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Gameroom

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Re: Gameroom

#111

Post by kbenson »

DumpOfGenius wrote: post #95
enraged_camel wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>Is steam so profitable this makes sense? We don't have the numbers obviously, but Steam must be so profitable that Valve is primarily a software distributor these days. Over the past six years, they've released only two titles (Portal 2 in 2011 and Dota 2 in 2013), and Half-Life 3, a game that is guaranteed to sell millions upon millions of copies, isn't even on the horizon.

I don't think they really care about earning money from their original games. They give out team fortress 2 for free, and has been actively maintaining it all these 9 years. They sell all value game as a bundle for like $20 last year. On the other hand. Others like battle.net, origin, uplay are just other game companys trying not to give away 30% cut of their new hot game by selling at valve's platform. They will pro…

> Nevertheless, it's just PC games, not a big market. Nowhere compare to apple's iphone games or facebook's web games.

Yeah, only estimated to be about 27 billion in 2015[1]. Chump change. (I'll include this aside as a definitive indicator of sarcasm, for those incapable of detecting it accurately on their own).

1: https://newzoo.com/insights/articles/global-games-market-wil...

Re: Gameroom

#112

Post by mhermher »

DannyBee wrote: post #106
kevhsu wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These rude 'average gamers' you speak of are the vocal minority in my experience... Most of us are normal people.

In what game, precisely? Seriously, these platforms are all known for it. I've pretty most major triple-a multiplayer titles in the past 15 years, and they are all like this. Do normal people exist? Sure. Are they the majority? Uh, no. :) It's not even a close contest. This is even pretty easy to see. Pick 100 random top youtube videos of these games. Count the amount of racism, what have you going on in voice chat,…

Do you actually play games or are you making things up from ill conceived stereotypes?

Re: Gameroom

#113

Post by exodust »

qq66 wrote: post #97
sturadnidge wrote: post #79

I don't think Facebook ever grokked the concept of multiple personas - LinkedIn is for my work persona, Steam (and Origin, Twitch etc) is for my gaming persona, and on Twitter I can have different accounts for each. As long as Facebook requires a single account with real identity, it will never be anything more than for my family & acquaintances persona. Most gamers I know feel the same... maybe we're in the minority…

As a counterpoint, for the few games I do play, I far prefer to use my real Facebook identity. Words with Friends in particular is most fun when I'm playing against my real friends. I also really like QuizUp.

Dinky little mobile games like words with friends fall into a different category than pc games. They are time-killers, and your gaming identity is not tied to an avatar that kicks ass in a virtual world. Your real identity for mobile games is simply to make finding someone to play the dinky game with easier on your phone.

Re: Gameroom

#114

Post by kbenson »

ejstronge wrote: post #87
enraged_camel wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>Is steam so profitable this makes sense? We don't have the numbers obviously, but Steam must be so profitable that Valve is primarily a software distributor these days. Over the past six years, they've released only two titles (Portal 2 in 2011 and Dota 2 in 2013), and Half-Life 3, a game that is guaranteed to sell millions upon millions of copies, isn't even on the horizon.

That's a really great point - do you have any insight into whether Valve's headcount reflects a shift in priorities to software distribution vs game design?

Well, steam now makes hardware as well[1], and invested in VR research quite a bit IIRC, so it's not like they've decided to become a distribution company exclusively.

1: http://store.steampowered.com/hardware/

Re: Gameroom

#115

Post by colechristensen »

Retra wrote: post #93
sturadnidge wrote: post #79

I don't think Facebook ever grokked the concept of multiple personas - LinkedIn is for my work persona, Steam (and Origin, Twitch etc) is for my gaming persona, and on Twitter I can have different accounts for each. As long as Facebook requires a single account with real identity, it will never be anything more than for my family & acquaintances persona. Most gamers I know feel the same... maybe we're in the minority…

I have multiple disparate 'personas' largely because I consider myself to be a fairly creative intellectual who is prone to considering and defending unpopular opinions that require nuance and maturity to understand. And I don't want some psychotic teenager thinking they're doing the world a favor by tracking me down and murdering me because they can't handle verbal disagreement appropriately.

Everything you said there is reasonable, but the way you expressed it is very off putting.

Re: Gameroom

#116

Post by exodust »

>It can tie users deeper into the Facebook identity layer, making it harder for them to ditch the social network

It's all about ecosystem lock-in for these tech giants. Their agenda-driven ways are not compatible with what gamers expect from a good platform.

It's why so much hate is directed towards services such as Origin and even worse, Uplay - which needs to run in addition to the Steam client. Or any service requiring its own "launcher". To its credit, Planet Coaster recently ditched its own launcher (Frontier Launchpad) and took the game to Steam. Frontier Launcher can now be uninstalled. Awesome. Planet Coaster is awesome btw.

Unless this "Gameroom" service allows sign-up via email address and avatar/handle/nickname identity, I'll be giving it a miss. And even if does offer third party authentication, I'll still likely give it a miss.

Re: Gameroom

#117

Post by salemh »

sturadnidge wrote: post #79

I don't think Facebook ever grokked the concept of multiple personas - LinkedIn is for my work persona, Steam (and Origin, Twitch etc) is for my gaming persona, and on Twitter I can have different accounts for each. As long as Facebook requires a single account with real identity, it will never be anything more than for my family & acquaintances persona. Most gamers I know feel the same... maybe we're in the minority…

Netflix's change from their own review system to FaceBook killed it for me and angered their user base (which didn't effect them of course).

Facebook definately doesn't get the idea of different social landscapes for different aspects of life.

https://www.cnet.com/how-to/get-to-know-netflix-and-its-new-...

Re: Gameroom

#118

Post by herbst »

socialist_coder wrote: post #57

You guys are not understanding this at all. Flash and Unity webplayer plugins are being blocked by browsers now. Flash still works for the most part, but Unity doesn't. Facebook is losing game players because of this, and new games are being built in Unity and not Flash, so it's harder for them to launch on Facebook. This solves that problem by letting you compile your game for Facebook Gameroom straight from the Uni…

I always had the impression that webgl games run way smoother than unity games on chrome/ubuntu.

Re: Gameroom

#119

Post by exodust »

MildlySerious wrote: post #98
WalterSear wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering the demographic, I bet they are trying to be steam for casual gamers, rather hoping to enter an entrenched market with a 400 lb gorilla of a leader. Though maybe this is an oculus play.

Oh I didn't think of Oculus. That makes quite a bit of sense, actually. That would give them a chance to roll their own policy for ads in games, among other things. In combination with VR it will be interesting to see what will come out of that, despite not being part of the target audience myself.

The problem is that Oculus is not hugely popular and faces stiff competition from other VR hardware. It would be silly to "need Oculus" for a Facebook game. Wouldn't that be a turning point in gaming.. requiring Facebook hardware before you can enter a building in a VR world. I guess that's where it's headed, and would be very sad to have that fragmentation in VR.

Re: Gameroom

#120

Post by herbst »

CaptSpify wrote: post #63
WildGreenLeave wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally I think Steam is one of the best game platform (for a lack of a better word). It is fast, easy to use, nice sales/cheap in general, downloads are quick. While on the other side Playstation store is the exact oposite of what I just wrote.

> It is fast, easy to use, nice sales/cheap in general, downloads are quick. I feel like we're using different clients. My steam client is slow, clunky and often gets in the way of games. Yes, the sales are cheap, and the downloads are quick, but that's irrelevant to the client.

How are the downloads fast? Mine seems stuck on 3-5Mb/s...
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