Without Steam most indie games would have no way to reach an audience, but there comes a time in any decent intermediary's, middleman's or service provider's journey where they should go "Well I took a risk, made investments, helped people as a result, but now I have been rewarded plenty for those risks and investments and it's time to cut down my margins".
This describes capitalism in general. "Why yes, the fact that I started this company with $50k means I do now deserve the millions it makes off people whose work I'm just barely paying for."
Without Steam most indie games would have no way to reach an audience, but there comes a time in any decent intermediary's, middleman's or service provider's journey where they should go "Well I took a risk, made investments, helped people as a result, but now I have been rewarded plenty for those risks and investments and it's time to cut down my margins".
I would have assumed that these days most people learn about new games from Youtube, Twitch and social media
but from how many devs ask for Steam wishlists because it improves visibility on Steam upon release, I suppose there must be a significant number of people learning about games directly from Steam.
I mean, people on YouTube, Twitch and social media themselves need to learn about a game from somewhere, and I bet storefronts can be an important part of said somewhere (somewhere down the line of Oh A Friend Recommended This / I Saw Another Streamer Playing It someone had to have gotten the information from someplace external to the ecosystem). And indie games tend to not have the PR clout of large companies when it comes to sending out mass press releases and putting effort into wining&dining 'influencers'.
Also, I'm willing to bet there's a big, silent majority of gamers that don't really follow games media (including streamers) and just go by storefronts and friend recommendations.
It has been said by many indie Devs that Steam makes them more money than other storefronts (and that they make more on sale than at full price). Though I'm not sure how much of that is because of steam doing anything different or steam being the biggest. There's certainly a large demographic of gamers who will never buy anything unless it's on steam.
I mean, people on YouTube, Twitch and social media themselves need to learn about a game from somewhere, and I bet storefronts can be an important part of said somewhere (somewhere down the line of Oh A Friend Recommended This / I Saw Another Streamer Playing It someone had to have gotten the information from someplace external to the ecosystem). And indie games tend to not have the PR clout of large companies when it comes to sending out mass press releases and putting effort into wining&dining 'influencers'.
Also, I'm willing to bet there's a big, silent majority of gamers that don't really follow games media (including streamers) and just go by storefronts and friend recommendations.
Yeah, I only find out about new games from friends, Steam, and sometimes this forum. Mostly from Steam though
I thought the Switch was getting so many indie ports because it was making them far more money now that Steam gets like 100 new games per day and new releases disappear from the front page within an hour (while Steam's recommendations tend to push best sellers, creating a vicious cycle of success breeding success at the expense of everyone else)?
As the creator of two games that are up on Steam, I can tell you that Steam does nothing to help games get noticed and simply promotes based on popularity. That means that in order to get anywahere near their front page etc, you will need to have become popular by another method, like streamers or media coverage. I am not sure where the assertion that indie games are nothing with Steam comes from. The audience is found via influencers, twich streamers and youtube (and getting those has worse odds than winning the lottery IMO), at that point the game will sell itself and it doesn't matter which storefront it is on.
Steam just having the biggest userbase does not make them the best.
I thought the Switch was getting so many indie ports because it was making them far more money now that Steam gets like 100 new games per day and new releases disappear from the front page within an hour (while Steam's recommendations tend to push best sellers, creating a vicious cycle of success breeding success at the expense of everyone else)?
From what I've read some games sell better on Switch and some games sell better on Steam. There are no guarantees one way or the other.
Days Gone lead says ‘don’t complain if there’s no sequel if you didn’t buy it full price’
JOHN GARVIN ALSO SAYS HIS DEPARTURE FROM BEND STUDIO WAS BASED ON PERSONALITY, NOT PERFORMANCE
John Garvin was speaking to game designer David Jaffe on Jaffe’s YouTube show, where he was asked if he’d heard anything about any “meaningful uptick of engagement” with Days Gone since the game was added to the PlayStation Plus Collection on PS5.
“I do have an opinion on something that your audience may find of interest, and it might piss some of them off,” Garvin replied. “If you love a game, buy it at fucking full price. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen gamers say ‘yeah, I got that on sale, I got it through PS Plus, whatever’.”
"I was told to leave because I was an asshole"?
How were they supposed to know they would like a game when it was a new IP?
There's plenty to complain about there, but also, I imagine when something you've been working on for half a decade fails it must be pretty crushing and going "maybe it just wasn't anything special" is a pretty bitter pill to swallow. Like, can you even tell how good the game you're working on even is after all that time.
Days Gone lead says ‘don’t complain if there’s no sequel if you didn’t buy it full price’
JOHN GARVIN ALSO SAYS HIS DEPARTURE FROM BEND STUDIO WAS BASED ON PERSONALITY, NOT PERFORMANCE
John Garvin was speaking to game designer David Jaffe on Jaffe’s YouTube show, where he was asked if he’d heard anything about any “meaningful uptick of engagement” with Days Gone since the game was added to the PlayStation Plus Collection on PS5.
“I do have an opinion on something that your audience may find of interest, and it might piss some of them off,” Garvin replied. “If you love a game, buy it at fucking full price. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen gamers say ‘yeah, I got that on sale, I got it through PS Plus, whatever’.”
"I was told to leave because I was an asshole"?
How were they supposed to know they would like a game when it was a new IP?
It's simple, when you love a game you got cheaply just violate causality and instead buy it for full price.
“I can tell you that when we were doing [Syphon Filter] Dark Mirror [on PSP], we got so fucked on Dark Mirror because piracy was a thing and Sony wasn’t really caught up on what piracy was doing to sales.
“And we would show them torrents, a torrent site had 200,000 copies of Dark Mirror being downloaded. If I remember it right, the numbers could be wrong, but regardless, I was pissed about it then, I was like ‘this is money out of my pocket’.
After being asked directly by Jaffe if he was fired, Garvin replied: “It was a hard, long development, six years, and I worked six years of crunch. And here’s the thing, I love working crunch. […] I love what I do so it’s not that big a deal, but that doesn’t mean it’s good for me. So the last two years I’ve actually been away from the studio have actually been a blessing. I have been able to get up and do what I want, I’ve written three books, and it’s just a different thing.
“When you’re in development it’s a non-stop pressure with milestones, profitability and people management […] and to be honest, at the end of the day, what it really comes down to is, we had a few heated arguments over the last year or so, and I would end up yelling and saying something like “just give me a package so I can get the fuck out of here”, some shit like that.
“And when it was just Chris [Reese] and I in a very small studio, that kind of heatedness was fine, but by the time you get to a 100-person studio you can’t have one of the directors losing their temper, you know. And I’m not a great people person anyway, and it’s not like they didn’t try, I was put through training a couple of times, like ‘hey, here’s how you go out to lunch with people more, and be a better director’, and dude, I just kinda sucked at all that.”
Later in the interview, Jaffe seeked to clarify this by asking: “Me reading between the lines would suggest that you were fired from Bend because you were a disruptive personality, and that worked with a smaller team and a medium-sized team, but as the budgets and the stakes got higher and the number of people that had to work on the team got bigger, that personality – at least according to that company – was no longer the right fit, would you agree with that?”
“Definitely,” Garvin replied.
Of course PIRACY! Every pirated copy is the same as a lost sale!
Good to see confirmation that Bend Studio had a horrific perpetual crunch problem and an abusive boss.
There's plenty to complain about there, but also, I imagine when something you've been working on for half a decade fails it must be pretty crushing and going "maybe it just wasn't anything special" is a pretty bitter pill to swallow. Like, can you even tell how good the game you're working on even is after all that time.
I've only made custom maps for games and shit and after replaying certain sections a million times to work out bugs I can't even tell if it's fun or if it just works.
Also there's nothing worse than to dump a ton of time into making something just to have nobody play it. It's somehow worse than a lot of people playing it and saying it sucked.
MaddocI'm Bobbin Threadbare, are you my mother?Registered Userregular
I cannot imagine the person who later bought Days Gone on sale or got it on PS+ and "loved" it
If anything, waiting to play it probably made them enjoy it a bit more because they didn't feel burned by buying a full price game at launch
Also after having experienced some of the politics of Days Gone I'm maybe not super bummed about Bend not being able to make another one, it's an abhorrent game
I really appreciate the site Buried Treasure because of the specific focus on lesser-known stuff, but that's just one person so it's still not even scratching the surface of new releases.
MaddocI'm Bobbin Threadbare, are you my mother?Registered Userregular
Like I shouldn't have been surprised that a game about how rugged individualism was the only way to survive the zombie apocalypse and FEMA camps got everyone else killed would have bad politics I guess
Really a bummer to see people who have drunk that much kool-aid that they believe every bullshit thing about the industry.
Crunch is good and the right way to develop video games, piracy is lost sales, and it's the fault of people not buying games at full price, and not our producing an average game based on an extremely well worn concept, is why we weren't successful enough to make a sequel.
Really a bummer to see people who have drunk that much kool-aid that they believe every bullshit thing about the industry.
Crunch is good and the right way to develop video games, piracy is lost sales, and it's the fault of people not buying games at full price, and not our producing an average based on an extremely well worn concept, is why we weren't successful enough to make a sequel.
Also it's definitely the fault of our customers that we're not getting a sequel. Not our publisher who was responsible for that decision.
Someone purchasing your game on a sale might be an ego blow, as it does feel like it's sending a message that your game isn't worth what you valued it at. At the same time, people love feel like they've got a deal on something. But also I feel like the fact most games are bought on sale is also still a reflection of the lower purchasing power of the average person compared to the value games are released at. Hell, I know the $70 at launch model that the current gen of game consoles is trying to push is going to decrease the amount of games I purchase at full price.
Also it kind of doesn’t make sense to say people should buy games they like at full price, since unless the game is a sequel or has a demo how do they know they like it? Also outriders launched on gamepass and it’s still selling well even on Xbox, and maybe that’s cos it had a demo, or maybe it’s just the luck of creative productions that sometimes stuff just doesn’t catch on, doesn’t sell well. Not every game, movie, book or tv show that deserves to be successful gets to be
Maybe the answer is to stop making every game a AAA blockbuster that absolutely must sell a ridiculous amount and instead try to make mid tier games work. Frankly most AAA games would be better with way less in them anyway. They need to make smaller high quality games a thing. Less back of the box filler like dozens of throwaway side and misc quests and just make a polished smaller scope mainline experience
I generally buy games as they release at full price if I’m excited to play them. I figure that if the team has put together a thing that I want to play that badly, they can have the money, because that betters the chance that the thing I enjoy will either get sequels or the team involved may be allowed more creative freedom in their next project. There’s also something to be said about experiencing a game at its height during launch - its easier to have unspoiled conversations and get caught up in the excitement with friends right when a game comes out, which can help me to enjoy a game more.
That said I ain’t gonna fault anyone for waiting. Gaming’s expensive, and certainly not every game is deserving of the extra cash.
Someone purchasing your game on a sale might be an ego blow, as it does feel like it's sending a message that your game isn't worth what you valued it at. At the same time, people love feel like they've got a deal on something. But also I feel like the fact most games are bought on sale is also still a reflection of the lower purchasing power of the average person compared to the value games are released at. Hell, I know the $70 at launch model that the current gen of game consoles is trying to push is going to decrease the amount of games I purchase at full price.
I'm not sure this is the whole story. I feel like another major contributing factor is that the culture of buying games has internalized the idea that games will go on sale, and generally within a few months of release. (Evidence: the perpetual flabbergast that Nintendo doesn't put their games on sale ever.) "Full price" is implicitly a "get it now tax". And with so many games out, people are willing to wait those couple months for the devs to blink and bring the price down to drum up sales.
My favorite musical instrument is the air-raid siren.
Someone purchasing your game on a sale might be an ego blow, as it does feel like it's sending a message that your game isn't worth what you valued it at. At the same time, people love feel like they've got a deal on something. But also I feel like the fact most games are bought on sale is also still a reflection of the lower purchasing power of the average person compared to the value games are released at. Hell, I know the $70 at launch model that the current gen of game consoles is trying to push is going to decrease the amount of games I purchase at full price.
I'm not sure this is the whole story. I feel like another major contributing factor is that the culture of buying games has internalized the idea that games will go on sale, and generally within a few months of release. (Evidence: the perpetual flabbergast that Nintendo doesn't put their games on sale ever.) "Full price" is implicitly a "get it now tax". And with so many games out, people are willing to wait those couple months for the devs to blink and bring the price down to drum up sales.
Nintendo prices on the "gobble up everything we put in this trough, piggies" model that Apple also uses. See the frankly insulting way they price ports and remasters.
It is clear that sales are bad for the long term valuation of games, as there was a huge outcry from indie devs when Epic "discounted" every game $10 by paying by $10 themselves, making them all appear to be the kind of game that goes on sale for basically nothing. This is why Epic switched to giving $10 Epic coupons out with full purchases to not drop the sticker price of games.
Given this applies to indie games, it is not surprising at all that bigger companies, like Nintendo, subscribe to the theory as well. Sales and discounts on Nintendo games are, to them, a short term benefit of boosted revenue and a long term mass devaluation of their product.
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I would have assumed that these days most people learn about new games from Youtube, Twitch and social media
but from how many devs ask for Steam wishlists because it improves visibility on Steam upon release, I suppose there must be a significant number of people learning about games directly from Steam.
Also, I'm willing to bet there's a big, silent majority of gamers that don't really follow games media (including streamers) and just go by storefronts and friend recommendations.
And that most of those emails will be ignored.
Yeah, I only find out about new games from friends, Steam, and sometimes this forum. Mostly from Steam though
Steam just having the biggest userbase does not make them the best.
From what I've read some games sell better on Switch and some games sell better on Steam. There are no guarantees one way or the other.
you know, fuck it, I'd watch a Dynasty Warriors movie
How were they supposed to know they would like a game when it was a new IP?
It's simple, when you love a game you got cheaply just violate causality and instead buy it for full price.
Of course PIRACY! Every pirated copy is the same as a lost sale!
Good to see confirmation that Bend Studio had a horrific perpetual crunch problem and an abusive boss.
"Disruptive personality" is a nice euphemism.
I've only made custom maps for games and shit and after replaying certain sections a million times to work out bugs I can't even tell if it's fun or if it just works.
Also there's nothing worse than to dump a ton of time into making something just to have nobody play it. It's somehow worse than a lot of people playing it and saying it sucked.
If anything, waiting to play it probably made them enjoy it a bit more because they didn't feel burned by buying a full price game at launch
Also after having experienced some of the politics of Days Gone I'm maybe not super bummed about Bend not being able to make another one, it's an abhorrent game
Crunch is good and the right way to develop video games, piracy is lost sales, and it's the fault of people not buying games at full price, and not our producing an average game based on an extremely well worn concept, is why we weren't successful enough to make a sequel.
profiting off of another's labor is never justified and is just a byproduct of the disease that is capitalism.
Also it's definitely the fault of our customers that we're not getting a sequel. Not our publisher who was responsible for that decision.
PSN: Robo_Wizard1
Maybe the answer is to stop making every game a AAA blockbuster that absolutely must sell a ridiculous amount and instead try to make mid tier games work. Frankly most AAA games would be better with way less in them anyway. They need to make smaller high quality games a thing. Less back of the box filler like dozens of throwaway side and misc quests and just make a polished smaller scope mainline experience
Source from internet
This will be here until I receive an apology or Weedlordvegeta get any consequences for being a bully
But they're not the games that cost seventy dollars.
It is kind of amazing how true to the game this is.
That said I ain’t gonna fault anyone for waiting. Gaming’s expensive, and certainly not every game is deserving of the extra cash.
I'm not sure this is the whole story. I feel like another major contributing factor is that the culture of buying games has internalized the idea that games will go on sale, and generally within a few months of release. (Evidence: the perpetual flabbergast that Nintendo doesn't put their games on sale ever.) "Full price" is implicitly a "get it now tax". And with so many games out, people are willing to wait those couple months for the devs to blink and bring the price down to drum up sales.
Nintendo prices on the "gobble up everything we put in this trough, piggies" model that Apple also uses. See the frankly insulting way they price ports and remasters.
Given this applies to indie games, it is not surprising at all that bigger companies, like Nintendo, subscribe to the theory as well. Sales and discounts on Nintendo games are, to them, a short term benefit of boosted revenue and a long term mass devaluation of their product.