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Nope. ( https://www.gog.com/games?sort=popularity&page=1&category=indie )

Also, what do the kids say nowadays? "Ok Boomer." Unless that's already out.
Post edited February 05, 2021 by XVX777
Computer gaming is in such an excellent state right now that I have no clue how you can think otherwise unless you're talking about AAA games which I'm not been involved with since 1998.

Old games are still getting updates and add-ons for free - UT99, Doom (1993)
Indie games have been knocking it out of the part of the last 17 years+
Even freeware computer games have went on to becoming retail successes - Cave Story, ADOM, Nethack, Celeste
Emulation is just jamming!
Even 3rd party freeware tools have went on to be used by AAA devs because they were just that good - GGPO

If you don't like MXT games, why play them?

I've yet to play any and I've been computer gaming since the mid-80's.

More games like Streets of Rage 4, SHING!, Blazing Chrome and Skullgirls and I keep getting them and rocking them wiht my people.
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midrand: Yeah, I think you are being too kind to the guy. He has raised over $300 million - three hundred million dollars - and what does he have to show for it nearly 10 years later after starting the campaign? The game is in Alpha and will forever remain in Alpha until it moves to Beta, then Gamma etc. I am willing to bet real money on this.

In a normal multiplayer title, there should be a completed game world that is then a starting point for future development. Here nothing is complete - it's just a poor collection of small demos of the engine - flying version, first person shooter version etc. I stopped tracking this in 2015 - and it still looks the same today.

He might finish Squadron 42 at some point (again, this was meant to be finished when - 2014 or something?) but you can clearly see how he pivoted towards endless monetisation. In fact there is no incentive to ever get this to a finished state, that's why he has gone into a cycle of endless development. Hype is maintained through adding more and more functionality and scope that will just never come.

I mean, selling virtual space ships in a non-existent game for $250 american dollars? Come on.

In finance world this would be classified as typical Ponzi scheme (other than not having to pay out anyone - after all, you don't have to deliver on a promise if you keep on moving the goalpost). Bernie Madoff got 150 years in jail for this, but Chris Roberts will probably just walk off a richer man.
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Judicat0r: I clearly stated that the whole thing is dragging on for so much time now, but that aside, the MMO is playable right now and from years and is being constantly updated.

It's not a generic multiplayer title: is an MMO which have longer development cycles, he is (they are) doing what other MMOs have done before nothing more, nothing less.

Squadron 42 development is as well dragging itself from years now and there are not many excuses for that but people often (like to) forget that, like the MMO part, started with a level of complexity unseen before.

Is it right? Is it wrong?
Is it fair? Is it not?
To each their own,

I am an original backer one of the first 2000 backers in the world (I would have been even an earlier one but americans always do stuff in their timezone and not the global one) and golden ticket holder, am I happy with the whole status of the game(s)? Not really, I've grown miildly indifferent from years mostly because of some of their choices along the years that I don't support.

Do I find it a scam? No, at least unless it can be legally called that.

Ah, and 250$ for a ship is really not much if you consider the most expensive ones can go for 2500$ and 1250$ even more if you try to shop in the grey market.
I think you are being too kind on this whole affair. Star Citizen is not a traditional MMO gaming business model - it is a business model centered around a game in eternal development. It has to remain in development indefinitely and its scope has to increase indefinitely so as to get new players in. It does not have enough substance to migrate to a subscription model as it is not a game - it's a collection of tech demos - a space dog combat demo, a FPS demo and a hangar demo. There is very little to no gameplay as such behind it - just endless talk of complex systems, interactions and always focus on how wonderful it will be in the future.

The level of complexity is just promises - have you actually seen this complexity in action? Is it present in any part of this game today - or is it just paper promises? He did have some pretty clear timeline / release date promises that he certainly blew out the window.

I honestly think that after a few years Chris Roberts realised that this perpetual development model is providing him much greater revenues and he must simply keep on growing the scope and promises. It's a game that will just never be finished.

With all due respect, majority of MMOs are either sold as finished products or come out of "early access" within reasonable time frames. Yes, they are continuously improved, but there is a finished baseline product to begin with.

Do you think it is ok to sell a virtual non-existent ship for $2500 in a game that has not even been finished? Morally I don't believe this is ethical in any way - this is a scam of note. Yes, to each one his own.
Single player games are decent to die in the future.

explain why a company makes new games pouring millions of dollars and a project which have absolute no guaranties.
when you can make 3x the amount of money on DLCs?.

do not take a economist or wizkid to see where this is going.
low rated
I mean, common, NetHack is free... It's still getting updated. I think the issue is there's too many people out there complaining and not enough people wanting to invest, themselves. And when the average consumer quite clearly doesn't care much about hidden things, why should devs bother? I mean, spoilers are abound and hard to avoid, so what's the point of plot twists? If you take the time to make something good to appreciate, odds are it'll be blasted so much to your customer that it won't even be suprising or spectacular to the customer by the time it actually makes it to your customer. There's lots of products out there with lots of secrets, but you have to understand you gotta go to territory where it's obscure, and somehow sort the gems from the trash.

You need a grass roots movement of grass roots devs making games where grass roots reviewers are making spoiler free reviews, and then you need to propagate these reviews. I have no trouble having a massive backlog of both new and really old games that don't have microtransactions and 300USD full of DLC. If you're bothered by this, it's your own damn fault. The real drop is the lack of secret stuff, which, is entirely understandable. Then, too, there's the regulatory agencies keeping certain games with certain features from ever going to a mainstream platform (which, i think we can consider GOG one at this point). Devs are paid by, usually, corporations, and said corporations are not monitored by investors, but hedge-funders that buy and selling it again within a full minute. None of this is ever about the quality of the end product, but about how well it's going to look to people in the damn stock market. What's going to break it all is when you have someone who can make something that lands huge but is made absolutely free, voluntarily, and open source. This is actually quite practical: look at Minecraft's history, and then look at Cave Story, and look at your AAA titles. Turns out, the less money funding the game, the higher the chances of it churning out a decent game (barring low-effort development like alot of what we see on itch.io).

Frankly, what we need are devs who have more passion and interest in making a decent game than they have interest in making money, which actually happens from time to time. A dev could easily make a killing off this amazing new crowdfunding method called "the donation button." A dev could totally do this, but the prospect is scary. Why, though, if there are so many gamers out there wanting the industry to be fixed, hasn't a handful of them stood up and said "ok, let's make the game that we want to play?" Turns out, it actually happens, and it doesn't take long for them to get bought by a corporation and get trashed. If you want the problem fixed, try being part of the solution. You can learn C in a day, which is more than enough to get started. As you make more and more complicated games (starting simple), you improve your knowledge and skills. What's holding people back? What's your damned excuse?
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GeraltOfRivia_PL: I will take Baldur's Gate 2 any day over Battlefield or any other crap game
Why would you compare BG2 to Battlefield and not Witcher 3 or Oblivion or the Dragons Age saga?
I'd say no, for the most part. It's a business, same as any other, and as usual there is good and bad. You have to weigh your choices.
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midrand: I honestly think that after a few years Chris Roberts realised that this perpetual development model is providing him much greater revenues and he must simply keep on growing the scope and promises. It's a game that will just never be finished.
Alternatively, Chris Roberts might create the virtual universe in another 10-20 years that everyone will play and won't be able to function outside of. Kinda like the Ready Player One universe lol :)
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Judicat0r: I clearly stated that the whole thing is dragging on for so much time now, but that aside, the MMO is playable right now and from years and is being constantly updated.

It's not a generic multiplayer title: is an MMO which have longer development cycles, he is (they are) doing what other MMOs have done before nothing more, nothing less.

Squadron 42 development is as well dragging itself from years now and there are not many excuses for that but people often (like to) forget that, like the MMO part, started with a level of complexity unseen before.

Is it right? Is it wrong?
Is it fair? Is it not?
To each their own,

I am an original backer one of the first 2000 backers in the world (I would have been even an earlier one but americans always do stuff in their timezone and not the global one) and golden ticket holder, am I happy with the whole status of the game(s)? Not really, I've grown miildly indifferent from years mostly because of some of their choices along the years that I don't support.

Do I find it a scam? No, at least unless it can be legally called that.

Ah, and 250$ for a ship is really not much if you consider the most expensive ones can go for 2500$ and 1250$ even more if you try to shop in the grey market.
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midrand: I think you are being too kind on this whole affair. Star Citizen is not a traditional MMO gaming business model - it is a business model centered around a game in eternal development. It has to remain in development indefinitely and its scope has to increase indefinitely so as to get new players in. It does not have enough substance to migrate to a subscription model as it is not a game - it's a collection of tech demos - a space dog combat demo, a FPS demo and a hangar demo. There is very little to no gameplay as such behind it - just endless talk of complex systems, interactions and always focus on how wonderful it will be in the future.

The level of complexity is just promises - have you actually seen this complexity in action? Is it present in any part of this game today - or is it just paper promises? He did have some pretty clear timeline / release date promises that he certainly blew out the window.

I honestly think that after a few years Chris Roberts realised that this perpetual development model is providing him much greater revenues and he must simply keep on growing the scope and promises. It's a game that will just never be finished.

With all due respect, majority of MMOs are either sold as finished products or come out of "early access" within reasonable time frames. Yes, they are continuously improved, but there is a finished baseline product to begin with.

Do you think it is ok to sell a virtual non-existent ship for $2500 in a game that has not even been finished? Morally I don't believe this is ethical in any way - this is a scam of note. Yes, to each one his own.
I'm replying to you only because it looks like you know stuff that you caught here and there.

An example: when I was actively into the community there were a lot af articles coming out (especially when SC was the new big thing) let's say, not exactly accurate, usually someone used to to start a thread in order to let the community know about and discuss them.

One day after another article from a rather known gaming reviews site/news outlet came out, we started a topic in order to debate the stuff they got wrong and, when you know, the author popped in, when we brought to his/her attention the errors, his/her motivation was something along the lines of: I had an hour to gather info and then write the article.

That is most of the gaming journalism in a nutshell: people that write articles without knowing exactly their subject for clicks and by extension many gamers around the world clicking who take that crap for reliable information.

The Persistent universe is there for you to play in with many promised mechanics ready and working, millions of people actually play it, hundreds of thousands daily, it's right there, no vapor, no paper, the roadmap has been discussed to death, rewritten and publicly available, same goes for the single player.

MMOs are rarely sold as finshed products, that would in the worst case kill them in the span of few years, for example, EVE started in 2003, still played and worked on, there are plans for the next ten years, WoW, started in 2004, still being updated.
What do you find SC lacking of in your experience? What aspects of the game?

The existence of every MMO is tied to how many users it has and what people pay for it: if what they earn doesn't cover the cost then it's impossible to keep it going financially, simple as that.

The PU starter pack sets you back 45USD, The Single player one 55USD the combo 80USD, you don't need to buy any of those expensive ships which you can earn in the PU through gameplay and you don't have to subscribe for a monthly fee.

Morally? What kind of morality?
Who am I to judge the others and who are the others to judge me?
If people want to buy that stuff then they can suit themselves: personally back then I've bought two game boxes and a stand alone ship to support the development, I'm not sure I would do it today in hindsight albeit for different reasons.

I'm definitely not happy with their development model and they can be criticized for many, many reasons but to be honest could be worse.
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GeraltOfRivia_PL: Back when video game were starting to gain traction, they were made with heart. Of course, at the end of the day, the people making them were still paid workers trying to earn as much as possible. But they also wanted to make GOOD games.

2 decades on, Baldurs Gate 2, Fallout 2, Metal Gear Solid 2, and others still have so much detail that many modern games can't quite compare. And they were made on FAR inferior machines, with less budget.

I will take Baldur's Gate 2 any day over Battlefield or any other crap game

Nowadays, games have gone mainstream. Many casuals want to play. Games are made not as an art, but as a microtransaction hub. All of it is just an elaborate trap to convince a rich kid to spend 1200 dollars on a skin.

That's why i appreciate people like Hideo Kojima. He knows he makes weird games that won't ever go mainstream, but he doesn't care. He likes what he does.

Is gaming doomed? Have casuals destroyed any hope?
... I don't understand your point of view...
There are even much more good games out there today then in the past.
Gaming was never so diverse and there are much more possibilitys nowadays.
And the Pay-To-Win-Mafia isn't a result of a "doomed" gaming culture, these subjects are always there when they think they can scam people.
Post edited February 06, 2021 by user deleted
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midrand: ...
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Judicat0r: I'm replying to you only because it looks like you know stuff that you caught here and there.

... skipped ...

The Persistent universe is there for you to play in with many promised mechanics ready and working, millions of people actually play it, hundreds of thousands daily, it's right there, no vapor, no paper, the roadmap has been discussed to death, rewritten and publicly available, same goes for the single player.

MMOs are rarely sold as finshed products, that would in the worst case kill them in the span of few years, for example, EVE started in 2003, still played and worked on, there are plans for the next ten years, WoW, started in 2004, still being updated.
What do you find SC lacking of in your experience? What aspects of the game?

The existence of every MMO is tied to how many users it has and what people pay for it: if what they earn doesn't cover the cost then it's impossible to keep it going financially, simple as that.

The PU starter pack sets you back 45USD, The Single player one 55USD the combo 80USD, you don't need to buy any of those expensive ships which you can earn in the PU through gameplay and you don't have to subscribe for a monthly fee.

... skipped...
Look, I have signed up to Star Citizen during early Kickstarter days on the back of its promise of a solid single and multiplayer experience in space. Back in those days the scope was more defined and it felt like Mr Roberts wants to do a good game, not create an endless money making machine first and foremost.

No, I have not spent endless time on SC forums, but I have tried the game during various parts of development and found it to be what I described above - a disjointed collection of tech demos.

Your reply is also scant on details of what complex aspects of Persistent Universe are working and running today, in today's version of the game that gamers can play. I know the vast promises of hundreds of thousands of systems, complex economy, lore, missions etc - but what exactly is there today? Six locations as I can see? This IS vapoware. $80 for the single+multiplayer vapoware - wow, that's an expensive one (as a minimum).

What do I dislike? That there is no coherent game still to date, that single player is a failed promise and that Roberts and Co have basically failed to deliver a GAME. Watch this space, the game will never be finished (even on paper).
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midrand: I honestly think that after a few years Chris Roberts realised that this perpetual development model is providing him much greater revenues and he must simply keep on growing the scope and promises. It's a game that will just never be finished.
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anzial: Alternatively, Chris Roberts might create the virtual universe in another 10-20 years that everyone will play and won't be able to function outside of. Kinda like the Ready Player One universe lol :)
Nope, don't think so. Progress to date does not indicate that this will be the outcome. Also, Chris Roberts will be what - 72 in 20 years time - do you think he would still want to deal with this then? I think this is going to end in tears, it really will (for the gamers of course).
Post edited February 07, 2021 by midrand
Gaming has been Doomed for over two and a half decades, ever since the folks at id Software transformed the industry by introducing the multiplayer first-person shooter. A revolutionary success in its time, major titles cast in the image of Doom continue to be released today, and dominate the competitive gaming scene. Few single game titles can claim to have such an enduring influence and cultural impact. I posit to you that gaming is, in fact, Doomed, and will remain so for years to come.
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midrand: Nope, don't think so. Progress to date does not indicate that this will be the outcome. Also, Chris Roberts will be what - 72 in 20 years time - do you think he would still want to deal with this then? I think this is going to end in tears, it really will (for the gamers of course).
Agree to disagree lol. Plenty of people in their 70 and above who prefer to work rather than sit on their asses.
low rated
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midrand: Nope, don't think so. Progress to date does not indicate that this will be the outcome. Also, Chris Roberts will be what - 72 in 20 years time - do you think he would still want to deal with this then? I think this is going to end in tears, it really will (for the gamers of course).
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anzial: Agree to disagree lol. Plenty of people in their 70 and above who prefer to work rather than sit on their asses.
But, is that true of Chris Roberts, let alone the question of is that even the majority? Common
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kohlrak: But, is that true of Chris Roberts, let alone the question of is that even the majority? Common
guy driven as him is already a minority, so yeah, I totally see him to continue to be very active in his 70s. Besides, even if he does step down, don't you think someone else equally driven won't step in? In any case, time will tell :) Meet me back here in 20 years lol Or in starcitizen universe lol :)
Post edited February 09, 2021 by anzial