If gamers are playing the same game, day in and day out, that means it’s a good game. Good job, you made a good game and you sold it. Make another one and sell that.
Gaming as a service is what needs to die. I don’t mind subscribing for access to servers, and I’m happy to pay for DLC that comes out long after the original game.
The majority of games don’t have a lot of replay value though. You play them typically once, maybe twice, a few might do some special runs for a challenge but most people will play through it and then move to the next title. That causes a drop in active players and the troll claiming the game is dead and a failure. I think the perspective on active player numbers generally needs to change, both for single and multiplayer titles. Because the latter also just keep me artificially playing through dark patterns, such as daily login rewards, daily and / or weekly caps, loot rotations, battlepasses… etc. - but rarely because I actually want to play them. Or worse, I want to play them, but the former examples there are ultimately the reason why I quit those games, as they turn them into a chore, a job, except I’m not even getting paid for it.
If the games don’t depend on the publisher running a server for them to work, then there’s no “dead game” problem. We can play games until we’re done, then move on, and other people can play without us.
Yea, I’ve quit so many games almost because of the daily/weekly grind BS. I don’t care how fun the game loop is if it’s becoming a freaking job. Especially if I HAVE to do the BS to progress at the expected pace.
Fuck. That. I’m here for fun, not for a list of chores.
The sad thing is, many games wouldn’t even need this bullshit. They’re fun enough in their own core gameplay for me to come back to. They’d just have to accept that maybe I also want to do or play other things too. Good games with great replay value / new content are something I can easily come back to every now and then. But games that burn me out like this I’ll likely never touch again - and potentially not even the developer’s future titles since they’ll likely follow the same (or even a worse) concept.
Exactly. John “Bucky” Buckley is part of the problem if his company is making games that need a a first-party server to run.
Most single player experiences should work fine in a completely offline context. I don’t need to know what other players are doing.
Multiplayer games should allow second-party hosting. Like in those LANs we had in the 90s, but over the Internet.
Very few games benefit from being massively online. The online stuff is usually tacked-on FOMO rubbish that tries to make us addicted.
Perhaps let us finish a game, then we’ll buy another one. The current gaming economy is wrecked.
Do you need a first-party Palworld server? I don’t have the game myself but I searched and it looks like you are free to host your own, at least on PC: the “Palworld Dedicated Server” program is in the Tools section of your Steam library.
The game offers a small number of first-party servers, but anyone that owns it can host a dedicated server, or have their current play session work as a server by turning multiplayer on and sharing the invite code. You can also change several settings of your own server/world whenever you feel like, like material drop rates, experience rates, building deterioration, damage taken/done multipliers, stamina use, day/night length, etc.
I have the game, played it a lot, love it despite the bugs and somewhat frequent crashes. Save wipes after a crash are annoying, but I think it’s good that they happen to me, they help me stop playing for a while
I don’t play it either, and I’m happy to hear that.
that’s why I love monster hunter, I can play that shit for literal days straight without getting bored
Yeah, I’ve been playing Dayz for years as basically a hunter-gatherer, mainly as I’m rubbish at PVP but know the survival mechanics well!
Dude. I’m still playing Mass effect. Ditto New Vegas. Last year, i realized they had dlc I’ve never played and bought it. That’s, what? 15 years after the fact…? Try making a good game. Ditch the casino addiction style shit. People respond.
There are 2.8k people playing the Mass Effect collection on steam right now. Does that mean the game is dead? Of course not, it’s not meant to be endlessly replayable.
This is what the article is about, you are missing the point.
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I agree with you, but using Final Fantasy XIV is a weak example. Steam is one of the smallest platforms it’s on, with most PC players using the non-steam launcher.
As an MMO, it also has the benefit of players being able to see a ton of other people when they log in and the fan base talks about it enough that you never get that “whatever happened to that game” feeling.
Honestly, I think it’s that last thing that drives most of the dead game talk. Some games come out with tons of hype and then you stop hearing about it as much. Instead of looking up what’s going on, people just assume it flopped and no one plays anymore. Or it’s a game they wish had failed and by saying dead game they are trying to will that belief into existence, depends on the context.
Palworld had a big update at the end of June too, brought back a bunch of players
Ffxiv is cross play with steam, standalone launcher, PS5, PS4 etc. As another guy said, steam users is probably the smallest share of players
I think it’s mainly trolls that post “dead game” on games that are essentially (or wholly) single player. If you’ve got a live service game that people are saying “dead game”, then you should worry. Otherwise, ignore the trolls.
No one’s pushing anybody to do anything. The dead game discourse is about keeping art alive and preserving a freedom to choose what to play.
Edit: Wow. Weird way to phrase things. A “dead” game is something you’ll never be aple to play again (like The Crew). This guy is talking about “abandoned” games.
“Dead game” in this context refers to games that have low active player count. The obsession with active player count and daily player count is countered by things like daily log-in rewards that turn games into jobs.
Yeah, I’ve seen it in the article. But there’s currently a campaign going on that’s concerned with truly dead games. Calling a game which had a drop in player count “dead” is IMHO counterproductive, since it muddles the water for the current campaign.
“dead game” isnt owned by that movement and it has nothing to do with the article. “oh my bad” would have sufficed, blaming the article for your misinterpretation of the headline is silly
The campaign is called “stop killing games”.
And palworld isn’t dead. Youecan still play it.
People have been calling low player count games “dead games” faaaaaar longer than Ross’s campaign as been around. It’s so common it has a know your meme page! Your use is in the top description, but the origin and more popular use of the term is definitely referring to player counts
I enjoy playing Tropico!
One of my favorites!I loved 5 but for the love of God I can’t succeed in 6 past the colonial age
I’ve beaten a few of the scenarios, but Better Red than Dead is so HARD.
It’s not too surprising that people obsess over player counts when most of the news about how well games are doing is based on the metric.
They’re right though, gamers are way too eager to call any low player count game dead when really it’s the casual community having their fill of the latest content update.
One game I think handled daily rewards decently (after a decade of making it a chore) is Destiny 2. They used to have daily bounties at every vendor, now it’s just a handful and there’s a weekly “pathfinder” with branching goals, completing it lets you start another but since the rewards drop off it doesn’t feel like you’re missing out by not playing.
I’m busy and have a backlog.
It is one of those games you come back to after several months and a couple major patches.
