while that is true, it gained that audience organically over many years. dota was already an old and popular game by the time valve dumped an engine and a shop on it
Addendum: I avoided (and am avoiding) getting into a defense of Artifact as a game; my argument is that the appeal of the game wasnât the primary reason it failed (there are too many reasons it failed). Iâll praise (and resume playing) Artifact when it is no longer embarrassing or pre-empted by huge caveats to do so; i.e. when Valve ever makes the game less monetarily intimidating and reeking of neglect.
I will concede that I think the game is unwatchable to bystanders, but for that matter I think MtG (and Dota) is too. I could also give MtG and Hearthstone much more credit for their respective merits (and they have many), but they donât orthagonally relate to what Iâm discussing here, and at any rate Iâd have to start defending Artifact as a game (which Iâm not going to do yet lol) to get into direct comparisons on how they handle combat, turns/priority, randomness, dramatic impact, etc.
I generally canât care at all about people watching a game on Twitch, and I donât do it myself when I can just play the game, but as an indicator of how many people care about it⌠yeah, itâs pretty fucking sad where it is.
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IMO the biggest Artifact fuckup has nothing to do with the game economy or the game itself, but just that they werenât on mobile on day one.
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The first thing I saw of cyber shadow was Bob Mackey comparing it to The Messenger and calling the messenger shit. I liked The Messenger and the movement in this definitely looks worse and any game presenting itâs verb expansion screen as something to get excited about makes me want to take a bus and start over.
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Thatâs definitely an issue, and a couple notes about that:
â A datamine of the January 28 patch revealed strings related to Unity, which they might be going with because I guess Source 2 doesnât actually run well on mobile, and
â There is no conceivable way they would launch a mobile card game app with a $20 price tag; thatâs just obscene for the mobile space and Valveâs name doesnât have any clout there. Maybe they planned to drop the upfront cost for the mobile launch all along, who knows.
at this point is it bad if I unironically hope for an impassioned apology to go with whenever they drop the 180-turnaround-on-everything patch
a postmortem or a documentary on whateverâs going on behind the doors of this and other huge flops I would definitely pay to see.
Itâs not just that the price to buy in is high, but their entire in-game economy is unlikely to jive with App Store rules to begin with. I think the best case scenario Valve can hope for is releasing a client that can requires an existing Artifact license on PC and lets you buy tickets and play games with your existing card library, but all card buys/trades must happen on PC.
That theyâve seemingly designed the entire game without taking this into account is baffling.
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I think the most straightforward pain point was that F2P without grind feels harsh (ironically described as âexploitativeâ when itâs actually dropping the most effective and subtle psychological hooks).
Iâve heard many people complain about the complexity of the game and I donât know enough to rate those complaints but itâs the kind of thing that can kill a game.
Does Valve have a library of games they never shipped for quality reasons?
Itâs simpler than that. Everyone is told to find work thatâs âmost valuable for the companyâ. Everyone with a project needs to convince others that their project is valuable and needs team members.
Owning all of PC games sales is infinitely more revenue-generating than making games and itâs very hard to justify games when you could be working on Steam or platform-like things.
Subtext: remember when Valve bought Campo Santo? Donât expect them to be able to justify finishing an indie game in this context.
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I was pretty sad when I heard about the Campo Santo purchase.
Was looking forward to Firewatch 2: Watch Harder.
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Pyramidwatch
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They could make the app actually fucking work and not launch a browser window that asks you to sign and then confirm on the app that you are al-
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If, for some reason, youâve been interested in owning Morrowind at some point but havenât gotten your hands on it yet, Bethesdaâs giving it out for free until the end of the month. This is on account of the Elder Scrolls series turning 25 a few days ago!
also Valve famously has no dedicated QA
I think certain types of quality-of-life features naturally fall into blind spots of their peculiar focus.
Seriously in 2019 they donât have a smartphone webstore you have to navigate the desktop store in all the pan and scan glory and whenever it is a special event-sale it bre-
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The simple solution is to stop buying games on Steam and opt for marketplaces that have 1) good mobile support, 2) offers a better cut to developers.
Oh hi itch.io
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I really, really want developers who put their games on sale on Steam to put them on the same sale on itch, btw.
But itch.io is the best and I am buying everything I can from there now.
Iâm frankly surprised that doesnât happen often, considering how easy it is to do sales on itch, even setting them up in advance (and devs get advance notice of Steam sales, which is why the dates always leak)
it doesnât load a mobile stylesheet for you? it does for me and they work OK
their actual iOS app hasnât been updated in a dogâs age but unless you need the authenticator for trading cards or something just uninstall it and the website is fine
Itâs such a hassle to set up sales periods for the twelve stores youâre in and maintaining support for three or more titles, especially when putting a game on sale on itch will net you 0 sales for the five minutes of work.
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I mean, when youâre on Steam, it essentially cannibalizes sales from any other outlet. And it doesnât necessarily make up the slack.
Look, Iâm not saying getting off Steam is the smartest business choice in the short term.
Sure. Itâs tough that to even know how much you should push something like itch in your outreach because even though you get a higher cut, people are less likely to respond.
And so much of itchâs value is due to its small size, so thereâs a part that needs to be this hidden bookstore in the woods to hold onto itself.