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PS5 shooter goes from 5 players to bestseller after devs defend game

polygon.com

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Re: PS5 shooter goes from 5 players to bestseller after devs defend game

#31

Post by [deleted] »

int0x29 wrote: post #19
jayd16 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the cloud providers should figure out some kind of service for perpetual matchmaking/hosting of private servers. Devs are not always going to open source things but if you could fit your game server in some kind of package for Amazon to host then you can skirt that issue. In theory, enthusiasts could pay to keep the lights on even after the developer went out of business.

This isn't a technical problem. It's a legal and corporate political one. Copyright and patent issues are no more likely to go away with Amazon. Also Amazon's gaming division may make them a potential competitor. I also doubt that such a could service would be immune to corperate restructuring by the like of Amazon. We need gaming companies to be more comfortable providing server binaries if we want anything that las…

[deleted]

Re: PS5 shooter goes from 5 players to bestseller after devs defend game

#32

Post by darig »

valryon wrote: post #17
CorpOverreach wrote: post #6

I wish more games would prioritize couch co-op modes over online play. Games that are focused on online only play basically have an expiration date from the day that they launch. Some may live longer, some may be dead on arrival. But, make a good game that's playable by friends together at any time on a rainy day? If the game is good, it never dies.

We did a couch coop game (CTHULOOT) and the number 1 refund reason we have is that it doesn’t have online. (It doesn’t because we lacked budget) So I’d say players now really expect online over local.

[dead]

Re: PS5 shooter goes from 5 players to bestseller after devs defend game

#33

Post by Jach »

numpad0 wrote: post #30
jayd16 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the cloud providers should figure out some kind of service for perpetual matchmaking/hosting of private servers. Devs are not always going to open source things but if you could fit your game server in some kind of package for Amazon to host then you can skirt that issue. In theory, enthusiasts could pay to keep the lights on even after the developer went out of business.

I would have totally agreed, but it looks like Steam offers free matchmaking backend and P2P proxies. Why isn't this widely known???

I would hope it actually is more known among developers. Even big titles like Tekken 7 used it. Insistence on crossplay with consoles causes a stumbling block, but still, that's not most games.

https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/sdk/api/example provides a good example, too. Steam has all sorts of extra functionality to justify their 30% cut on sales, they're not just taking it while doing nothing.

Re: PS5 shooter goes from 5 players to bestseller after devs defend game

#34

Post by chatmasta »

jayd16 wrote: post #16
CorpOverreach wrote: post #6

I wish more games would prioritize couch co-op modes over online play. Games that are focused on online only play basically have an expiration date from the day that they launch. Some may live longer, some may be dead on arrival. But, make a good game that's playable by friends together at any time on a rainy day? If the game is good, it never dies.

I think the cloud providers should figure out some kind of service for perpetual matchmaking/hosting of private servers. Devs are not always going to open source things but if you could fit your game server in some kind of package for Amazon to host then you can skirt that issue. In theory, enthusiasts could pay to keep the lights on even after the developer went out of business.

The reason for the “de facto expiration date” is that eventually not enough people will want to play the game for matchmaking to be consistently available.

Re: PS5 shooter goes from 5 players to bestseller after devs defend game

#35

Post by janalsncm »

valryon wrote: post #17
CorpOverreach wrote: post #6

I wish more games would prioritize couch co-op modes over online play. Games that are focused on online only play basically have an expiration date from the day that they launch. Some may live longer, some may be dead on arrival. But, make a good game that's playable by friends together at any time on a rainy day? If the game is good, it never dies.

We did a couch coop game (CTHULOOT) and the number 1 refund reason we have is that it doesn’t have online. (It doesn’t because we lacked budget) So I’d say players now really expect online over local.

What you have described is survivorship bias. What matters is whether the refund request rate is higher than other games.

The people who enjoyed your game because it has couch coop (and therefore don’t request a refund) aren’t represented in that refund request stat.

Re: PS5 shooter goes from 5 players to bestseller after devs defend game

#36

Post by 3eb7988a1663 »

seanalltogether wrote: post #28
huhtenberg wrote: post #20

I picked up a copy of Hypercharge back in 2020 after spotting it on one of the gaming subs. While it is technically a shooter, it turned out to be a 3D tower defense game - you place your turrets, shields and whatnots to protect against waves of enemies and then run around managing the defence and occasionally shooting at the baddies. It's not PvP. This was a bit of letdown because I was really hoping for a remake of…

Shogo had a mod called Squishie where one player was normal size and on a team by themselves, and all the other players were tiny and on the other team. It was the most fun I've ever had at a LAN party in those early 00's. I'm surprised no one ever picked this up and turned it into a real game. https://www.moddb.com/mods/squishie

I assume those asymmetric multiplayer games are hard to maintain an audience. Everyone wants to be the super charged monster, nobody wants to be the squishie. Unless you can shore up the difference with bots, you are going to have to play dramatically more rounds as the less-fun squishie.

Re: PS5 shooter goes from 5 players to bestseller after devs defend game

#37

Post by Arelius »

jayd16 wrote: post #16
CorpOverreach wrote: post #6

I wish more games would prioritize couch co-op modes over online play. Games that are focused on online only play basically have an expiration date from the day that they launch. Some may live longer, some may be dead on arrival. But, make a good game that's playable by friends together at any time on a rainy day? If the game is good, it never dies.

I think the cloud providers should figure out some kind of service for perpetual matchmaking/hosting of private servers. Devs are not always going to open source things but if you could fit your game server in some kind of package for Amazon to host then you can skirt that issue. In theory, enthusiasts could pay to keep the lights on even after the developer went out of business.

Honestly, it's probably simpler than this, and the root of the problem often comes down to the Cloud Providers to begin with.

It's astounding the frequency I get an email from some cloud provider, or mobile app store that says something to the effect of:

"(Version X) of Dependency Y that we convinced you to use 5+ years ago is getting deprecated on August 1st, if you don't upgrade to Version X+5 you're service will go offline"

And we're stuck looking at the minimal amount of players running of that platform, and the hard choice of do we move precious human resources off of some in-progress game, that's already running late to learn a system that they never worked on, because the original people are long gone?

So, that's often why our network services, and mobile versions of our games are being taken offline while the single binary we shipped to one of the serious console vendors 10-20 years ago is still running, and now running on consoles 2 generations newer.

So, yeah, it'd be great if we could ship a package for Amazon to host perpetually, but first you could just get Amazon to care enough to ship a stable platform to build upon that wouldn't get depreciated.

Re: PS5 shooter goes from 5 players to bestseller after devs defend game

#38

Post by Arelius »

numpad0 wrote: post #30
jayd16 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the cloud providers should figure out some kind of service for perpetual matchmaking/hosting of private servers. Devs are not always going to open source things but if you could fit your game server in some kind of package for Amazon to host then you can skirt that issue. In theory, enthusiasts could pay to keep the lights on even after the developer went out of business.

I would have totally agreed, but it looks like Steam offers free matchmaking backend and P2P proxies. Why isn't this widely known???

It is well known. But also not all developers want to/ can afford the risk to tie all their networking services to Steam.

Re: PS5 shooter goes from 5 players to bestseller after devs defend game

#39

Post by Aeolun »

Arelius wrote: post #37
jayd16 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the cloud providers should figure out some kind of service for perpetual matchmaking/hosting of private servers. Devs are not always going to open source things but if you could fit your game server in some kind of package for Amazon to host then you can skirt that issue. In theory, enthusiasts could pay to keep the lights on even after the developer went out of business.

Honestly, it's probably simpler than this, and the root of the problem often comes down to the Cloud Providers to begin with. It's astounding the frequency I get an email from some cloud provider, or mobile app store that says something to the effect of: "(Version X) of Dependency Y that we convinced you to use 5+ years ago is getting deprecated on August 1st, if you don't upgrade to Version X+5 you're service will g…

Isn’t that just a matter of building your server with PHP or something similar that never deprecates functionality? Absolutely not node.js.

Re: PS5 shooter goes from 5 players to bestseller after devs defend game

#40

Post by OliveMate »

huhtenberg wrote: post #20

I picked up a copy of Hypercharge back in 2020 after spotting it on one of the gaming subs. While it is technically a shooter, it turned out to be a 3D tower defense game - you place your turrets, shields and whatnots to protect against waves of enemies and then run around managing the defence and occasionally shooting at the baddies. It's not PvP. This was a bit of letdown because I was really hoping for a remake of…

Rats maps! If your mutliplayer game had a map editor, you'd be sure there'd be one of those massive house maps available.
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