Too much Steam ?

[noodles]

Was reading about the unprecedented amount of titles that have come out over the lat year to the point that most of them,
the product of what is sometimes several years' effort, get a chance for their first hour on Steam and then disappear into the depths, never to be seen again.

Is it really that saturated at the moment ? Do you have to pay someone to get a review anywhere to have a chance ?

On top of that I hear as well that the big boys are thinking again about their commitment to VR, as the figures are not that encouraging,
even with the amount of sales of the PSVR.

It's all the same to me as I don't expect much anyway from my endeavours, but still...

[gilesgoat]

I think there's been discussions about this.

Saturation or better to say "too many titles all in once ?" .. I'd dare to say "quite certainly" .. and despite there's lot of good stuff around there's ALSO lot of really mediocre and bad stuff that makes "a lot of noise".

Almost "every game distro/store I know" has "really bad search" .. stuff is there but you can't find it and/or there's no real good way to browse it.

Despite all the years passed by I "continue to hear stories" about the "1% rate" and "two weeks lifetime" or stuff like that ..

About VR I'd say part of the problem is that "it's still quite infancy", we just BEGIN to see some "really better stuff" and some devlopers getting a better grip of it so you get stuff that's really worth.

On the other side this VR so far "it is what it is", good, but certainly can be improved and NEEDS "more" to get "more serious stuff for it".

But yeah it's NOT ME saying it but "I hear more than some" saying that despite it's still "the number one PC distro media/way" sometime it's even compared/considered to "a barrel filled with LOT of garbage" where you have to dive in and dig A LOT to find the real good stuff, probably quite often missing some little gems that you'll find maybe LOT later .. maybe even when it's "too late".

The famous Quantity Vs Quality "quick money" and stuff like that .. "does not matter what you put in as long as N are buying it it's worth".

I heard people saying ( talking about games ) that nowadays "there's a market for everything" that "it does not matter super much what you do but you can always find someone that will buy it".

Pay for reviews, "sure you can" but again that's not a game for small developers.

There's really "too much stuff" coming out, I mean "too much" in the sense what you can actually see and know it's there in a given short amount of time.

I think the success and demise of Steam lie in the same thing "the way it's made" .. "yes they manage to obtain something" "no they will never obtain something else unless they change quite a bit ( and they will loose something else in return ) ".

But yes from a consumer point of view looking for things it's truly "quite a mess" but Steam are not the only ones.

About big companies thinking about VR .. I don't know .. could still be "good stuff for smaller studios" that will be able to continue to explore and work on the medium and/or could be "generally bad" as people are not yet going to get "the big things" they'd expect .. but for that must be said they also would need "VR gen 2" IMHO.

[RiK]

Was reading about the unprecedented amount of titles that have come out over the lat year to the point that most of them,
the product of what is sometimes several years' effort, get a chance for their first hour on Steam and then disappear into the depths, never to be seen again.

Is it really that saturated at the moment ? Do you have to pay someone to get a review anywhere to have a chance ?

Not just Steam though is it. The same has been true for years now on the iOS App Store and I'd imagine google is the same for android?

[Deckard]

Same for all media I would say - so much more of everything really, just look at the sheer amount of TV series about now...For me its about having sites / reviewers I trust to find the stuff I'll like but with that caveat If TV stopped being produced tomorrow I think I have enough already for the next year or so... Its like that stat of how many people actually finish a game these days...

The Walking Dead: Season 1, Episode 1 - 66%
Mass Effect 2 - 56%
BioShock Infinite - 53%
Batman: Arkham City - 47%
Portal - 47%
Mass Effect 3 - 42%
The Walking Dead: Season 1, Episode 5 - 39%
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim - 32%
Borderlands 2 - 30%

From 2014

Surprised its that high tbh as last stat I saw was 10% from 2011.

[Chontler]

Game completion averages in the 20 percents. I'd say just make the damn things shorter - but I'm still happily trundling through Zelda getting the medals.
It is weird, value for money says games need to be at least 50 hours long and then no one bothers anyway.
I'm personally never so much bothered by choice, I know I'll never get through my current backlog. That's been a constant battle throughout my gaming life.
Well, except during the early console days when it was cartridge only and I couldn't collect disks.
I only have 2 games on steam, but from what I understand, people have 1000s paid for but never played.
Gaming is weird like that. I wonder what it's like for a dev to see people buying the game but not being played.

[Deckard]

I just checked and I have 47k tunes in my iTunes and 12k that I have never played and 189 movies to watch in iTunes ( these do get watched though) .....Perhaps we are all just becoming collectors.....

[Chontler]

I just checked and I have 47k tunes in my iTunes and 12k that I have never played and 189 movies to watch in iTunes ( these do get watched though) .....Perhaps we are all just becoming collectors.....

you mean hoarders? my digital backlog is hoarding mentality - for when I'm unemployed or for some other senseless catastrophe. I still keep my music collection from when kazaa was a thing. That's probably ???k and I'll not listen to it as I just kinda play the same favorite albums over and over. I probably add like 20 essential albums a year to that. Nah, the music collection is more a future exercise in cataloging (again). Same with my photo collection. God only knows how many memories of fleeting petals and clouds and other such bullshit I daren't press delete to....and I don't even take photography serious. Really, if I spent 5 seconds looking at each photo.....months...

[gilesgoat]

*SNIP*

It is weird, value for money says games need to be at least 50 hours long and then no one bothers anyway.

Perhaps because "most of games like those" have a zero or near zero replay value ? (i.e. you are not going to play them a second time ? ).

That's the difference between an "old skool arcade" where you were competing for a score, game was maybe shorter but more difficult and
you were going over and over trying to get better/smarter at it and a "story based something" that despite being nice "real game elements"
or such can be so small that "you don't really see the point in seeing it all over again" or "worse" restart it all over again from beginning .

I give you my "example", I finished all Uncharted 1,2,3,4 .. of all of them MAYBE the 2 is the only one I could replay, all the others are like
"yes but I am NOT going to go through all that swearing again" .. an experience like "nice AND frustrating the same time with far too much fanculo in the middle to pass a damned level".

Gaming is weird like that. I wonder what it's like for a dev to see people buying the game but not being played.

Probably very weird.

However in ALL this I STILL continue to blame as "a real curse and PART of the problem" the "let's make games at 69p" .. there's never been a curse like that.

If it cost more you ( should ) think more in what you buy and spend more time with it.

And yes some people are really going "a bit mental" about "how long a game should last" .. and as you say is weird because "they complain if the game is not at least 50 hours long" and THEN they are NEVER going to finish it anyway ...

Speaking of movies and shit I have I can GUARANTEE you that EVERY thing I purchased ( and I purchased quite a bit ) been used and watched and listened at least once and often more than once.

[Whiteball]

The problem with games isn't just finding them. It's trying them.
Whatever happened to demos?

Screenshots, reviews and even videos can tell a completely different story to what is actually like for you to play a game.
Once we had coverdisks. Even downloading big (back then) 50mb demos over dial-up praying it wouldn't drop the line at 47mb was ok.

Now we have always on 'get your GB in minutes' connections and practically no demos anywhere*.



*Except VR. That's nearly all demos. Even ones purporting to be 'full' games are not much more than tech demos really.

[Chontler]

*SNIP*

It is weird, value for money says games need to be at least 50 hours long and then no one bothers anyway.

Perhaps because "most of games like those" have a zero or near zero replay value ? (i.e. you are not going to play them a second time ? ).

That's the difference between an "old skool arcade" where you were competing for a score, game was maybe shorter but more difficult and
you were going over and over trying to get better/smarter at it and a "story based something" that despite being nice "real game elements"
or such can be so small that "you don't really see the point in seeing it all over again" or "worse" restart it all over again from beginning .

I give you my "example", I finished all Uncharted 1,2,3,4 .. of all of them MAYBE the 2 is the only one I could replay, all the others are like
"yes but I am NOT going to go through all that swearing again" .. an experience like "nice AND frustrating the same time with far too much fanculo in the middle to pass a damned level".

Gaming is weird like that. I wonder what it's like for a dev to see people buying the game but not being played.

Probably very weird.

However in ALL this I STILL continue to blame as "a real curse and PART of the problem" the "let's make games at 69p" .. there's never been a curse like that.

If it cost more you ( should ) think more in what you buy and spend more time with it.

And yes some people are really going "a bit mental" about "how long a game should last" .. and as you say is weird because "they complain if the game is not at least 50 hours long" and THEN they are NEVER going to finish it anyway ...

Speaking of movies and shit I have I can GUARANTEE you that EVERY thing I purchased ( and I purchased quite a bit ) been used and watched and listened at least once and often more than once.

I wouldn't expect to replay a 50 hour adventure - well, there's not many times I have but that's when there were less of them. But I still try to complete them. I think there is only Dark Souls 3 that I have really given up on (although maybe I'll go back in). I really have no idea why people buy something and complete an average of 20% - in reality that probably means a good chunk of people just never play it at all or just have a couple of goes.

Arcade games are designed differently - to grab your money. I guess the modern equivalent of that is free to play IAP.
Didn't Mastertronic begin the shit budget games fiasco? I was too impatient to save up back then but never learned my lesson.

[OX mkII]

The problem with games isn't just finding them. It's trying them.
Whatever happened to demos?

Screenshots, reviews and even videos can tell a completely different story to what is actually like for you to play a game.
Once we had coverdisks. Even downloading big (back then) 50mb demos over dial-up praying it wouldn't drop the line at 47mb was ok.

Now we have always on 'get your GB in minutes' connections and practically no demos anywhere*.



*Except VR. That's nearly all demos. Even ones purporting to be 'full' games are not much more than tech demos really.

Yes, the death of Computer game review magazines due to the internet has unfortunately played it's part here, in mags the industry had a dedicated defined audience, the mags could badger demos from the software houses to stick on there coverdisks in return for what amounted to free advertising in running stories and reviews about their titles so everybody won. Now thanks to review sites and social media you now have a zillion opinions and a shitload of trolls ready to strangle a game at conception if you dare to release any content before it's release and something isn't quite right.

[Firefox]

Didn't Mastertronic begin the shit budget games fiasco? I was too impatient to save up back then but never learned my lesson.

Fun fact: According to the Bank of England's inflation calculator, £1.99 in 1984 was the equivalent of £5.87 in today's money.

[Chontler]

Didn't Mastertronic begin the shit budget games fiasco? I was too impatient to save up back then but never learned my lesson.

Fun fact: According to the Bank of England's inflation calculator, £1.99 in 1984 was the equivalent of £5.87 in today's money.

and sending off for RotMC cost £25!

Mastertronic tapes ended up being used to copy single games onto. They were good for that much. My home tape player didn't have a counter on it.

[Molloy]

I think games that are good do still find an audience, for the most part. The gaming press are pretty clued up on independent games and you've got a lot of youtubers diving in too. Things being visible on a store front certainly helps but ultimately you need something that markets itself by being fun, surprising, filling a niche, being on trend or having some sort of story to it that people want to share. I'm enjoying new games more than I have since the Dreamcast era right now because there are so many good ones I'm not surprised things are falling through the cracks. I'm finishing lots of them too which is a nice change. The likes of Undertale, Pony Island and Shovel Knight were 3 or 4 hours each and felt just right at that length.

[gilesgoat]

The problem with games isn't just finding them. It's trying them.
Whatever happened to demos?

Screenshots, reviews and even videos can tell a completely different story to what is actually like for you to play a game.
Once we had coverdisks. Even downloading big (back then) 50mb demos over dial-up praying it wouldn't drop the line at 47mb was ok.

Now we have always on 'get your GB in minutes' connections and practically no demos anywhere*.



*Except VR. That's nearly all demos. Even ones purporting to be 'full' games are not much more than tech demos really.

Yes, the death of Computer game review magazines due to the internet has unfortunately played it's part here, in mags the industry had a dedicated defined audience, the mags could badger demos from the software houses to stick on there coverdisks in return for what amounted to free advertising in running stories and reviews about their titles so everybody won. Now thanks to review sites and social media you now have a zillion opinions and a shitload of trolls ready to strangle a game at conception if you dare to release any content before it's release and something isn't quite right.

I was reading some old magazines and really thinking "they don't to magazines like those any more".

Said in advance I AM NO EXPERT about "problems of today's magazines" nor I read too many of them at all but my opinion is that "ok yes there's a lot online" BUT often is like to read "flash news to get a glimpse of" and sometime you'd like the kind of stuff "more deep" you read sit in a comfy chair with a glass or a cup of something.

There's space for magazines IMHO "if they get lot more deep" into stuff despite it may seem you can find everything on line it's not really true and some stuff it's too hard to find, that's where I think a magazine can do.

About releasing before it's done I could say "been there been VERY BADLY BURNED" and it's really NO , NEVER EVER DO IT AGAIN ! .. I am afraid it's really ( because of all you say ) "No more times for doing that" .. you do something, you FINISH IT, you put it out but people see WHAT IT IS, like it or not but THERE IT IS, on the shelves, ready to buy.

You can try to create a bit of a hype around something .. but really you can not pre-release content, the risk to get buried in a pile of shit over "stupidly insignificant details" before you have a chance to simply finish a thing it's too big.

I think it's really extremely risky to show things too much in advance nowadays.