I think I speak for quite a few people when I say thank God. I have nothing against indie games in general but the sheer volume of low-quality DayZ/Minecraft-inspired early-access survival game clones that were all broken in the same ways that were never finished by the developer have left me jaded.
The game is Rimworld and it's a early-access clone of prison architect. The game is far from done, the dev left for a long extended break but the game is still a endless source of joy. And I haven't even touch the mods.
The sheer diversity and new ideas that Indiepocalypse brought is a reaction to the mainstream sequelcalypse. I just can't see it anymore. I also don't buy those games anymore because I know they'll last for a weekend or two and then I'll be pissed that I wasted money even though I knew it won't be better then the one before.
Big studios may save us from low-quality but not from broken or cloned games. They are just more expensive.
If anything, both Rimworld and PA are "clones" of Dwarf Fortress.
Tynan also wrote a book, "Designing Games," which is worth checking out.
Also, the similarities to Prison Architect are coincidental. I've played and followed both games for a long time, and neither is a clone of the other. (However, I do wish that Tynan would clone PA's user interface--Rimworld's UI is clunky by comparison.)
I found out that Steam catalog, despite "opening the floodgates" is quite limited on some genres, some niche genres have the nicest games don't even volunteer for steam (usually because the nicest games have perfectionist devs that don't want to be "another shitty early access", for example Starsector, the game has been being sold in pre-release form for years now, but the dev flat out absolutely refuses to get on Steam, because he thinks the game ins't ready for that), and even when they do, they don't get enough traction with the public to get through Greenlight or to skip Greenlight.
On some other genres, you will see loads and loads of crap shoveled at you, but the good games still don't fill completely the recommended games section screen...
The only thing I think Steam can do differently in their interface, is make the "order by public rating" easier (this feature actually exists already! But is mostly hidden, every time I need it, I google around until I stumble on it, and each time I end on it by a different path!), usually when you do that you see a list of actually great games, mixing both truly great AAA games and actual underdogs (example: last time I checked for some genres, I owned all games on the first page on the list, some of those games I know I am one of the few people that own them, because they are not widely known, while others are full blown 100 million marketing AAA).
I once read an article that said you only get one release. There are exceptions to this rule, but it seems to be true.
If you choose to debut your game on Steam with the early-access model, it's usually your one shot to impress customers with your product. We all know that it isn't complete. However, the update tempo and promise tracking can easily tank your product if you fall behind. Taking an extended break, even with the early release model, is pretty much suicide.
I can only think of a handful of titles that hyped their early release AND got a second round of hype on full release. For most, however, the first time you put your game on Steam will be the only major press that you get.
And there is a subreddit called gamingsuggestions that has great people over there to suggest stuff!
I agree, my queue is littered with genres I have zero interest in. After the 10th anime dating sim I marked not interested in, it should prevent those games in the future.
And now that you say it, I remember that about the not interested button.
Where is it made clear "my queue" isn't based on my preferences?
Can you blame these other devs jumping on the wagontrain? There is so much money to be made in this space. It should be Steam's job to keep out halfcooked games but apparently they disagree. I imagine the whole greenlight "give us what we want" aspect of Steam encourages realeases like these. This is the problem with fan-led media and stores. Fans get too excited and are willing to excuse a lot of things just to "get the game." The devs cash out on what's at best a beta-test and have zero incentive to continue.
Infact, in the genre (which is lacking in general), i think it's one of the top.
I really wish that Steam had much better filters for what it shows, i.e. I have 0 interest in F2P games, like 99.99% of anime/manga games, etc. I greatly prefer the old interface which didn't try to force-feed you other people's "curated" opinions.
The recent sales have been lackluster discount wise as well and 3rd party shady key sites and whatnot often have better pricing.
Having said that, though, I did get Witcher 3 from Steam during the Winter sale which is the best RPG I've ever played and I've put 100+ hours in to it in less than 2 weeks. I was disappointed to see the same price as was in the sale. I waited expecting a better discount. It's so good I went back to buy the season pass at full price though - <3 for CDProjekt. They're outstanding and I hope they don't go the way of the other (mostly) scumbag publishers.
That's the cess pit the PC game market will be turning into, and I have no hope that Steam's Greenlight will prevent this.
Steam would be fairly easy to compete with, I expect, since they don't do anything other than let big publishers do whatever they want and provide a dumping ground for everyone else. If they restricted the big publishers, then it would be tough because you'd have to get them on board, but Valve even paid to implement their "preloading" system so big publishers didn't have to run the risk of actually taking advantage of digital distro and endangering their retail distro agreements by having stuff available 2 weeks before the boxes could make it onto the shelves.
Definitely. I've simply stopped buying indie games unless they're massive hits. Way too much shovelware out there.
people buying greenlight votes in bulk and selling unchanged asset packs hasn't gotten any better from what I can see, and Valve has made it clear they don't mind letting shovelware through the door as long as they get 30%.
why would it stop?