TIME⏰ TO DIE☠️]

Jack Trades posted:

PCVR games require SteamVR more often than not.

Really? I have an index and have had zero issues running games from Epic's launcher. The drawback is that I can't launch them from steam VR, but I haven't had issues with anything not running. I thought that Oculus store was the walled garden of VR.

# ? May 19, 2022 20:45

Tacos Al Pastor: Jun 20, 2003

Everytime I get an email from Steam Im hoping its about my reservation for the Steamdeck, its always about something from my Wishlist though.

If you reserved for the 512 model, we should be getting close.

# ? May 19, 2022 20:56

MarcusSA: Sep 23, 2007

boloney posted:

All of a sudden, my Steam Link app won't launch from my laptop. I double-click it and nothing happens. I've tried restarting and reinstalling and running it as administrator. Googling "steam link won't open" or "steam link won't launch" just gives me results for games that won't launch from within Steam Link Thoughts?

Honestly just switch to parsec or moonlight (I like parsec a lot and it�s dead simple)

I�ve had way too much trouble with steamlink at this point and I�ve given up.

# ? May 19, 2022 21:41

kirbysuperstar: Nov 11, 2012; Let the fools who stand before us be destroyed by the power you and I possess.

Waste of Breath posted:

Really? I have an index and have had zero issues running games from Epic's launcher. The drawback is that I can't launch them from steam VR, but I haven't had issues with anything not running. I thought that Oculus store was the walled garden of VR.

SteamVR (and OpenXR) are APIs that can run in the background, anything outside of steam can access them.

# ? May 19, 2022 22:55

Hwurmp: May 20, 2005

Lovely sale on "cerebral puzzle games" right now, including:

Baba Is You for $10.49
Patrick's Parabox for $17.99
World of Goo for $5.09
Gunpoint for $1.99
Gorogoa for $4.49
Outer Wilds for $14.99
Filament for $5.09
The Swapper for $2.24
Into the Breach for $7.49

# ? May 19, 2022 23:03

MarcusSA: Sep 23, 2007

Hwurmp posted:

Lovely sale on "cerebral puzzle games" right now, including:

Baba Is You for $10.49
Patrick's Parabox for $17.99
World of Goo for $5.09
Gunpoint for $1.99
Gorogoa for $4.49
Outer Wilds for $14.99
Filament for $5.09
The Swapper for $2.24
Into the Breach for $7.49

Gunpoint and Into the Breach have been on my wishlist since the dawn of time. That has been fixed today.

# ? May 19, 2022 23:10

dhamster: Aug 5, 2013; I got into my car and ate my chalupa with a feeling of accomplishment.

MarcusSA posted:

Gunpoint and Into the Breach have been on my wishlist since the dawn of time. That has been fixed today.

They're both really, really good.

# ? May 19, 2022 23:18

Hwurmp: May 20, 2005

cerebral me totally forgot Return of the Obra Dinn for $13.99

# ? May 19, 2022 23:22

Magnetic North: Dec 15, 2008; Beware the Forest's Mushrooms

Hwurmp posted:

Return of the Obra Dinn for $13.99

Everyone should play this game. My only warning: maybe savor it, because it's not super long, but it's amazing.

# ? May 19, 2022 23:31

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# ? May 30, 2024 10:27

Hwurmp: May 20, 2005

Everything I've listed is a solid recommend from me, but there's tons of other games on sale too.

# ? May 19, 2022 23:33

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Steam Megathread: Stop being boomers! *adds 10 boomer shooters to cart*

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