Steam

[Remij]

yeah, Steam things.... You just have to take a look at the most recent big hitters on Steam. No AAA games at all and games that can run on a potato PC.

Balatro
Helldivers 2
Palworld
Lethal company
BattleBit Remastered

Well which new AAA games have released in that time? Let's say since last quarter '23 to now.

-Alan Wake 2.. game didn't light sales charts on fire on console either. No Steam release.
-Avatar FoP.. again the game didn't light sales charts on fire on console either.. No Steam release.


Simply put.. there hasn't been big AAA game releases recently on Steam..

Dragon's Dogma 2 is coming up.. and I'd put money on that game being very successful on PC.

PC is where all games of all budgets can be successful. PC gamers are more willing to experiment with games. The reason why PC gamers are perceived as stingy when it comes to paying "full AAA price" for games... is because there's a million other games out there which provide just as much, or more fun for less.

Fun will ALWAYS sell more than production values. It's why Nintendo is successful, it's why games like the ones you listed are so successful.

 

[hughJ]

Stingy or they just prefer to play PC games on PC. If the console game doesn't map to mouse/keyboard incredibly well then a subset of users aren't going to give it a chance. If it doesn't have good/interesting customization features then another subset of users won't give it a chance. If the AAA games are just a vanilla port of a console game then you're only appealing to a subset of the market that want to play console games, don't own a console, and yet have the money to afford a decent PC.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Not of suitable capabilities to run PS5 level games. Many kids run on potato laptops or iPads for schoolwork as that's all that's needed these days. It's not a simple, "let's not spend £500 on a PS5 and instead play for free on Steam on our current desktop," but more, "should we get a £500 PS5 or spend something more on a new desktop?" or "should we get a £500 PS5 or look into upgrading our desktop?" where the latter is more technical requirement than many can care for.

I think for Joe Public, Steam isn't able to advertise as an alternative. Either you 'get it' and PCs and upgrading etc., or you don't, but I don't think PS5 titles on PC is going to get many more people thinking about 'getting into PC' and learning what RAM and CPU and GPU are and opening them and installing graphics cards and updating drivers etc. There's only a small subset of console gamers who can make that transition comfortably.

Heck, there's people coming up these days that don't even have a potato PC. A lot have an iOS or Android device (phone and/or table) and maybe a Chromebook for school.

In some indie game forums I see people asking if there will be an Android version of a game that isn't coming to console because they don't have a PC and would like to either buy it on mobile or sideload it on their Android device.

Basically, they don't have a PC and they can't afford to buy a PC. So, their only gaming options are console and Android/iOS.

Regards,
SB

 

[Cyan]

Steam hits over 34m concurrent players

record already broken in less than a week. 35.385.530 users.

I am one of those connected right now, playing Deponia.

https://steamdb.info/app/753/charts/#3y

 

[Cyan]

Simply put.. there hasn't been big AAA game releases recently on Steam..

even so It seems like a bubble that never ends bursting, and it doesn't look like it will do so in the short term.

Streaming platforms like Twitch.tv, exclusive games like League of Legends or the arrival of games from other platforms like Xbox, PS5 (and Switch in its own way) games, and also the high prices of consoles, which seem to no longer be able to lower their prices.... have made the PC go from a niche to a mainstream platform.

Let's see the next few years, but between the fact that the consoles do not seem to be officially priced at 300€ for quite some time and then the boom of handhelds on PC, it looks like its success is going to rise quite a bit.

Dragon's Dogma 2 is coming up.. and I'd put money on that game being very successful on PC.

It seems to me that in a couple of weeks Steam's concurrent users will rise to 36M thanks to Dragon's Dogma 2, which on top of the fact that it is running at 30 FPS with drops on consoles, it will surely attract a few to get it on PC.

 

[arandomguy]

now that you mention it, most PC gamers have very basic PCs for gaming. I'd say 10% or less of Steam users have a powerful PC -many of them less powerful than current consoles-, most Steam users have very basic PCs and integrated graphics cards.

I suppose that the people you find in the forums will be mostly from that 10% "master race", the people who simply play where they can and it happens that they have a pc that more or less run games because those people play and that's it don't go around boasting in the forums that their pc platform is better than any other.

One other thing I'm trying to get at though is I feel hardware enthuasists also tend to make this assumption in terms of hardware and AAA multiplat SP game interest (or console centric) when I don't feel that is the case. A lot of PC centric games themselves are very hardware demanding or at the very least also benefit (as in a better experience) from better hardware.

While games like CS2 can be played on a "potato" you actually do get a better experience with capable hardware. Also top games like Apex Legends, PUBG, and etc. certainly aren't really ideal in terms just being played on a potato. A lot of the indie/smaller phenomena, eg say Palword, also don't run well and you need capable hardware to just brute force it. Or something like BG3, is that really a "console" game or PC centric game? MMORPGs also historically have been rather PC centric and not really potato centric either. What about the SIM focused crowd? Not to mention even outside of just gaming how much more mainstream GPU based creation software is nowadays. Basically you could want and benefit from a RTX 4090 (or at least a 3060/4060 and up) even if you have very low interest in those highly demanding console multiplatform AAA titles.

 

[arandomguy]

Streaming platforms like Twitch.tv, exclusive games like League of Legends or the arrival of games from other platforms like Xbox, PS5 (and Switch in its own way) games, and also the high prices of consoles, which seem to no longer be able to lower their prices.... have made the PC go from a niche to a mainstream platform.

I don't feel PC gaming itself has ever been niche but more so that the "master race" which has been niche.

PC gaming as in things like Warcraft, World of Warcraft, Starcraft, Diablo, Civilization, The Sims, Counter-Strike, DOTA/2, League of Legends, and etc. have always been pretty mainstream. What hasn't been mainstream? Well you know how Crysis is known in the "master race" circles? I recall talking with people in the late 2000's and they never heard of it, even though they played games on the PC. World of Warcraft then was certainly a mainstream known title even among people who didn't play games at all, but if you asked people in general to list notable PC games form 2000-2010 I don't think Crysis would come up. It would come up with you strictly surveyed people in specific demographics though.

Another ancedote here since I happened upon this recently but from what I read Myst actually outsold Doom 2:1 during their heydays. Yet we know which game was likely much more ingrained to PC gaming on the demographics likely to frequent this forum (and others similar).

 

[Cyan]

Another ancedote here since I happened upon this recently but from what I read Myst actually outsold Doom 2:1 during their heydays. Yet we know which game was likely much more ingrained to PC gaming on the demographics likely to frequent this forum (and others similar).

which version of Doom was outsold 2:1 by Myst? Doom 3? I never played Myst tbh. It sounds to me like an adventure game, although I started playing adventure games after the Broken Sword 2 demo was released, and I fell in love with it. I am genuinely surprised if that was the case. I had Doom on my first PC, and I got addicted to it --even managing to learn how to make maps for Doom using certain editors. Myst sounds familiar to some extent but I never thought it was a thing.

 

[Cyan]

Just because you have a PC doesn’t mean you’re technically inclined. Also connecting PC’s to a TV just isn’t a thing for most people.

As long as consoles continue to offer a stress free, plug n play, living room experience, they’ll do well.

the days of considering a PC a device for work, or super complex because of the hassle are coming over. You can now use a PC just to play games, or work online -web- or on a desktop app. There are traces of all the crap as Shifty would say, like the other day when my 6 and 4 y.o. nephews were playing Rocket League on my computer, they were thrown to the desktop -the game continued working fine in the background- 'cos Onedrive deleted several files and told me about it. I hated that. But aside from details like that, you can build a PC for gaming and have a relatively easy experience. Specially now that imho, Microsoft is going to take PC gaming seriously once and for all.

It seems to me that not having been able to defeat Sony in the desktop market has raised Microsoft hackles up and they are already directly against the entire console platform thing. Microsoft seems to be interested in leaving only the PC as the main platform for practically everyone.

 

[pcchen]

which version of Doom was outsold 2:1 by Myst? Doom 3? I never played Myst tbh. It sounds to me like an adventure game, although I started playing adventure games after the Broken Sword 2 demo was released, and I fell in love with it. I am genuinely surprised if that was the case. I had Doom on my first PC, and I got addicted to it --even managing to learn how to make maps for Doom using certain editors. Myst sounds familiar to some extent but I never thought it was a thing.

Myst sold extremely well at its time. I've seen claims that it's the best selling PC games at its time (~ 6 million copies world wide, not including console ports). During the same time period, Doom (of all versions) probably sold 3 ~ 3.5 million copies. I also found an old IGN article (on web archive) but it's US sales data only:

pc.ign.com: PC Data Top Games of All Time

Want to know what sold best since January of 1993? We've got the answers.

web.archive.org

PC gaming was very different at that time. I also never played Myst but I still remembered my time playing Doom with my friends via modem
I also played some Sierra Online adventure games (such as the some Space Quest games) but later my interests turned to RPGs and FPS games.

 

[Cyan]

Myst sold extremely well at its time. I've seen claims that it's the best selling PC games at its time (~ 6 million copies world wide, not including console ports). During the same time period, Doom (of all versions) probably sold 3 ~ 3.5 million copies. I also found an old IGN article (on web archive) but it's US sales data only:

pc.ign.com: PC Data Top Games of All Time

Want to know what sold best since January of 1993? We've got the answers.

web.archive.org

PC gaming was very different at that time. I also never played Myst but I still remembered my time playing Doom with my friends via modem
I also played some Sierra Online adventure games (such as the some Space Quest games) but later my interests turned to RPGs and FPS games.

oh man, this post is perfect timing. Mattel was behind the game, no more no less. Also a Barbie game was amongst the best sellers, wth? Gaming changed a lot for sure.

Mattel announced yesterday that they are planning to develop games.

Read somewhere that the Barbie game for PC got into the Great Videogame Hall of Fame....

Also, there are four Mattel games in the top selling PC games at the time, I am very surprised tbh.

1) Myst (Mattel Interactive) 4,236,198

2) MS Flight Simulator (Microsoft) 2,781,288

3) Doom II (GT Interactive) 1,553,587

4) Riven: The Sequel to Myst (Mattel Interactive) 1,305,595

5) Monopoly Game (Hasbro Interactive) 1,273,553

6) Warcraft II (Havas Interactive) 1,250,675

7) Diablo (Havas Interactive) 1,176,457

8) Doom Shareware (Id Software) 1,154,541

9) Sim City 2000 (Electronic Arts) 1,136,244

10) Star Wars: Dark Forces (LucasArts) 952,033

11) Duke Nukem 3D (GT Interactive) 946,664

12) Deer Hunter [Ed Note: By Wizardworks on CD-ROM] (GT Interactive) 944,703

13) 7th Guest (Interplay) 926,948

14) Starcraft (Havas Interactive) 906,128

15) MS Return of Arcade (Microsoft) 902,313

16) Lego Island (Mattel Interactive) 897,005

17) Command & Conquer: Red Alert (Electronic Arts) 869,623

18) Sim City Classic (Electronic Arts) 827,355

19) Barbie Fashion Designer (Mattel Interactive) 825,655

20) Ultimate Doom Thy Flesh (GT Interactive) 787,397

-- IGN Staff

 

[Cyan]

Prototype 'Steam Machine' dusted off and tested — running Windows on an old AMD APU ten years later

Even in its own time, it wasn't very fast.

www.tomshardware.com

 

[hughJ]

Myst was published by Broderbund who published a bunch of popular PC games during the 80s and early 90s, Mattel just bought them later on. Don't read into IGN's list too much.

But Myst is a great example of how the PC platform wasn't a homogenous market. Myst, Sim City 2000, and Doom came out in the same year. All huge games in terms of sales and were synonymous with PC gaming at the time, but all three weren't necessarily appealing to everyone. I knew households in my neighborhood that had one or two of those, but I don't remember any that had all three. The same dynamic is still seen today on PC -- even the most popular games don't necessarily carry universal appeal. Contrast that with AAA console games today which are designed for universal appeal above all else.

 

[homerdog]

There's an interesting thing here in that this might not be exactly true. There's indications that "Gen Z" is actually not very computer, as in Windows desktops or laptops, savvy as whole because that generation actually didn't really grow up with computers but phones/tablets (or I guess even Chrome Books). Basically "tech savvy" has in changed between Millenials and Gen Z due to what is considered "tech."

In my old job I sometimes had to deal with students coming in with computer problems and I found the following to be mostly true. Although at the time I didn't quite understand why it was sometimes so difficult for them to communicate their problem to me.

Students don't know what files and folders are, professors say

A whole generation has grown up with powerful search functions, and don't think about computers the same way.

www.pcgamer.com

Now whenever I go into a situation I try to find a millenial or younger genx to describe the problem to me.

 

[Cyan]

Google goes after Steam it seems.

Google directly competes with Steam and Epic by offering its own PC games

Google is expanding its catalogue of its own PC games, opening up publishing to interested developers. This became known at the annual Google Game Developers Summit.

gagadget.com

 

[Sonic]

Myst has the advantage that it was point and click, and also came out at the time when content on CD's didn't use up all the space they could. So a game with a bunch of pretty images that filled up the disc came along that didn't require complex commands it was an easy impulse purchase for many. I remember seeing unopened copies at various family members house who had recently gotten a computer. Bso yeah it sold significantly well for its time.

I imagine Doom was played by more people overall than Myst at the time. Especially the shareware version.

 

[hughJ]

I recall Newell stating that the initial push for him to start Valve came from how popular Doom was. Something to the effect that Doom was on more systems than Windows was. I'd imagine that Doom's install base is something that wasn't fully reflected in official sales or download numbers. Undoubtedly a lot of physical sharing of shareware disks that can't be tabulated. Maybe MS had some concrete analytics internally, because it sounds crazy.

And yeah -- Myst rode the CD-ROM multimedia boom. Doom wasn't a must-have purchase for every family's new Compaq Presario in the way Myst was, or edu-tainment stuff like Carmen Sandiego. Sim City 2000 was dense enough to be unappealing to younger kids. Doom had blood and pentagrams and congressional hearings.

 

[Cyan]

I imagine Doom was played by more people overall than Myst at the time. Especially the shareware version.

hmmmm never thought of that. But it sounds right, 'cos I was one of those who started with the shareware version of Doom, and also I used a trick to play more levels, just opening the Notepad in Windows 95 and loading the .wad file of the game, and changing the first word from PWAD to IWAD, I could play all levels. I remember that I found that out by sheer chance, since I liked to fiddle with the internal content of game files. It was something along those lines..., iirc.

Another one of my favourite games to day, The Need for Speed III Hot Pursuit could be easily modified using the Notepad too. I went into the game files and I modified the weight of my favourite's car, the Ferrari F-355 so it weighed 100Kg or so, which caused it to accelerate faster than a F1 .

Also, using the gamepad in the save file of Eurofighter 2000, a very challenging combat aircraft simulator, for those super hard encounters and advance, tough enemy aircraft, like the Su-27, which always managed to take me down, I went into the save file and declared almost every enemy aircraft -and there were hundreds- MIA by writing MIA in her status within the save file using Notepad, and I won the war 'cos of that.

But yeah, the shareware version of Doom was everywhere. I think every level of the initial campaign was memorable and almost unforgettable, just like in Quake.

 

[Cyan]

so... does anyone have experienced this weird Steam bug?

Sometimes when I am playing a game on the Epic Store, PC Gamepass, or Steam, the gamepad always moves up automatically for no apparent reason -I am not touching the keyboard, nor the mouse-. Then after a while a screen keyboard appears and you can do nothing, it's like an overlay which has priority, you can't play the game and the keyboard is not very intuitive, nothing seems to work on it.

At first I though it was a virus, but it turns out that it is a Steam on-screen keyboard. So the only solution I found is to close Steam, and then everything goes back to normal. The on-screen keyboard disappears and the gamepad stops trying to always go up -it feels as if someone pressed up in the left stick forever-.

 

[hughJ]

Maybe some combination of the Steam controller service and whatever controller profile it's using has the analog stick deadzone too tight (causing phantom movement)? Not sure what the trigger is for the keyboard to display. All that stuff is finely configurable in the Steam settings so you should be able to troubleshoot it.