July 2025 PCG Article Discussion

[Pifanjr]

I got 5/10 and I played 1, though I have seen my wife play 2 others.

I must say that the wrong choices were great, there were no answers that were obviously wrong.

 

[BeardyHat]

I wouldn't go that far - but in the same neighborhood. CoPilot is now THE major focus. If a game can keep its head down (or, better yet, show how it will use CoPilot) and make a steady profit, then fine. Make trouble, real or imagined, and I expect they'll just cut it off rather than deal with it.

In other news, we got another quiz!

Can you guess gaming's weirdest currencies in our latest quiz?

Test your knowledge of fictional financials.

www.pcgamer.com

I've played none of those games and got just 2 out of 10. Half of the monkeys that tried the quiz did better than me. If I hadn't read the article before the quiz, it would have halved my score.

2/10

Only because I've played Caves of Qud and do actually remember.

 

[Pifanjr]

After 15 years of busted marksdwarves, Dwarf Fortress creator Tarn Adams says archers will finally refill their ammo 'instead of leaping over walls and clubbing people with their crossbows'

Just trust me when I say this is a really big deal.

www.pcgamer.com

Maybe I should try another Dwarf Fortress game again...

So many games to play, so little time. Why did I decide I needed to buy a new game again?

'Knowing Steam players are hoarders explains why you give Valve that 30%,' analyst tells devs: 'You get access to a bunch of drunken sailors who spend money irresponsibly'

"More than likely the person buying your game is not going to play it."

www.pcgamer.com

I do wonder how you can get decent statistics on something like this that takes into account games that were gotten through, for example, Humble Bundles. I have a lot of unplayed games in my account, but 90% of those are from bundles or games that I did play but which don't have any playtime logged for whatever reason. I only have a handful of games that I've spent money on that I just haven't played yet.

 

[Zloth]

I do wonder how you can get decent statistics on something like this that takes into account games that were gotten through, for example, Humble Bundles.

They've got tracking on how you paid, so I bet they can track what's from Humble or other key sellers. I don't know if they DID anything with it, but they could have.

Whatever the exact numbers are, though, the point sure looks valid to me. A lot of people on Steam buy a lot of games they never play. What's more, quite a few are bought at a pretty high prices. I've got a ton of unplayed games on GOG, but I doubt I paid $100 for all of them put together.

P.S. Since Steam started tracking, the only game I've had not count hours was one where I had to write a little launcher of my own to make 3D Vision work properly.

 

[Zed Clampet]

Subnautica 2 publisher Krafton confirms 2026 delay, says the change 'was not influenced by any contractual or financial considerations'

Krafton says the push into 2026 will give developers time to implement feedback from playtests and "deliver a more complete experience."

www.pcgamer.com

Krafton =Evil and Dishonest

As it turns out, Krafton fired the Subnautica leadership and delayed the game until 2026 because if it had entered Early Access this year, they would have had to make the final payment owed for buying the studio: $250 million. They need to be sued and possibly arrested.

 

[Pifanjr]

Modder behind the 'Swiss army knife of PC gaming' deletes their 20 year-old Steam account with anti-Valve manifesto: 'By the end of my bitter dealings with Valve… there was zero hope'

"You no longer have the liberty of buying a game from wherever you want."

www.pcgamer.com

I agree with the author of the article, pretty much all of these complaints could be solved by the developer. I suppose the only one that can't be is that you have to have the Steam client to be able to download the games you've bought, which means you need to have hardware and software that can run the Steam client that might not be necessary to run the game you want. But even that problem could probably be solved if the developer really wanted to.

Subnautica 2 publisher Krafton confirms 2026 delay, says the change 'was not influenced by any contractual or financial considerations'

Krafton says the push into 2026 will give developers time to implement feedback from playtests and "deliver a more complete experience."

www.pcgamer.com

Krafton =Evil and Dishonest

As it turns out, Krafton fired the Subnautica leadership and delayed the game until 2026 because if it had entered Early Access this year, they would have had to make the final payment owed for buying the studio: $250 million. They need to be sued and possibly arrested.

That does seem really scummy, but it also seems like a really dumb idea to make a contract that forces someone to pay you if you finish by a deadline, but give the other party the power to change that deadline at will.

 

[Zed Clampet]

Modder behind the 'Swiss army knife of PC gaming' deletes their 20 year-old Steam account with anti-Valve manifesto: 'By the end of my bitter dealings with Valve… there was zero hope'

"You no longer have the liberty of buying a game from wherever you want."

www.pcgamer.com

I agree with the author of the article, pretty much all of these complaints could be solved by the developer. I suppose the only one that can't be is that you have to have the Steam client to be able to download the games you've bought, which means you need to have hardware and software that can run the Steam client that might not be necessary to run the game you want. But even that problem could probably be solved if the developer really wanted to.




That does seem really scummy, but it also seems like a really dumb idea to make a contract that forces someone to pay you if you finish by a deadline, but give the other party the power to change that deadline at will.

Yeah, lol. That is mind boggling. I suppose they'll start a new studio (assuming that they didn't get tricked into a long non-compete deal) and try to be less naive.

This money was supposed to be divided amongst the employees, the ones still working on the game. You know there is going to be sabotage.

 

[Pifanjr]

Yeah, lol. That is mind boggling. I suppose they'll start a new studio (assuming that they didn't get tricked into a long non-compete deal) and try to be less naive.

This money was supposed to be divided amongst the employees, the ones still working on the game. You know there is going to be sabotage.

Instead of sabotage it would make much more sense to strike. Demand to release the game in 2025/still pay out the bonus or the entire development team stops working. I would say hundreds of thousands to a million dollars per person would be a great motivation for everyone to band together on this.

 

[Zed Clampet]

Instead of sabotage it would make much more sense to strike. Demand to release the game in 2025/still pay out the bonus or the entire development team stops working. I would say hundreds of thousands to a million dollars per person would be a great motivation for everyone to band together on this.

See, the problem is that Subnautica 2 probably isn't going to earn $250 million, not now anyway, so Krafton will just send them packing. They probably aren't in a real labor union, so they wouldn't have any legal protections. Um, actually, I have no idea what country they are in, so I take that back.

 

[Pifanjr]

See, the problem is that Subnautica 2 probably isn't going to earn $250 million, not now anyway, so Krafton will just send them packing. They probably aren't in a real labor union, so they wouldn't have any legal protections. Um, actually, I have no idea what country they are in, so I take that back.

I think they're based in San Francisco, so they're probably not in a union but, depending on their contract, they might be able to threaten to all quit.

But you're probably right that there's a good chance that Subnautica 2 wouldn't make enough money for it to be worth it.

 

[Zed Clampet]

I think they're based in San Francisco, so they're probably not in a union but, depending on their contract, they might be able to threaten to all quit.

But you're probably right that there's a good chance that Subnautica 2 wouldn't make enough money for it to be worth it.

It might have before Krafton decided to murder it. Actually, it looks like the first one only made $270 million before Valve's cut. But I'm sure they had good console sales as well.

 

[BeardyHat]

So what's everyone getting for Prime Day?

I found a Prime Day Mouse.

And a Prime Day Monitor

Also Prime Day GPU.

Prime Day Laptop.

Prime Day.

Prime.

Day.

Prime Day.

Prime Day.

Prime Day.

 

[Kaamos_Llama]

So what's everyone getting for Prime Day?

I found a Prime Day Mouse.

And a Prime Day Monitor

Also Prime Day GPU.

Prime Day Laptop.

Prime Day.

Prime.

Day.

Prime Day.

Prime Day.

Prime Day.

I cancelled my Prime Sub for Prime day. Well, it was a week or 2 ago but I say it counts.

 

[Pifanjr]

Subnautica 2 publisher Krafton confirms 2026 delay, says the change 'was not influenced by any contractual or financial considerations'

Krafton says the push into 2026 will give developers time to implement feedback from playtests and "deliver a more complete experience."

www.pcgamer.com

Krafton =Evil and Dishonest

As it turns out, Krafton fired the Subnautica leadership and delayed the game until 2026 because if it had entered Early Access this year, they would have had to make the final payment owed for buying the studio: $250 million. They need to be sued and possibly arrested.

It seems that the leadership that was fired is now preparing to sue Krafton:

https://www.reddit.com/r/subnautica/comments/1lwsxco/lawsuit_a_community_update_from_charlie/

 

[Pifanjr]

My most-played game of the last 5 years is 30% off on Steam right now, alongside a ton of other factory games that can absolutely devour your life

Steam's Automation Fest includes our 2024 Sandbox GOTY Satisfactory, as well as one of the PC's all-time great puzzle games.

www.pcgamer.com

It's quite telling that in a Steam sale for automation games, where a ton of these games are available on discount, the number 2 bestselling game of the genre is Factorio, a 5 year old game which has never gone on sale and in fact has only become more expensive.

 

[BeardyHat]

My most-played game of the last 5 years is 30% off on Steam right now, alongside a ton of other factory games that can absolutely devour your life

Steam's Automation Fest includes our 2024 Sandbox GOTY Satisfactory, as well as one of the PC's all-time great puzzle games.

www.pcgamer.com

It's quite telling that in a Steam sale for automation games, where a ton of these games are available on discount, the number 2 bestselling game of the genre is Factorio, a 5 year old game which has never gone on sale and in fact has only become more expensive.

This is one of those games I'm curious to try, but don't think I'd get much out of and therefore can't justify the spend. It seems neat and I do wonder if it's up my alley, but I just don't think it would be.

 

[Zloth]

This is one of those games I'm curious to try, but don't think I'd get much out of and therefore can't justify the spend. It seems neat and I do wonder if it's up my alley, but I just don't think it would be.

It has a demo! I liked it until nasty critters started chewing on my machines. (I'm not entirely sure why that bothered me so much. Nasty Xenon shoot at my space stations in X4 and I like it.)

 

[Zed Clampet]

It's quite telling...

Well, factory games don't sell very well tbh. Except for Factorio (est 6.5 million) and Satisfactory (est 9 million), no other factory game except for Dyson Sphere (a Chinese game bought mostly by Chinese players) has come close to a million units sold.

The truth is that there are only two factory games: Factorio, which launched in 2016 on Steam, and Satisfactory, which launched in 2019 on Epic (Both of these games were so complete when they hit Early Access that I give them credit for the earlier launches--they both sold millions of copies before 1.0. Hell, Satisfactory sold over a million in the Epic store, a truly amazing feat).

There have been dozens of contenders, but none come close to Factorio or Satisfactory. We factory/automation fans keep up the hope. Hell, of their top sellers list, I own 9 of them and just bought a new release today. But so far there hasn't been anything that can compare with the grand two, and I'm beginning to question whether there ever will be.

Out of all the other factory games, only Dyson Sphere and Shapes 2 even deserve a mention.

 

[Pifanjr]

Well, factory games don't sell very well tbh. Except for Factorio (est 6.5 million) and Satisfactory (est 9 million), no other factory game except for Dyson Sphere (a Chinese game bought mostly by Chinese players) has come close to a million units sold.

The truth is that there are only two factory games: Factorio, which launched in 2016 on Steam, and Satisfactory, which launched in 2019 on Epic (Both of these games were so complete when they hit Early Access that I give them credit for the earlier launches--they both sold millions of copies before 1.0. Hell, Satisfactory sold over a million in the Epic store, a truly amazing feat).

There have been dozens of contenders, but none come close to Factorio or Satisfactory. We factory/automation fans keep up the hope. Hell, of their top sellers list, I own 9 of them and just bought a new release today. But so far there hasn't been anything that can compare with the grand two, and I'm beginning to question whether there ever will be.

Out of all the other factory games, only Dyson Sphere and Shapes 2 even deserve a mention.

I hadn't really considered that, but I can't really think of any other factory game that comes close to the scope of Factorio or Satisfactory, except modded Minecraft.

The third most downloaded Minecraft modpack on CurseForge is SkyFactory 4 with over 12 million downloads and there are quite a few other automation focused modpacks with over a million downloads. Some are limited in scope, but there are a couple big ones as well. GregTech New Horizons for example is massive and it's generally considered to take a minimum of 2,000 hours to complete.

 

[DXCHASE]

Well, factory games don't sell very well tbh. Except for Factorio (est 6.5 million) and Satisfactory (est 9 million), no other factory game except for Dyson Sphere (a Chinese game bought mostly by Chinese players) has come close to a million units sold.

The truth is that there are only two factory games: Factorio, which launched in 2016 on Steam, and Satisfactory, which launched in 2019 on Epic (Both of these games were so complete when they hit Early Access that I give them credit for the earlier launches--they both sold millions of copies before 1.0. Hell, Satisfactory sold over a million in the Epic store, a truly amazing feat).

There have been dozens of contenders, but none come close to Factorio or Satisfactory. We factory/automation fans keep up the hope. Hell, of their top sellers list, I own 9 of them and just bought a new release today. But so far there hasn't been anything that can compare with the grand two, and I'm beginning to question whether there ever will be.

Out of all the other factory games, only Dyson Sphere and Shapes 2 even deserve a mention.

Just saw this and thought of this comment, since you said you played D4