World of Goo 2: now available | Hacker News Reader

World of Goo 2: now available

worldofgoo2.com

71 pointstheolivenbaum45 comments

If anyone might be interested:

Yes, concerning stores World of Goo 2 will be Epic exclusive for a while most likely because Epic was a major investor while developing the game.

On the other hand 2DBoy gets 100% of all Epic Store profit during a limited period.

If you are not happy about that you can get it DRM free from the website or wait for the inevitable Steam launch.

Hope this helps :)

Happy that they went with Epic. Steam needs more legit competition.

Competition implies that both offer the same service. If the product is not available in both stores they are not competing.

There's also tons of stuff only on Steam, so...

What games have exclusive contracts with Valve, other than those published by Valve?

What games does Valve fund the development of? (And then let developers keep 100% of the profit?)

Sorry, I don't have the answer to this question, and I'm not sure why you are asking me.

Well, why did you ask what games have exclusivity contracts with Valve?

My point was, Epic creates these exclusivity contracts for games they fund. I think it's a net positive for there to be more art in the world, even if you have to wait a few months to buy them from your favorite storefront.

Valve doesn't fund the development of third party games. They do create some games in house (fewer than they used to sadly) but just like in Epic's case these are exclusive to Steam.

They do not create these exclusivity contracts exclusively for games they fund - but exclusivity is a requirement of accepting their funding.

https://kkkepic.com.br/en_US/exclusives/

A full list of their exclusives, the website is partially in Portuguese (I think), but the games and their exclusivity terms are all in English.

I don't know off-hand; I just know that, whatever the reason, tons of stuff is available only on Steam.

It's my understanding that Steam does not really do exclusivity deals, outside of games they self-publish, which is why I asked the question. I wasn't sure if I was wrong on that point.

I've read some blog posts by indie developers that break down the cost model and effort required to publish to various platforms (Steam, Epic, etc). I can't seem to find them now though... But the general takeaway was that Steam is where the consumers are, so you end up making the most amount of money there. They also have a really nice pipeline that covers every aspect of development, publishing, and payment. I suspect the benefit of publishing on multiple platforms may simply not be worth the effort when Steam has the pipeline, the storefront, and more importantly, the customer base.

I've seen similar things in the mobile app space. The Apple store is where the money is at, and there are many apps that are not on Android. This isn't because of an exclusivity deal with Apple, but rather a business decision made by each developer.

which ones??

There are tons, but off the top of my head, Elden Ring and Bravely Default.

Bravely Default and Elden Ring are on other formats (consoles) so they are not exclusive to Steam.

I mean, and World of Goo 2 is on Nintendo Switch and Fortnite is on every console. We're discussing storefront exclusivity on PC.

Say a developer wants to create and sell a game:

* Store 1 offers them 70% of profit and no funding

* Store 2 then offers them 90% of profit and significant developement funding, on the condition of exclusivity

The existence of competition (including a potential counteroffer by store 1) gives the developer a better deal, and possibly results in a better game or ability to produce games that wouldn't otherwise exist.

It's admittedly a little bit of a hassle for consumers to use multiple stores, same as with games that have their own launcher/account system, but there's no buy-in like with streaming services or console platforms. I think it's probably worth it for a form of competition that has been lacking.

Perhaps Epic should focus more on actually making their platform not hot-garbage (aka actually making a better competing product) instead of holding games hostage and forcing users into their beyond subpar platform, they've had plenty of time and people still go to the steam forums for an epic exclusive to ask questions and make guides about the game. Steam is simply the better product and the only way Epic can stay alive is by employing anti-competitive business practices.

Exactly. In theory, I have no problems with a Steam competitor, but the extras Steam gives, plus its support for linux is just unmatched. Input binding, support for non-standard controllers (huge for accessibility), Proton, streaming, remote play, etc. The list goes on and on. Epic... is just a glorified downloader and friend list basically where you are stuck on windows.

Store exclusives don't seem like too much of an issue to me. There's a bit of added hassle in the same way there is for games with their own launcher/account system, but for the most part you're still able to get any game (and I believe even add it as an external game to your Steam library, if that's the UI you prefer) without significant cost/barrier to switching like there is for platform exclusives.

In exchange, it can add some much-needed competition on the developer side - with multiple stores competing to give a better deal. I don't think it's particuarly healthy to have pretty much just one store, sitting on a large cut and not doing much in the way of funding new games.

I do wish Epic would also improve in areas of Linux support/input binding/etc. though.

> wait for the inevitable Steam launch

I pick that one.

Or you could buy it directly off the world of goo website, DRM free.

there are advantages to using Steam

there are disadvantages to using Steam

Such as?

The Steam release will also be DRM free, and then it's in my Steam library forever and I don't need to keep track of how to download it in the future.

Isn't Steam itself also DRM?

No. Game devs can & frequently do distribute just plain binaries through Steam.

If they integrate Steamworks, these games usually (not always, but exceptions are rare) will not start up if Steam isn't running. I am speaking as someone who cares about and tests this.

Ironically, I have actually had far more success with stuff from the Epic Games Store. Lots of major titles such as Beyond Two Souls and Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart function as completely standalone, DRM-Free binaries once downloaded, it's great.

Okay, but I don't think poorly implemented server integration counts as DRM.

The effect is the same if it means I can't launch my games without authenticating with a remote service that could go bust at any time, and has already dropped support for legacy operating systems which I still use.

Sure. It's still not DRM, which serves no benefit to the player, unlike network capabilities. The risk of Steam disappearing is lower than the risk of me losing the download code or WoG's download servers disappearing, so Steam is the better bet for me.

You could have all of the advantages and still allow games to start up when Steam isn't running.

I don't know what the Steam api looks like for developers, but--I guess I don't really believe that this is some accidental bug. The default behavior should be that everything sans multiplayer still works without Steam. Obviously this is possible to do--because some games do it--but it's also obviously not the default behavior, because so few games do it. That benefits Valve--how does it benefit players?

As I mentioned, I have already lost the ability to play certain games on legacy operating systems because Steam dropped support, so I don't consider this merely a theoretical concern.

the vast majority of games distributed via steam use (at least) steam DRM? there's an auto-cracker but that's not "DRM-free"?

They can do, but that's up to devs. I have no idea why the World of Goo 2 devs would use that if they are also shipping a DRM free version themselves.

And in fact you can buy a DRM-free version right on their website, with no obligation to use any store - neither Steam nor Epic.

>If you are not happy about that you can get it DRM free from the website

It's surprising this and GOG is always such an unpopular option. Most of these stores really dig their claws into the game and force you to launch it through their own shells with all kinds of nagging and network traffic.

I've become convinced most consumers really just aren't capable of "shopping" for software.

The original World of Goo game was quite a phenomenon back in 2008, I remember it being talked about a lot amongst peers in school. Cool to see a real sequel!

Anyone know what engine this is made in? The original used Open Dynamics Engine for physics simulation. [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Dynamics_Engine

There was this tech [1] making rounds on HN a while back. Made a big impression on me and it's by the company that co-created the World of Goo 2. I wonder if it was used to make the game.

[1] https://tomorrowcorporation.com/posts/how-we-make-games-at-t...

Ah, that will be fun to get back to!

Only pity is it's not available for mobile - the first game was perfect on an iPad with touch as the input method.

It is out for Switch at least, so you can play on the go that way. And given how their games go, I assume it'll be out for iPad eventually.

Interestingly, it looks pretty much the same as the original. That's not a complaint, the original still looks great.

I enjoyed it, but I was slightly underwhelmed. Some sequels, like Portal 2, expand on the concept so well that they basically replace the original. But in this case, I sometimes felt like level design took a step back, and WoG 1 was overall better game.

No way!! I used to play the original one on my Nokia phone (E61i - I was called a dork for using such a chonky device back then, but I needed that sweet WiFi!) for hours! It was this and another game from iDreams that were my favorites.

I eagerly await being able to play it on Steam and iOS/Play. =)

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