Community MetaSteam | March 2024 - Can we find Moominvalley in the Forbidden West?

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PC-tan

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Jan 19, 2019
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The funny thing about the PS5 Pro is how it's going to have PSSR. And how it's going to be better than FSR2....that's not that a huge achievement.


By which I mean some people are making it seems like it's a lot better than DLSS, but instead DLSS still the best solution out there that keeps on getting better and that AMD still can't compete with?





Other news, I went to watch Shrek 1 today in theaters in preparation to watch the 20th anniversary of Shrek 2 next month in theaters. Shrek 1 still hold up very well. Some of the imagine quality on some rare occasions can be ehh, you see aliasing and stuff like that, that is noticable.



I visited a retro game store and boy oh boy are the prices still ridiculous.


At least some prices were MSRP for when stuff released. But you still have stuff like PS Vita OLED models with CFW being well over $200USD. You had stuff like a Pokemon HG being over $200. A Pokewalker being close to $70.


You want the Tomb Raider 3 game collection for PS1? It's $100. You want a Xbox 360 slim model? It's close to $200.

A sealed copy of Pokemon Emerald was over $700USD.


Also some of the anime figures that they had were just BS prices. Hey look a Banpresto figure that should be maybe $35 at max? Nah that's $50. Hey look a pop up parade figure that's normal $35. Yeah that's now $70.

Hey look a rei Black Series Lightsaber, "shrink wrapped", a whooping $400+!!!!!

Meanwhile at Ross if you were lucky you could have gotten one for under $100.


I think retro stores are cool to look at stuff but at same time they are just so scummy.


But I guess that's just capitalism and wanting to profit off a hobby.


This is why I can at Times (key word being at times) sympathize with people that like physical copies of games. If they want a physical copy of a game and it does release at a point of time and are not that hard to get , than that's a good thing.


But it does piss me off that once a game that gets delisted that they gloat and say, see what happens. This is why I'm glad that I purchased a physical copy of the game..... Yeah they are just glad that they purchased a physical copy so that they can make a profit of said game.


There is truth to this since people that own retro game stores even tell you that the way that they make money is not by selling a bunch of games for cheap, but rather by selling a few games for very high prices. Since those high prices items are what sold people are specifically there to buy.


Typically video game stores don't do this, but I remember being at a local convention and a number of vendors were selling Pokemon cards. One specifically stall had this one card that was rather common, but it was graded. They didn't tell me the prices of it, and basically had to look it up. At that point I just felt like walking away.





I like some of the hobbies and think they are cool. But at the same time I feel like some of those hobbies are just meh.



Hey Hektor what's the last episode that I need to watch before watching End of Evangelion? Since the names confuse me. You have stuff like true end. End^2 and stuff like that.

Does it end at episode 23 or something?
 
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Derrick01

MetaMember
Oct 6, 2018
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Spoiler Alert:
99% of PC gamers don't buy >1000 buck cards. (and the pro is on a 3080 to 4070 level with the rumored specs)

And trade-ins are mostly an American thing. At least in Germany there are not many shops who even do trade-ins (Gamestops isn't big in Germany, they have 70! shops for a population of 80 million.
And you can't do cash trade-ins. On a quick glance you can get a PS5 slim for 150-200€ if you trade in your old PS5, (that's just getting the same console) and it has so many conditions (faultless, all cables, controller, no scratches, etc.) that you probably won't get the max trade-in (or even can do the trade, couldn't find if they just up the price or don't take the old console)
That's not a PS5Pro trade-in, that's just the slim.
Yeah that's a crap situation. Could sell it yourself but I personally don't like dealing with sites that set that stuff up, it's why I still have my LCD deck sitting in my room (gamestop doesn't take steam decks for some reason even though they STILL take PS vita trades). As for the gpu thing there's not really a lot of choices out there that dont' suck. To get an actual affordable gpu you have to go into the used market at this point as I'm not sure anyone still sells new 3000 cards. Nvidia and AMD both are really playing everyone for fools with their pricing.
 

PC-tan

Low Tier Weeb
Jan 19, 2019
3,803
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Spoiler Alert:
99% of PC gamers don't buy >1000 buck cards. (and the pro is on a 3080 to 4070 level with the rumored specs)

And trade-ins are mostly an American thing. At least in Germany there are not many shops who even do trade-ins (Gamestops isn't big in Germany, they have 70! shops for a population of 80 million.
And you can't do cash trade-ins. On a quick glance you can get a PS5 slim for 150-200€ if you trade in your old PS5, (that's just getting the same console) and it has so many conditions (faultless, all cables, controller, no scratches, etc.) that you probably won't get the max trade-in (or even can do the trade, couldn't find if they just up the price or don't take the old console)
That's not a PS5Pro trade-in, that's just the slim.
Looking at current GameStop trade in values.


OG 3DS XL

Pro

Credit : up to $99.00 cash: up to $69.30

Non pro
Credit : up to $90 cash : up to $63.00



PS5 Slim disc version.


PRO

CREDIT: up to $357.50 CASH: upto $250.25


NON PRO

CREDIT: upto$325.00 CASH:up to $227.50



As a comparison the current new price of the PS5 Slim disc version with the spider man 2 combo at GameStop is being sold for about $425 (not including taxes)

So you "lose" almost $100.



By the way I never worked at a GameStop. But I have been to them plenty of times and boy oh boy, the horror stories. People bringing trash bags of video games in hopes of selling them quick.

"Hey you guys buy games right?"

"Yes"

"Cool"


Processed to get 30+LB of video games in trash bags. (This happens more often then you think.


In Sam's cases people would try to sell "retro games" to GameStop and GameStop couldn't buy them and they would ask the people what they want to do. Do they want the employee to just throw the game away since they can't buy it. And in some cases they do just that.


I remember being at GameStop about a year ago and a person selling Pokemon Colosseum for GC and GameStop was offering them less than $20 for it. Meanwhile GameStop was selling the same game for over $50. Also Retro shops easily sell the same game for over $100. I don't think the retro game store would have purchased it for as low as $20. But would have at least offered the person $50 or more.


Screw retro stores and GameStop.


The funny thing about GameStop is that they failed pretty miserably to capitalize on Retro game sales. At one point they had a massive catalogue of games that they basically destroy to make way for more inventory and nowadays that old inventory would have made them more money than the new stuff.

They had old stuff but then once GameStop declares them "retro" after like 10+ years they stop buying them from people. And say "congratulations, you know own a retro item, sadly we are unable to purchase said item."

Now because of the bigger boom of retro stuff they are finally buying peoples old stuff. They must also want a piece of the buy since they can sell those retro games for well over $100 each and only need the disc/cart and nothing else.
 

yuraya

MetaMember
May 4, 2019
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So what is MetaSteam's take on Darkest Dungeon?

Its one of those popular gems I never got around to picking up for wtvr reasons. Seeing now its so only like 3$ and Deck verified as well.

I've heard a lot of good things about it over the years and kinda in the mood for some punishing/difficult dungeon crawling.

Is it worth getting into and spending a lot of time on it? Or has there been other better + similar style games released since?
 

kio

MetaMember
Apr 19, 2019
1,603
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So what is MetaSteam's take on Darkest Dungeon?

Its one of those popular gems I never got around to picking up for wtvr reasons. Seeing now its so only like 3$ and Deck verified as well.

I've heard a lot of good things about it over the years and kinda in the mood for some punishing/difficult dungeon crawling.

Is it worth getting into and spending a lot of time on it? Or has there been other better + similar style games released since?
My opinion may be biased as a kickstarter backer who put 150h into it but my humble opinion is that it's great. It's not flawless and there's a very clear meta that you're almost forced into but the joy it offers after overcoming a seemingly insurmountable obstacle is one of the best out there.
There are definitely a few copycats, Warsaw and Legend of Keepers spring to mind, but none is better than the original, although if I were to categorize DD I would put it in the Sandbox RPG subgenre where you'll find better and more robust experiences, like Battle Brothers or Kenshi, but I don't think any one of them is Deck friendly (BB certainly isn't sadly).
In short, get it!
 

fantomena

MetaMember
Dec 17, 2018
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I just bought a shitload of games from the sale (will post soon) including Helldivers 2 (not on sale though) and just realized Dragons Dogma 2 is out in a few days and still haven't finished Rebirth. :(
 
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Lashley

Computer Cowboy 🤠
At least you can trade in the ps5 and get like 300 back for it, makes the price tag easier to handle.

Besides the 2 systems combined don't even match what 4080s go for (assuming pro will be $500 again). And that's just for the gpu....
Cool. You're aware PC parts can be sold too, right?

Why do you need a 4080? The Pro won't be anywhere near that

500 for the PS5, 500 (we'll be nice and say 500 but it'll be more) for a Pro, then paid online, then the expensive games compared to PC. Shit adds up. Don't do the same thing the other site does where unless you own a 4090 then PC gaming is simply impossible.
 

Line

meh
Dec 21, 2018
1,699
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So what is MetaSteam's take on Darkest Dungeon?

Its one of those popular gems I never got around to picking up for wtvr reasons. Seeing now its so only like 3$ and Deck verified as well.

I've heard a lot of good things about it over the years and kinda in the mood for some punishing/difficult dungeon crawling.

Is it worth getting into and spending a lot of time on it? Or has there been other better + similar style games released since?
I hate it more than any other rogue lite.
Because it's not a rogue lite.

The game relies on you constantly following a guide to know exact rates for every action and item use, has paltry variety, and is nothing more than a giant grind not unlike the other fake and garbage rogue lite, Rogue Legacy.

The best way to play it, beyond following a guide for optimal choices, is to take useless lvl1 characters in missions too hard for them in order to grind ressources (may you win or not) for your real, strong party that you don't want to lose.
And if you play the game with full options, which includes crits from enemies, there's a 100% chance that you will randomly lose character for no reason anywhere and have to grind hours to get another one up to speed.

Like many, MANY rogue lites of today, they totally don't understand that the fun part is having different runs, and replace it with grinding for stats so you can power through, with the extra addition of punishing you in ridiculous time increments for losing RNG.
But then, I am in the minority, since everyone loooves shit like this, there's a reason why it's everywhere in AAA slop.
 

Hektor

Autobahnraser
Nov 1, 2018
5,963
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Hey Hektor what's the last episode that I need to watch before watching End of Evangelion? Since the names confuse me. You have stuff like true end. End^2 and stuff like that.

Does it end at episode 23 or something?
[/QUOTE]

Just watch the original TV show. That's all you need. And then EoE.
You don't need t

Based and Panzer pilled.
The movies are so PEAK ANIMATION, i'm legit frustrated they're not airing in cinemas overhere.
 
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Li Kao

It’s a strange world. Let’s keep it that way.
Jan 28, 2019
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What happened to you Line ? A couple years ago I remember feeling that you hated EVERYTHING, and then nowadays you have such excellent, motivated takes :cat-heart-blob:

I guess I would just say that I don’t really consider DD a Rogue-Lite. I guess, technically, you are right, but the game is so punishing that I feel a new genre name wouldn’t be inexact. To me it’s a ’hardcore grind’.

PS. I still remember your other excellent feedback on Wandering Sword, which in no small part is why it sits alone in my shopping cart now.
 

NarohDethan

There was a fish in the percolator!
Apr 6, 2019
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HOLY FUCK the other site is legit doing the "its just running in the background" shit unironically
Some people needed to be shoved into lockers more often it seems.
Don't forget to go outside once in a while 😋

How are the servers for Helldivers 2 nowadays? I'm eager to buy it as well, but I don't want to wait half an hour to join a server ..
It works mostly fine, right now I have an annoying bug where every time I start up the game it resets my loadout.
 

fantomena

MetaMember
Dec 17, 2018
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Don't forget to go outside once in a while 😋

How are the servers for Helldivers 2 nowadays? I'm eager to buy it as well, but I don't want to wait half an hour to join a server ..
No worries. I usually work out 1.5-2 hours 3 times a week + the past few weeks the school have been on many trips outside to enjoy the weather, most likely 1 trip outside this week.
 

Line

meh
Dec 21, 2018
1,699
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What happened to you Line ? A couple years ago I remember feeling that you hated EVERYTHING, and then nowadays you have such excellent, motivated takes :cat-heart-blob:

I guess I would just say that I don’t really consider DD a Rogue-Lite. I guess, technically, you are right, but the game is so punishing that I feel a new genre name wouldn’t be inexact. To me it’s a ’hardcore grind’.

PS. I still remember your other excellent feedback on Wandering Sword, which in no small part is why it sits alone in my shopping cart now.
I think ironically, it's because I post less :thinking-blob:
I try to play a bunch of things, but rarely leave behind my thoughts here, like for Penny's Big Breakaway. I haaate how it plays, between the fixed camera and the strange physics rolling on your yoyo, I can't stand it.

But the thing is, that's just what I think. So I have no reason to discourage people form paying it by adding a negative view here, not everyone will think as I do.
On the other hand, if there was a question about 3D platformers, I would say that I didn't like it, and would recommend other things, which is why I posted about Darkest Dungeon to begin with! Focusing more on being helpful to questions is a lot more productive.:cuteblob:

Although I might still add a snippet here or there about what I'm playing.
 

hersheyfan

South Sea Islander
Jul 17, 2021
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steamcommunity.com
So, thanks to a kind hearted friend, I now have a shiny new Steam Deck OLED! He knew i really wanted one, so he bought my old 512GB for basically what a new one goes for in these parts so i could buy an OLED (also a 512GB, so I basically traded the OG top end model for an OLED "middle" model).

Since I gave the old one a decent amount of use, the differences really stood out for me:
1) The OLED screen is obviously a big improvement in terms of clarity, but it also helps a lot with visibility under or adjacent to sunlight.
2) The battery life is massively improved, especially when you play mostly low-impact indie games. Previously, it was almost a given that the Steam Deck battery would give out before I wanted to quit, but I got through a whole afternoon of playing on the couch before the battery called it quits.
3) The Wifi is significantly faster - I maxed out at around 350Mbps on the OG Deck even standing right next to my router, the OLED in the same situation managed 725Mbps.
4) The OEM charger is much, much longer than it used to be, Valve must've eaten a lot of complaints about that shit, lol.

All in all, super happy with the new thing, it fixed basically everything I had issues with on the OG.

I also just found out that Valve baked fixed Steam Deck logo colors into the firmware itself (maybe to help technicians identify the unit's model at a glance). The premium version has the blue dot, the middle version has the red dot, and the old 64GB version has the white dot. So now I have a red dot on screen wake instead of a blue dot, which kind of bothers me lol. I'll live! :blobmorning2:
 

STHX

MetaMember
Sep 20, 2021
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HOLY FUCK the other site is legit doing the "its just running in the background" shit unironically
I swear today alone I saw at least 3 threads there where a user (or more than one) tried to minimize Steam's growth and/or sales, including at least one who was completely unrelated (no reference to Steam or PC in the thread title or in the opening post). These type of topics were never easy to discuss there but during the last month something serious must have happened because this type of posts has grown esponentially
I really can't wrap my head about it. Did it start with Palworld? Did it start with Helldivers 2? Did too many JP games sell well on Steam in the last 3 month? Was it the news of Sony not releasing new major games this year? Or the one about Switch 2 being delayed to 2025? Maybe the Xbox going 3rd party carnival of crazyness? Was it the current FFVII Rebirth sales discussion? Or that Unicorn Overlord news about no pc version? Ghost of Tsushima getting a PC port? I legitimally can't distinguish trolling from real posts at this point. It's like some people hate Steam so much they actually get mad any time a game finds success there or a positive thing is posted there about it
 

Lashley

Computer Cowboy 🤠
I swear today alone I saw at least 3 threads there where a user (or more than one) tried to minimize Steam's growth and/or sales, including at least one who was completely unrelated (no reference to Steam or PC in the thread title or in the opening post). These type of topics were never easy to discuss there but during the last month something serious must have happened because this type of posts has grown esponentially
I really can't wrap my head about it. Did it start with Palworld? Did it start with Helldivers 2? Did too many JP games sell well on Steam in the last 3 month? Was it the news of Sony not releasing new major games this year? Or the one about Switch 2 being delayed to 2025? Maybe the Xbox going 3rd party carnival of crazyness? Was it the current FFVII Rebirth sales discussion? Or that Unicorn Overlord news about no pc version? Ghost of Tsushima getting a PC port? I legitimally can't distinguish trolling from real posts at this point. It's like some people hate Steam so much they actually get mad any time a game finds success there or a positive thing is posted there about it
Steam is growing and consoles aren't. That seems to be the recent news, and some can't cope with it.
 

Li Kao

It’s a strange world. Let’s keep it that way.
Jan 28, 2019
7,870
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I think ironically, it's because I post less :thinking-blob:
I try to play a bunch of things, but rarely leave behind my thoughts here, like for Penny's Big Breakaway. I haaate how it plays, between the fixed camera and the strange physics rolling on your yoyo, I can't stand it.

But the thing is, that's just what I think. So I have no reason to discourage people form paying it by adding a negative view here, not everyone will think as I do.
On the other hand, if there was a question about 3D platformers, I would say that I didn't like it, and would recommend other things, which is why I posted about Darkest Dungeon to begin with! Focusing more on being helpful to questions is a lot more productive.:cuteblob:

Although I might still add a snippet here or there about what I'm playing.
I don't think the frequency of your posts is the culprit. You are just great at motivating your takes these days. Like, your Penny example, few words about it but I have alarm bells blaring in my head after reading it.
 
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Mor

Mor

Me llamo Willy y no hice la mili, pero vendo Chili
Sep 7, 2018
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I am curious as to why we are seeing this growth at the moment. Is this just organic or is something causing this to happen?
It is unknown and the more we try to figure out, the harder is to find a reason. It is known that by Spring season the platform experiments some growth but I don't remember something like this before tbh.
 

NarohDethan

There was a fish in the percolator!
Apr 6, 2019
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I am curious as to why we are seeing this growth at the moment. Is this just organic or is something causing this to happen?
I think it’s a delayed effect since the covid/crypto fucked everything for a while, and people are finally able to afford the hardware, even if the GPU manufacturers are doing their damnest to not let that happen.
 
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Gamall Wednesday Ida

Just a loon, apparently.
Dec 4, 2020
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Gamestops isn't big in Germany, they have 70! shops for a population of 80 million.
70! shops is actually a lot.

To put things is perspective, the area of Germany is 357,600 km².

So that's 70! / 357,600 = 3.35e+94 shops per km², or 3.35e+84 shops per cm².

Even with IPv6, which I believe has a geographical density of the order of 1e23 address/m², they will have to share IP adresses. :geek:
 

Paul

MetaMember
Jan 26, 2019
567
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Bought Horizon Forbidden West for 44 eur, I really hope I will enjoy it (thought first game was 8/10).

Also bought Blade Runner Enhanced for 3 euros - it is good now, but the remastered graphics still blurs the image too much, it is sad. At least it can be toggled with original graphics in realtime though.
 
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dex3108

MetaMember
Dec 20, 2018
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Friend dared me to buy Dragons Dogma 2 by saying if i get it he will get it so yeah now i am waiting for DD2 key from CDKeys even though i didn;t play first one XD
 
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NarohDethan

There was a fish in the percolator!
Apr 6, 2019
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Horizon is so mid. If it wasn't Sony people wouldn't care. It's ubisoft like.
I like Ubi schlock and I still found it underwhelming. Like it's not bottom of the barrel bad, but there's nothing special there, other than the visuals I suppose.
 

Lashley

Computer Cowboy 🤠
I like Ubi schlock and I still found it underwhelming. Like it's not bottom of the barrel bad, but there's nothing special there, other than the visuals I suppose.
Same and same.

Ghost of Tsushima isn't too dissimilar, but there's something there.

Horizon managed to make dinosaur machines boring.
 

Kyougar

No reviews, no Buy
Nov 2, 2018
3,282
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possible reasons for Steams newly continued CCU growth

  • Inflation effects hitting the more pricier segments of console gaming
  • losing confidence in Playstation business (another midgen upgrade, no high profile games in 2024, expectation of more and more games coming to PC
  • xbox dead
  • no point in investing into the Switch ecosystem a year out from the Switch 2, unless you just want a cheap console and don't intent to buy SwitchU at release
  • forevergames and generation-agnostic gaming is easier and cheaper than on console.
  • the last few months was a trail of despair for console confidence
 

Paul

MetaMember
Jan 26, 2019
567
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Horizon is so mid. If it wasn't Sony people wouldn't care. It's ubisoft like.
Talking about first or second?
I finished the first and agree that it is nothing particularly special - its writing and sidequests were mostly pedestrian - but I did enjoy the main story, discovering what happened with the world, as well as combat and the graphics. But yeah it is very ubisofty. I hope second game has better sidequests at least.
 
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yuraya

MetaMember
May 4, 2019
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Looking at Steam stats nothing seems out of the ordinary in terms of new releases. Helldivers 2 continues its great performance but everything else is same old GaaS/F2p stuff but more people are playing them. All the singleplayer showing good legs as well.

Last Epoch seems to have found some success too.

But overall it looks like its regular growth across the board really.

Console gaming being stagnant is probably a positive for Steam but PC is such a global platform at this point I think this growth would be happening regardless. It must be really hard to get into console gaming in the more poorer regions around the world. Everyone is priced out but at least with PC you can go mid-lowspec and still enjoy thousands of games via Steam.
 
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Lashley

Computer Cowboy 🤠
Talking about first or second?
I finished the first and agree that it is nothing particularly special - its writing and sidequests were mostly pedestrian - but I did enjoy the main story, discovering what happened with the world, as well as combat and the graphics. But yeah it is very ubisofty. I hope second game has better sidequests at least.
1st, had no interest in the sequel following that
 

NarohDethan

There was a fish in the percolator!
Apr 6, 2019
9,118
25,494
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possible reasons for Steams newly continued CCU growth

  • Inflation effects hitting the more pricier segments of console gaming
  • losing confidence in Playstation business (another midgen upgrade, no high profile games in 2024, expectation of more and more games coming to PC
  • xbox dead
  • no point in investing into the Switch ecosystem a year out from the Switch 2, unless you just want a cheap console and don't intent to buy SwitchU at release
  • forevergames and generation-agnostic gaming is easier and cheaper than on console.
  • the last few months was a trail of despair for console confidence
Everytime I buy something from the PSN I’m praying Sony won’t ban me because I’d be screwed.
 
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Kyougar

No reviews, no Buy
Nov 2, 2018
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Console gaming being stagnant is probably a positive for Steam but PC is such a global platform at this point I think this growth would be happening regardless. It must be really hard to get into console gaming in the more poorer regions around the world. Everyone is priced out but at least with PC you can go mid-lowspec and still enjoy thousands of games via Steam.
There is also a rather western-centric view that console gaming initial costs (hardware + games) is cheaper than PC gaming.
While in many countries the regional pricing of consoles is just abysmal. And you can boot up Steam on any 10-year-old PC and play cheap or free games.

There are also Internet cafes in places like SE Asia which have Steam installed and people can get their initial fix for the ecosystem.
It is quite strange how the console platforms hadn't made a play into Internet-cafe-like places where you can play console games.
 

fantomena

MetaMember
Dec 17, 2018
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Investing in the Xbox ecosystem must be dangerous at this point.

To me the room reads like Xbox has an uncertain future.
 
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Alextended

Segata's Disciple
Jan 28, 2019
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It is quite strange how the console platforms hadn't made a play into Internet-cafe-like places where you can play console games.
There were consoles in internet/gaming cafes as long as I can remember, but the most popular games to pay to play were PC, dota, quake 3, counter-strike, unreal tournament, lol, whatever rts, etc., maybe some pro evo on consoles on the side even though plenty more were available. Locally there was a popular console store that had a console play area that was popular in the 90s/00s to play games on consoles other than what you had with some ccgs on the side but that went away while primarily PC places remain. But paying to play a game is not really getting into the ecosystem either, regardless of platform, to me.
 

Kyougar

No reviews, no Buy
Nov 2, 2018
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There were consoles in internet/gaming cafes as long as I can remember, but the most popular games to pay to play were PC, dota, quake 3, counter-strike, unreal tournament, lol, whatever rts, etc., maybe some pro evo on consoles on the side even though plenty more were available. Locally there was a popular console store that had a console play area that was popular in the 90s/00s to play games on consoles other than what you had with some ccgs on the side but that went away while primarily PC places remain. But paying to play a game is not really getting into the ecosystem either, regardless of platform, to me.
In 2024 you are right, there is no way that you can get many gamers into your ecosystem with console internet cafes, that train is long gone with most games being Multiplatform.
But Imagine the PS360 or early XBO/PS4 generation in China, Taiwan, Vietnam, India, Brazil, Singapore, etc. Those people would have been fixed on Halo, Gran Tourismo, Final Fantasy, Mass Effect, Mario Kart, Pokemon, and so on. They would have grown up with memories playing those games on the console ecosystem.
And with a "little" investment of the console makers in those markets, those gamers would be invested in the console ecosystem and possibly buying their own consoles.

Alas, they only remember PC gaming and are not important enough for the console companies.
 
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PC-tan

Low Tier Weeb
Jan 19, 2019
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California
There is also a rather western-centric view that console gaming initial costs (hardware + games) is cheaper than PC gaming.
While in many countries the regional pricing of consoles is just abysmal. And you can boot up Steam on any 10-year-old PC and play cheap or free games.

There are also Internet cafes in places like SE Asia which have Steam installed and people can get their initial fix for the ecosystem.
It is quite strange how the console platforms hadn't made a play into Internet-cafe-like places where you can play console games.
I just don't think the whole Cafe thing would work out that well.


In my towns years ago, someone did try opening up a PC cafe but it didn't last very long.


I think price is a big part of it, in the US it might not make a lot of sense to go to a PC cafe, because of there was one it would be expensive.

Take South Korea as an example, aren't PC Bangs really big there? And isn't it less than $2 per hour to play a game there? Not only that you would be going there with your friends to play. So maybe you and "the boys" decided to play the new "it game" and spend less than 5 hours there. That would be less than $10 for each of you. The prices are not that cheap in the US. But would need to be higher, maybe $5 an hour or more. Now you are looking at $25 and that's almost half the old price a AAA game.


I didn't get a chance to check it out but when I was in Mexico I did see a cafe, but I don't think it was for PC, but rather for consoles. I did want to check it out since I was curious about the prices. And how account sharing and individual profiles are handled for games.


I do believe that part of the lack of PC cafe stuff for places like the US, also has to do with the whole "couch experience". That's how people expect you to play



I just thought of how weird it sort of is, that my local retro game store doesn't really have a place to try out video games. It's weird in a way. But I guess that's just how movie rental places used to work? This is not just retro places, but even places like GameStop and Walmart, toys r Us and others use to have video games kiosk but they have removed a lot of them. They still do exist in some places, but is it possible that people feel more comfortable doing that stuff at home? And not out in public?


I guess the only thing that does exist in places like the US where people can still "play" in the open are arcades. Arcades are still around in the US, but they don't really exist independently. Like they might in Japan and other places. If an arcade exist, it's because it's an optional experience for a place. If you go to a chuck E cheese place they will have pizza and stuff for kids and the arcade. So arcades in the US are largely associated with pizza. If you can order pizza and it's a place where you can sit down and eat the food, potentially they may have arcade machines in that place. Also it's a custom to have at least one of your childs birthday parties at one of these places (at least once). If not then arcades in the US would be a lot rare. They do exist in malls and in some movie theaters, but like I mentioned they don't exist by themselves. The only reason that the large arcade exist in the mall near me. Is because it's owned by that retro store that sells the insanely expensive games. Otherwise it wouldn't make as much financial sense.

Flynns arcade is dead




Now that I think about it, even stuff like handheld I don't think people use to play as publicly. It would maybe be in busses and stuff. Or by younger kids. But I don't think I have really seen people bust out a switch in public despite what you might hear. Hey I'm at a park, let me bust out my switch or something else. That's rare, and if they are playing it, it's in the car away from people.



Thank you for attending my TED talk.
 

Dragon1893

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Apr 17, 2019
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Tried streaming my brother's PS5 to my deck with chiaki (locally) and it worked flawlessly. Very nice.

Curious to see how Sony will price the Pro.
Other than that, couldn't care less about the online discourse regarding console vs PC. Let people buy/play whatever they want. Who cares? These last few pages are really giving me deja vu from previous leaks/announcements.
 

dex3108

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Dec 20, 2018
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Absolutely the worst thing about first Horizon is traversal. It is awful. And rest ranges from mediocre to ok.
 

Kyougar

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Nov 2, 2018
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I just don't think the whole Cafe thing would work out that well.


In my towns years ago, someone did try opening up a PC cafe but it didn't last very long.


I think price is a big part of it, in the US it might not make a lot of sense to go to a PC cafe, because of there was one it would be expensive.
[...]
My whole argument here is, that the whole console business is western-centric and the console companies did ignore an opportunity to fix gamers on consoles with Internet-cafe-like places in Asia, Eastern Europe, and South America.
Especially in some Asian countries PC is big BECAUSE of Internet Cafe's in the 2000s and 2010s
 
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