Why Game Developers Fear the Steam User

Einhanderc7

Vat dipped, grown and still oozing with perfection
Hello everyone,
Today in light of how the Steam market place is exploding (again) with anger about Fallout 4 I figured I would point out some details about how serious game developers take the average Steam user.

Now I'm sure everyone is thinking, how could 1 single person cause such a ruckus?
Well that is actually a non issue for most game developers. Every game no matter how well made will have a dissenting opinion. However when groups of Steam users begin applying pressure to the dev in the market place things take on a whole life of their own.

For example the Paid mods fiasco that Valve and Bethesda tried a while back. In this case Steam immediately back peddled to squash the damage it was having on the entire market place. Yes the entire market place, what happened in this case was that Steam users were so upset that Valve actually saw a massive boost to activity followed by a sudden drop in numbers. This is numbers across the board for steam use.

Typically a massive spike in usage is good, but if you know how to gauge your demographics, you would know that sudden spikes of this kind only happen when there is something seriously wrong. Not even during a hype train does anyone obtain data on a sudden spike as it is gradual and more long term.

Valve is exceptionally good at reading the numbers, and as I'm sure most of you know has the assets available to actually comb through it all and make reasonable determinations based on the information. They can track who owns a product and who doesn't, as well when a product purchaser revisits steam to leave a review.

Now this is a rather extreme example, however there is another situation that game developers fear (even me). That is the sudden and slow decline of a IP where the Steam community begins to attack and then ignore a product all together. Attention no matter the kind is good, but when the Steam marketplace users begin to completely ignore a product something magical happens.

The game is bumped down in popularity, doesn't show up as often or at all in the marketplace main pages, and will eventually wind up in what I like to call the "all sorts" area of the market place where shovel ware, and other oddities exist. No one comes back from this aether of Steam, most actually get taken down by steam when they sit there long enough.

Curious on how to find these games? Search for games that are seriously disliked. Most are so disliked that they can be fairly difficult to find, and will often be very cheap. These games typically have an inordinate amount of negative Steam reviews.

What to crush a AAA game developer, use Steam. Because Steam can hit them right where it hurts, in their wallets.
 
Honestly, I feel as though this will change nothing, and do nothing.

An idiot is born a minute, game developers know this.

Unless its something truly shitty, Ride to Hell Retribution levels of bad, you'll make money.

Expect the next thing to be shitty as ever.

And make millions.
 
Honestly, I feel as though this will change nothing, and do nothing.

An idiot is born a minute, game developers know this.

Unless its something truly shitty, Ride to Hell Retribution levels of bad, you'll make money.

Expect the next thing to be shitty as ever.

And make millions.

You are very negative, who not try;
 
You are very negative, who not try;


I'd love to be positive.

But that'd make me poor, and getting exploited daily by media.

Always look on the negative side of life, it might make you hang yourself by social exile.

But at least you won't be a sheep.
 
the total opposite of me the i only have 6 legally obtained games in my computer ( fallout 1&2 , arcanum , stalker series ) the rest ( 67 games ) is all cracked , the reason is when you don't have any legal offer avaible in your country you easily turn uourself toward piratery
 
the total opposite of me the i only have 6 legally obtained games in my computer ( fallout 1&2 , arcanum , stalker series ) the rest ( 67 games ) is all cracked , the reason is when you don't have any legal offer avaible in your country you easily turn uourself toward piratery

Where do you live?
 
morocco
the only physical offer is about casual games like fifa and cod

>Implying Fifa and CoD are games.

Absolutely disgusting.

I know that feel though, Australia has banned a few games, stupid shit.
 
Germany has traditionally been pretty bad with video game censorship. The german versions of games like Quake 4 or Soldier of Fortune 2 or yes, Fallout 3 and New Vegas were pretty bad, sometimes even unplayable or cut to the point that you couldn't follow the story. You used to get around this by importing games, but since the advent of Steam this has been getting a lot harder. New Vegas still has no gore on my computer even though the Ultimate Edition finally has an official german rating and can be set to english language and full gore (there's an issue with Steam there). I can't get an original version of Wolfenstein: New Order, which is highly annoying because they basically rewrote everything so you'd fight against the mysterious "Wolf Something Something" instead of Nazis. Yeah, dunno, you'd think you'd be allowed to kill Nazis in Germany, but when it comes to video games any use of Nazi symbols is a no-go.
 
Germany has traditionally been pretty bad with video game censorship. The german versions of games like Quake 4 or Soldier of Fortune 2 or yes, Fallout 3 and New Vegas were pretty bad, sometimes even unplayable or cut to the point that you couldn't follow the story. You used to get around this by importing games, but since the advent of Steam this has been getting a lot harder. New Vegas still has no gore on my computer even though the Ultimate Edition finally has an official german rating and can be set to english language and full gore (there's an issue with Steam there). I can't get an original version of Wolfenstein: New Order, which is highly annoying because they basically rewrote everything so you'd fight against the mysterious "Wolf Something Something" instead of Nazis. Yeah, dunno, you'd think you'd be allowed to kill Nazis in Germany, but when it comes to video games any use of Nazi symbols is a no-go.

Oh my god, Soldier of Fortune 2 was the fucking SHIT.

Why can't you blow people's limbs off in games now!?
 
Oh my god, Soldier of Fortune 2 was the fucking SHIT.

Why can't you blow people's limbs off in games now!?
People got tired of the ultraviolence gimmick. That, and excessive violence was under a lot of flak after a few school shooters. And finally, Halo and the rise of console FPS.
 
People got tired of the ultraviolence gimmick. That, and excessive violence was under a lot of flak after a few school shooters. And finally, Halo and the rise of console FPS.

Ahh yes, console tards and their limited hardware has to ruin it for everyone.

It's so funny how consoles grind to a halt when too much phsyics occurs.

My PS3 used to almost brick itself in a few games where you could fuck with physics.

Ultraviolence isn't really a thing though, no?

A grenade should shred someone, it shouldn't just go 'poof' and make people fall over, for their corpses to dissapear randomly.
 
Germany has traditionally been pretty bad with video game censorship. The german versions of games like Quake 4 or Soldier of Fortune 2 or yes, Fallout 3 and New Vegas were pretty bad, sometimes even unplayable or cut to the point that you couldn't follow the story. You used to get around this by importing games, but since the advent of Steam this has been getting a lot harder. New Vegas still has no gore on my computer even though the Ultimate Edition finally has an official german rating and can be set to english language and full gore (there's an issue with Steam there). I can't get an original version of Wolfenstein: New Order, which is highly annoying because they basically rewrote everything so you'd fight against the mysterious "Wolf Something Something" instead of Nazis. Yeah, dunno, you'd think you'd be allowed to kill Nazis in Germany, but when it comes to video games any use of Nazi symbols is a no-go.
And that is why TTW still to this day can't be installed using German copies of the games :-(.

About the Game Developers fearing the Steam user. It only happens if the game is not available on consoles. Game developers know that their target are console players, PC players are only a very small percentage of sales for AAA companies if they have their games released on PC and consoles.

I think the small indie studios fear the Steam user way more than the big studios. If you release your first or second game and you're a small indie, and users start rating your game down, you are pretty much doomed. Big companies just shrug it off because Steam is a little drop of water in the big ocean of profits. If the Steam user gets really angry at some company (to an extent we never saw before), what we might see is that company start to only focus on releasing games for consoles and abandoning the PC scene.

Let's not forget for example that EA, Ubisoft and Activision are three of the most hated gaming companies for years (decades even) and they still get massive profits each year. They never changed their practices and instead just became worst in some situations. No matter how much hate they get, they still exist, didn't change their practices and make tons of profit.
 
@ThatZenoGuy: It's not necessarily the physics, it's more the control scheme. With a controller you can't really aim that easily, so most console FPS have some sort of autoaim.
Actually, thinking about it I think it's probably just that we're so desensitized to video game violence that it doesn't really add much to the game. I mean, you can shoot off limbs in Fallout 4 right now, and DOOM is pretty damn gory, too, but this level of violence is normal now.
When Kingpin came out in 1999 it was really out of the ordinary. It was a lot darker and grittier than most games and the first to be really aimed at mature audiences (at least in the bracket of action games; porn games and other mature games already existed). Today it wouldn't be anything special, I think. Same with Soldier Of Fortune. It's highly detailed limb damage was a novelty back then, but today it's nothing special. Distracting, mostly, because why would a handgun blow off an arm?
Especially mainstream FPS are striving for a more realistic look, too, so flying limbs are not really a thing anymore.
 
@ThatZenoGuy: It's not necessarily the physics, it's more the control scheme. With a controller you can't really aim that easily, so most console FPS have some sort of autoaim.
Actually, thinking about it I think it's probably just that we're so desensitized to video game violence that it doesn't really add much to the game. I mean, you can shoot off limbs in Fallout 4 right now, and DOOM is pretty damn gory, too, but this level of violence is normal now.
When Kingpin came out in 1999 it was really out of the ordinary. It was a lot darker and grittier than most games and the first to be really aimed at mature audiences (at least in the bracket of action games; porn games and other mature games already existed). Today it wouldn't be anything special, I think. Same with Soldier Of Fortune. It's highly detailed limb damage was a novelty back then, but today it's nothing special. Distracting, mostly, because why would a handgun blow off an arm?
Especially mainstream FPS are striving for a more realistic look, too, so flying limbs are not really a thing anymore.

Well, realistic damage is nice, heavy rifles blowing off limbs with good hits is a realistic thing, explosives making a mess, etc.

But yeah, console-peasants are hilarious, I have a bunch brag to me like "Man I just got a 12 killstreak in Titanfall 2!"

I'm like, good job, you pressed aim, and shot the enemy, want a medal?
 
@ThatZenoGuy: It's not necessarily the physics, it's more the control scheme. With a controller you can't really aim that easily, so most console FPS have some sort of autoaim.
Actually, thinking about it I think it's probably just that we're so desensitized to video game violence that it doesn't really add much to the game. I mean, you can shoot off limbs in Fallout 4 right now, and DOOM is pretty damn gory, too, but this level of violence is normal now.
When Kingpin came out in 1999 it was really out of the ordinary. It was a lot darker and grittier than most games and the first to be really aimed at mature audiences (at least in the bracket of action games; porn games and other mature games already existed). Today it wouldn't be anything special, I think. Same with Soldier Of Fortune. It's highly detailed limb damage was a novelty back then, but today it's nothing special. Distracting, mostly, because why would a handgun blow off an arm?
Especially mainstream FPS are striving for a more realistic look, too, so flying limbs are not really a thing anymore.
On top if it King Pin also had a plot that was pretty grounded compard to most games that I remember. A guy out on revenge against a mobster or something. While also becoming a mobster in the process.
 
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